Thanks to the last minute arrangements and the approval of ABATE's State Officers, I was able to attend the November 13th, 2004 - Region IX Seminar in Salt Lake City Utah. Region IX is made up of the Confederations of 4 states, AZ, NM, UT, NV.

One of the things I talked a lot about while I was there, was the Motorcycle Awareness Program (MAP) that is taught at high schools throughout the state of Arizona. This program is sponsored by our Motorcycle Safety Fund and the Governor's Office of Highway Safety, and presented by members of ABATE of AZ, MMA of AZ and members of various clubs belonging to the Arizona Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs (ACMC). As ABATE's State Safety Officer, I coordinate all aspects of this program for Arizona.

I stressed the importance of the MAP program, and talked in depth about its success in our state. This generated a lot of interest from other states. At one point, Rick with Soldiers For Jesus and Troy with Hells Angels - Northern Nevada Confederation of Clubs out of Reno NV, talked to me about helping them get this program started in NV. They said the COC would be willing to fly me over there to train some of their members on the ins and outs of presenting MAP.

A few months after I got home, I was contacted by Jeff Claypool, who's club also belongs to the Nevada Confederation. He was to be my contact. Jeff and I worked for months sorting out the details. I sent him ABATE's entire program through online documents and told him to change the few Arizona references to Nevada's stats and they would be good to go. He stated they didn't want to plagiarize our program, and I told him, "When it comes to saving motorcyclists lives, you just plagiarize away!!!! ALL STATES SHARE ALL WITH OTHER STATES !!!! You know who you got it from, just pass that along".

Jeff and his crew got busy contacting schools, putting their documentation together, and recruiting potential instructors. It wasn't long before they had 6 schools to teach in 2 days, 1 presentation of MAP each. As you have to be fingerprinted in order to present/teach at NV schools, I flew into Reno early enough on the 15th to get that done. Thanks to one of Jeff's business connects, my room at the Nugget Casino, even included a complimentary snack tray my very first day. They also provided a suite for my Wednesday night "Train the Potential Presenters."

That night, Jeff, Rick, Bill, Don, Chris, Joanne, Dusty, and Mike spent over 3 hours with me, hearing the presentation, discussing presenting techniques and doing the outside demo in the casino parking lot. It's hard to describe the overwhelming feeling that comes from training potential instructors, that walk into the room with the enthusiasm, determination and just plain, "We are going to learn this program, present this program and save lives in Nevada, ATTITUDE", that these motorcyclists came to the table with.

The next day we taught 3 different schools. By the 2nd presentation, a few of those assisting, started jumping in presenting sections of the script themselves. We ended up having only 1 presentation on Friday morning, after which I signed off Mike Gleason, as a "certified" instructor. He was a natural. He stepped right in, presented with passion and will be the one to certify others as they progress. Along with Jeff being the coordinator of the program for the COC, they're off to a great start. In fact, they already had another school scheduled for the very next week.

Jeff runs a landscape business in the area. As my plane didn't leave until 6:30pm Friday night, Jeff was gracious enough to take me around to one of the local shops, introduce me to others in the COC, and visit Rick at his work at Badlands motorcycle shop. I then got to see some of the countryside by going along to one of his job sites about 40 miles from town. It just happened to be right next door to his new home being built. It was a great ending to a wonderful trip.

Russ, a friend of mine with the Southern Nevada COC, Las Vegas, also mentioned they'd appreciate me helping them to get MAP going in their area. Hopefully that will come about in the near future.

I want to take this opportunity to AGAIN thank the many members of ABATE, MMA and the ACMC that have helped make our Motorcycle Awareness Program what it is today. We have AGAIN put Arizona on the MAP (get it - ha ha) !!!!!

Bobbi Hartmann
ABATE Designated Lobbyist
ABATE State Safety Officer
bobbij2@earthlink.net