Our May luncheon guest speaker was Lieutenant Commander Detective Jack Cambria, the Commanding Officer of the NYPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team (HNT), who provided us with a historical outline of the HNT, as well as his personal experience as a negotiator for the nation’s top law enforcement agency. He also paid tribute to HNT founder, retired NYPD Captain Frank A. Bolz, Jr., as well as retired Detective Harvey Schoshberg, PhD, who were both instrumental in formulating the guidelines for hostage negotiations. Lieutenant Cambria gave a very detailed and informative lecture, and I want to thank him on behalf of the organization for his time, expertise and dedication to the NYPD. Lieutenant Cambria is a NYS Certified Police Instructor, and has served as the Rescue Team Manager of the FEMA-Urban Search and Rescue Task Force. His current duties include coordinating the efforts of 100 negotiators, who respond throughout the City to all hostage related assignments. He is responsible for the training and certification of all new negotiators, as well as refresher training for current members of the HNT. He also conducts in-service training for supervisors of all ranks in the NYPD, and for outside law enforcement agencies including federal and state. He and his team were dispatched to the U.S. Military Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to conduct hostage negotiation training for members of the United States Joint Task Force. Lieutenant Cambria has authored several articles on negotiations and earned his Masters Degree in Criminal Justice from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.