From the Margins of the Manual

Manuals are written to capture what we know, but the margins are where we scribble notes, underline what matters, and add reminders from experience.

The margins are personal. They’re where the official meets the practical.

Standards, Stories, and the Space in Between

Join me as I share insights, experiences, and reflections from the evolving world of first responder training – where standards meet stories and preparation meets purpose.

Check out the latest posts

From Distributed Presence to Aligned Capacity: Protecting the MTS

Authority may be centralized. Capacity is not. Every day, maritime security depends upon a distributed network of operators across jurisdictions who may never share a chain of command but will share the same waterways. Whether that network functions as a system or as a collection of independent assets depends upon something less visible than patrol…

Let’s Crash Some Boats…for Science?

If someone casually mentions that a team is intentionally crashing boats this spring, it seems fair to pause. But in this case, that pause will (hopefully) quickly turn into understanding. This May, a multidisciplinary team of investigators, trainers, and technical partners will gather in Nashville to do something that looks chaotic from the outside but…

Five Questions Every Maritime Operational Leader Should Ask Their Port Partners

Maritime operations generally won’t fail because nobody responds. But they can fail when the people who respond arrive with different assumptions…assumptions about who’s in charge, what “ready” actually means, and how tasks are expected to be executed when time is short and the operating picture is incomplete. Anyone who has worked a real multi-agency maritime…

About the Author

Courtney Livingston, PhD, is a nationally recognized leader in first responder training and standards . Read full bio.