APCO: Association of Pubic-Safety Communications Officials, International was founded in 1935 and has held an annual convention each year. This year the conference was held in Baltimore, which is the furthest in the Northeast it is held.
Maine does not have it's own chapter, however is a member of Atlantic APCO which consists of the 6 New England States, New York and New Jersey. I've been to the annual Atlantic APCO conference a few times including being a member of the board when Maine hosted in 2024.
My boss decided that we would attend the International Conference in 2025 as we could drive to it. My fellow OM from Houlton Jessica Milliken and I submitted to present a class as well. Our class was accepted so we got a free registration to the conference.
The conference was Sunday to Wednesday, however with our travels days we for us it was July 26th to 31st. Brodie, Jessica, and I drove down in one vehicle and we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore Inner Harbor. Theresa and her Mom drove down in their vehicle and ended up at a different hotel.
Saturday July 26th
As Jessica lives in Fort Fairfield, or about 250 miles from my house in Gardiner, she stayed with us on Friday night so we could hit the road by 3am. We stopped and picked up Brodie at the park and ride in Yarmouth and continued on our Journey. Essentially I drove the same route as we take to Ocean City, it's just that instead of turning south towards Delaware Route 1 after crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge we stayed on 95 into Baltimore. I drove all the way down and back, my choice, I was happy do it.
We made stop at the TA on Ruby Rd, Willington, Connecticut, on the Garden State Parkway, Biden Welcome Center in Delaware, and a WaWa and Chick Fil A about a half hour outside Baltimore.
The drive was fairly uneventful, we had good music thanks to the WCLZ app, great conversation and traffic was good. While at lunch we all received notifications that our rooms were ready at the hotel so we headed there next and were all checked in by 1pm. Great travel day! Theresa and her mom were a few hours behind us as they left later and they did hit traffic.
The APCO 2025 Conference was being held at the Baltimore Convention Center, and we were 1 of 3 hotels that is attached to the conventions center. We took the sky walk over and registered getting out swag bags and name tags. At the APCO store we all picked up am APCO International Challenge coin, they only had a few and for $5 it was an easy decision.
Jessica and I went and found the room out class would be in on Wednesday, it's the largest training room I've ever seen and it can hold 300 people. Nothing to be nervous about.
Jessica and I decided to go take in the sites and go to the Baltimore Orioles game. Camden Yards was less than 2/10ths of a mile from the hotel, how could we not go to the game!? Brodie had been invited to go to the Sunday afternoon game in a suite, so instead he decided to go walk the harbor.
Out first stop was the the Wrestling In Maryland sign, I'm a wrestling fan and had to grab a photo with it.
Next we went to Westminster Hall and the burying grounds of Edgar Allen Poe. We took our time exploring the old graveyard right in the heart of the city. It was extremely hot out and there was some nice shade to take in as well.
We stopped at a Starbucks to cool off and for Jessica to get a fancy drink. We still had plenty of time before the game so we walked down to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum. Babe was born just a couple blocks from where the Orioles now play baseball. Before the field was there his Dad owned a bar in what is now the middle of center field.
They had numerous very cool artifacts and memorabilia including game used bats, uniforms, signed baseballs, and his rookie card that is values in the millions.
It was a short walk to Oriole Park at Camden Yards which is the official name of the ballpark that opened in 1992. It nice a ballpark, they have some cool statues around the stadium and some neat painting through-out. However most of them are near the bathrooms with a water fountain in the middle of them.
The park doesn't have the history of Fenway, and I get it most don't, however the Texas Rangers play at Globelife Field that opened in 2020 and they filled it with the history of the franchise as well as fixtures from the previous stadiums. I didn't get that feel from Camden Yard.
At the ticket window I asked for seats that were away from people and on an aisle. He asked if we wanted shade, yes we did, and I asked him where he like to sit. So he set us up with section 346 Row 22 Seat 1 & 2, we were in the upper deck behind home plate and we could see balls and strikes. The seats cost $30.80 each was in the shade with a breeze and we had a great view of the entire field and the city skyline.
Before heading to out seats we hit the team store, got me a pin for my pin board, and explored the entire stadium checking out food options and taking photos. They had a Topps make you own baseball card stand, so we took several photos and each got the card, I think they came out great!
Baltimore has a deal where you buy a reusable 30 oz cup for $12 and you can get unlimited refills at various soda stations around the stadium, all season if you bring the cup back with you. I drank 6 Coke Zeros and was so dehydrated, apparently, that I only went to the bathroom once. We got concessions for dinner so I had to get an all beef Camden Frank hot dog, what's baseball without a hotdog!
The game was a BLOW OUT with the Orioles beating the Colorado Rockies 18 - 0! I've never seen a blow out this big. Rockies registered only 2 hits for the game, however what was cool is the we saw Warming Bernabel make is Major League debut for the Rockies and his first ever major league was 1 of those 2 hits. It was cool watching make sure he got the ball for the occasion.
The Orioles registered 18 hits, including 3 home runs, 9 runs were scored in the 7th inning. Trevor Rogers pitched 7 complete innings with 1 hit, 1 walk and 5 strike outs. One of the Orioles homeruns was hit by Cedric Mullins and was his 100th career homerun. It was a wicked fun game.
We walked back to the hotel among the crowd of people getting back to the hotel just after 1030pm. Walking back a guy commented on my FTR t-shirt, which I replied "beat tag team in the world today" and he said he couldn't argue. For the next several minutes we chatted wrestling, it was a fun conversation. When I got back to the room I had a private message on X from Matt saying, "I was seriously thinking that was you but since we weren't at a Limitless show the context was weird." Turns our we follow each other, he's from Maine and knows me from Limitless Wrestling, he is in town for a softball tournament. Small world indeed.
VERY long day, but very much worth it! This is the 4rd Major League baseball game that I have been able to take in at my 3rd different ballpark all while on work related trips. Washington Nationals in 2023, Texas Rangers in 2024 & 2025 and not Baltimore.
Sunday July 27th
Today was our first long day of conferencing! The first classes and meetings of the day started at 8am and the last class of the day finished up at 430pm. This conference was different as they supplied no meals at all except at the APCO Block Party on Tuesday night and only supplied a morning and afternoon snack on Monday & Tuesday in the exhibitor hall.
I did not join the rest of the team going to the New Attendee Reception instead I went to wrestling. You can read about that on my wrestling blog: Maryland Wrestling Adventure.
Monday July 28th
Monday was the celebratory first day of the conference. Registration opened at 7am and then at 830am was the Opening General session with keynote speaker Brett Culp. There were multiple speakers before him including the Governor of Maryland Wes Moore. Brett was fantastic, I really enjoyed his story and what motivates him in his life.
Monday was the first day of the exhibitor hall, and it was HUGE. Quite simply the largest vendor room I have ever been in or ever seen. Some of the booths were enormous and they had themes! A Movie theater, cruise ship, someone had a large Ferris wheel. It was pretty wild. They had free headshots and I took advantage of them on both Monday and Tuesday wearing a different shirt each day.
They had classes sprinkled through out the day as well. I went to a few in between visiting the vendors, which was a bit overwhelming as there were so many. The last classes ended at 430pm and we headed over to the Hilton for 5pm and the Atlantic APCO Chapter Meeting.
After the meeting Jessica and I walked, literally, across the street to Camden Yards for the 6:35pm Orioles vs. Blue Jays game. We bought the same exact seats as Saturday night except it was only $22 for tonight's game. I remembered to bring my cup for the soda station and downed 5 on this night for total of $1.09 per soda over the two games! It was free bobblehead night featuring Jordan Westburg, who had a great night for the O's. It sits on my shelf at work with my Marcus Seimen that I got in 2024 at the Texas Rangers game.
The game started competitively but in the end the Orioles beat the Blue Jays 11 - 4. The Blue Jays registered 11 hits while the Orioles put 16 hits on the board, the teams combined for 6 homes runs, Toronto with 2 and Baltimore with 4.
Tuesday July 29th
Day two of the exhibitor hall with another early start, finishing up at 4pm when the exhibitor hall closed and the last classes finished. They had a red cross blood drive set up so I was able to donate power red, as they call it.
I went back to the room and got some work done on the work laptop. All week after the games or wrestling or in between classes I'm checking work emails, and keeping up on everything so when I go back to the office I'm not wicked far behind.
Tuesday night was the APCO Block Party at the Baltimore Ravens stadium, scheduled to last from 7pm to 10pm. They bussed us all over and once we got inside we had full access, essentially. There was plenty of food and soft drinks available and a cash bar if that was your choice.
They had a photo area set up with a Lombardi trophy where you could get a pro photo and download it later for free. We were able to access the locker room and go out onto the field through the Raven's entrance tunnel.
It was a lot of fun, I almost didn't go but I'm glad I did for the experience. Last November I went to Wisconsin for work for two nights and while I was there I went to Green Bay and toured Lambeau Field. That was absolutely amazing!
I headed back to the room before everyone else did, I was just wiped out from the long days and just wanted to finish the evening with a movie.
Wednesday July 30th
Today was the first time I felt nervous at the conference. I had long accepted the reality that we were presenting at this international conference, but the nerves hit this morning. The convention center was having issues with its air conditioning. If you look at the building it's in two large sections, one side the air was working just fine, the other side where out classroom was, was not.
It had been warm on that side of the building all week, think near 80 degrees and it was only a couple degrees cooler today. All week the weather was in the upper 90's and low 100's which we are just not used to in Maine. The feels like was in the 100-teens.
I attended the morning classes, and then at the lunch break headed to my room to relax a bit before heading back to the convention center for our 2pm class. People starting filing in at about 130pm so Jessica and I just walked around and chatted with everyone before the official start time.
I feel like it went really well, we have some great audience participation and we hit all the points we wanted to hit and stayed in our allotted 1 hour time slot. We did not fill the 300 seats in the room, however I know we had over 100 people, and try as I might to stave them off I think the nerves hit me on this one.
When it was over a few people came and asked us questions directly, and we got some good feedback from the survey Jessica made. It took a few weeks to get the evaluations from APCO, and while a couple people didn't seem to care for the class, the majority scored us very well, and our averages were on par for the averages of the conference as a whole.
I'm extremely pleased with our presentation and out experience as a whole at the conference. I'm also very happy to have presented as a national conference, that was definitely not on my radar as something I would ever do, and owe Jessica a lot of thanks for the encouragement to do it.
After our class I was going to go back to the room and just unwind, but them my boss said he was going to see Gary Hill's class 911 I Have An Emergency. I'm familiar with Gary from seeing him at other conferences because he has a bowling ball with a headset he brings around with him. So I decided to go to his class, which was about him almost committing suicide and how the job saved him and gave him purpose. It was a very powerful, but dark way to end the conference.
For dinner we walked down to the inner harbor and we all met at Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We then took in some sights around the harbor including Coast Guard Cutter WHEC-37 the Last Pearl Harbor Survivor.
We also checked out the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse.
The Domino Sugars factory was across the way and if I had time I would have gone over to tour the factory, that would have been sweet...see what I did there.
I packed up a much as I could before going to bed.
Thursday July 31st
We didn't leave as early as we did on Saturday, but we were still on the road before 4am to head back to Maine. We did stop about an hour after hitting the road in Elkton, Maryland for breakfast at the Waffle House. This was only my second time going to a Waffle House, the first being in June with Wesley on our way to Digger's Dungeon.
Jessica had wanted to stop as she had not been to a Waffle House since she lived in Florida.
After a solid breakfast we hit the road for the ride home taking the same route north as we did south. We stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, The TA in Willington, Connecticut and in Massachusetts. We dropped off Brodie at his vehicle and were at my house by 2pm. A smooth travel day.
The Conference was a lot of fun, I have no idea when I will ever go to a national conference again, and I'd love to go to a different one like the National NENA, Navigator, or CPI, to see how those are.
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