GTI and ISU Join Forces to Train America’s SWAT Teams

January 3, 2007 By Government Training Institute

Fifteen days. One-hundred forty hours of intense training. That’s how the first graduates of the Operations in Terrorist and CBRNE Environments: Type III Advanced SWAT course were prepared to perform tactical missions as a member of a Type III Swat Team.

The Government Training Institute (GTI) partnered with Idaho State University’s Institute of Emergency Management (IEM) to provide a new SWAT Type III course curriculum that’s been reviewed and approved by the US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Grants & Training.

The first class was held at the GTI’s Boise Headquarters May 15-29, 2006. Since then, requests for mobile trainings at locations around the country have poured in and the GTI mobile training unit has spent time in Hawaii and other states before returning to Idaho for a second SWAT III class in August.

Type III SWAT was created to standardize SWAT training throughout the United States and to define asset capabilities and resources for Incident Commanders during a crisis. This program is the first of its kind for nationwide SWAT team classifications and is the most comprehensive SWAT program ever to be offered to state and local agencies.

The program covers 47 separate modules in 15 days. Students are issued a student training manual, and a progress book that includes copies of all of the student’s written exams. Through practical applications, they are familiarized and work with the latest technologies in SWAT tactics.

“Students who successfully graduate from the Type III SWAT Operator’sCourse will have earned it,” says Chadd Harbaugh, GTI President.