There’s a crown jewel in Ware County that very few know about.
The $1.2 million Blackburn Public Safety Training Center (PSTC), located off Scapa Road, is a state-of-the-art facility that is becoming a regional training center for fire and police departments as well as sheriff’s offices all across southeast Georgia.
Jesse Jordan, the administrator of the center, praised the county commission and the planners saying “this facility was built right and will be in use for a very long time.”
The facility is equipped to train public safety personnel in several skills — firefighting, rope rescue, search and rescue, high-rise firefighting, tactical operations for law enforcement, as well as rifle and pistol qualifications.
Sponsored classes also include those for jail officers, which include agencies from nine different counties. Revenue generated from this class support local businesses through lodging, food, and fuel.
Jordan recalled how the training center, named to honor former Waycross Police Chief James E. Blackburn Jr., came to existence.
“We knew we needed a place,” he said. “We actually built one training center on U.S. 1, but it just did not have the space we needed to really expand. We came over here to this site (the old garbage dump site) approximately three and a half years ago and started construction.”
The project was funded by the 2014 Special Local Option Sales Tax. The tower first was built first, followed by the burn building, and then the range. It took about 18 months to build what is currently on the site. There also is an administrative center with a small classroom and a large classroom.
Virtual public safety training equipment from InVeris, headquartered in Suwanee, Ga., was purchased.
According to the InVeris’ website, InVeris Training Solutions provides cutting-edge training solutions for militaries, law enforcement agencies and commercial range owners around the world. With its legacy companies, FATS® and Caswell, InVeris Training Solutions has fielded over 15,500 live-fire ranges and 7,500 virtual systems globally during its 95-year history.
Once classes started, the value of the training center was immediately realized.
“Some of the first classes we had were firefighter certification classes where we didn’t have to go to Forsyth and that was one reason we wanted to go this route.” stated Jordan.
Forsyth is the location of the main campus of the Georgia Public Safety Training Center where local public safety officials usually went for training.
“We don’t have to go anywhere,” said Jordan. “We get to stay here and don’t travel. It’s cost-saving for all departments. It’s good to do that.”
Since the Blackburn PSTC began operations, Jordan said that expansion has been exponential.
“We’ve actually had probably 20 different agencies out here from all over the state and some from Alabama,” he said. “We’ve covered anywhere from law enforcement to the animal control officer.”
When asked about future plans for the facility, Jordan replied with several.
“Hopefully, with the SPLOST coming up, we would like to add some storage,” he stated. “We’d like to have some more venues such as fire simulators for cars, get an airplane fuselage simulator so that we could train for airport emergencies.
“We would like to have some driving facilities to train safely for emergency situations on the roads, such as backing up, going forward, and three-way turnaround. All that needs to be practiced.”
