Search & Rescue, Safety, Survival

WHO IS RTI?

Because a great percentage of our client base are in the Fire field, we primarily work to meet NFPA within all of our courses as a core curriculum standard. We are able to customize our courses to fit the needs of the agencies or individuals who come to us both in skills taught and in the standards that need to be met. All of our courses meet our exceed NFPA to the level of that training. Please ask if you would like further clarification. NFPA, FEMA, OSHA, and many of the other acronym groups that create guidelines or rules in their prospective industries can be tricky business.

Ask us about grant opportunities that may be available to you for reimbursement of all our courses.

RTI is always improving upon our existing courses; making sure we are up to date with current standards within the rescue community, that our methods and skills taught balance the greatest safety and effectiveness, that our instructors and curriculum are interesting and easy to understand.

As well, we are constantly working to add new courses or customizations to our course cadre and training techniques and knowledge for our instructor cadre. We do extensive research, training, and testing during the building or customizing of our courses. We also GREATLY value feedback from our instructors and clients. We hope to improve and offer the highest quality the we are capable of and much of that requires constant knowledge of what areas to improve and what our clients truly need.

For example, in 2020 we introduced our new ATV/UTV/SxS SafeRide eCourse and Driver programs for adults, and are currently working on those courses for Juniors and Children. We’ve begun customizing part of our ATV Rescue program for equine addition. We’ve also already customized our Basic Water Safety course for Physical Therapists, LifeGuards, and we are now building a Basic Water Rescue option for use in Aquariums and Zoos. And that’s all within just the past year!

As of the end of 2021 we have taught over 160,000 personnel from around the world.

“Instructors can only provide the training. It is up to the student to master the skill.” – Wesley Meyer

Let us know whatever we can do to help your team or individuals master these skills. Ask us for information about individual training, customized training days, our Audit program, and our Recertification program. We want to give everyone the best chance to save a life and be safe, and to have the opportunity and resources to gain confidence, improve skills, and learn more.

  • Quality training – We can save more lives through our students than we can by ourselves. By giving the highest quality training we can achieve, balancing techniques with communication with safety, the greater the likelihood of a successful rescue with minimal chances of injuries to patients and rescuers. We seek to engage our students and get each one personally invested in the training and knowledge.

  • People not profits – Our focus is on saving lives, not on the money. While this is our livelihood, for Wes and Camille, this is also our lifelong passion and our chance to make a positive contribution to the world. We acquire and keep our clients through the quality of out training and instructors and by word of mouth from one agency to the next. And so, we hope that our training speaks for itself.

  • Customizable capability – While our primary clientele are 1st Responders from Fire and Police fields, we also have a great number of Military, Volunteer rescue teams, State or National government organizations both from within the US and other countries, and the occasional independent student interested in learning and becoming involved. Thus, the job requirements, rules or laws to work within, terrain, types of natural (or other) disasters, gear & equipment, team set ups and size, and other defining factors will be different for many of our clients. We have a core curriculum based upon our 1st responder clients, but pride ourselves upon our instructor’s abilities to customize and adjust parts of the training to fit the needs of the clients. After all, we the instructors are not the ones who will succeed or fail, be injured or not, out in the field. So we want to make sure at all times that our training will both suit what you need it for and that you are able to mutual aid with any other group we’ve trained and work together towards more lives saved.

  • International focus – Our students come from across the country and across the globe, and we also travel to them. Because there are different landscapes, languages, laws, and ruling/guiding organizations (think FEMA & NFPA) for each state and country, we require that instructors for classes in or with students from other areas be able to either speak the language or be experienced in working with a translator, be able to adjust the training based on the requirements of that area, and be able to make the core curriculum relevant to their needs.

TRAINING PROVIDERS

We are by no means the only training provider out there. While we believe our quality of training is unparalleled; like ourselves, our competitors each have some pluses and minuses to their name.

There are always going to be some differences, but we all seek to improve, follow NFPA and other guiding organizations, and have core skills that are alike or easy to mesh when working with agencies trained by the other providers. Rescue 3 is one of the longest standing and most widespread providers and TEEX is closely related to Texas A&M, Texas Task Force, and the Texas Forestry Service which afford both companies many positive features when a client is looking for a provider. There are other providers in each rescue field that are also becoming more well known. However, we do not accept many of their training curriculum when seeking to audit or upgrade in one of our courses often due to the differences in quality, safety, skills, organization of content, or realism of training. But you are always welcome and encouraged to look at your options prior to choosing what provider and curriculum your agency or department wants to model their rescue teams based on. Some local Texas water rescue providers, like Tarrant Co Jr College and Fathom Academy, do offer prefabbed training sites which can be made available in almost any weather and time of year. This may also afford ability to add techniques and training opportunities that are not available or allowed in rivers or lakes.

So, much like we do not believe there is only “One Way” to conduct a rescue, we do not claim to be the “One Right” training provider. Talk to other associated departments or agencies and get their input and satisfaction (or not), look at online photos and videos from prior courses, contact providers to determine schedule availability, cost, class size, techniques and curriculum, training sites, and other benefits to determine which providers, instructors, and courses are right for your needs.

Please, contact us and let us know what we can do to be of assistance to your agency or yourself, info needed on team setups, SOPs/SOGs (we can help set these up based on our manual), gear, course or in-house training, problem-solving, what-if scenarios, real time rescues, or hindsight feedback. We want to make a positive contribution to the world more than we want to make money, so we will always be glad to provide assistance and will not seek payment for providing help outside of courses.

TRAINING FACILITIES

Rescue Training International uses real world training sites. We want our graduates to have experienced as close to a real situation and environment as we can – as safely as we can!!

We do not use simulator pools or water parks as they tend to leave the technician with a false sense of security. On special request we may make an exception, but like we said: real-world will always give you better preparation and expectation.

We can travel to your facility or training site as long as it provides a challenging enough environment, is manageably safe, accessible, and meets the needs of the course. Please ask us for more information if you are interested in having the course and instructor come to you.

We create an in depth Emergency Action Plan (EAP) for each training location prior to start of course to make sure we and our instructors are prepared in case something comes up.

But keep in mind, there is inherent danger in all rescue training. This is a dangerous field. The key to our training is balancing risk assessment, course and location safety, supervision, demonstrations, discussions, personal feedback and guidance, and the safest possible techniques for different situations with the ability to pre-plan, adapt to change and to have multiple options available, with a team who is all trained equally and can work together.

It has long been a dream of ours to create a truly amazing training complex. But we don’t want to compromise on quality or realism. If this dream ever comes to fruition it must meet many high expectations. We wish to be as environmentally friendly and self-sustainable as possible, we want to be able to adjust the terrain or site details to fit the needs of our clients, be truly realistic yet not limited by civilian presence, weather, or time of year. We would like to be able to afford clients the ability to stay on site to make the training trip more cost effective and less stressful. This would all require funding that our pricing does not currently allow for and we wish to make this easier for clients, not harder. So until we are able to achieve a beneficial balance, we will not sacrifice our business and training quality and excellence as others may have done.

We can offer additional advice or suggestions on more than just the training. Let us know if you have questions on scenarios, gear, team setup, or anything else Rescue related!

OUR VALUES

Search & Rescue, Safety, Survival

We want to make a positive difference in the world. To better our communities and their safety. To increase the knowledge, skills, and confidence of all of our students. And to create opportunities for everyone to grow as both individuals and as teams.

We will give our best in every class we teach. We strive to give more information and more individual coaching with our training at a more affordable cost than anywhere else you’ll find out there.

Respect, Dedication, Loyalty

Our company is defined by these core values, which are our guiding principles in every class we teach and every decision we make for changes to the way we function. Making positive differences within our community and within those of all of our students is very important to us. We strive to always be honest and forthright within our family of Instructors and with our clients so that we can establish and maintain trust.

Hard work is the name of the game for everyone involved in rescue training. From those creating and maintaining the training programs and guidelines, those teaching and demonstrating the skills, and those learning to comprehend and complete the necessary safety standards and skills. There are no shortcuts and there are always new challenges to overcome. Anything worth doing is worth doing right and we believe everyone comes out better for sticking with it through the hard stuff. Everyone is made differently, both in body and mind, and we work together to ensure our Instructors and students receive the one on one coaching to overcome their personal challenges to be the best teacher or best technician that they can be.

We feel that the rescue community is its own kind of family and we want to keep that strong. Friendships are made in our training, as well as long standing ties between agencies and departments that otherwise might not have ever had a chance to work together. You’ll find that your network of people to contact for help, advice, or just discussions will increase with each class you join in on. With loyalty in mind, we don’t increase our prices if we can avoid it and we are available to you long after your course is over whenever you need help or have questions.

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