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72 NEW JERSEY COPS FEBRUARY 2014
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from instructors who bring decades of police experience to each
class, a meticulous preparation of class materials and Edna.
A New Course
Edna Bernstein was working as a nurse, while her husband
toiled as a Miami Beach PD Sergeant in the early 1980s. He had
just topped off his Master’s in Human Resources Management
with a Doctorate in Psychology when he had an epiphany about
the promotion process available to him and his colleagues.
“They had test prep courses for doctors, lawyers, even realtors
– everybody but cops,” Bernstein revealed. “I said that’s got to
change, and we can do it. We started it part-time and built it up,
and then came the time when Edna said, ‘if we’re going to do this,
we have to do it full-time.”
That was 1985 in Florida, where he says Bernstein became the
first professional review provider for police officers. He was still
transitioning out of his cop job in 1988, when New Jersey State
PBA President Frank Ginesi and Civil Service Liaison Tom Murphy called him because the NJ Civil Service was trying a new type
of testing based on assessment and using video.
Bernstein presented to the State PBA Mini-Convention, and
then he was asked to be an expert resource for the organization
in Trenton consulting with the Civil Service Commission to develop the new test.
“At the end of my week, I would drive to the airport, change
from my uniform into a suit and tie and become Dr. Bernstein,”
he muses about those early days. “It was a risk to leave a secure
position for the unknown, but we made the leap. I did the training, Edna ran the office, and before we knew it we had expanded to New Orleans, Virginia and Alabama.”
About the same time, an officer in the Chicago Police Department, John Rowton, was researching for a test prep program
using a new-fangled tool called the internet. Bernstein didn’t really have a web presence back then, compared to its multi-faceted
website these days that features instructional video short subjects
from the good doctor and an online student center, but Rowton
somehow found him. He tipped Bernstein that Chicago was
doing an assessment test, and he connected with the Chicago
FOP Lodge 7, which brought him in to do classes right at the FOP
Hall.
Bernstein and Associates now conducts test prep in Massachusetts, Philadelphia and Florida, and he has become a Certified Assessor and Assessor Trainer, as well as doing post-doctoral
studies in the field of Civil Service exams and test preparation.
And during the past 30 years, he feels he has truly pinpointed the
value of what Bernstein & Associates offers to law enforcement.
“One promotion in a lifetime on the job can be worth a halfmillion to a million dollars between raises and the increase in the
pension,” he asserted.
First class
Bernstein vividly remembers the first class he taught in 1985.
Seven police officers were testing for promotion to sergeant. He
brought three instructors and did a five-day review of all the
books and any other materials they could find.
Now, many reasons make this class memorable. It could easily have been the start of the relentless review of materials that has
become one of the company’s trademarks. But late last year, one
of the seven officers in that first class called Dr. B.
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