"Message from the Editor"

     With the culmination of 2019, the NJNEOA will have trained over 715 individuals during the year. 168 of them attending the ½-day “Understanding Addiction for Law Enforcement” program.” The Association thanks training chairmen Nitin Daniels, Bob Mazur, along with the other BOD training committee members for the outstanding effort they made to provide training at a minimum cost, even free, to law enforcement officers.

     The NJNEOA gives special thanks to Danielle Lo Russo and her team consisting of Michelle Schreffler-Perez, Dr. James Baird and Rich for their diligence, time and effort that they spend towards educating law enforcement about issues regarding addiction and the stigma attached to it, and instilling the ideology that we need to: “Communicate, Empathize and Rehabilitate.”

      Closing out the year, any NJNEOA members who’s yearly dues will expire in 2019, need to go to our website and renew now, before they lapse. This way their membership will remain current and they will continue to be eligible for the free training offered. Those of you that need to renew should have already received an email advising you.

      With the arrival of 2020 will come a new and automated method of checking in at our training events. When you receive your emailed confirmation after registering for an event, you will need to either: Print out the confirmation and bring it to the event, or Save the confirmation to your mobile device. The confirmation contains a QR Code that identifies you in our database system. It will be scanned when you check in to the event. This is the same method utilized at sporting events and concerts. So, remember, 1) You need to be preregistered and paid in order to receive a confirmation, 2) you must bring the confirmation with you to the event.

        Lastly, the 2020 Annual Conference is the 51st of its kind that has been conducted by the NJNEOA. That says a lot that any organization can manage to survive throughout a half century, especially with all the other law enforcement training organizations that have sprung up the past few years.

      We are not a private corporation, LLC or business that makes money by providing training. We are a non-profit, run by its law enforcement members, providing training to brother officers. The NJNEOA has made it a priority to offer quality, pertinent and affordable training to the law enforcement community, at an affordable cost.

      The majority of our speakers, even those who are highly known for their expertise in a certain area of law enforcement and come from out of state, instruct at our conference NJNEOA for gratis. That is part of the reason that the Association is able to provide free training to its members, and only a minimum fee for non-members. Unlike many other training providers charging $300 - $600 per person to attend.

      So, with that being said, the NJNEOA thanks you and your agencies for the continued support throughout the past 50 years and we look forward to another 50-year partnership.