Here, in our portal, you are allowed the opportunity to interactively dialogue with others who share our passion, share information about recent or active negotiations incidents, offer and receive training opportunities and much more.

Why “negotiator central”? We looked at the business of crisis negotiations and realized that our passion and determination is focused, yet we needed one, central location where we could offer our experiences and information to all in this, or related fields. We want this to be the central point for negotiators world wide to access. We have state level associations, we have the National Crisis Negotiators Association (NCNA) and we benefit from all their hard work. And now we have our own virtual community for communicating and sharing. Negotiator central is that place…right in the middle of it all, focused.

And best of all, it’s free! We, in law enforcement, do not hear those two words spoken very often, certainly not associated with something as meaningful as negotiatorcentral. There are other ‘web sites’ that may offer some similar services, but as you may know, they come with a required fee, charging those who wish to learn and share to become members of their organizations. Our effort here is not to make money, our effort is to provide negotiators a central open window to the world of crisis negotiations. We will be allowed to provide this service thanks to our good many sponsors who already support our successes by providing us with necessary tools which we utilize. The technology and innovation made available to us by our sponsors is not only much appreciated, but terribly needed as we face more and new challenges in crisis communications.

This portal was created as a result of a collaboration of seasoned, experienced crisis negotiators from across the state of California who recognized the serious need for this training and learning opportunity. Our combined experience of negotiations, team leadership and command totals more than a century of application and training development. True practitioners have produced what we know you will find useful and rewarding.

Everyday we see, hear and read about opportunities for crisis negotiators to apply their skills and experience. The daily headlines typically include yet another description of people in crisis in our communities. As crisis negotiators, you know the significance of your work, the chance to save lives by effective communication and behavior influence. We all certainly understand and appreciate how effective it is for us to share our experiences whether it’s through a presentation at a negotiator conference, training schools, or personal interaction. Knowing that across the United States, and largely around the world, the business of crisis negotiations is essentially delivered the same challenges. We all know the advantages to the application of active listening skills. We all have experienced the classic domestic violence call that results in a barricade or hostage taking. And, we all appreciate our willingness to offer advice to each other in terms of sharing not only our successes, but our failures as well. It is widely believed that we tend to learn a more valuable lesson when we learn of things that did not go well. Better to become and expert at making one mistake, one time, and offering others the chance to not make the same misstep.

As you take the time to move through the portal of negotiatorcentral, consider not only what’s available now, but what we may be able to offer here in the future. Our belief is that it will be the membership that will drive the success of this portal. Your participation and promotion of this window will only serve to offer to more negotiators worldwide, the chance to advance their skills and perhaps save one more life, tomorrow.

A few highlights of what you see in the menu:
• “Discussion forum” – your chance to communicate with negotiators from around the globe.
• “Calendar”- Posting of events related to negotiations conferences, etc. Members will be allowed to post events on the calendar as well.
• “Opinion polls”- A chance for negotiators to post a question and be delivered direct statistical feedback, i.e., “How many CN teams receive on-call pay?”
• “Guest articles”- Key, helpful information from professionals in the business. Members will be allowed to post articles as well.
• “Incident briefings”- Members may post summaries of recent negotiation incidents, proving both useful and informative.
• “Training room”- A place to download and upload training scenarios and inform the membership of other training recommendations and opportunities.
• “Private messages”- Members can communicate directly with one another individually.
• “Tell a friend”- Your place to help us grow by introducing your colleagues to the portal.

The evolution of negotiatorcentral will bring new and exciting vehicles for us to engage each other, with unlimited scope and exciting technology, such as our planned “Dial –a-Perp” and web based intelligence gathering exercises allowing us to better understand our challenges and methods of overcoming such. You will see an ever expanding reach of this portal to negotiators globally, all of whom will offer new ideas with practical experience and understanding.

Thank you for visiting. Please share this with a friend and collectively we can offer much more to not only our profession, but to those who rely on us in times of their personal crisis. Good luck.

Gary Gregson
Founding Member