Blog - Corner Alliance

Interview with Rik Legault, Director of Office for Public Safety Research (OPSR) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate, First Responders Group (FRG)

Red Grasso - North Carolina First Responder Emerging Technologies Director & Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for FirstNet in North Carolina State of Public Safety Communications in North Carolina North Carolina has a strong state interoperability executive committee whose membership has good ideas and provides great direction. The state has a good statewide land mobile radio (LMR) system called the voice interoperability plan for emergency responders (VIPER). The system was designed for...

Interview with Sally Fay, Communications & Outreach Director and Statewide Interoperability Coordinator (SWIC) for the State of Indiana State of Public Safety Communications in Indiana Indiana recently completed building a statewide land mobile radio (LMR) 700/800 Mhz system. The P25 system has about 160 sites and nearly 90,000 users in all 92 Indiana counties with 95% guaranteed portable and on the street coverage. With operations and maintenance costs of $100 Million over the next 20...

Interview with Charles Werner, Chair, National Council on Public Safety UAS (NCPSU) Background Charles Werner has 44 years experience in public safety with 37 years of service with the Charlottesville, Virginia fire department. Werner served his last 10 years of tenure as fire chief (2005-2015). Involved with national initiatives, and known as the technology fire chief, Werner began exploring unmanned aircraft systems to see what they had to offer public safety. After retiring, he became...

Interview with Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Partnership and Engagement, Executive Director, Campaigns and the Homeland Security Advisory Council Michael (Mick) McKeown About the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) The HSAC is focused on how to improve DHS internally. Unlike longer existing departments, DHS has only had to transition two executive branches and there are many new ideas to improve government. Currently a big trend is identifying ways to improve...

Michael Tischler is the Director of the National Geospatial Program (NGP) at the US Geological Survey. NGP has existed for over 130 years and was originally created to make topographic maps to help settle the western part of the US. NGP now serves as an aggregator of federal data sets of mapping and geospatial information across multiple federal agencies. For example, the US Census provides transportation data that NGP then includes in its topographic data. The data and maps are openly...

Interview with Dereck Orr, Division Chief of Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) About PSCR PSCR is part of NIST and provides scientific and engineering expertise to help public safety realize their communications potential, “that so many people assumes exist, but it doesn’t.” PSCR existed in a small capacity before 9/11, but experienced growth due to the focus and effort on interoperability at that time and...

Deputy County Manager Jim Schwartz talks about trends and innovation in public safety and government in general.