Since starting up in 2011 CROPS has become the foremost
surveillance company to be used in the rural and remote
environments, this in both as a training asset and operational.
PMCI: Who do you see as your target customer for your
courses?
Having recently been approved by the MoD as a preferred supplier
to the ECLAS scheme, I would like to see a steady rise in those
service leavers coming to CROPS to be trained before stepping out
into the commercial surveillance arena.
But I must let it be known that we are not interested in
churning out hundreds of inadequately trained individuals in a
numbers game played by some providers, we keep our courses to
small numbers of 4 to 6 students as we feel the student receives
a better quality of instruction and allows us to spend more time
on the ground next to the student should a question be raised.
We must not forget the service ‘stayer’; CROPS is continuously
working within many serving units delivering our own in
house tactics and operational methods alongside the military’s
conventional subject matter. This is an excellent way of introducing
new kit and ideas to what can be something very out dated and
set in stone!
We relate to these as our ‘GREEN’ and ‘BLUE’ skills training
courses.
PMCI: You talk about ‘GREEN’ and ‘BLUE’ skills training, can
you tell me more about these and where this idea came from?
Of course, so are GREEN skills are all based around the rural
environment as I’m sure you can guess; however gone are the
days of camouflage face cream and large heavy Ghillie suits. Our
aim is to teach students how to operate in this green environment
which is none-alarming to the general population, being able to
move around the countryside unseen and remaining concealed
at all times, all of the military style kit and equipment that we
use is concealed from view until required.
Our 5 day Level 3 rural surveillance course, or better known
to us as the bail-out course is delivered most months, as already
stated we only allow 4 – 6 students per course. All equipment is
provided within the issued ‘bail-out belt’ that was developed by
us and is in use every day on surveillance tasks.
To accompany this course we run our 10 day Level 4 covert
surveillance management, Level 3 covert camera construction &
deployment and finally the tactical photography training.
The BLUE skills consist of our very popular 7 day Level 4 urban
surveillance operator’s course which we have carefully rewritten
to ensure it suits the current level that surveillance operatives are
working at, we have introduced many new topics which other
providers do not teach, also students on our course get hands on
technology that is in most cases, only seen and used by tier one
level operators, we insure the students move with the times and
understand how important this is.
To accompany this course we have are 3 day static platforms
course and 2 day technical vehicle tracking course, also we are
currently writing another course to complete the blue skills.
CROPS
PMCI: Do you train just military and police personnel or
civilians too?
No, our courses are open to anyone. The CROPS training team
enjoys training individuals from all walks of life, and we ensure
that all of our courses are conducted at the correct level and pace
to suit the student. After all they are paying to be taught a very
particular skill set so we must get it right!
PMCI: What exactly do you specialise in?
At the school we concentrate on delivering the most
comprehensive rural surveillance training packages available
to the civilian market, these courses include both ‘organic’
surveillance tactics and ‘technical’ surveillance tactics in the
deployment of covert camera systems and GPS tracking devices.
However, over the 18 months we have received many emails
and phone calls requesting that we run an ‘urban surveillance’
package to accompany the rural aspect of what we do, this giving
the student a more rounded skill set. After all, as a company we
do conduct over 250hrs of live surveillance per month in both the
urban and rural environments, so we set to work designing an
up to date urban operates course which differs from the tired old
type ‘w’ course used b 䁽ѡ