A four-member team, which included Soldiers from the North Dakota National Guard 81st Civil Support Team, instructed a two-week Hazardous Material (HAZMAT) 301 training class in Accra, Ghana, from July 14 - 25, 2025, as part of the State Partnership Program.
The training brought together a multitude of key Ghanaian governmental agencies, including the Ghanaian National Fire Service, first responders, Ghanaian Navy, and the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO).
“This is our Hazmat 301 training. It's building on the previous two trainings that we've
been here to conduct for the Ghanaian Fire Service,” said U.S. Army Capt. Thomas Hanson, nuclear medical science officer, 81st Civil Support Team. “It’s mostly academic, quite a few lectures, with a brief tabletop exercise. We [get] a bit more in-depth with a lot of the training. We've also expanded how much time they've got to work on their presentations”
Three North Dakota National Guard Soldiers from the 81st CST and a specialist from the Renee County Southwestern District Health Unit led the course to teach essential aspects of incident command structure, decontamination processes, and emergency preparedness.
“The goal is to get them thinking about HAZMAT operations and how they'll respond to them with what they have, the people they have, what they know, the equipment they've got in the country,” Hanson noted. “Just [help] build their own standard operating procedures for their own incidents rather than us projecting our experience on it.”
Over two weeks, students were brought into groups and engaged in classroom instruction, scenario-based planning, all eventually culminating in a mock incident command demonstration.
“Each group has been given an exercise and the exercise depending on true life scenarios that could happen in Ghana,” said Sherry Adams, a Public Health Unit executive officer with the Southwest District Health unit, who has had over a decade of experience working with Ghanaian government agencies and the North Dakota Army National Guard. “So the hope is that each of these six groups will come up with a plan on how they would respond together with multiple agencies on these various scenarios.”
The HAZMAT 301 course was part of the State Partnership Program between North Dakota and Ghana, which has been fostering developmental and military cooperation between the two countries since 2004. Through the SPP, the North Dakota Army National Guard builds shared expertise and essential skills like disaster response to not only help partner forces but North Dakota as well.
“I think the biggest impact that we can take away from each other is, just seeing how we can improve our processes based on how other people do it,” said U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Travis Johnson, assistant noncommissioned officer instructor with the 81st CST. “Maybe it's dealing with limited resources at times or just a difference in opinion or, you know, how we interact with the public.”
The training concluded with group presentations, which allowed participants to demonstrate their Incident command knowledge skills in a simulated hazardous material incident involving coordination between multiple agencies.
“Overall, the final key goal of the class was to get each of them to present and share their experience with the disaster they walked through with the rest of the class,” Johnson noted. “So they had to create a sign in roster for their incident, an SOP for dealing with that type of incident, and then a map to show, where they would emplace different resources that they had and how they would move around the situation, [with] parts, like finances, logistics, and command communications.”
HAMZAT 301 built upon two previous training courses towards a shared goal of mutual growth and disaster preparedness.
The instructors and participants alike understand the contribution training exercises like this have on host nation and partner forces for future success.
“One thing I've seen with working with Ghanaians is that they just do an amazing job. They take it really seriously,” Adams added. “They are trying to do the best they can for their country and for all the partnerships that will work together.”
| Date Taken: | 07.24.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.19.2025 11:03 |
| Story ID: | 544194 |
| Location: | ACCRA, GH |
| Web Views: | 15 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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