About

This web site has been a plan and project for over a year. The growing number of social media sites with people interested in some aspect of preparedness has grown over the years, and there has been significant growth since the appearance of COVID.

It became apparent to me that I was seeing the same questions come up in different groups, or in the same group a few days after a similar post, and people were frustrated as social media platforms were not the best at organizing or searching for the information. There are also lots of books on different aspects of preparedness or self-reliance, so where do you start? If you look through reviews you will find people who like the information, others who think its too basic, and others who think it’s not for beginners. It all depends where you are. Many web sites are crowded with ads and banners and become difficult to navigate.

My goal, my vision, is a simple site, easy to navigate, with information for people at all levels. With links to other sources that you might find useful.

My Journey into Preparedness

My journey started when I was young and growing up we went through a number of labor strikes that caused rolling power blackouts. We had a small generator, enough for some lights, so we had to have other means to cook, heat water and keep warm.

Over the years I’ve learned a lot more, was a medic & instructor for 20 years including wilderness and remote medicine. I’ve lived in Alaska where you have to be self-sufficient and the wilderness is very unforgiving. I’ve held an Amateur Radio (ham) license since 1996 and have had an Extra class license since 2003. I’ve taught medical, communications and preparedness classes at all level, designing many myself specific to needs of a group.

My professional career has involved working in public safety communications, spending seven years working on communications systems. I was involved in developing interoperable capabilities, so different agencies can talk to each other, as well as cryptology. It also involved communications continuity and contingency capabilities, so communications could be maintained when the normal day-to-day systems become compromised or otherwise unavailable.

My professional career moved into emergency management, including designing exercises to test and improve plans. I also became involved in continuity of operations (COOP) planning, designing plans to make sure that critical and essential functions of business and government entities can continue in disasters and emergencies – something that has been tested through COVID.

Like many people I found apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, with books like Patriots, One Second After and the Going Home series by A. American. Through a friendship with A. American I was encouraged to write, including for Survival Dispatch Insider magazine, and we have worked on a couple of projects together over the past few years.

Over the years I’ve written numerous articles on different aspects of preparedness over the past 6-7 years that have been published in different magazines. I’m a regular contributor to Survival Dispatch Insider magazine.

I’ve also given presentations at a number of self-reliance expo’s, other events and a guest on podcasts. Through that I’ve met other authors, including D. Cooper, who runs the POSH Prepper Podcast network. Dee has been trying to get me to do a regular podcast for a few years – we are getting close 🙂

Amateur (ham) Radio

As I mentioned above I’ve been a ham radio operator for a number of years. Several years ago I got involved in teaching some ham radio classes again but had difficulty coordinating tests. Tests are given by local ham operators through a Volunteer Examination Coordinator (VEC) group that then sends documents to the FCC for licensing. I formed a test team, Patriot VE Team, under the Laurel VEC, who is the only one of the 14 VEC’s that doesn’t charge applicants to take a test. Since forming the team in September of 2015, with myself and two other hams, the team has grown to over 113 volunteers and we have conducted exams for over 1600 people. Pre-COVID we would see 20 or more people at each monthly class and exam. Since COVID we have moved our classes to an online platform.

We piloted computer grading of paper exams over 2 years ago and since COVID we are now piloting computer based exams for the Laurel VEC. We still offer traditional paper exams as well. We now limit our test sessions to about 10 people but we add back-to-back sessions and routinely see almost 30 people. Since resuming testing towards the end of May, and up to the end of June, we saw over 117 applicants for exams. 78 of those were new hams and all of them indicated that they were getting a license because of preparedness.

This is for you

Throughout the years I’ve been working on a book, putting all my information and knowledge into one place. Having looked at a lot of the different books out there I felt there wasn’t a comprehensive book. So I started the Preparedness Book of Knowledge. It was put on the back burner when my author friends convinced me to write a fiction book after I pitched a concept to them (that no one has written about to date). Everything has been delayed due to COVID! So here we are with a web page to put the information!

I’ll be adding to this site on an almost daily basis, as I convert articles to the web format. There will be a subscription/membership area coming that will have more information, including the Preparedness Book of Knowledge as I convert that to the web format. It will include mind maps (you will see the radial version on some of the pages, but there are more complete/complex ones available).