Vendor Session
Nathan Lee - President, Denise Amber Lee Foundation
Nathan Lee is the founder and President of the Denise Amber Lee Foundation which he formed after the preventable murder of his wife, Denise, in 2008. He has made it his life’s work to honor his courageous wife by promoting better training, standardized protocols, Quality Assurance, and technological advances for 9-1-1 so that it meets the expectations of all citizens. His testimony before the Florida Legislature in 2010 led to the passage of Florida’s first ever training and certification standard for all 9-1-1 telecommunicators. He has also testified before a Missouri legislative committee to demonstrate the critical nature of 9-1-1 in support of more funding to their state’s 9-1-1 system.
The preventable death of his wife has garnered national attention on the need for a consistently trained and certified 9-1-1 workforce. Nathan and his wife’s story have been featured on Dateline NBC, ABC’s Primetime, CNN, Dr. Phil, Larry King, Good Morning America and numerous other national venues.
Determined not to have Denise die in vain, Nathan is partnering with the 9-1-1industry and using the powerful emotional ammunition of these tragic events to drive change in public policy. It is hoped that the public awareness and disgust of these tragedies, if channeled and focused in a responsible way, will lead to legislative changes in funding, training, certification, and technology so that no other family endures this type of pain and suffering again. The foundation has attained national prominence and respect for its efforts to improve public safety with Nathan speaking at over 20 state and national 9-1-1 conferences. He recently lent his voice to a FCC workshop on cell phone location accuracy. He and the work of the Denise Amber Lee Foundation have been credited with several state initiatives to established uniform training and certification standards and was recognized by several national 9-1-1 industry associations as the industry “Advocate of the Year” in 2011. He was awarded the Texas APCO President’s Award and the National NENA Presidential Award in 2018 and was recognized as on of the 50 “Most Influential People in 9-1-1” by the National Emergency Number Association.