Case Study: Strengthening Safety Through Situational Awareness
How the Colorado Department of Agriculture Uses The CP Journal to Prepare Staff for the Unexpected
The Situation
The Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA) has several programs that regulate agricultural commodities and promote animal welfare across Colorado. It also responds to numerous animal-related disasters while collaborating with producers and government partners like the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. In these situations, maintaining situational awareness is imperative to fulfilling their mission and supporting disease management efforts such as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), which has impacted poultry and dairy facilities in the state over the past two years.
One animal welfare-related inspection program is the Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act (PACFA), which licenses and regulates businesses that care for pets, such as shelters or rescues, or provide pet-related services like boarding, training, and grooming. PACFA ensures that pet care facilities operate in accordance with safe and humane standards by conducting routine inspections of licensed locations and investigating complaints of unlicensed activity. Due to Colorado’s size and diversity, PACFA’s field staff often work in both busy urban areas and remote or rural settings, sometimes alone or in small teams. In these environments, quick and precise situational awareness isn’t just helpful, it’s vital.
To protect both animals and staff, inspectors and investigators must be able to rapidly recognize and assess potential hazards—such as an agitated animal, unsafe infrastructure, or worsening environmental conditions—and respond appropriately. This reliance on individual judgment and awareness underscores the need for a structured, informed, and proactive approach to identifying danger before it becomes a crisis.
The Challenge
PACFA inspectors and investigators regularly interact with a diverse range of facility operators and residents throughout Colorado. On any given day, an inspector might meet a cooperative, law-abiding facility owner who welcomes their presence, or someone who is conducting illegal activity in violation of state law and is being confronted by an investigator. Others might be frustrated with government oversight in general, making each encounter unpredictable.
Inspectors and investigators often don’t know what kind of welcome they will face until they arrive on-site. This uncertainty makes their ability to quickly assess the environment, interpret behaviors, and identify situations that are escalating into something dangerous a crucial skill for their safety and effectiveness.
Nick Fisher, PACFA’s Program Section Chief, explains the organizational impacts of these challenges and the motivation behind seeking situational awareness training:
“PACFA inspectors and investigators work across the entire state, often alone, and can’t predict what kind of reception they’ll face. Ensuring that every inspector and investigator has the tools to recognize what constitutes a dangerous situation by observing the contact’s behavior and the environment around them increases their safety. It will always be a top priority for our program and department.”
The Solution
To tackle these challenges, the PACFA program's inspectors and investigators participated in The CP Journal’s Tactical Analysis Course, a situational awareness training program designed to help professionals identify and respond to subtle signs of danger before situations escalate.
PACFA delivered the course in a hybrid format: staff completed the video-based training and then gathered for group discussions led by an agency leader. These sessions allowed inspectors to ask questions, connect the material directly to their fieldwork, and share examples of how they could apply the lessons during inspections and investigations. This approach ensured that the training was not just theoretical but became part of PACFA’s organizational culture and daily routines.
As The CP Journal’s co-founder, Patrick Van Horne, explained:
“Training only makes an impact if it changes daily practice. By combining our Tactical Analysis Course with facilitated discussions, PACFA and CDA leadership ensured that situational awareness skills weren’t just taught but embedded into the way all of the department’s inspectors and investigators operate in the field.”
This training equipped PACFA and CDA inspectors and investigators with the skills and context to approach inspections and investigations more confidently, with greater situational awareness and readiness.
Conclusion & Call to Action
PACFA’s experience demonstrates how structured training and proactive intelligence can transform how teams work in uncertain, unpredictable environments. By integrating situational awareness into daily routines, PACFA has helped its inspectors remain safe, confident, and effective across Colorado.
If your organization faces similar challenges, whether it’s staff working in the field, operating in unpredictable environments, or needing a sharper edge in preparedness, The CP Journal can help.
Explore our Tactical Analysis Course, access our Academy, or contact us to create an organizational readiness program customized for your mission.
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