Hello, my name is Tony Langer, W9AL; I live in Starke County, Indiana. I want to thank Jim Sellers K9ZBM, for my Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) appointment.

I entered ham radio in June of 1998 and became an Extra in August of 2006. Since 1998, I have become involved in ARES, RACES, Skywarn, CERT instructor and NCS for the NTS.

Emergency Communications is the force that drove me to get involved with Amateur Radio. Whenever there is a major catastrophe, like a hurricane, earthquake, and tornado what do you hear most coming from the disaster area? You hear information from ham radio operators.

Here are my goals for Indiana:

• Encourage training and practice of emergency communications.
• Teach ourselves and others that we can do EMCOMM like professionals.
• Have DEC’s and EC’s build relationships with local agencies.
• Actively recruit new members into ARES and Amateur Radio.
• Encourage all members to take advantage of the training available through the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Courses (levels 1, 2, and 3).
• Be there to coordinate and support the ARES members in their endeavors.