The MAAC public safety training campus is growing again, this time with a new headquarters and indoor K9 training facility.
The K9 training facility will be named Kathryn Hall in honor of Kathryn McMillan, whose husband Stewart wore a cowboy-style hard hat she gifted him just before Thursday’s groundbreaking.
The $5 million, 28,000-square-foot pair of conjoined buildings should be completed next October, according to Nicole Gladstone, president and CEO of the MAAC Foundation.
Kathryn Hall, a one-story building, will offer an indoor training area for dogs used by first responders as well as a dog wash and an entry for dogs to get in and out of vehicles without braving the weather, Director of Marketing and Communications Peter Krivas said.
The two-story headquarters will have training space upstairs for EMTs and paramedics.
The extra training space is important, Gladstone said, because the MAAC campus is so busy. On Thursday, there were 12 different groups using the campus, not counting the groundbreaking event.
“We’re constantly looking at a booked campus,” she said. “We are busting at the seams, to put it mildly.”
Stewart McMillan, who named the MAAC after his father, founder of Task Force Tips, envisioned the public safety campus, but not what it has become.
“Every time we gather for a groundbreaking, I think surely this must be the last one,” he said. “This facility has grown far beyond what I ever could have imagined.”
The new headquarters and Kathryn Hall have been three years in the making as plans went through several iterations. “We finally have a building we’re really comfortable with,” he said.
“We’re not only expanding the ability to train EMTs and paramedics, these are skills that are critically needed in our time,” McMillan said.
As for Kathryn, his wife of 38 years, she stepped up when she found there was a shortage of funding for the K9 facility. “I’m truly honored to make this building, and all the good it will do, a reality,” she said.
The Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation chipped in $5 million toward the $6 million construction cost, Stewart McMillan said.
Madison Hanna, a project manager with the foundation, said the MAAC collaborates with over 100 public safety agencies. Its cultural impact is important as it builds a supportive community, serving as a model for all, she said.
Mike Jessen, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana, praised the MAAC crew for working with kids at the clubs to introduce them to public safety professionals and career opportunities.
“To have this in our backyard, how lucky are we?” he remarked.
“This is phenomenal, what we have in our backyard,” Dyer Fire Chief Joe Martin said.
Martin has traveled the country to participate in or lead training exercises. He recalls having to wait for props and equipment to arrive from other parts of the state or country to train firefighters. He taught the first class of firefighters at the MAAC in 2017.
“Obviously, this is a much-needed building,” Gladstone said. “It’s a symbol of what can be achieved when everybody comes together with a shared commitment.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
