Introtech News Room

Starting in early 2023 and ending in November of 2023, Introtech staff in conjunction with Northcoast Polytechnic Institute conducted a full series of crash investigation and reconstruction training to Ohio Police officers starting with Crash Investigation Level I, through Crash Investigation Level II, Vehicle Dynamics and finishing with Crash Construction. These classes were taught at the training facilities of Eastlake and Brooklyn Police Departments. This intense training included field work, vehicle damage analysis, classroom studies, introduction to technology, mathematics, basic physics, human factors and specialized topics such as motorcycles, occupant restraint systems, pedestrian and commercial vehicles. A variety of instructors from the Introtech staff provided the instruction including Matthew Healy, Vince Cronin, Henry Lipian and Melinda Lipian.

In March of 2023, Henry Lipian was invited to present an important class to a northern Ohio Amish community on the topic of the new Ohio laws governing the marking and lighting of Amish buggies and wagons. In addition to going over the new laws, Mr. Lipian provided some case studies of Amish crashes that Introtech has investigated and provided a basic understanding of human factors, night visibility and conspicuity issues, retroreflective materials and lighting effectiveness and limitations, aging and fatigue factors for drivers. There was also a topic of instruction on driver distraction. The community group session was well attended by Amish leadership as well as the general population. A better understanding of the challenges presented to the motoring public encountering Amish vehicles, especially under night and limited visibility conditions, traffic laws was accomplished was achieved. Some of the concerns expressed by the Amish as to how the public should respond to their concerns was also expressed. 

In May of 2024 Matthew Healy presented an eight hour class: Digital Media Evidence – What Every Investigator Needs to Know, to a wide variety of law enforcement officers on the expanding and important technical subject of forensic video analysis. One of the goals of this training was to afford officers a better understanding of how to properly obtain, preserve and interpret important digital video including the correct chain of custody of digital video. The process of obtaining and analyzing digital video is increasing in its complexity, but also is providing far more advanced benefit to an investigatory analysis, as long as the video is properly obtained and properly analyzed. The old adage that in video what you see is what really happened, is no longer necessarily true. With variable frame rates, I,P and B frames, meta data analysis of each individual frame, correction of distortion in conjunction with 3D overlays and camera match superimposition. All of the offices came away from the training with important and critical new knowledge to improve their documentation and analysis of this important and evolving field. In the future Introtech is planning on providing a similar training program for the legal and insurance community and is in the process of obtaining continuing legal education credits for this new training program. The Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction (ACTAR) has approved Mr. Healy’s training program for the police attendees.

As of June 2024, Introtech has a new staff member, Melinda Lipian who will be taking over some of the administrative duties from recently retired Timothy Kalish, who retired from Introtech with 30 years of dedicated service. Mrs. Lipian has a degree in mathematics from Akron University and is in the process of assisting Matthew Healy in processing digital video for his analytical use. Prior to coming to Introtech she taught mathematics at various public and private schools in Northeast Ohio. During Introtech’s recent Reconstruction training, she taught mathematics, basic trigonometry and co-linear momentum. In addition to learning the basics of forensic video she will also soon be taking classes in basic accident investigation. 

In the immediate aftermath of the Franics Cott Key bridge collision and collapse in Baltimore by the cargo ship Dali in Mach of 2024, Henry Lipian of the Introtech staff was interviewed extensively in both print and television media including local Fox News Stations and CNN. Local newspapers such as the New York Times and the Baltimore Banner and other print media interviewed Mr. Lipian in a number of articles. Mr. Lipian has extensive experience in naval engineering issues from his time as both an enlisted and commissioned officer in the United States Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Reserve. He has also been involved in private sector reconstructions of many maritime, shipping and boating accident incidents. Although many of the issues cannot be resolved so near to the time of the event, many foundational and basic issues were still able to be addressed. Obviously as the NTSB and other agencies continued their lengthy investigation, initial hypotheses and basic navigation/engineering and crew responsibilities were addressed by Mr. Lipian to the extent possible during the initial phase of the investigation. In addition, Mr. Healy of the Introtech staff has done some preliminary video analysis of the surveillance video of the collision.

Mr. Vincent Cronin has recently completed two new classes in two specialized reconstruction topics; Event Data Recorder Use in Traffic Crash Reconstruction Level I in January 2024 and Advanced Human Factors in Crash Reconstruction in October of 2023. Both of these educational classes were approved for ACTAR CEUs for Mr. Cronin as he prepares for his recertification process for ACTAR re-accreditation.

In addition to his certification as a Metrologist including reverse projection camera match overlay processing, in 2023 Mr. Healy completed his LEVA Level One certification class on his way to full LEVA certification. In July of 2024, Mr. Healy will be attending the LEVA Level Two certification in Pontiac Michigan. Mr. Healy is already the most knowledgeable and skilled forensic video analyst in Ohio, but as he progresses through his LEVA training, he will be one of the very few LEVA certified forensic video analysist in the United States. Mr. Healy has done extensive analysis of video for civil cases, criminal cases (both for prosecution and defense) and private sector clients. In addition to the LEVA training, Mr. Healy regularly attends on-line training from Axon Investigate, formerly known as Input Ace.