A Historic First
 

   CREST’s first full-fledged practice exercise on November 13 provided a media bonanza for OCC. Stories on the event appeared on Channels 2, 4, 7, 50 and 62, as well as in the Oakland Press, Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and the Oakland Tech News.

  The training session, conducted by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department, involved a series of scenarios designed to make full use of the CREST facility. Here’s how events unfolded:

Members of the Oakland Sheriff Department’s Special Response Team secure an intersection during one of the drug raids.
 

• At 9:30 a.m. an armed “robber” parks his truck in front of the CREST bank, and presents a note to “teller” Candy Geeter (administrative specialist, DO) demanding money. Once Candy complies the bandit exits, gets into his vehicle, and drives to the west end of the CREST site where he is spotted by the sheriff department’s helicopter.
• Doubling back, the bandit pulls up to the CREST convenience store/gas station where motorist Dorene Lund (administrative assistant, DO) is gassing up her van. Taking Dorene hostage, the bandit pulls her into the convenience store.
• The Oakland County Sheriff’s Department Special Response Team (SRT) arrives in its Dragoon armored vehicle, surrounds the convenience store and enters negotiations with the hostage taker.
• The bandit agrees to give up and is taken into custody.
• The SRT then moves on to two of the CREST residences and conducts drug raids using “flash bangs” – special non-lethal grenades used to stun and disorient; with this advantage the SRT quickly enters and occupies each residence.

   Law enforcement personnel and other onlookers were enthusiastic over the November 13 exercise which caps eight years of planning and hard work. The project’s final phase will be completed with the opening of the CREST fire training structure late next year.

Corporations Honored for Donations to  CREST

   The OCC Board of Trustees has authorized the naming of four sites at the Combined Regional Emergency Services Training Center to honor corporations that have made significant contributions to the project.

   The roadway around the fire simulation structure at the west end of CREST will be named “TAKATA Circle” in recognition of the automotive supplier’s donation of a 2002 Dodge Ram truck which was raffled by the college in May, raising $38,000 for the project. TAKATA also donated an additional $600 to help promote the raffle.

   Consumers Energy will be recognized with street signs bearing the name “Consumers Energy Foundation Avenue” to be located on the southernmost east-west street on the CREST site. The naming acknowledges a $30,000 grant which will be applied toward the construction of CREST’s fire simulation technology facility.

   The college’s construction managers, the George W. Auch Company, will be memorialized by the naming of the northernmost east-west road “Auch Company Drive.” The firm conducted a fundraising drive among its subcontractors, suppliers, vendors and architects which raised $41,350. For its part, the Auch Company provided matching funds in the amount of $25,000, bringing the grand total to $66,350.

   CREST’s mock bank will be named “Standard Federal” in recognition of that corporation’s contributions of in-kind gifts valued at $128,000, and $3,000 in cash. The in-kind gifts include all furniture, interior and exterior fixtures and signage for the building to ensure authenticity. Standard Federal also made blueprints available to serve as guides in the building’s design, and provided labor to identify, collect, load, deliver and unload materials for the site.

   In addition, commemorative four by eight inch bricks inscribed with each of the contributing corporations’ names will be set into the Pathway of Honor that leads to CREST’s classroom building.