ICS All-Hazards Situation Unit Leader (L-0964) Training
December 15-19, 2025
State Emergency Operations Center (Franklin County) Frankfort, KY

Incident Management – fundamentally – is about containing and neutralizing threats and controlling the chaos in between. For five days the week before Christmas --- seventeen students representing five Fire Departments, five counties’ Emergency Management agencies, another county’s medical service and Kentucky Emergency Management (KYEM) itself are “making their bones” as Dr. Charlie Harris puts it.

Dr. Harris manages the Kentucky Qualification System (KQS), KYEM’s credentialing and certification program created to ensure that the Commonwealth’s professionals in Emergency Management are exactly that: trained in the core competencies required to serve on an All-Hazards Incident Management Team, as a Situation Unit Leader (SITL).

A SITL’s responsibilities include processing information and intelligence and developing displays, including a variety of maps, the course description reads. “Like peeling back layers of an onion, said State Warning Point Duty Officer David McCreary “I’m finding out how much I did not know.”

McCreary also is a volunteer with Wolfe County Search & Rescue, a ‘first-responder’ agency to incidents in the Red River Gorge, the canyon system in Eastern Kentucky’s Daniel Boone National Forest. “(The course) will make me more useful to Wolfe County,” he said. “It’s all about bringing more utility and capability to the scene.”

L-0964 is “foundational for leadership,” said co- instructor Jeremy Knighton, leader of the Emergency Management division of the Asheville (North Carolina) Fire Department. “It’s about going after information; the right piece, the right time, with the right tools.”

The five-day course incorporates a number of exercises, all building build upon one another, from task assignments to debriefing team members between operational periods.

Timing is everything, Knighton tells students; especially for debriefs.
“Make your points quickly and directly,’ he said. “They’re hungry and tired. You’re competing with dinner and sleep.”

Tuesday’s exercises included how to craft effective weather statements whether the medium is PowerPoint or an 8 ½ x 11 legal pad.

“We can’t sit there and do nothing,” Knighton said.

Customer Service is a linchpin to the coursework.

“Your customer could be a member of your IMT (Incident Management Team) or a citizen,” said co-instructor Greg Shuping, former Chief of Emergency Services for Haywood County, North Carolina.

“You learn who needs what, mapping-wise, and understand their roles and responsibilities so you can anticipate needs.” Given that every operational shift begins with a briefing, the Ops Chief “needs to know the room, know the backdrop, everybody has to be able to see the Briefing Map,” Shuping said. The Ops Chief needs to be able to point like Vanna (White, co-host of TV’s ‘Wheel of Fortune’).”

The lessons hit home for Dennis Brown, Lewis County’s Director of Emergency Management. “The hands-on scenarios and instruction closely-reflected real-world operations and strengthened my ability to support Command with accurate, timely information,” Brown said. 

For KYEM’s McCreary, it’s about “bringing as much utility as I can to the scene,” as a Unit leader and team member. “It’s about increasing my capacity and my capability.”

Successful completion of L-0964 prepares personnel assigned to Functional, Support or Unit Leader positions for a local-or state level All-Hazards Incident Management Team (AHIMT). Pre-requisites for enrollment required completion of: 
• IS-100 Introduction to the Incident Command System (ICS)
• IS 200 Incident Command System for Initial Response
• IS 300 Intermediate ICS for Expanding Incidents
• IS 700 National Incident Management System (NIMS), An Introduction
• IS 800 National Response Framework, An Introduction  

Optional, but recommended courses include:
• G-191 Emergency Operations Center/Incident Command System Interface
• IS 400 Advanced ICS-Complex Incidents

Students participating in the course were from the following agencies:
• Fleming County EMA
• Frankfort EMA
• Georgetown Fire Department
• Georgetown-Scott County EMS
• Kentucky Emergency Management (KYEM)
• LaGrange Fire & Rescue
• Lawrence County EMA
• Lewis County EMA
• Lexington Fire Department
• Scott County EMA
• Shepherdsville Fire Department
• Winchester Fire Department
 
Authored by: Gordon Boyd, KYEM Information Office Supervisor
Edited by: David Davis, KYEM PIO
Photos by: Gordon Boyd, David Davis, Dennis Brown, Madison Law

More pictures from the class can be found in the Situation Unit Leader (L-0964) Training  Gallery 

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