SGAUS President Unveils New Hazmat Certification Program for State Defense Forces

In Part 3 of our Commanders Briefing podcast with Lt. Colonel (MD) Barry Greene, President of the State Guard Association of the United States, we explore a new Hazmat certification program being launched by SGAUS. Colonel Greene outlines the extensive training required to complete the course and earn the badge, emphasizing that the program is geared toward highly trained personnel such as Firefighters, EMTs, and Paramedics due to the federal standards involved. He also reflects on his experiences as a State Defense Force recruiter, highlighting the challenges of denying commissions to qualified professionals like Fire Chiefs and Police Chiefs solely because they lacked prior military service—a limitation that continues to affect many State Defense Forces across the country.

For the full episode visit: https://www.patreon.com/posts/sgaus-speaks-out-121207347?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is made possible by Dustin Colgrove, Ben Perry,
Colonel c McAdams Sr. And other Patreon members. Support us
at patreon dot com. Forward slash State Defense Force. I
mentioned and teased it has Matt. We have developed a
Hasmat badge Basic, Senior and Master. It is locked currently

(00:23):
to federal Hasmat certification requirements that are required of has
MATT instructors. Now, I want to be very very clear here,
but you're not going to be running at Saugus's annual
conference some kind of training where people are sticking their
hands into vats of HASMAT materials and other such things.

(00:44):
This kind of gets down to the question for years
that's gone on about SDF members being involved in law
enforcement and should they be carrying weapons. This is a
similar thing. The majority of people that will qualify for
the HASMAT bag will already be serving as professional firefighters
and emptis plainly and simply because the level of certifications

(01:09):
at the federal level to be a responder for that
are clear, They are clearly defined. They are in plain
black and white text. What we want to do with
this badge program is encourage more people with these qualifications
to now come into the state Defense Force and be
available as force packages to be deployed either within that

(01:31):
owned state or other states as force packages with that specialty,
that'll be absolutely critical. So to do that, we need
to know who they are, and to know how who
they are, we're going to put them all through the
Badge program. It broke my heart years ago that when
I was in charge of recruiting in New York, I

(01:53):
was actually saying goodbye to some of our most qualified
recruits because we were telling people with graduate degree and
emergency management, former fire chiefs, police chiefs, with three ring
binders of emergency certifications. Yes, but you're not prior military.

(02:13):
So because you're not prior military, you have to come
in as an E one. We're going to put you
through Iet, and provided you can pass Iet, you can
then be an E three. But you have a college degree,
so we can make you an E four and maybe
someday you can qualify for OCS and be an officer.

(02:36):
But in the meantime, you've got to do this as
an enlistic. You're insulting people with extraordinary backgrounds in public
service that, frankly are the people I'd want to be
putting in the front line in front of a tag
or a governor, not buried in the back wearing E
three ranks. So instead, Saugus is publishing our recommendations for

(02:59):
a new war officer program, something similar that's been rolled
out in other programs that gives you a way to
bring these people in initially as a warrant, but will
now under this badge program, we'd be able to take
a fire chief like that and say you're already qualified
for the basic or the Senior Saugus badge. So you're

(03:20):
going to start as a warrant Officer one with that
badge on your uniform because you've already earned it. We
just have to put your paperwork in through SAUGUS. Okay,
And because you're a warrant, we're going to put you
in an officer's TDA slot within our SDF doing that job.
And now eventually you will have to go through IET

(03:41):
and you will still have to go through OCS, and
at that point you can make a decision whether you
want to continue as a warrant or go into higher
officer ranks after you've done OCS. But in the meantime,
we're going to first bring you in as a warrant
in an officer slot doing that job, and give you
an opportunity to wear a badge because as far as

(04:02):
we can tell, you've already earned it. Now, when you
think about that from recruiting, that's a very different value
proposition to a high worth individual that you're trying to
bring in than what the conventional recruiting structure is, which
when you think about it, is just simply based on

(04:24):
the National Guards recruiting structure, it's the same value proposition.
You know, unless you're a doctor or a lawyer, we're
going to bring you in as an E three. Even
if you have a college degree, you're going to go
to basic and then you're going to go to officer
training and someday you'll be an officer. Okay, that comes
from the National Guard. There is nothing that requires state

(04:46):
defense forces to follow that recruiting pattern, and some will
continue to do so, but others we're going to give
them an opportunity to do something different.