About the Incident Management Team (IMT) Academy

The primary members for EPA regions 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 Incident Management Teams (IMT) will attend the December 2004 IMT Academy. In addition, the primary Situation/Environmental Unit Leaders and the Resource Unit Leaders also should plan on participating in the Academy beginning on Monday, December 6, 2004. These individuals must have taken and passed the I-300 and I-400 courses to attend this training.

For an individual to move onto the I-420 course he/she must have successfully completed his/her position training course. The Environmental Response Team (ERT)/Headquarter (HQ) team members will act as substitutes in the event an individual on one of the regional teams is unable to attend the I-420 course.

Academy Schedule

During the week of December 6, 2004, the Command and General Staff primary members of five regional IMTs will attend the I-420 course, including all primary Unit Leaders.

The Command and General Staff course will have the regional command and general staff personnel plus the extra Incident Command (IC) in attendance. They will proceed through the I-420 course as a team; each team will have a separate room for some of the exercises. However, other exercises will be conducted in the large room with the other teams. There will be five team rooms holding approximately 20 people, two controller/communications rooms holding approximately 30 people and a large class/meeting room for the entire group of approximately 80 people for this phase of the training.

This course involves total commitment to the team concept. It will include team building exercises and leadership and team training. The final exercise will involve an intense realistic scenario complete with radio and telephone communications, role playing actors and communications with the next level up of command. This scenario will be based on a credible event related to EPA mission, though not necessarily a common incident. The focus is on team work and the smooth functioning of the Incident Command System (ICS), rather the solving the problem at hand.

An extra Incident Commander will be trained in the previous week, that is each region and ERT/HQ will send two people to IC training. The second IC will attend the I-420 course as a "silent partner" to the primary Incident Commander. That is while the second IC will shadow the primary IC; this individual will not directly participate in the exercises. However, there is much value added by their attendance.

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