ExpoTime! IT’S
Join us this month for the 17th School Transportation News North American School Bus EXPO Conference & Trade Show
THEY CALL RENO THE “BIGGEST LITTLE CITY IN THE WORLD” FOR GOOD REASON.
IT’S A
GAMBLING MECCA, BUT NOT NEARLY AS LARGE AS ITS SISTER CITY, LAS VEGAS. PLUS, RENO IS SITUATED AT THE FOOTHILLS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA RANGE, ABOUT 45 MINUTES DOWN MOUNTAIN FROM LAKE TAHOE, GIVING IT A DECIDEDLY SMALLER TOWN FEEL THAN THE SPRAWLING METROPOLIS TO THE SOUTH.
It’s a destination well-suited for the school transporta-
tion industry, which is large in scope, spanning the U.S. and Canada, while retaining its own small-business feel. Tat’s much of the reason why STN has made Reno its home away from home since 1996. And this year, July 24-28, the STN EXPO returns to the Grand Sierra Resort with perhaps its best program yet. But as economic woes continue to strangle school districts (and, hence, school transportation vendors), Reno is not an easy destination to get to. In February 2009, STN contributor Tim Ammon of
Management Partnership Services, Inc., penned an ar- ticle with some interesting calculations that showed the benefit to transportation operations of attending an industry conference and trade show. It’s all about return on investment, that “take away” that
stretches a school district’s or company’s money to send an employee to a conference. Ammon estimated that it costs about $2,000 to send one employee off for a week’s worth of training. If that employee works in a district with a fleet of 10 school buses, that’s roughly a $250,000 per year operation. Te employee only needs to return to work with information or an idea that can trim the bud- get by 1 percent to pay for the trip. And, as the operation gets bigger, the increase in efficiency necessary to justify the cost goes down. In this economy, every dollar spent and saved is at a pre-
mium, which is why we’ve pulled out the stops to make our curriculum the best it can be. It all started with securing the services of John Walsh
from FOX’s “America’s Most Wanted” to provide attendees with a keynote address on the dangers presented to school children at school bus stops by sexual predators. And we
46 School Transportation News Magazine July 2010
followed that up by scheduling John D. Musso, executive director of American School Business Officials Interna- tional, to speak on “Making a Difference in a Place Called School,” which discusses the relationship between educa- tion and transportation services. Ten, we added a twist to our school bus evacuation
class, working with organizers from both school districts and Head Start agencies to form a larger, hands-on evacu- ation course that factors into the equation smoke on the bus. Te STN EXPO also features a course on pro-active or reactive dispatching, stop arm video cameras as a deterrent to illegal passers, compliance basics of special needs trans- portation, pattern recognition, sensory deficits of school bus riders, and much more. Te complete list is available at
www.stnexpo.com/program. In all, the 2010 STN EXPO features nearly four dozen
workshops that run the gamut of Head Start, Maintenance, Operations Management, Safety and Security, and Special Needs. Tere are also three exciting general session panels that cover the distracted driving phenomenon, real-world experiences with school bus occupant restraints, and inter- actions and relationships between school administrators, school transporters and parents. Te STN EXPO pre-conference kicks off on July 24 with
the return of the popular the NHTSA-approved, eight-hour “Child Passenger Safety Restraint Systems on School Buses” and another eight-hour class, “Putting Safety First in the School Bus Danger Zone.” Also back after a one-year hiatus is the Northern Nevada Chapter of the American Red Cross, which will offer registrants CPR and blood-borne pathogen certification. Brand new this year, NAPT will be in Reno to offer sepa-
rate professional development courses that give credit toward the new NAPT Special Needs Endorsement. A break-down of the courses and how to register is located at
www.stnexpo.com/napt-endorsement. Ten there’s the one-day trade show on July 27, one of
the largest in the nation and, certainly when it comes to school buses, the world. In the proceeding pages, take a look at some of the vendors scheduled to be on hand. For a complete list, check
www.stnexpo.com/tradeshow. We hope to see you in Reno later this month! n
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