American Polygraph Association Seminar Report

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American Polygraph Association Conference Report
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As I sit here writing this, the APA Seminar participants are
at a special dinner of "All-You-Can-Eat/Drink" steak, ribs,
chicken, booze, etc. I, on the other hand, am suffering from
a case of "Montezuma's Revenge" or what us "hillbillies"
call the West Virginia Quick-Steps. Now I am sure that this
is great news for my enemies, and it would probably not
upset my doctors either knowing that I am not stuffing
myself full of fat and cholesterol (booze was eliminated a
year ago due to causing a deadly effect in conjunction with
my current medications) but rather eating bananas and apple
sauce for a "binding effect" since over-the-counter drugs
remedies are also toxic with my current stuff.

Anyway, fever, chills, sweats, "trots", and forced
starvation have not made for a great time at the seminar,
at least for me. Everyone else seems to be having a great
time though. I am not blaming this on Albuquerque at all. I
probably picked it up before I left home and, hopefully did
not pass it on to those with whom I was in contact. So
please don't shun New Mexico. What little I have seen of
Albuquerque has been very impressive with a desire to
return to see what I have missed.

The "four-track" (for 2 days) then "3-track" for the rest of
the time ran very smoothly thanks to the efforts of Dave
Knefelkamp, Robbie Bennett, and the rest of the APA Officers.
The biggest problem was trying to prioritize what was the
most important class to attend in a particular time slot.
For the little that I was there, I heard no complaints or
"rumblings" from the rest of the attendees. That doesn't mean
there weren't any, just that I didn't hear of any. Nobody had
any reason to complain that there wasn't a good variety of
classes and topics.

The School Director's meeting was interesting as usual with
several issues raised.

(1) APA Officers, Skip Webb, Don Weinstein, and T.V. O'Malley
met with us initially to discuss the recent special issue of
"Polygraph" that was published last month and dedicated solely
to voice stress. The schools were solicited to contribute
$500 for which we could get a full page ad with the agreement
that the Journal would be sent to most municipal and state law
enforcement agencies in the U.S. It wasn't until later, and
after a test distribution, that it was realized that this
would be a vast waste of money. Since the Journal was not
distributed as agreed, the APA offered to reimburse any of the
schools who wished their $500. There were no takers which was
good for all since it did help the APA and will help to be
effective against voice stress in the long run.

(2) Another issue discussed was the possibility of the APA
having a Member applicant entrance examination again. If all
schools provided the APA with their written examinations, then
several different examinations could be developed from these as
well as a study guide. This was done for the present entrance
examination for non-APA school graduates.

I believe that re-instituting the entrance examination for all
APA applicants is an excellent idea. If this is to occur,
however, the various APA schools will have their work cut out
for them in trying to help develop some consistency in what
they all teach otherwise the test will become a "boondoggle".
This is mostly what should be occurring in the meeting instead
of most of the dialog involving either complaints about other
schools or about the APA.

(2) A large part of the meeting was consumed concerning the
issue of the source of funding for the polygraph school at the
Northeast Counterdrug Training Center at Fort Indiantown Gap in
Annville, Pennsylvania. This is a satellite school of the
Pennsylvania State Police/Harrisburg Area Community College
Polygraph Institute which is part of Harrisburg Area Community
College, an APA-accredited school. The issue is that the
students, only municipal and state law enforcement officers, do
not have to pay any tuition, lodging, or meal costs. The other
schools received letters fraught with innuendo and rumor and a
statement that the school was engaging in an unfair trade
practice (clearly libelous) stating that the school was using
tax money to compete with private businesses. Another letter
suggested that the school was being funded by DODPI.

The truth, however, was revealed that the money used for the
development and operating costs of the school comes from drug
asset forfeiture grant money, not taxes. Drug dealers are
paying for the training of the police officers. This grant
money was available to any of the schools, and some had
submitted bids for the training contracts. Some of the
complainers had also conducted similar training for the U.S.
government in other countries on a contracted basis which was
likely funded by tax dollars instead of grants, yet this was
never discussed. Anyway, the information is now correct and
was available the entire time for the asking.

A similar allegation had been made against the Nashville State
Technical Institute of Polygraph School which was also
explained to be unfounded by the school's Director, Donnie
Simpson.

(3) There are three new polygraph schools accredited by APA
since last year: Academy of Polygraph Science in Largo,
Florida (Dr. Richard Poe, Director), Nashville State Technical
Institute Polygraph School in Nashville, Tennessee (Donnie
Simpson, Director), and Sauk Valley Community College's
Skyhawk Polygraph Institute in Dixon, Illinois (Sammuel
Braddock, Director). Two existing polygraph schools have new
Directors - International Academy of Polygraph in Florida
(Dan Sosnowski) and the Coastal Institute of Forensic Science
in Texas (Horatio Ortiz).

(4) Other school news, James Kelley resigned as the School
Director for the Coastal Institute several months ago, and Dr.
Stan Abrams has announced his retirement and the closing of
the Western Oregon University School of Polygraph at the end
of its present class. The polygraph world will miss the
wisdom of Stan's teaching. Hopefully, he will continue to
provide us with his excellent seminars.

The remainder of the APA Seminar news will be presented in
the next issue of the Chronicles since the seminar was
continuing at the time this was needed to be sent; e.g.,
APA Business Meeting and Annual Banquet & Award's Recipients,
Election of Officers, etc.

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