HATTIESBURG, Miss.--Officials for the University of Mississippi's Center for Spectator Sports Security Management said they hope a new training program, launched last week, could lead to a national security certification program for stadium employees.

The Mississippi Office of Homeland Security in March awarded the center $260,000 to develop a web-based program to train ticket takers, ushers, parking attendants and other non-security staff to handle duties such as bag checks and behavioral screening, said Lou Marciani, director of the center.

"We want to train them to be looking at key items that are specific to them," Marciani said. "We don't want them to just be competent in their jobs, but to also have a security mentality to increase their capabilities."

Center officials are working with Contemporary Services Corp., a company that specializes in event management for the entertainment and sporting industries, to create a curriculum that Marciani hopes will lead to a Department of Homeland Security certification course within the next five years. He said he has not discussed that with DHS yet, and is instead focusing on the pilot program's results.

Under the program, for example, parking attendants would learn how to identify counterfeit parking credentials and conduct sweeps of the parking lot to find unattended cooking grills or unapproved propane tanks, Marciani said. He said these are considered security issues if a cooking grill explodes or an unauthorized person is allowed into an area where they can do harm, but most parking attendants are not trained to follow these procedures.

"If we are able to train event staff to understand security issues, they will be better equipped to pick up a possible threat beyond the perimeter," he said.

Since opening in 2006, the center has developed the National Risk Certification Program that designs risk certification for security staff at intercollegiate athletic departments and in October 2007, DHS awarded it $3.5 million to train an estimated 5,370 officials at 1,055 institutions nationwide on sports security management.

Currently, the training will be offered to workers at collegiate stadiums but officials want to extend it to professional venues, said Michael Verden, an executive with Hillard Heintze and the former senior director of security for the NBA, who is working on the program.

"If you look at open air stadiums or arenas there is definitely a nexus between collegiate sites and professional sites," he said. "To me it's just a logical step."

The first training session, scheduled to begin this month and lasts through September, will involve employees at Southern Mississippi University, Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, the University of Mississippi, Mississippi Valley State University and Mississippi State University.