Welcome to Merit’s Blog.

This article first appeared in CERT Responder Magazine

Picture this...

You’re managing an activity that requires participant check-ins, credential validation, and even time tracking and reporting. And it’s not a pretty picture considering all of the check-in sheets, time spent confirming participant credentials, and the countless hours adding up total participant time.

We’re excited to introduce you to our new brand – Merit®.

Merit helps power California For All Emergency Preparedness Campaign to deploy a network of volunteers and transform how Californians get ready for the next disaster

If you’re a skydiver, you know Jay Stokes’s name. He’s the former President of the USPA, after all. He came to professional civilian skydiving only after serving in the US Army for 24 years on the military side of the freefall fence, and in that time has earned a veritable gallery of certifications. (These certifications are above and beyond Jay’s two Masters’ degrees.)

If you’ve been running a dropzone for a while, we already know a couple of things about you. Ready?

We expect white lies in our everyday lives and have become accustomed to not necessarily believing everything we hear. Whether it’s someone’s description on a dating app or a resume for work, we take what we hear with a grain of salt. Some people fiercely filter information for fabrications, exaggerations, plagiarism, white lies, and most of all: deception. But as one study suggests, we are on average only able to catch 54% of lies. Strikingly, in the same study, trained police officers, judges, and FBI agents weren’t that much better than the average person.

When I talk to him, World Wingsuit Champion and elite wingsuit instructor Chris Geiler is gearing up for a busy day jumping his wingsuit from Italian cliffs. The road to terminal pasta-opia has been a long one, as Chris was born quite literally on the opposite side of the world—a small town in Western Australia, “in the middle of nowhere,” as Chris puts it. He spent his early childhood moving from state to state in Australia with his mom.

When I talk to Skydive University founder Rob Laidlaw, he’s in Guatemala. He’s personally supervising three examiner trainees as they conduct a Coach Examiner verification and AFF Instructor Certification program for the Guatemalan Parachute Association.

Take it from us: Jenn Evans will sneak up on you. She’s unexpected.