Western may be ahead of the game in emergency management at Kentucky universities.

Western’s department of environment, health and safety hosted the first statewide Emergency Management Leadership Summit last week.

The summit, which took place at the Center for Research and Development, was a way for Kentucky colleges to compare emergency management tactics, said Mark Pendley, director of environment, health and safety.

Twelve schools were represented at the summit, he said.

Pendley; Dennis Sullivan, environmental operations manager for the University of Louisville; Christy Giles, director of the Office of Emergency Management at the University of Kentucky and Jeff Steen, environmental coordinator for Murray State University, led discussions on emergency management tactics, according to the agenda for the summit.

Western had some of the most effective emergency management techniques there, Pendley said.

“We’re really doing a fantastic job,” he said.

Deborah Wilkins, chief of staff and general counsel, said Western’s exceptional information technology department has made the campus a leader in emergency management.

The fights on Oct. 22 also allowed Western to see where its weaknesses lie, Wilkins said.

“As unfortunate as it all was, it was a great learning experience for all of us,” she said.

Pendley did a presentation about training Building Emergency Safety Team members and applying Building Emergency Action Plans, he said.

By this fall, there should be two BEST team leaders who are trained to deal with emergency management procedures in every non-residential building on campus.

About half of the leaders have completed online training so far.

They should be done with training by June 30.

The completion of training for BEST members is a priority for emergency management at Western, Pendley said.

“We need to do a better job of educating and raising awareness on emergency management,” he said. “We need to figure out how we can do a better job of getting the information out there.”

Pendley said many smaller schools at the summit were interested in BEST and BEAP.

Smaller schools don’t always have the same resources as Western or other large universities, but they can still have effective emergency management, he said.

“Surprisingly, they don’t have to spend as much as they may think,” Pendley said.