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August 2014Volume 6, Issue 4

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Homeland Security, Maritime Protection & CBRN Response

CBRN Shelters O Maritime Shock Mitigating Seats O Arctic NavigationHandheld Chem-Bio Detectors O Non-Lethal Devices

Pacific Guardian

Vice Adm. Charles W. Ray

Commander Coast Guard PacificU.S. Coast Guard

Senior LeaderS of State emergency management and

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U.S. COAST GUARD & BORDER SECURITY

Cover / Q&AFeatures

Vice AdmirAl chArles W. rAy

commander, coast Guard pacificu.S. coast Guard

18

Departments Industry Interview2 editor’s PersPectiVe3 NAV Notes12 oN the horizoN27 resource ceNter

GAry mAstersoNVice presidentBuffalo computer Graphics inc.

August 2014Volume 6, Issue 4U.S. CoaSt gUard & Border SeCUrity

28

“Our primary missions in the

Pacific Area are to protect those on the

sea, our nation from threats delivered by the sea, and

the sea itself.”

— Vice Admiral Charles W.

Ray

4NoN-lethAl/croWd coNtrolmanufacturers of non-lethal crowd control devices are working to offer officers, agents and other responders tools that are ever-increasing in effectiveness.By Scott NaNce

7hANdy threAt detectorslaboratory technologies are fielding small and highly portable handheld detectors capable of measuring dangerous levels of chem-bio matter.By HeNry caNaday

10ProtectioN sheltersRapidly deployable shelters designed to protect and contain cBRn threats come in a variety of shapes and sizes.By BriaN McNicoll

25reduciNG the shockmitigating the rough ride in small boats will lead to reduced crew injury and fatigue.By Peter BuxBauM

1223

?????????

chAlleNGes of Arctic NAViGAtioNa multitude of issues come into play when trying to accurately maneuver in arctic waters.

13a handy quick reference directory of state/territory emergency response offices.

Senior LeaderShip of State emergency management and reSponSeSpeciaL SuppLement

SpeCial SeCtion

In times of diminishing budgets, it is crucial to make sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. For one, if they are each doing the same thing, we are wasting time and money duplicating efforts to achieve the same results. Perhaps worse is if they are working at cross purposes and the work of one is basically canceling out the work of the other—here we are wasting money and time while not getting anywhere.

In 2012, it was reported that the Department of Homeland Security did not have a complete understanding of its research and development investments; further yet, it did not have policies in place that allowed a proper accounting of expenses and investment. The report by the Government Accountability Office found that while Homeland Security acknowledged only three of its offices/agencies had research and development funding, more than $255 million had been spent on R&D obligations.

As a result, the GAO recommended to DHS that it develop policies to assist components in better understanding how to report R&D activities and better position DHS to determine R&D investments.

The Department of Homeland Security concurred with the report’s findings and recommendations. They did establish policy guidance and are conducting portfolio reviews across the department in order to coordinate R&D efforts. Further review by the GAO highlighted that the reporting by the three primary users of R&D—the Coast Guard, the Science & Technology Directorate, and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office—all displayed differing levels and details on their portfolio items. The bottom line appears to be that the Department of Homeland Security has made headway in developing a stan-dardized method of tracking, reporting and sharing information on research and development projects. Once the cultural issues are pushed aside, each of the reporting agencies will welcome the ability to know the other investments across the enterprise and determine if there are savings they can make on one project and move to another.

As U.S. national interests shift to the Pacific and the spreading of national interests in the Arctic region, Admiral Ray’s interview in this issue of Coast Guard & Border Security strikes a number of interesting chords. One is his confidence that the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet will be able to meet the service’s mission demands for another 7 to 10 years.

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Leidos, a national security, health and engineering solutions company, has been awarded a prime contract by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to support and supplement the Science and Technology Agricultural Scientific Program at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC). The single-award time and materials contract has a one-year base period of performance, four one-year options and a total contract value of approximately $12 million if all options are exercised.

The DHS S&T mission is to strengthen America’s security and resiliency by providing knowledge products and innovative technology solutions for the Homeland Security Enterprise. In support of that mission, PIADC is the only laboratory in the nation that can work on high-consequence foreign animal diseases. The laboratory helps protect U.S. livestock from the accidental or intentional introduction of foreign animal diseases. Based on the breadth of this mission, the DHS S&T Agricultural Defense Scientific Program at the PIADC is critical to the development of foreign animal disease countermeasures that can be deployed in the event of an outbreak, including vaccines, diagnostic technology and biotherapeutics.

Under the contract, Leidos will support and supplement the DHS S&T Agricultural Defense Scientific Program at PIADC with planning, program management support and oversight for the development of vaccines, diagnostics and other countermeasures to mitigate the impact of foreign animal diseases.

The PIADC program continues Leidos Health’s three decades of work in life sciences supporting the integration of large biomedical research and develop-ment with logistical and administrative support services for federal scientific, biopharmaceutical and agricultural programs. From supporting ground-breaking medical research to optimizing business operations, the Life Sciences team designs and delivers customized solutions to expedite the discovery and development of safe and effective medical treatments and scientific advances.

“We are pleased to continue our support to the DHS S&T Directorate to protect U.S. livestock from foreign animal diseases that can seriously threaten our livestock industries, economy and way of life,” said Steve Comber, president of Leidos Health.

To counter the continuing threat of nuclear-fueled explosives, such as dirty bombs, sophisticated detection methods are required. Historically, the Department of Defense and other agencies used Helium-3 (He-3) to detect neutrons emanating from special nuclear material. The supply of He-3, an extremely rare, non-naturally-occurring substance, is rapidly drying up. To address the critical need for a means to detect neutrons that does not rely on He-3, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) awarded a $2.8 million contract to Alion Science and Technology to develop enhance-ments to a replacement technology.

Alion, a global engineering, R&D, IT and operational solutions company, will support DTRA by developing new methods for an advanced detection system that uses boron-coated “straws”—literally bundles of thin copper tubes with a coating of boron, an abundant element.

Current He-3 detectors are omnidirectional, so they can only alert users to the presence of neutrons. Under the contract, Alion will develop methods to make the boron-coated straw detector directional, so that a search team can pinpoint the loca-tion of the source of neutrons and thus react to threats more effectively.

Alion engineers also will research how to increase the detector’s efficiency by exploring new straw geometries and will focus on miniaturizing and speeding up the electronics. Additionally, the company will review various manufacturing technologies to reduce the technology’s overall production costs.

“By researching the means to make the boron-coated straw detector more precise and more reasonable to produce, Alion can help DTRA employ improved technologies to mitigate threats effectively and keep warfighters and citizens safe,” said Terri Spoonhour, Alion senior vice president and distributed simulation group manager. “But beyond providing a drop-in replacement for He-3 detector components, this engineering effort opens up a number of possibilities for new or enhanced portable systems that can be carried into questionable areas or permanently installed to protect ports and depots.”

Mission Manager Inc. has relaunched its cloud-based incident manager tool that has helped first responders save lives and prop-erty in over 4,400 missions, including the 2014 San Diego fires and Boston Marathon bombing. Product upgrades include significant improvements in infrastructure, data security and technical support.

Mission Manager, a widely-used incident management tool, provides a turnkey solution for mission planning, preparation and real-time situational awareness during live missions. Featuring a robust database with automated reporting tools, multiple commu-nication vehicles and extensive mapping overlays, Mission Manager essentially replaces the manual process of managing callouts by pen and paper and producing reports via spreadsheets.

Developed as a free solution by a San Diego first responder, Mission Manager has been adopted by more than 1,200 local, state, national and international agencies in all 50 U.S. states and 20 countries over the past three years. Users include search-and-rescue organizations, fire departments, law enforcement agencies and emergency operation centers.

“We respect the critical and sensitive work of first responder organizations. That’s why we invested in a more robust solution with solid security,” said Mike Berthelot, Mission Manager president and chief executive officer. “Our company’s flexible pricing model also ensures that Mission Manager will be available to the broadest possible user group, so first responders can continue serving their communities with their critical missions.”

Supporting Animal Disease Countermeasure Work

Countering Nuclear-Fueled ExplosivesIncident Management Tool

Compiled by KMI Media Group staffnaV noteS

www.CGF-kmi.com CGF 6.4 | 3

Whether it’s tear gas, flash bang muni-tions, non-lethal bullets or stun guns, manu-facturers of non-lethal crowd control devices are working to offer officers, agents and other responders tools that are ever-increasing in safety, ease-of-use and effectiveness, leaders from those companies said.

“Non-lethal, or less-lethal as we call it in Canada, covers a vast array of types of systems. What I see as cutting-edge is lighter technology in terms of delivery systems such as grenade launchers and the ability to deliver the munitions farther so the distance created between the subject and the officers involved is greater—reducing the risk” to personnel involved, said Braidy Parker, factory repre-sentative and master trainer at Lamperd Less Lethal, an Ontario, Canada-based maker of a variety of non-lethal firearms, munitions and related products.

A movement has sprung up to prompt organizations that deploy non-lethal systems “to demand greater distances” in the muni-tions they use, Parker said.

“Obviously, if you’re 5 feet from somebody you’re pretty close, and then the chances of you getting hurt are almost equal to them getting hurt,” he said, adding that in response

his company is marketing “a round that can travel 100 feet and you can still feel it.”

Another trend includes lighter gear as well, Parker said.

“An example of that is: We have made a polymer 40 mm grenade launcher, which is about 6 pounds lighter than anything else on the market, and it’s capable of holding six rounds in its magazine.”

NonLethal Technologies, which manu-factures a wide range of non-lethal riot and crowd control equipment for military and law enforcement applications, also produces vehicle-mounted systems that offer a greater stand-off distance, according to Jim Ober-dick, who oversees business development for the Pennsylvania-based com-pany. Their IronFist weapon system allows “a single tac-tical vehicle to deploy over 600 mini-grenades of CS into a crowd within minutes [at a range of 150 yards] so no officer is at risk,” he said. “It’s a true force multiplier. So this is quite new to the industry, and it’s been well-received,” he added.

Oberdick also noted a move toward greater adoption of 40 mm devices across the United States.

“You’re seeing more and more 40 mm going into big domestic police departments. But internationally, with interior ministries and international police agencies around the world, they’re still using the 38 mm rounds for crowd control,” he said.

A Bullet with An AirBAg

For Washington, D.C.-based Security Devices International (SDI), its innovation comes in the form of a new type of non-lethal munition called the Blunt Impact

Projectile, or BIP, said SDI President Gregory Sullivan.

The round has been designed to supersede pre-vious blunt impact ammo such as foam, sponge and rubber bullets, he said.

“The whole round is designed to be an energy-absorption system, so not only does the head collapse upon impact, which disperses

CreAting the desired effeCts on A Crowd while reduCing the risks of esCAlAtion.By sCott nAnCe, Cgf Correspondent

Gregory Sullivan


the inertia over a wider part of the body—in that sense you’re actually hitting more nerve endings and causing more surface pain—but you’re not getting the depth and penetration that can be problematic and cause injuries,” Sullivan said.

The BIP is largely made of plastic, with some other components, and is designed to rupture upon impact, he said.

“It’s almost like a bullet with an air-bag. It has a cushioning effect, and we use energy-absorption techniques to safely cre-ate pain without lasting injury,” he added.

The biggest users of the BIP ammo are law enforcement agencies, particularly SWAT and crowd-control units, while SDI is “just starting to penetrate” the federal market, Sullivan said.

There’s a lot of engineering that goes into a round like the BIP, he said.

“It was designed to be stable in flight, to be to be used in short ranges and long ranges up to 80 meters. We don’t recommend it used under 2 meters but we’ve seen it used at a point-blank range and it was highly effec-tive—it created massive pain-compliance but

[did not cause] lasting injury on the person,” Sullivan said. “Although it was used at a shorter range than we nor-mally recommend, the round did exactly what it was meant to do: It created a significant amount of pain with no loss or [lasting] injury whatsoever.”

The BIP can be fired from any existing 40 mm firearm, he added.

“Before it hit the market, we did exten-sive testing on [this round] from indepen-dent agencies and government agencies, and [the round] really has a track record of safety and effectiveness. And now we’re getting that feedback from the end-user. We want to be known as having the safest round on the market,” Sullivan said.

smArt weApons

Over the last decade and more, the word Taser has become synonymous with the concept of non-lethal force—and for good

reason, according to Steve Tuttle, vice president of strategic communications at Taser International, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based maker of the electroshock gun.

“We have a little more than 17,000 of 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States alone that deploy our Taser brand con-ducted-energy weapon,” he

said. “We’ve gotten fairly ubiquitous. About 8,000 of those agencies deploy them to every single patrol officer.”

Moreover, the company now sells its devices in 107 countries, Tuttle added.

Now more than 10 years old after its 2003 introduction, Tuttle calls the Taser X26 the company’s former flagship product that once dominated sales.

“The X26 really put us on the map in terms of being that ubiquitous paradigm shift for law enforcement because now you’re finding so many devices out on the streets,” he said.

Steve Tuttle

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The X26 now has been replaced with new products, Tuttle said.

“Most of our sales now come from what we call the ‘smart weapons,’” he said. “The X26 has a replacement called the X26P. That’s the smart version of the X26. It’s a single-shot system.”

The company also enhanced its tech-nology to produce its X2, a dual-shot sys-tem, Tuttle said.

“Those two are now our flagship prod-ucts—the smart weapons—and are domi-nating our sales right now,” he said.

informAtion for when things go ‘sidewAys’

The old X26 had a data-port system that would record time, date, duration and battery level for each use of the weapon—but now the “smart weapons” can provide much more, Tuttle said.

“That [data from an X26 is] pretty helpful if you’ve got a he said/she said

about an event. But what the smart weap-ons do is take [the data] two steps further,” he said. “They create even deeper logs in terms of when the device was used, but it can account for all the pulses. When you deploy a Taser trigger, you actually get 19 pulses of energy per second.

“We can keep track of every individual pulse, so we can see if it dropped off on resistance, meaning it may not have made contact. Or we can show, ‘Hey, it definitely made contact for all 19 pulses of a five-second duration,’” he added.

The new models also provide engineer-ing logs, with a diagnostic download to see how a particular weapon performed in field, and an operator can look for the completion of system checks or minor or major faults, Tuttle explained.

“That system right there gives us a lot of visibility in terms of an event that may go sideways to explain why the device didn’t function. Was the device function-ing to begin with? Did it encounter a

problem in the field? Or was it functioning perfectly? We get a lot of people who claim that the device didn’t deploy or didn’t work. We can prove that it did, and we don’t have to be there as a witness—the system can actually verify how it works,” he said.

A Taser weapon system goes through about 245 internal checks to ensure it is operating properly, Tuttle said.

“If it’s not, it’ll actually indicate that there might be a minor problem [that shouldn’t affect its use], or [that] it might be a significant problem [that could be dangerous if used],” he said. “We give a lot of information back to the user post-event or even before they use it.” O

aside from the weapons

systems themselves, there is

a growing market for technol-

ogy such as remote cameras,

which allow the application of

non-lethal force to be recorded

or even monitored in real-time,

according to representatives of

companies selling these new

companion offerings.

taser international sells

cameras mounted on its X26p

and X2 models, said Steve tut-

tle, vice president of strategic

communications.

“We still sell a fair amount

of those but even more so, our

fastest-growing segment for us

in sales is the axon body cam-

eras,” he said. “that’s where

we have the officers wear-

ing cameras on their body, or

they’re wearing our axon Flex

cameras, which they can wear

on their glasses, helmets, hats,

lapels—they can even mount

them to dashboards.”

lamperd less lethal also

markets a high-tech camera

system along with its non-lethal

systems and munitions, said

Braidy parker, factory represen-

tative and master trainer with

the Ontario, canada-based firm.

“i know there are a lot of

camera systems out there, but

ours has the ability to stream

in real time and provide audio

in real time,” parker said. “So

if there is a particular problem,

the command post can actually

pull it up, watch what is hap-

pening and give commands to

their operators.

“the application of less-

lethal and non-lethal [force] is

based on subject control and

a number of [other] factors.

if those factors change, you

need to know about it,” he said.

“if those factors go to lethal

force, you want your people in

the right position and the right

place knowing about it—and i

can’t think of a better way than

to have a camera there.”

monitoring of non-lethal

force “allows you to make good

decisions” about its use, he

added.

From taser international’s

perspective, its cameras aug-

ment all of the data about a par-

ticular weapon’s use available

for download from its data port,

tuttle said.

“We still had people making

claims, saying, ‘the officer shot

me for no reason,’ or ‘He used

the taser to torture me.’ We

download the [information from]

the weapon and it would show,

[for example], three uses. We

[would say], ‘Well, that’s three

uses. maybe the officer can jus-

tify why there were three uses.’

But wouldn’t it be nice if we

had video? So by adding that

camera as an option, it really

allowed the officers to feel very

confident that they would no

longer have that ‘he said/she

said,’” tuttle explained.

“it really added a level of

transparency and accountability

that’s unmatched in any of the

weaponry that’s out there on the

streets,” he added. “that’s the

beauty of it—when you’ve got

video, it tells the full story.”

the taser-mounted cam-

eras were “so successful” that

officers expressed a desire to

have a camera record their work

at all the other times that they

didn’t use a taser weapon. “So

we worked many years and

developed the axon

camera system,”

tuttle said.

Watching the Application of Non-Lethal Force

For more information, contact Editor-In-Chief Jeff McKaughan at [email protected] or

search our online archives for related stories at www.cgf-kmi.com.


Countering chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive

(CBRNE) threats has become essential for both military and civilian security personnel. Fortunately, tools for detecting and identifying these threats have dramatically improved.

Laboratory technologies are moving to the field in small and highly portable devices. Detectors have become more sensitive, and libraries of targets have been expanded. Detection and identification speeds have increased, even as accuracy is enhanced. Handheld detec-tion tools have become much better, and that trend will continue.

ACE-ID is Smiths Detection’s newest technology, according to Chief Scientist Brian Boso. It is a non-contact Raman identifier for explosives and precursors that uses orbital raster scan (ORS) laser technology to identify solids and liquids through certain plastics and glass, yielding rapid results in seconds. Most significantly, the ORS laser uses an advanced optical platform that minimizes heating of dark samples during analysis. “ACE-ID is lightweight and can be operated with just one hand,” Boso noted. Non-contact analysis uses software for remote operation, such as on robots.

RadSeeker is Smiths’ handheld, rugged and highly accurate radio-isotope detector and identifier that meets Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requirements for a next-generation system to detect and identify nuclear threats. “It couples advanced spectrum process-ing and identification algorithms with a choice of highly sensitive detectors for superior detection and identification accuracy,” Boso said. RadSeeker distinguishes radiological and nuclear threats from naturally occurring radiation and everyday radiological materials.

HazMatID Elite is Smiths’ next-generation handheld Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy solid and liquid chemical identifier. It does an analysis in a minute or less. Boso said Elite has the widest thermal and solar operational range of any portable

chemical identifier. Its optical engine also resists vibra-tions from mechanical disturbances during vehicle or human

transport. Elite uses intuitive software, a large display screen and keypad controls.

Many Smiths technologies are ruggedized and can be used in extreme environments. The company takes advanced analytical equipment out of the lab and puts it in the field. The devices are small, fast, lightweight, accurate and easy to operate. They can be easily updated for evolving threats.

Polimaster makes handheld detectors for radiation, explained President Vladimir Kanevsky. One such device is the gamma-neutron personal radiation detector PM1703GN, which detects even slight amounts of gamma and neutron radiation, even shielded sources, and alerts users with audible, visual and vibrating alarms. Data for up to 1,000 detection events are stored.

“The Coast Guard has been using thousands of these detects for 10 years,” Kanevsky said. “Nobody can beat our technology. We have the most cost-effective product—high quality at a reasonable cost.”

Polimaster is now offering a new generation in detection, a version of its handheld equipment that identifies as well as detects isotopes.

Chemring Detection Systems makes two handheld detection devices, said Wayne Horvath, director of sales.

Juno uses differential mobility spectrometry (DMS) for vapor trace detection. The Pistol Grip Raman (PGR)-1064 is a handheld chemical identifier. “Juno detects threats, and PGR identifies unknown chemicals, [determining] if they are powder, liquids or solids,” Horvath explained.

Juno has in its current library toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) and chemical warfare agents (CWAs). Other threats, as long as they have vapor, can be added to the detector’s library. The device weighs less than 2 pounds.

The PGR-1064 can identify anything in this library that gives a chemical footprint. These materials could be either explosives or narcotics. The PGR weighs a little over 2 pounds.

Horvath said Juno’s DMS is superior to the ion mobility spec-trometry (IMS) commonly used today. DMS has a 100 percent duty cycle, while IMS has only a 1 percent duty cycle. DMS uses two-dimensional tubes to separate positive and negative ions simultaneously, while IMS’s one-dimensional tubes must switch

the most portABle CBrne deteCtors Are those thAt you

CAn CArry in your hAnd.

By henry CAnAdAy, Cgf Correspondent


back and forth. These differences give Juno DMS superior sensitivity and selectivity.

The PGR-1064 uses Raman spectrometry with a 1,064 nano-meter laser, not the more common 785 nm laser. This mitigates fluorescence, which can blur spectra, especially at peaks. According to the company, this makes the Chemring device more efficient than most rivals.

Chemring is building out its two key handheld technologies, Juno and PGR. “We will come out in 18 months with enhanced ver-sions of both,” Horvath said. “These may be different form factors, such as desktop versions.”

JDSU has developed an ultra-miniature, handheld near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer, the MicroNIR spectrometer, suitable for iden-tifying explosives, improvised explosives and narcotics. “This is our first product in this area,” explained Nada O’Brien, director of mar-keting and product management. The company previously made optical components for military applications.

NIR spectroscopy works well when there is sufficient material present; at least tens of milligrams, not just trace amounts. The MicroNIR could thus be used as a screening device for identifying unknown materials at ports and borders, in emergencies, and dur-ing threat situations. The tool is effective with organic materials but not with non-organic materials and metals.

Within this limit, MicroNIR’s coverage is as broad as the library it is given. O’Brien said it can be taught to spot either specific chemicals or classes of chemicals, such as research department explosives. The error rate is low, but the tool is too new to estimate a specific rate.

For improvised explosives, MicroNIR tells users when a mate-rial has been modified to be dangerous. For example, ammonium nitrate fertilizer is harmless until mixed with aluminum powder or fuel. MicroNIR distinguishes between pure materials and such dangerous mixtures.

O’Brien said MicroNIR is the smallest NIR spectrometer avail-able, with the highest performance-to-price ratio. It weighs only 2 ounces and is less than 2 inches in diameter. It fits easily into pants pockets and is affordable enough to deploy widely. The device con-nects by wire or wirelessly with tablet PCs or other mobile devices to show images.

Because MicroNIR is tiny, JDSU could increase its size to add more functions, for example adding technologies to detect a wider range of threats. This possibility “is on our roadmap, but not a commitment yet,” O’Brien said. The company has a cooperative research agreement with a government agency interested in NIR technology. There is also interest in NIR for narcotics detection.

908 Devices recently introduced the M908, a 4.4-pound hand-held mass spectrometer for chemical detection and identification. “M908 is the first of its kind, a rugged, user-friendly, truly purpose-built mass spectrometer set to change the way chemical threats are controlled at the point of action,” said Vice President of Business Development Chris Petty. The device uses high-pressure mass spec-trometry (HPMS) to provide laboratory-level analysis.

The M908 was designed for time-critical missions. It is up and running in less than 60 seconds for detection, identification and confirmation of TICs, CWAs and simulants, explosives, precursors and narcotics. It can analyze solids, liquids and vapors from trace to bulk quantities and is immune to non-targets and interferents, reducing false alarms.

“We wanted to provide something really unique, a powerful, simple, rugged device that fills large capability gaps and can evolve

to meet the threats and challenges of tomorrow,” Petty summa-rized. Unlike 30- to 35-pound mass spectrometry systems on the market, the M908 needs little training, maintenance and logistics. “It’s the simplest and most diverse tool in the box.”

The firm will continue to exploit HPMS to develop products for evolving threats. The expandable threat list allows M908 to evolve with new hazards, and will soon broaden to include even more compounds.

Morpho Detection makes three kinds of mobile trace detectors, said Rich Stoddard, director, trace/CBRNE platforms. The first detects narcotics only, the second detects only explosives and the third detects both narcotics and explosives.

Morpho has ruggedized the third version for harsh environ-ments such as fog and rain and resistance to dropping. Hardened MobileTrace detects narcotics, explosives, TICs, toxic industrial materials and CWAs, and operates over a wide temperature range. False alarm rates are under 2 percent.

Morpho devices have been designed ergonomically. They use IMS technology for detection, have been operated by U.S. military and civilian agencies, and were deployed for the London Olympic Games. They suit “anyone who needs mobile detection,” Stoddard said.

Training on the use of detection devices is critical to ensure they are familiar to the operators and the results can be validated. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force/by Gina Randall]

Technology has advanced to allow for more accurate detection, fewer false positives and quicker response times. [Photo courtesy of DoD/by Staff Sgt. Timothy Koster]


For radiation detection, Morpho is working with a research center at GE, of which Morpho once was part. Lester Koga, director, global strategy develop-ment, said Morpho will launch a new device, Sour-ceID, in October 2014 to help border agents and hazmat teams spot radiation and dirty bombs.

The new Morpho device weighs just 2 pounds and uses cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) gamma-ray detectors to classify and identify isotopes and detect originating direction in real time. Koga said CZT technology has been around for 15 years but has not been commercialized in handheld devices before. “It has better energy resolution than other technologies, which means better detection and fewer false alarms.”

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s handheld chemical identification tools are field-ready instruments that deliver precise, actionable intelligence to customs and border protection agencies around the world, according to Trey Sieger, market leader for portable ana-lytical instruments. The company’s FirstDefender and TruDefender analyzers are widely deployed for identification of explosives, toxic chemicals and narcotics.

More than 10,000 Thermo Fisher Scientific instruments are deployed worldwide for identification of unknown chemicals, explo-sives and precursors. “Users include every branch of the U.S. mili-tary, customs and border protection, hazmat teams, bomb squads, law enforcement and other first responders,” Sieger said.

FirstDefender RM and FirstDefender RMX are next-generation Raman instruments for rapid, accurate identification of unknown chemicals. FirstDefenders are equipped with a tagging feature to enhance analysis of priority items, such as targeted explosives precursors. Tagged items are also identified on-screen for evalua-tion and escalation if needed. FirstDefender RMX can be used as a handheld instrument with a fixed probe, in an integrated vial mode or mounted to tactical robots.

TruDefenders are rugged, handheld FTIR systems for rapid, field-based identification of unknown chemicals. They bring the power of FTIR to the field, enabling users to analyze and act fast. TruDefender FTi has mobile-phone technology to send results via email or SMS text.

Lightweight and easy to use, TruDefender FTX has an anvil sampling head for easier sampling and decontamination. The self-contained anvil prevents chemical entrapment and contamination of operators or subsequent samples. The anvil rotates for clear visibility and easy sampling when users wear protective gear.

Sieger said lab-proven techniques can now be used in the field by personnel with little or no scientific training. In the future, CBRN equipment will become smaller and even easier to use. “For example, equipment can be used to identify explosives precursors such as those tracked by Program Global Shield.” In addition, Sieger sees continued improvements in mixture analysis and instruments that exploit improvements in computers for faster results.

Progress is also coming on essential components of detec-tors. Using carbon nanotube (CNT) chemiresistors, Design West Technologies has developed a multi-agent detection system that is compact, low cost and robust, said President Ryan Hur. CNT-based sensors can detect and identify TICs and CWAs at or less than OSHA exposure limits within 10 seconds after exposure to vapor. The firm has developed detection algorithms and studied perfor-mance after exposure to 16 TICs, including hydrogen cyanide and

cyanogen chloride, and several CWAs. Its systems generate alarms within four to 25 seconds.

“Our CNT-based sensors have enhanced sen-sitivity, selectivity and fast response time and are extremely cost effective, compact and easy to inte-grate with other systems,” Hur stressed. They con-sume little power and can be operated for long hours on a small battery. These characteristics make CNT tools attractive for handheld, autonomous and remote detection.

The Design West executive lauded CNT’s superior selectivity and sensitivity, accurate algorithms, low

cost due to simplicity and ease of training and use. The company is now focusing on miniaturizing its technology

and fabricating CNT sensors on smaller or flexible substrates. Hur wants to minimize the footprint of his CNT platform and translate it to a portable or wearable system capable of detecting target threats and reporting their positions, date, time and estimate of severity. He is looking at fabricating sensors with low-cost ink-jet printing by putting CNT on plastic substrates. The challenge here is the design of optimal electrodes. He also wants to incorporate wireless commu-nication into his sensor platform. O

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Chris Petty


Back in late March and early April, National Guard units from Washington, Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska converged on a remote part of Alaska for a most unusual observance.

The units were there to mark the 50th anniversary of one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded—a 9.5 temblor that took place in a remote part of our largest state. The combination of weather, terrain and magnitude of the quake, all in a location so remote it is accessible even today only by air and dog sled, made this one of the most chal-lenging environments in which first responders have ever performed.

The units went all out as if the earthquake had occurred again. They deployed their civil support teams, their fatality search and recovery teams, and their chemical, biological, radiation and nuclear (CBRN)-enhanced response force packages, which include Air National Guard medical teams. They erected 1-, 2- and 3-line decontamination shelters, a command and control shelter, purifiers and powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) that enabled rescuers to work for hours in masks and full-body covering.

The equipment for these units came from a number of suppliers and the users from a number of organizations and training regimens. But most of the shelters were up in fewer than three minutes, and all were up fewer than 10 and operating in fewer than 15. And the equip-ment—the shelters, purifiers, flooring, respirators and decontamina-tion supplies—all worked seamlessly.

That’s because although different firms in the CBRN response field bring different attributes to the table—better filters, new and more effective fabrics for the shelters, more comfort-able and less claustrophobic masks—the watchwords for all are the same: interoperability, speed, and maxi-mum protection for first responders and/or soldiers in the field.

“Generally, there is a network of shelter manufac-turers, and all have general fabrication know-how,” said Peter Kirk, market manager for Saint-Gobain Per-formance Plastics Corp., a worldwide manufacturer of materials, including chemical protective fabrics, with its U.S. base is in New Hampshire. “Our shelter materi-als have been designed so that anyone can fabricate with it. It was important for us to consider existing fabrication equipment and processes so that these products can be produced into shelters by others—ultimately giving those who need chemical protective shelters the best access to this equipment.”

Indeed, just within the National Guard, there are literally dozens of responding organizations. There are 57 civilian response teams—one in every state, the District of Columbia and most U.S. territories. These units, with 22 people each, deploy within three hours of an inci-dent and are trained to detect and identify threats. Then, if a CBRN

situation exists, one of the 17 CBRN-Enhanced (CBRN-E) units, with 186 members each, deploys within six hours. These units are trained and equipped to perform search and rescue, decontamination, emer-gency medical attention and fatality recovery.

They are followed by a homeland response force unit. There are 10 of these, and each consists of 577 people. In addition to the tasks performed by CBRN-E units, they can provide logistical support, command-and-control and enhanced treatment, detection and medi-cal care.

A federal level exists on top of this. The defense CBRN response force can bring 2,000 people to the task within 24 hours and another 3,200 within 48 hours.

Regardless of the teams in place, when CBRN response is requested, time is short and pressure is high. An event has occurred—a train wreck involving dangerous chemicals, a storm, an earthquake, a chemical, biological or nuclear attack, or terrorist incident. And rapid response is critical. Most of the damage done by these airborne killers occurs in the first few minutes after an incident.

It is imperative that shelters and decontamination systems can be erected quickly and units from multiple organizations can deploy simultaneously and work in concert. The work can be long and hot (or cold) and exacting, and the equipment must be rugged and durable and equal to the task. The National Guard seeks to have CBRN tents assembled, floored and up and running with purified air and a toxin-free environment within 15 minutes—most of the tents themselves

can be erected in two minutes or less—and to have its units capable of decontaminating and supplying medical triage as necessary for 120 people per hour.

Most of the major firms in the field produce the full range of CBRN response equipment—from the quickly-erected shelters to PAPRs to decontamination showers to water management systems to mobile command-and-control facilities. They make purifiers and filters, bladders and pumps, and suits and masks. And they do it all with the goal of keeping the footprint light and small, the equipment portable and durable, and the response quick and nimble.

Response generally falls into two categories: mili-tary and civilian. In military environments, the threat may be ongo-ing, the area in danger large and undefined and the duration of the attack unknown. Personnel untrained in CBRN work may handle evacuation and limited treatment at field hospitals, which themselves could be in the hot zone, and neither the victims nor those driving transport vehicles have been decontaminated.

Victims in this scenario are brought to a collected protection envi-ronment, one in which a shelter has been established and groups can

designing shelter systems for CBrn sCenArios.

Peter Kirk

By BriAn mCniColl, Cgf Correspondent


work to evaluate, treat and decontaminate victims. They are decon-taminated first, then sent through an airlock to the protected area.

In events occurring in civilian environments, such as terrorist attacks or chemical or nuclear accidents, the location, boundaries and duration of the incident are known. Victims are processed in the field at a mass field casualty decontamination station. They are then carried to evacuation vehicles stationed outside the incident area and transported to shelters and treatment facilities located outside the con-taminated zone. In most cases, a secondary decontamination station operates near the hospital to treat those who evacuate themselves and to perform safety decontamination on those who may not have been decontaminated properly at the incident area.

Advances in a variety of areas have increased efficiency and reduced costs. Saint-Gobain, for instance, produces a fluoropolymer barrier film that it says provides the most extreme resistance to heat, chemi-cal contact and chemical permeation. The company’s unique films are effective at preventing permeation of a broad range of chemicals because of an inherent inertness that enables the barrier to maintain its properties regardless of chemical contact. This film is embed-ded within a composite fabric construction that Saint-Gobain calls Coretech, and is used to make shelters and other chemical protective gear. It is so effective, said Kirk, that shelters no longer need to be made with chemical protective liners. This one layer of protection is designed to operate and provide safety for up to 10 years.

“Most of the time, shelters are constructed from traditional non-chemical protective materials. But then to be chemical protective, a separate liner must be deployed inside,” Kirk said. “That means you need more time to assemble the shelter, and during that time, responders risk exposure. Additionally, this system requires a com-plexity of logistics from procurement, transportation, and set-up in the field. What we have is a single-skin technology—the only one cur-rently approved for use by the U.S. military. You set up the shelter and you are ready to go. The material offers all the protection you need.”

The applications are numerous, Kirk said. Saint-Gobain’s Coretech materials could be used to bring chemical and biological collective protection to the battlefield. Trucks could be outfitted with easily deployed Coretech-based shelters, enabling a soft-shelter system to be deployed and victims to be safely treated almost immediately. “Before, this was just too costly for outfitting all of the military,” he said. “But it’s not anymore.”

Saint-Gobain’s material keeps dangerous chemicals out, but what about the air within? That is the specialty of HDT Global, an Ohio-based firm that has established itself as an industry leader in filters and air systems for collective protection environments, as well as fixed-site, mobile and individual needs.

Its technology revolves around a two-stage filtration system. The first stage is a high-efficiency particle arrestor (HEPA) filter, which removes toxic hazards in the form of solids, such as particles, liquids or aerosols. This stage removes bacteria, spores, viruses and toxins, as well as radioactive fallout, chemicals in the form of dust or those carried by dust or liquid droplets and aerosols—most hazards, that is, except those in the form of vapor or gas.

The second stage is a chemical adsorber, which removes hazard-ous chemicals from the air via a set of chemical interactions between the hazard and the adsorber material or media. The adsorber could be tailored for one agent, a family of agents or a wide range of agents by applying additives to the media or other technology. The military, which faces the most diverse set of threats, employs filters equipped to absorb the widest variety of chemicals.

The response also is geared to the size of the toxic-free area to be established. These can be as small as one-lane temporary shelters or as large as entire hospitals. The larger the area, the more that must be done to protect against leaks, provide filtered air and come up with the electricity necessary to power the operation. The smaller, the better.

“Of course, the important point is that not all adsorbers or media are the same,” said Robin Stefanovich of HDT Global. “Not all carbon-based filters are alike. Nor do they all have the same efficiency or capac-ity. It is important to tailor the capabilities to the mission.”

No matter the size of the incident or where it occurs, it is likely a National Guard unit will respond. And it is likely the members of that unit will be equipped with a “National Guard kit” from Immediate Response Technologies (IRT), a veteran-owned firm in Glenn Dale, Md. Some 13,000 of these kits—which include a mask that protects the face, eyes and gastrointestinal tract against chemical and biologi-cal agents and air canisters and provides a constant flow of cool air so rescuers can work intensely for long periods—have been placed with National Guard units nationwide. The firm plans to upgrade these kits with a new product within months.

There also is a good chance that a National Guard responder will operate in an IRT-made decontamination shelter. At the joint National Guard exercise in Alaska, units deployed 3-line decontamination sys-tems, command-and-control tents, individual decontamination show-ers and S-9 facilities—20-by-20-foot cubes that can become miniature hospitals almost on demand.

IRT also offers a variety of ancillary equipment. It sells floor risers or flooring that can be snapped together almost as quickly as a shelter can be erected with its patented articulating frame. In addition, IRT offers water heaters, lighting systems, HVAC equipment, power gen-erators and distribution equipment, water pumps, water bladders from 50 gallons of capacity to 50,000, anchoring systems, such as stakes, sand bags and water bladders, and basins, berms and repair kits.

“It’s all plug and play,” said Gary Hall, a marketing manager with IRT. “We could have anyone from a mayor to a governor to a president deploying units. You have to be able to accommodate everyone.”

Responders do not get to choose their environment, particularly those in the military. That’s why Utilis, a Florida-based firm, specializes in rapidly-deployable soft shelters that can stand up to the harshest of conditions. Its 600-square-foot shelter can be set up in three to five minutes by four people. It has an internal liner and integrated electri-cal outlets and air conditioning pre-installed.

But this is no ordinary tent. In tests at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, it sustained 55-mile-per-hour winds for 30 minutes with three 10-sec-ond bursts of 65-mile-per-hour winds. It took on rain at the rate of two inches per hour for 30 minutes and 10 pounds of snow per square foot for 12 hours. And it did all this even after having been pitched, taken down and pitched again 50 times.

It is never good when CBRN units are deployed. It means people are suffering, and fast action is required. It is good to know the play-ers in this field have responded to the need for interoperability, for speed, for durability and for quality. Each firm has its own niche, but all understand the mission requires that all responders everywhere be able to use their equipment.

“We have just one goal,” said Hall. “We want to make sure as many people as possible return to their families, healthy.” O




American Science and Engineering Inc. (AS&E), a worldwide supplier of innovative X-ray detection solutions, has introduced the Mini Z, the world’s first handheld Z Backscatter imaging scanner for fast, portable, real-time detection of hidden organic threats such as drugs, contraband, plastic guns, ceramic knives and explosives. Designed for law enforcement, first responders, border control, event security, maritime police and general aviation security, the Mini Z system’s single-sided imaging and compact size offers unsurpassed operational flexibility—scanning effectively “on the go” in the hardest-to-reach environments.

“Leveraging the breakthrough capabilities of our Z Backscatter detection technology, the Mini Z system is AS&E’s initial offering of what will be a family of portable backscatter prod-ucts,” said Chuck Dougherty, AS&E’s president and CEO. “We have taken the technology behind the success of the ZBV system and miniaturized it—making it more affordable and accessible to a broader range of customers. The Mini Z system is a game-changer for law enforcement and border security officials who are constantly chal-lenged to quickly and accurately detect potential threats in hard-to-reach environments as they work to ensure the highest level of public safety.”

Handheld Backscatter Imaging Scanner

Handheld Group, a manufacturer of rugged mobile computers and smartphones, and Spillman Technologies Inc., a public safety soft-ware provider, have announced the compatibility of the Handheld Algiz 10X ultra-rugged tablet computer and Spillman Technologies mobile software.

The Algiz 10X can withstand tough weather elements and harsh handling, and its large,

10.1-inch touchscreen provides the best screen visibility on the market. Spillman Technologies offers more than 40 software modules, enabling public safety agencies to completely customize an integrated software system. Spillman’s Mobile suite of products, which include Mobile Driver License Scanning, Mobile Records and Mobile Voiceless Computer-Aided Dispatch, among others, were designed for easy access to informa-tion in the field.

“The Algiz 10X is perfectly suited for agen-cies that need a rugged tablet computer that is lightweight and built to withstand the harsh conditions that come with all kinds of

public safety fieldwork,” said Danny Adams, business development manager at Handheld

US. “Coupling it with Spillman mobile software modules provides the best of both worlds: leading,

proven software together with a tablet tough enough to meet their demands.”

The Algiz 10X is IP65-rated and meets stringent MIL-STD-810G military standards for protecting against dust, water, vibrations, drops and extreme temperatures. It is lightweight at just 2.9 pounds, and is only 1.2 inches thick. The tablet—which runs Windows 7 Ultimate—oper-ates on a powerful dual-core processor, offering top-of-the-line computing capability, and the 128 GB SSD disk is expandable via microSD for massive storage capacity. “Our customers rely on our mobile software modules to access critical information in the field,” said Brian Pugh, product line manager at Spillman Technologies. “The Algiz 10X is an ideal device to run Spillman software because it offers the complete ruggedness and mobility that public safety agencies require.”

Rugged Tablet

Airbus Defense and Space Inc. recently hosted a successful demonstration of its SONEX-P threat detection system to representa-tives of major international airports, homeland security agencies, and federal, state and local law enforcement organizations. Attendees included representatives of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Pennsylvania State Police, Virginia State Police and the Domestic Nuclear Defeat Organization.

During the demonstration, which was held at the Airbus Group storage facility, SONEX-P accurately detected and identified a range of hidden explosive threats—each in a single scan.

What sets SONEX-P apart is its combina-tion of neutron technology with 3-D imaging, enabling faster threat detection and more accu-rate views of a threat compared to X-ray-based detection devices. The system’s 3-D imaging capa-bility and laptop interface allows first responders to interrogate suspicious packages from a safe distance without handling them. The system soft-ware is fully customizable and can be optimized to detect other emerging chemical, nuclear and radiological threats.

SONEX-P eliminates the need for lengthy training to interpret readings. The device does all the work—signaling a live threat with a red light on its console and a non-threat condition with a green light.

“SONEX-P is automatic detection of threats,” said Michael Cosentino, president of Airbus Defense and Space Inc.

“The SONEX-P system represents the future of threat detection—faster results, clearer views of the threat, and a greatly improved degree of safety for first responders and explosives techni-cians,” he added.

Weighing about 50 pounds, SONEX-P is light-weight, and comprised of only two elements—a man-portable detection head and a companion laptop computer—that work in tandem to iden-tify, detect and discriminate chemical, radio-logical, nuclear or explosive threats located in parcels, luggage, ordnance or abandoned bags.

Handheld Threat Detection Device


Compiled by KMI Media Group staffon tHe HoriZon

SeNioR LeADeRSHiP of StAte eMeRGeNCy MANAGeMeNt AND ReSPoNSe

2014

Senior LeaderShip of State emergency management and reSponSe

Alabama Emergency Management AgencyArt FaulknerDirector5898 County Rd. 41Clanton, Alabama 35046-2160(205) 280-2476www.ema.alabama.gov/

Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency ManagementJohn MaddenDirectorP.O. Box 5750Fort Richardson, Alaska 99505-5750(907) 428-7000www.ak-prepared.com

American Samoa Territorial Emergency Management CoordinationAmerican Samoa GovernmentP.O. Box 1086Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799(011)(684) 699-6415

Arizona Division of Emergency ManagementWendy Smith-ReeveDirector5636 E. McDowell Rd.Phoenix, Arizona 85008-3495(602) 244-0504www.dem.azdema.gov

Arkansas Department of Emergency ManagementDavid MaxwellDirectorBldg. 9501Camp Joseph T. RobinsonNorth Little Rock, Arkansas 72199-9600(501) 683-6700www.adem.arkansas.gov

California Emergency Management AgencyMark S. GhilarducciDirector3650 Schriever Ave.Mather, California 95655(916) 845-8506www.calema.ca.gov

Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency ManagementDepartment of Public SafetyKevin R. KleinDirector9195 E. Mineral Ave., Ste. 200Centennial, Colorado 80112(720) 852-6600www.dhsem.state.co.us

Connecticut Office of Emergency ManagementDepartment of Emergency Management and Homeland SecurityDora B. SchriroCommissioner25 Sigourney St., 6th Flr.Hartford, Connecticut 06106-5042(860) 256-0800www.ct.gov/demhs/

Delaware Emergency Management Agency165 Brick Store Landing Rd.Smyrna, Delaware 19977(302) 659-3362www.dema.delaware.gov

District of Columbia Emergency Management AgencyChris T. GeldartDirector2720 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., S.E.Second Flr.Washington, D.C. 20032(202) 727-6161dcema.dc.gov

Florida Division of Emergency ManagementBryan W. KoonDirector2555 Shumard Oak Blvd.Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2100(850) 413-9969www.floridadisaster.org

Georgia Emergency Management AgencyCharley EnglishDirector935 East Confederate Ave. SEAtlanta, Georgia 30316-0055(404) 635-7000www.gema.state.ga.us

Guam Homeland Security/Office of Civil Defense221B Chalan PalasyoAgana Heights, Guam 96910Tel:(671) 475-9600Fax:(671) 477-3727http://www.guamhs.org/

Hawaii Emergency Management AgencyMaj. Gen. Darryll D. M. WongDirector3949 Diamond Head Rd.Honolulu, Hawaii 96816-4495(808) 733-4300www.scd.hawaii.gov

Idaho Bureau of Homeland SecurityBrig. Gen. William B. “Brad” RichyDirector4040 Guard St., Bldg. 600Boise, Idaho 83705-5004(208) 422-3040www.bhs.idaho.gov/

When confronted with a catastrophe, whether natural or man-made, the first responders will almost always be local. From town and county law enforcement to firefighters and EMTs, they are on-scene first. Depending on the intensity of the crisis, these local resources may require additional help. If so, they will turn to the state agency that can add resources and provide a more direct pipe-line to federal options.

Each state incorporates the responsibilities for emergency response differently. However, each state’s overall mission is simi-lar and may be typified by the mission statement of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency/Homeland Security: “GEMA’s mission is to provide a comprehensive and aggressive all-hazards approach to homeland security initiatives, mitigation, prepared-ness, response, recovery and special events in order to protect life and property and prevent and/or reduce negative impacts of terror-ism and natural disasters in Georgia.”

U.S. Coast Guard & Border Security has compiled a quick, easy-to-use reference guide of state-level response agencies on the other end of the line for local jurisdictions. It includes the name of each organization—in alphabetical order by state—along with its current leader, address and contact details. Pull it out and keep it handy!


Illinois Emergency Management AgencyJonathon E. MonkenDirector2200 S. Dirksen Pkwy.Springfield, Illinois 62703(217) 782-2700www.iema.illinois.gov

Indiana Department of Homeland SecurityJohn H. HillExecutive DirectorIndiana Government Center South302 West Washington St., Room E208Indianapolis, Indiana 46204-2767(317) 232-3986www.in.gov/dhs/emermgtngpgm.htm

Iowa Department Homeland Security & Emergency ManagementMark SchoutenDirector7900 Hickman Rd., Ste. 500Windsor Heights, Iowa 50324(515) 725-3231www.homelandsecurity.iowa.gov

Kansas Division of Emergency ManagementMaj. Gen. Lee TafanelliDirector2800 S.W. Topeka Blvd.Topeka, Kansas 66611-1287(785) 274-1409www.kansastag.gov/kdem_default.asp

Kentucky Emergency ManagementMichael DossettDirectorEOC Building100 Minuteman Pkwy. Bldg. 100Frankfort, Kentucky 40601-6168(502) 607-1682www.kyem.ky.gov/

Louisiana Office of Emergency PreparednessKevin DavisDirector7667 Independence Blvd.Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70806(225) 925-7500www.gohsep.la.gov/

Maine Emergency Management AgencyBruce FitzgeraldDirector#72 State House Station45 Commerce Dr., Ste. 2Augusta, Maine 04333-0072(207) 624-4400www.maine.gov/mema

CNMI Emergency Management OfficeOffice of the GovernorCommonwealth of the Northern Mariana IslandsP.O. Box 10007Saipan, Mariana Islands 96950(670) 322-9529www.cnmiemo.gov.mp

National Disaster Management OfficeOffice of the Chief SecretaryP.O. Box 15Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands 96960-0015(011)(692) 625-5181

Maryland Emergency Management AgencyKenneth MalletteDirectorCamp Fretterd Military Reservation5401 Rue Saint Lo Dr.Reisterstown, Maryland 21136(410) 517-3600www.mema.state.md.us/

Massachusetts Emergency Management AgencyKurt N. SchwartzDirector400 Worcester Rd.Framingham, Massachusetts 01702-5399(508) 820-2000www.state.ma.us/mema

Michigan State Police Emergency Management & Homeland Security DivisionMichigan Dept. of State PoliceCapt. Chris A. KelenskeCommander4000 Collins Rd.Lansing, Michigan 48909-8136(517) 333-5042www.michigan.gov/emhsd

National Disaster Control OfficerFederated States of MicronesiaP.O. Box PS-53Kolonia, Pohnpei - Micronesia 96941(011)(691) 320-8815

Minnesota Homeland Security and Emergency Management DivisionMinnesota Dept. of Public SafetyKris EideDirector444 Cedar St., Ste. 223St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-6223(651) 201-7400www.hsem.state.mn.us

Mississippi Emergency Management AgencyRobert LathamDirectorP.O. Box 5644Pearl, Mississippi 39288-5644(601) 933-6362www.msema.org

Missouri Emergency Management AgencyRon WalkerDirector2302 Militia Dr.Jefferson City, Missouri 65102(573) 526-9100sema.dps.mo.gov

Montana Division of Disaster & Emergency ServicesEd TinsleyAdministrator1956 Mt Majo St.Fort Harrison, Montana 59636-4789(406) 324-4777www.montanadma.org/disaster-and-emergency-services

Nebraska Emergency Management AgencyBryan TumaAssistant Director1300 Military Rd.Lincoln, Nebraska 68508-1090(402) 471-7421www.nema.ne.gov

Nevada Division of Emergency ManagementChris SmithChief2478 Fairview Dr.Carson City, Nevada 89701(775) 687-0300www.dem.state.nv.us/

New Hampshire Division of Homeland Security and Emergency ManagementPerry PlummerDirectorState Office Park South33 Hazen Dr.Concord, New Hampshire 03305(603) 271-2231www.nh.gov/safety/divisions/bem

New Jersey Office of Emergency ManagementLt. Col. Christian SchulzAssistant State DirectorRiver Rd.West Trenton, New Jersey 08628-0068(609) 882-2000 ext. 2700www.ready.nj.gov

New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency ManagementGregory A. MyersCabinet Secretary13 Bataan Blvd.Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502(505) 476-9600www.nmdhsem.org/


New York State Emergency Management OfficeJerome M. Hauer, Ph.D.Commissioner1220 Washington Ave.Bldg. 22, Ste. 101Albany, New York 12226-2251(518) 292-2275www.dhses.ny.gov/oem/

North Carolina Division of Emergency ManagementMichael SprayberryDirector1636 Gold Star Dr.4236 Mail Service CenterRaleigh, North Carolina 27607-3371(919) 825-2500www.ncem.org/

North Dakota Department of Emergency ServicesGreg WilzDirectorP.O. Box 5511Bismarck, North Dakota 58506-5511(701) 328-8100www.nd.gov/des

Ohio Emergency Management AgencyNancy DraganiExecutive Director2855 West Dublin-Granville Rd.Columbus, Ohio 43235-2206Office: (614) 889-7150www.ema.ohio.gov/

Oklahoma Department of Emergency ManagementAlbert AshwoodDirector2401 Lincoln Blvd., Ste. C51Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73105(405) 521-2481www.ok.gov/oem/

Oregon Emergency Management, Department of State PoliceDavid A. StuckeyDirector3225 State St.Salem, Oregon 97309-5062(503) 378-2911www.oregon.gov/omd/oem/index.shtml

Palau NEMO CoordinatorOffice of the PresidentP.O. Box 100Koror, Republic of Palau 96940(011)(680) 488-2422(011)(680) 488-3312

Pennsylvania Emergency Management AgencyGlenn M. CannonDirector2605 Interstate Dr.Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17110-9463(717) 651-2001www.pema.pa.gov

Puerto Rico Emergency Management AgencyMiguel A. Ríos TorresDirectorP.O. Box 966597San Juan, Puerto Rico 00906-6597(787) 724-0124www2.pr.gov/directorios/pages/infoagencia.aspx?prifa=021

Rhode Island Emergency Management AgencyJamia R. McDonaldExecutive Director645 New London Ave.Cranston, Rhode Island 02920-3003(401) 946-9996www.riema.ri.gov

South Carolina Emergency Management DivisionKim StensonDirector2779 Fish Hatchery Rd.West Columbia, South Carolina 29172(803) 737-8500www.scemd.org/

South Dakota Division of Emergency ManagementKristi TurmanDirector118 West CapitolPierre, South Dakota 57501(605) 773-3231www.oem.sd.gov

Tennessee Emergency Management AgencyDavid PurkeyInterim Director3041 Sidco Dr.Nashville, Tennessee 37204-1502(615) 741-0001www.tnema.org

Texas Division of Emergency ManagementW. Nim KiddAssistant Director5805 N. LamarAustin, Texas 78773-0220(512) 424-2138www.txdps.state.tx.us/dem/

Utah Division of Emergency Services and Homeland SecurityKris J. HamletDirector1110 State Office BuildingSalt Lake City, Utah 84114-1710(801) 538-3400www.des.utah.gov

Vermont Emergency Management AgencyJoe FlynnDirectorWaterbury State Complex103 South Main St.Waterbury, Vermont 05671-2101(802) 244-8721www.dps.state.vt.us/vem/

Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management2-C Contant, A-Q BuildingVirgin Islands 00820(340) 774-2244

Virginia Department of Emergency ManagementCurtis BrownChief Deputy10501 Trade Ct.Richmond, Virginia 23236-3713(804) 897-6500www.vaemergency.com/

State of Washington Emergency Management DivisionRobert EzelleDirectorBldg. 20, M/S: TA-20Camp Murray, Washington 98430-5122(253) 512-7000www.emd.wa.gov/

West Virginia Office of Emergency ServicesJames J. GianatoDirectorBldg. 1, Room EB-80 1900 Kanawha Blvd., EastCharleston, West Virginia 25305-0360(304) 558-5380www.dhsem.wv.gov/

Wisconsin Emergency ManagementBrian M. SatulaAdministrator2400 Wright St.Madison, Wisconsin 53707-7865(608) 242-3232www.emergencymanagement.wi.gov/

Wyoming Homeland SecurityGuy CameronDirector5500 Bishop Blvd.Cheyenne, Wyoming 82009(307) 777-4900http://hls.wyo.gov

Senior LeaderShip of State emergency management and reSponSe


AtHoc Inc., a provider of network-centric interactive crisis communica-tion, has announced the Navy has renewed its contract with AtHoc through 2017 for a total award of $9.2 million. The renewal reflects the Navy’s continued trust and use of AtHoc IWSAlerts for unified emergency mass notifications to protect the safety of Navy personnel stationed throughout the world.

AtHoc’s system supports the Navy’s effort to protect its most valu-able assets—the sailors, as well as government, civilian and contractor personnel—from external and internal threats. As part of the three-year contract, AtHoc will continue to serve the Navy and its more than 375,000 personnel throughout 96 bases globally by providing the same advanced critical communications platform used successfully during numerous crisis situations, including last year’s Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., shooting inci-dent. AtHoc’s ability to serve a very large, geographically dispersed enterprise, as well as its mobility capabilities, security, reliability and commitment to superb customer service, are some of the key reasons for its continued successful relationship with the Navy.

“We are honored by the continued confidence that the Navy has placed in AtHoc’s solutions for its personnel safety and security needs,” said Dave Brown, vice president, AtHoc Defense and Intelligence Group. “The nature of the work by naval personnel requires us to constantly push the envelope in innovating and developing the most advanced, secure and reliable platform

for interactive crisis communication. This same commitment carries over to the customers we have in the Army, the Marines and the Air Force.”

“The Navy’s private enterprise cloud deployment of AtHoc’s Interactive Warning System on both the Navy Marine Corps Intranet and OCONUS Navy Enterprise Network validates the security, scalability and effectiveness of this critical life safety system,” said Jeff Hoyle, AtHoc’s director of technology and Navy programs. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Navy and appreciate the trust and confidence this renewal represents.”

Lockheed Martin received a $69 million contract to support the U.S. Coast Guard’s efforts to enforce maritime sovereignty and address at-sea threats.

Through this contract received from Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), Lockheed Martin will provide the command, control, communica-tions, computers, intelligence, surveil-lance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system for the U.S. Coast Guard’s seventh national security cutter (NSC), the future USCGC Kimball.

Lockheed Martin’s C4ISR system offers comprehensive, real-time situ-ational awareness, commonality and interoperability, which enables

a greater collection and sharing of maritime data. It allows the crew to see vessels in distress or targets of interest; collaborate with other Coast Guard air, sea and land assets; and act on the most current information available.

“The NSC’s C4ISR system is crit-ical to ensuring the USCG can support the nation’s maritime strategy,” said Joe Buss, program director of Lockheed Martin’s Coast Guard and Mission Control Systems. “Our brave men and women of the Coast Guard rely on the accuracy and timeliness of the data our system provides to achieve their many missions and maritime operations.”

Unified Emergency Mass Notification System

NSC C4ISR SystemArktis Radiation Detectors has announced that it has received a

contract award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop the next generation of neutron detectors.

The innovative detectors proposed by Arktis should prove up to twice as sensitive and as little as one-tenth of the cost of the systems currently available without using Helium-3, which has very limited availability for non-medical applications. These benefits would give the technology multiple applications across the defense sector and beyond. The capabilities, cost profile and requirements established by DARPA will also address a broad range of applications sought by security agencies as they continue to seek greater effectiveness at lower cost for conducting comprehensive and ubiquitous screening for illicit radioactive and nuclear materials.

The competitive contract, awarded under DARPA’s SIGMA Program, contains an option valued at more than $1.2 million for the base year development phase, with the future global market for the new tech-nology expected to be worth millions of dollars.

Scientists at Arktis expect to start work on the project in July, and predict that their solution, if successful, could be in full production within three years.

Speaking on the award of the DARPA contract, Rico Chandra, CEO of Arktis Radiation Detectors, said, “We are extremely proud to be one of the companies selected by DARPA for a development phase contract for their SIGMA program. This award builds on our reputation for developing advanced state-of-the-art radiation detection systems. We are focused on delivering to DARPA a system that will provide a major step change in current capability.”

Neutron Detector


Compiled by KMI Media Group staffon tHe HoriZon

Protector of Those on the Sea, Threats from the Sea, and the Sea Itself

Pacific Guardian

Vice Admiral Charles W. RayCommander, Coast Guard Pacific

U.S. Coast Guard

Q&AQ&A

Vice Admiral Charles W. Ray assumed the duties of com-mander, Coast Guard Pacific Area in April 2014, where he serves as the operational commander for all U.S. Coast Guard missions within half of the world that ranges from the Rocky Mountains to the waters off the east coast of Africa. He concurrently serves as commander, Defense Force West, and provides Coast Guard mission support to the Department of Defense and combatant commanders.

Ray’s previous flag assignments include commander, Four-teenth Coast Guard District; service with U.S. Forces Iraq as director of the Iraq Training and Advisory Mission for the Ministry of Interior; and as the military advisor to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Ray is from Newport, Ark., and is a 1981 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy. After an assignment as a deck watch officer aboard Coast Guard cutter Acushnet (WMEC-167), he was selected for naval flight training and earned his wings in 1983.

Ray has served at six Coast Guard air stations from Alaska to the Caribbean. He was designated an aeronautical engineer in 1988 and has served as engineering officer at three stations and at the Aviation Logistics Center as the program manager for the develop-ment of the Coast Guard’s Aviation Logistics Management System. He commanded Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen, Puerto Rico, from 2002 through 2005. During the course of his career he accu-mulated over 5,000 hours of helicopter flight time.

Ray’s staff assignments include a tour as chief of the Office of Performance Management at Coast Guard Headquarters fol-lowed by a tour as the chief of staff of the Fourteenth Coast Guard District. He earned a Master of Science in industrial administra-tion from Purdue University and a Master of Science in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C.

Ray’s personal awards include five Legion of Merit Medals, one Bronze Star Medal, two Meritorious Service Medals, one Coast Guard Air Medal, three Coast Guard Commendation Medals and the Coast Guard Achievement Medal.

Q: What does Coast Guard Pacific Area look like? How much of your cutter fleet is forward deployed versus the numbers that operate closer to home?

A: The Coast Guard’s Pacific Area (PACAREA) is an expansive, diverse and challenging environment encompassing 74 million square miles from the west coast of the United States to the Far East, and from the Arctic to Antarctica. Our area of responsibil-ity includes two-thirds of the world’s oceans, 71 countries in six

of seven continents, and 61 percent of the world’s population. PACAREA also contains nine of the top 15 U.S. trading partners. More than 13,000 Coast Guard members, active duty, reservists, civilian and auxiliary members work within PACAREA.

Our primary missions in the Pacific Area are to protect those on the sea, our nation from threats delivered by the sea, and the sea itself. To execute those missions in the Pacific Area, we push out our borders and ensure safety on our waterways by conducting tactical operations in three discrete operational zones, which con-sist of operations more than 50 miles from shore, or the offshore zone; operations less than 50 miles from shore, or the coastal zone; and operations that directly impact the nation’s maritime transportation system, or the inshore zone. We have an intricate and efficient network of assets, authorities, and interagency and international partnerships that help us accomplish our missions in all zones.

For example, you may have a cutter patrolling for drugs off the coast of South America in the offshore zone; meanwhile, a port security advisor with the Coast Guard International Port Security Program could be working with a host nation nearby to increase security of their ports. This interconnected system uses overlap-ping authorities, jurisdiction and assets to ensure a safe and secure global maritime transportation system, and while we can’t divulge the number or location of deployed assets, our missions require


Coast Guard personnel, vessels and aircraft be deployed around the world and around the clock.

Q: What is your share of the new cutters coming online in the coming two years? Will you be exchanging cutters one-for-one or replacing numbers with capabilities?

A: The Coast Guard is replacing an aging fleet of cutters with fewer modern cutters. For example, the eight national security cutters, or NSCs, are replacing the 13 legacy high endurance cut-ters (WHECs) that have been in the fleet since the 1960s. Compare today’s technology with technology from 50 years ago, and yes, you will get more capability with fewer platforms. The new cutters are highly efficient; they do more with fewer crew members and with minimal impact on the environment.

Pacific Area, and Alameda specifically, received the first three national security cutters—the cutters Bertholf, Waesche and Stratton. The fourth NSC, Cutter Hamilton, just completed builder’s trials in Pascagula, Miss., and is scheduled to be en route to its new homeport of Charleston, S.C., later this fall. These highly versatile cutters conduct a host of operations from South America to the Bering Sea, where their unmatched combination of range, speed and ability to operate in extreme weather provides the mission flexibility necessary to conduct national defense, counter-narcotics, homeland security and alien migrant interdic-tion operations, domestic fisheries protection, search and rescue,

and other Coast Guard missions at great distances from shore, keeping threats far from the U.S. mainland.

The NSCs also operate differently than the legacy WHECs. For example, we plan to introduce a crew rotation concept for the NSCs in fiscal year 2018. This crew rotation concept means one cutter will have multiple crews and will be underway more often and maintain a more constant presence at sea. The crews will split their underway time, allowing our people to spend more time at home with their families and conduct training and professional development. This concept allows the platform to be more effec-tive by extending the time the cutter can conduct operations.

Q: Are you expecting any of the C-27J fleet to come your way?

A: With the upcoming transfer of the 14 C-27J aircraft from the Air Force, we are evaluating our entire fixed-wing fleet to determine the most effective use of aircraft resources and the best way to incorporate the C-27Js into our service.

At this point, we are still deciding where those airframes will be most beneficial to help address the current gap in our maritime patrol aircraft resources. The Coast Guard’s long-range patrol air-craft are critical to securing and protecting our nation’s maritime interests by providing critical intelligence, surveillance and recon-naissance to Coast Guard and interagency partners throughout our layered operational zones. They are essential to the early detection of threats to our global supply chain and precious natural resources,

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combating transnational criminal organiza-tions, resolving and mitigating national crises, and defending our nation.

The C-27J aircraft is a welcome force multiplier for our service and myriad mis-sions; however, we have to be strategic and deliberate in the aircraft’s deployment across our nation and integration into our aviation fleet to ensure its maximum effec-tiveness and safe operation.

Q: Has the recent decision not to move for-ward with a heavy icebreaker program—at least in the near term—affected the long range operational plan for your operations in the Arctic and Antarctica? Is there an announced service life on your existing ice-breaker fleet?

A: While the service remains committed to the acquisition of a new polar icebreaker, the current budget environment may require examining different options. The Coast Guard’s current position is that additional funding, from all government stakeholders, for a new icebreaker is necessary.

The Coast Guard’s present icebreaking fleet consists of two heavy icebreakers, the Polar Star and Polar Sea, and one medium icebreaker, the Healy. Both Polar Star and Polar Sea are beyond their planned service life; however, we recently completed an exten-sive overhaul of the Polar Star to extend its service life seven to 10 years. The Polar Sea is currently inactive and moored at Base Seattle. The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2012 prohibits our service from decommissioning the vessel.

This leaves us with two functional icebreaking platforms, Coast Guard cutters Healy and Polar Star, which are sufficient to address the Coast Guard’s icebreaking needs and missions in the Arctic and Antarctic for the next seven to 10 years. A couple of those missions include conducting and supporting scientific research and main-taining navigable waterways. For example, Polar Star participated in Operation Deep Freeze 2014 earlier this year by helping to resup-ply the National Science Foundation Scientific Research Station in McMurdo, Antarctica. The Coast Guard has been performing this mission for the past 50 years, and this was the first time since 2006 that the Polar Star has made this journey. Research in the polar regions helps our nation and humanity better understand polar environments and their vast resources; research is also focused on the broad implications of global climate change for our nation.

The Coast Guard is an integral part of ensuring this important research can be conducted by some of our nation’s top scientists in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Q: Former commandant Admiral Papp toured several Pacific Rim countries during his last year in command. Has there been any follow-up with those countries on closer ties and partnerships?

A: Admiral Papp was strengthening already close ties between the U.S. Coast Guard and our international partners on the Pacific Rim. Our mission success hinges on our ability to leverage robust, enduring and trusted partnerships with international agencies

throughout the Pacific Area. We continue to work closely with our international partners to improve our capability, effectiveness and creditability. These international partnerships provide increased situational awareness and act as a force multiplier in all of our operational zones.

We work with our partner countries on a regular basis to ensure unity of effort. Most notably, we foster important relationships dur-ing the annual North Pacific Coast Guard Forum, which was created in 2000 and will be hosted in San Francisco this year. The forum promotes information sharing and fosters international cooperative efforts relating to safeguarding international maritime commerce, stemming illegal drug trafficking, protecting fisheries and deterring human smuggling. The forum membership includes coast guards and other maritime organizations from Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States.

I also recently attended the kick off to Rim of the Pacific 2014, or “RIMPAC,” which is the world’s largest international maritime exercise. RIMPAC began in 1971 and is a unique training oppor-tunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea-lanes and security on the world’s oceans. The Coast Guard’s long-time partici-pation in RIMPAC highlights our service’s unique capabilities and partnerships with Department of Defense entities and international partners with equities in the Pacific Rim. Our involvement in the 2014 exercise demonstrates the Coast Guard’s growing leadership role in the Pacific, with the cutter Waesche acting as a task force commander leading a multinational naval fleet through a wide array of exercises and scenarios.

Q: This question involves your command’s role in monitoring the oil industry from pipelines, to tankers, to drill rigs. What equip-ment, gear and supplies are in readiness to immediately respond to an oil spill?

A: One of our primary missions is to protect the environment and our citizens, and the Coast Guard is always ready to respond to an incident whether it is an oil spill, hazardous substance release, or

Beautiful scenery masks the harshness that Alaska can deliver. This Air Station Kodiak HC-130 is taking part in a joint exercise with Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center, the City of Kodiak Fire Department, State of Alaska Department of Health and Human Services and the Air Force. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard/by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg]


weapons of mass destruction incident. However, our most impor-tant tools in environmental protection are planning and prevention. We have hundreds of marine inspectors in the Pacific Area diligently checking foreign and U.S. vessels and facilities for compliance with environmental and safety regulations.

In the Pacific Area, our industry stakeholders use a variety of methods for transporting hazardous and environmentally-sensitive products, which are heavily regulated and closely monitored by the Coast Guard and numerous federal, state and local partners. In the case of waterside facilities and vessel operators, the Coast Guard requires them to have plans in place that include safety protocol, emergency response procedures and regular crew training. We want to know what their plan is if an emergency, like an oil spill, should occur. This planning process includes identifying equipment, per-sonnel and resources to mitigate the effects of a hazardous material release. The Coast Guard carefully examines each plan prior to an emergency to ensure it is adequate, and if there is ever an incident, our service ensures they follow their plan for clean up and mitigation. The lion’s share of Coast Guard environmental protection missions occur in prevention and planning, which are hands down the most effective and practical ways of ensuring the safety and viability of our maritime transportation system.

If natural or man-made disasters occur, our forces are always ready to respond rapidly and effectively to protect our nation, mitigate the incident, minimize the impact and facilitate recovery. To do so, we have a number of resources and authorities available to immediately take action.

At the field level, we have Coast Guardsmen who are trained to immediately respond to oil and hazardous material spill incidents. These individuals are also empowered to immediately begin directing response personnel, assets, and operations as well as investigating the source and securing it. We also have a variety of assets and resources strategically prepositioned to counter a chemical or hazardous mate-rial release throughout the Pacific Area.

Regionally, each of our 225-foot sea-going buoy tenders carry the Spilled Oil Recovery System, or SORS, equipment aboard to respond to an oil spill. These cutters are strategically stationed throughout PACAREA.

At the national level, the Pacific Strike Team in Novato, Calif., one of three deployable specialized teams that make up the National Strike Force, responds to incidents throughout the Pacific Area of operations. Pacific Strike Team personnel are trained in equipment deployment, source control and removal of oil, shoreline assessment, site safety, incident management, salvage monitoring and liquid transfer, contractor and responsible party oversight, and are able to provide qualified federal on-scene coordinators. Some of the equip-ment they can deploy in response to an incident includes the vessel of opportunity skimming system, various types of containment and absorbent boom, damage assessment tools, and advanced monitoring equipment like fluorometers and datarams, which help responders closely monitor a hazardous material release and the progress of clean efforts.

Q: What are your organic maintenance and overhaul capabilities and how do you fill in the gaps in those and address your maintenance needs?

A: Locally, crews perform routine maintenance on the cutters, air frames and small boats to ensure mission readiness.

Overall, the Coast Guard’s logistics enterprise is nationally managed to provide parts and service. For instance, our bases provide one-stop shopping for all operations afloat and shore-side maintenance and logistics support. Each base falls under the Coast Guard’s deputy commandant for mission support organization at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Air stations receive their support from Aviation Logistics Command in Elizabeth City, N.C., and our cutters receive support from Surfaces Forces Logistics Command in Norfolk, Va. We don’t have a Coast Guard Yard on the West Coast, but to fill that gap, we contract dry dock times at local shipyards to perform maintenance.

Specific to Pacific Area at the moment, we have our national security cutter support team that provides assistance and support to these critical, long-range Coast Guard assets. The personnel assigned to this unit provide a force multiplier for the cutters, which allows us to quickly conduct maintenance and repairs that keep the national security cutters underway doing our nation’s important work.

Q: Does the Coast Guard have responsibility for monitoring and measuring water quality for radioactivity resulting from the Fukashima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan?

A: The Coast Guard is not responsible for monitoring and measur-ing water quality. With regards to radioactivity levels directly related to the Fukashima nuclear plant incident, there are state agencies and academic researchers who have taken this project on. Our

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main role has been to support the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is the lead agency directed to con-duct research, monitoring, prevention and reduction activities in regards to marine debris.

Q: PACAREA oversees the Deployable Operations Group. Is this a force size that is stable or is the group expected to increase in size? How can technology improve its capabilities?

A: The Deployable Operations Group, or DOG, was stood up in 2007 to solidify the commandant’s vision to align deployable forces under one operational commander. The DOG became the sole force manager for all Coast Guard deployable specialized forces. Its mission was to provide properly equipped, trained and organized adaptive force packages to the Coast Guard, Depart-ment of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and interagency operational and tactical commanders.

The DOG was dissolved in 2013 after the commandant directed an internal review of the service’s deployable specialized forces. The conclusion was that the DOG’s units and functions would better be supported if integrated back into the Coast Guard enterprise with operational and administrative control residing with the Pacific and Atlantic Area commanders.

With that decision, the maritime safety and security teams, strategically located throughout the nation, were regionalized and placed under their geographic area commander. At the same time, the port security units were realigned to the Pacific Area com-mander, and the tactical law enforcement teams and strike teams were assigned to the Atlantic Area commander.

In regards to expanding, in 2013 the Coast Guard made the decision to expand the dive program and implement a diver rating and diver chief warrant officer specialty. This expansion in the Coast Guard dive program will establish full-time professional divers and improve safety for the program on the whole while simultaneously providing a greater return on investment to the American public.

The Coast Guard’s deployable specialized forces are always look-ing for ways to increase proficiency and reduce risk. Technological advances provide opportunities to achieve this goal and improve efficiencies.

Q: How does your office coordinate with or simply ensure safe oper-ations of high seas fishing television shows like Deadliest Catch?

A: The Coast Guard’s primary concern as a whole is safety of life at sea, safety of people, and safety of the environment. All of the vessels that head out to sea, including the ones you see in television shows, must comply with Coast Guard safety regulations before getting underway.

The part of the world the vessel operates in [determines] what district will conduct the vessel’s inspections, and what district will answer the call for search and rescue operations as needed.

Q: Any closing thoughts?

A: The Coast Guard is a small service with big missions that impact nearly all facets of American life. The clothes Americans wear and the cars they drive are delivered via a maritime trans-portation system that the Coast Guard is charged with maintain-ing and protecting to ensure the continued prosperity, security and safety of our nation. Additionally, we have established a repu-tation as one of the world’s premier crisis response organizations. Our service regularly rises to meet ever-changing man-made and natural disasters which threaten our way of life and humanity. We are unparalleled as a humanitarian organization, and more than 1 million people owe their lives to the Coast Guard. Our success hinges on our most important resource—our people.

In my more 30 years of service, the quality, dedication and professionalism of our nation’s Coast Guard men and women never ceases to amaze me. The men and women of the Coast Guard are a unique and elite breed of U.S. servicemembers. They are quiet heroes who, on a daily basis, save lives, stop transna-tional criminals, protect the environment and fight our nation’s wars with little fanfare or attention. Most of them could care less if the local TV station is at the pier when they return home. They didn’t join the Coast Guard for attention or to be a hero.

They joined because what Coast Guard men and women do and stand for on and off duty. Simply put, the men and women of the Coast Guard live to protect, defend, save, and shield our nation, humanity and the environment against all threats. That’s a tall order for a military service about the size of the uniformed New York City Police Department. However, Coast Guard men and women are committed to excellence in all they do and live the Coast Guard’s core values, and because of that, our service will remain Always Ready to safeguard America’s security and prosperity no matter the threat. Our greatest strength has always been and will always continue to be our people.

Semper Paratus. O

The Kigluaik Mountains are visible in the distance with the Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the foreground breaking ice. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard/by Petty Officer 2nd Class Charly Hengen]


How often are navigators accus-tomed to seeing PD (position doubt-ful) or PA (position approximate) on their charts? In the Arctic, those notations are common, as well as charts covering vast areas of ocean with one or only a few lines of soundings. Judging the accuracy

and adequacy of charts and resolving how to best navigate on them is vital for polar navigators.

Chart title block information and information on survey dates informs the navigator about the method of survey used when that one precious line of soundings was developed. If the survey of a near-shore area was completed in the 1920s, for example, flags would have been set up on shore and positioning done using horizontal

sextant angles. In this instance, positioning the ship in relation to the closest points of land is far more likely to place you coincident to the soundings than any GPS position. Although having electronic charts can allow for integrated displays and enhanced safety, we must be cautious not to hide or eliminate data that is useful during the passage-planning and real-time navigation phases of the trip.

Knowing that a hazard has a PA from a survey in the 1950s may well require a safety margin of several miles, not cables, depending on several factors. Once again the navigator must scour the infor-mation at hand to determine the safest course of action.

The technological challenge is to keep the information available to the navigation team in a form and format that is easy to access and use. The electronic chart developers, while taking on a large and useful task, must consider how all of the data currently available is used for safely navigating poorly-charted areas of the Arctic.

Technological hurdles to safe navigation in the Arctic include integrity of communication and accuracy of position fixing. While there are purely terrestrial forms of communication that will work in the Arctic (VHF, MF/HF or SSB long-range radiotelephone), there are few satellite communications

devices with completely reliable performance available for north-ern latitudes. While SATCOMs will be more of interest generally for

business/office, shipboard LAN functions, “pure” safety concerns generally recommend that some form of satellite communication be available in the interests of redundancy to the line-of-sight and other means of radio transmission.

We can presume that the interests of crew welfare, so often remarked upon in other areas of commercial carriage, will remain in evidence in the Arctic. In the assumption that Arctic trade would expand to include ongoing, repetitive and possibly lengthy personnel assignments to these routes, a crewmember accustomed to everyday access to phone, email and Internet on more southern routes would likely feel entitled to the same benefits in the more

J Gallagher

With more emphasis on the Arctic, the level of commercial traffic and government survey and economic zone surveillance traffic will be increasing dramatically in the coming years. What are the technological hurdles that need to be addressed to close

the gaps in accurate navigation capabilities in the Arctic region? Coast Guard and Border Security recently asked several lead-ing industry experts for their views on these challenges and approaches to solving them.

A multitude of issues Come into plAy when trying to ACCurAtely mAneuver in ArCtiC wAters.

FurunoMatt WoodSales Manager, Furuno USA Inc.

Hammurabi ConsultingCaptain Jack Gallagher

SpeCial SeCtion


hostile environment up north. While not critical for safety per se, the availability of VSAT, fleet broadband and high throughput sat-ellite communications might prove essential to attract navigators and mariners experienced enough to ensure safe vessel operation.

Comparable to the challenges in satellite communications, the look angle at which many GPS satellites will be seen by shipborne equipment will likely result in some loss of position accuracy, which will become more pronounced as latitude increases. With-out a redundant satellite-based or terrestrially-based augmenta-tion system (SBAS or something like Differential GPS), we can

surmise that some vessels, especially those more poorly equipped, may experience some aggravated loss of situational awareness, which could present a threat to safety of navigation.

Echo-sounding and underwater mapping also present chal-lenges in the Arctic environment. Much work needs to be done to provide detailed sounding of areas previously fully covered (and still covered much of the year) in ice. While grounding seems an unlikely threat, little is known of Arctic underwater topography. Prudent mariners will likely want reliable depth sounding data on any navigation charts used in Arctic waters.

Northrop GrummanDavid BlevinsSystems Engineer, Navigation & Maritime Systems Division

SpeCial SeCtion

Indeed, environmental changes have been reducing the Arctic’s once-permanent ice cover. As Rear Admiral Jonathan White noted, “We’re grow-ing a new ocean.” As the capability for commercial ships to traverse Arctic routes grows, the importance of these routes for transport and for energy

exploration or access to other resources will drive up the level of com-mercial ship operation there.

Unfortunately, typical commercial navigation systems that pro-vide the full performance necessary for navigation at most locations simply may not work properly at Arctic latitudes. For example, if a radar is not designed for high-latitude operation, true trails of ships passing near the Pole displayed in a north-stabilized image may tend to rotate around the screen, in extreme cases creating a “washing machine effect” on the display.

Beyond 85 degrees latitude, Mercator projections are not consid-ered usable for navigation. Rhumb lines appear as straight lines on a Mercator projection map, but have a true geodetic path that gradu-ally spirals into the Pole. The same transformation would change the path of straight (great circle) tracks and the line of sight from visual bearings to be displayed as curves with significantly increasing non-linearity approaching the poles. At low latitudes, this divergence is of little consequence. Generally, beyond 70 degrees latitude the consequences become severe for all aspects of electronic charting, route planning and voyage execution. Also, at such latitudes the course of a vessel or true bearing of an object (the horizontal angle measured clockwise from true north) begins to lose useful meaning. Ship motion extrapolated into the future (a straight track along a great circle) does not follow a constant north-referenced bearing. Alternative systems of projection and coordinates specialized for polar regions have been established to correct this situation, but their use has not been standardized.

Commercial inertial navigation systems and gyrocompasses have operational issues at Arctic latitudes. These sensors character-ize the Earth’s rotation to accurately determine heading. As a ship approaches the pole, the magnitude of the Earth’s rotation is mini-mized and becomes much more difficult to sense. Consequently, the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) draft Polar Code mandates that ships proceeding beyond 80 degrees be fitted with at

least one GPS-based compass or equivalent. However, the IMO has specified minimum performance requirements only for latitudes up to 60 degrees, or 70 degrees for high-speed craft.

Deficiencies in commercially available navigation data for the Arctic region also pose a challenge to polar navigation. A recent International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS) review observed that, at present, few electronic navigation charts (ENCs) are available for polar waters in Navigation Purpose bands 3 through 6 (coastal, approach, harbor and berthing). And while modern commercial navigation radars exist which provide enhanced ice-detection capa-bilities, there is an unmet need for discrimination of different types of ice and no standards to define and verify that performance. The standardized display of ice area information on ECDIS and chart radar is a capability envisioned in the future, based on the IHO S-100 framework.

Today, the navigation systems in use by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard have been proven to provide the technological capabili-ties necessary to meet the challenges above. At Northrop Grumman, we have been in the forefront of implementing the unique capabilities required by the military for Arctic navigation, as developers of:

• AN/WSN7 and AN/WSN7A inertial navigation systems. These systems are the U.S. Navy programs of record for all surface combatant ships and all Virginia, Los Angeles and Sea Wolf class submarines, and are also used on each of the Coast Guard’s polar icebreakers.

• Voyage Management System, the U.S. Navy’s ECDISN program of record.

• VEGA, the new ECDIS to be deployed throughout the U.S. Coast Guard.

In the meantime, the leading standards organizations are work-ing diligently to define and implement the necessary standards to ensure safety of navigation in the Arctic. As a first step, IMO adopted initial Guidelines for Ships Operating in Polar Waters [Resolution A.1024(26)] in 2010. Northrop Grumman is sharing our experience in Arctic navigation to define and implement test requirements for high-latitude navigation in the newest updates to the specifications for navigation radar, ECDIS and the coming S-10x family of ENC and GIS products. O


By mitigAting the rough ride in smAll BoAts, Crew injury And fAtigue will Be reduCed As well.By peter BuxBAum, Cgf Correspondent

The latest generation of shock mitigat-ing seats for small boats has proved to be so good that it has produced a negative side effect. As crews become more comfortable, they push the boats harder, and the harder they push the boats, the more likely the boats develop issues.

A case in point: Seaspension received an order a couple of years ago for the delivery of shock mitigating seats for 35 air ice boats to be manufactured by Midwest Air Rescue for the U.S. Coast Guard. Unfortunately for the companies, the Coast Guard stopped the contract after one year.

Word on the street was that the Coast Guard wasn’t pleased with the boats, but Sea-spension did receive accolades for the seats.

“What we heard was that crewmembers were operating the vessels at much higher speeds than they were supposed to over ice and were damaging the boats,” said Peter Burer, president of Seaspension Technolo-gies Inc. “That was actually a compliment to us because if they didn’t have proper seating they wouldn’t have been able to operate the boats the way they did. The only feedback we heard about our products was that the crew-members thought they were great.”

The Coast Guard has a general require-ment that its new vessels be equipped with shock mitigating seats. The boat builder picks the seat that best matches his platform. In some cases, older craft have been retrofit-ted with newer shock mitigation seats.

The USCG Office of Boat Forces is the program office that oversees boats and crews. “We are responsible for the training and

professionalism of the crews,” said David Shepard, a USCG project officer. “On the boat side, we write requirements and specifica-tions for the boats. We don’t dictate the way to solve problems when we write the require-ments. The boat manufacturer chooses the seats that best fit its platform.”

Although Shepard thinks highly of the shock mitigating seats currently being pro-cured by the Coast Guard, the feedback he is getting indicates that there is still a possi-bility for the seats to bottom out, increasing the risk of crew injury, thanks, no doubt, to enhanced expectations the crew has from their vessels.

“The seats work well and isolate the crew from a majority of shocks,” said Shepard, “but it is still possible to for the seats to bot-tom out because the crew takes the boats to their limits.”

Shepard’s office is looking into the development and deployment of some mechanism that would provide feedback to the coxswain so that he or she knows how far the seats are from bottoming out or hurting a crewmember. “We are investigat-ing a green-amber-red [lighting] system,” he said. “The amber light would represent the cautionary zone and the possibility of an incident. The red light would indicate that there is a real possibility of someone get-ting hurt. We want to provide that feedback with a visual display so that the crew can make better judgments and prevent some-one from getting hurt.

“The coxswain may not be exceeding the limit of a seat for a small female,” Shepard

added. “But they may be reaching the limit for the 220-pound male sitting next to her. They won’t know that unless they are getting feedback.”

Shepard sees two options for providing the required feedback: with accelerometers or a linear measure of how far the seat is depressed. “We are trying to keep it simple,” he said. “Crews tend to move back and forth between positions in the boat. We don’t want to have a lot of customization that would require crewmembers to mess with dials every time they sit down. We just want them to be able to get in the boat and go.”

The USCG Office of Boat Forces is at a preliminary stage of this investigation. “We may write a requirement for this to be incorporated in all future seat acquisitions,” said Shepard. “We might also backfit such a system to existing seats ourselves.”

The Coast Guard is also looking at multi-axis shock mitigating seats. These seats would protect crews against side-to-side, as well as up-and-down, movements. “We are interested in all kinds of new technologies,” said Shepard, “but the process is also budget-driven. We don’t have an unlimited budget and it depends on what it costs.”

Meanwhile, Burer is in touch with a potential customer in India looking for side-impact absorption. “They want shock mitiga-tion not just on the z-axis but also on the x and y,” he said. “We have that in our single pedestal system. It is not a rigid pedestal, so it absorbs horizontal as well as vertical shocks.”

Shockwave offers such multi-axis protection in its patented system, noted

CGF 6.4 | 25 www.CGF-kmi.com

David Smith, the company’s president. “It’s important, because if I’m sitting vertical I can take a certain amount of shock and vibration with a single-axis system. But if I’m knocked sideways by a horizontal force, my body is leaning over in one direction. Now the body is out of alignment and that represents a danger to the spine if I’m again slammed from the top. The multi-axis sys-tem allows a crewmember to sit upright as it mitigates the side-to-side and fore-and-aft loads to the spine that are the most danger-ous,” he said.

Shockwave seating uses the Fox Float air spring suspension, a progressive-rate air spring with a speed-sensing damper mounted inside the air chamber made spe-cifically for Shockwave by Fox Defense. “The shock absorber automatically adjusts to changes in payload, air pressure and piston velocity to provide the correct dampening,” said Smith. “The Float suspension moves a minimal amount in relation to the vessel and the vessel controls, allowing seats to be mounted closer to instruments and con-trols.” Additional protections are provided by an extra volume canister, the Accuride Adjustment System, which allows the user to optimize the seat for his or her situation, and a backup system to provide additional protection against bottoming and topping.

“The first and most obvious benefit of the system is the improved ride dampen-ing it provides in multiple directions,” said Smith. “This takes shock mitigating seating to the next level as far as passenger comfort and in absorbing forces that can take the body out of position and cause injury.”

Multi-axis shock mitigating seating can present ergonomics issues because, as the seat moves in response to forces, the con-trols of the boat typically stay put. “The seat is traveling up and down as much as 8 inches while the controls remain in one location,” said Smith. “This causes crew-members to reach and stretch to access the controls and that makes their bodies vulnerable to falling out of a safe position. That is when injuries tend to occur.”

Shockwave has dealt with this problem by developing its integrated control envi-ronment (ICE). “ICE is all about bundling everything up, the seating, instruments and controls, and putting them all on the same platform,” said Smith. “It is much easier to see and operate controls and electronics because they move with the occupants. The crew can be comfortably packed into a tighter space. The close crew

proximity of the ICE provides a collabora-tive, high situational awareness, protected environment.”

The shock and vibration forces that the ICE is capable of absorbing are likely to cause problems with electronics and hard-ware, according to Smith. “However,” he added, “with everything in suspension they are fully protected along with the crew.”

ICE provides 16 inches of suspension travel in the vertical axis and 3 degrees of pitch and roll dampening. “Pitch and roll control filters out much of the side-to-side and fore-and-aft shock and vibration,” said Smith.

Smith took the ICE on an 8,000-mile journey through Canada’s Northwest Pas-sage in 2010, the first-ever crossing of the Northwest Passage in a rigid inflatable boat. Shockwave is now supplying the ICE multi-axis, suspended console to Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue on the west coast of Canada. U.S. Special Operations Command will be incorporating ICE into its newest boat, according to Smith.

“ICE is a customizable solution with seating for up to six persons,” said Smith. “Hard or soft sides can be added and the roof can be deleted if an open cockpit is required.”

Seaspension recently introduced a dual-damper shock mitigating seat that would accommodate crewmembers of diverse sizes and weights. “The dual-damper system will allow anywhere from the fifth percentile female by weight to the 95th percentile male to be seated and protected from shocks without the use of tools or any kind of adjustment,” said Burer. That would cover women as light as 100 pounds to men as heavy as 250 pounds.

Seaspension’s dual-damper system incorporates two independent shock absorbers to regulate those weights. “The mechanism in the damper responds directly to forces,” said Burer. “The seat can accom-modate different sizes of personnel on a variety of missions subjected to different sea states without having to adjust the damping mechanism.” Seaspension has sold a num-ber of these seats to the Indian Coast Guard.

Seaspension’s single-pedestal system is a technology that has changed little in the last 12 years. “We’ve heard from custom-ers who have gone through three engine changes but the single-pedestal system still works,” said Burer. One big advantage to the system, Burer added, is that it is much less expensive than some of its alternatives.

X-Craft, a Dutch company, builds seats with a patented wishbone shock mitigation system. The suspension system is provided by titanium wishbones instead of a sliding mechanism found on most other seats.

“The specially-built X-Craft shock absorber reduces the risk of injuries and means near zero maintenance,” said Sytse De Vlas, the sales director at X-Craft. “A fully adjustable spring tension and damp-ing depending on user’s weight provides correct shock mitigation. The foam used in the seats and backrests are built and shaped out of multiple layers providing the best comfort and support. Our ergonomic design enhances comfort, which is espe-cially important for endurance operations.”

One of X-Craft’s design philosophies is to produce seats that mitigate forward forces as well as vertical ones. “Especially on heavier boats, the forces tend to push occu-pants forward and less up and down,” said De Vlas. “We have developed a new system that we are incorporating in our new seats which reflects that same philosophy.”

X-Craft is currently developing a new seat that it plans on introducing later this year. “It is a completely new seat with many new features,” said De Vlas. “It is built from stainless steel; it is adjustable in every way you can imagine. The strike angle can be changed and the high position can be set to various heights. The seat can be adjusted for people of different heights and weights. The same seat can be used in small vessels and large ones.” X-Craft has been in discussions with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Navy about the acquisition of its new seats.

As for the Coast Guard, the seat feed-back issue remains front and center for those, like Dave Shepard, who concern themselves with the safety of crews. “The feedback issue is the thing we are looking at more than anything else,” he said. “We are also focused on improved shock mitigation. Anything we can get that is better would be great.

“There has been an amazing progres-sion in the improvement of shock mitigat-ing seats that we have seen in the last 10 to 15 years,” Shepard added. “Industry has responded well to the needs of our opera-tors. There is still more room to grow, but we’ve come a long way.” O




Calendar

September 9-10, 2014Fleet Maintenance & Modernization SymposiumVirginia Beach, Va.www.navalengineers.org

September 16-17, 2014U.S.-Canada Border ConferenceDetroit, Mich.www.beyond-border.com

September 16-18, 2014Global Identity SummitTampa, Fla.www.afcea.org

October 6-9, 2014Homeland Security WeekWashington, D.C.www.homelandsecurityexpo.com

November 19-20, 2014Launch & RecoveryLinthicum, Md.www.navalengineers.org

December 3-5, 2014International Workboat ShowNew Orleans, La.www.workboatshow.com

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Q: What are your primary business areas with the Homeland Security community?

A: Buffalo Computer Graphics Inc. (BCG) has four primary business areas—mari-time training solutions, incident manage-ment systems, mass notification systems, and custom hardware and software engi-neering. Our maritime simulation prod-ucts have been used by the U.S. Coast Guard since 1989 in both training and testing environments. Our incident man-agement software, DisasterLAN (DLAN), has been used in emergency operation centers (EOCs) internationally and at all divisions of government, including state and regional homeland security and emergency man-agement offices. It has also been used for cross-border exercises between the United States and Canada, particularly between longtime users Erie County, N.Y., and Niag-ara Region, Ontario.

Q: How have you adjusted your Depart-ment of Homeland Security-related busi-ness to maximize efficiencies and help keep costs down?

A: DLAN gives EOCs a cost-effective COTS solution that is also highly configurable and flexible. It is designed to work across multiple platforms, browsers and operat-ing systems. Its responsive design operates on virtually any mobile device, including iPhones, iPads, and Android and Windows devices, so organizations can use whatever technology they have available instead of needing to buy specific devices.

Since DLAN is modularly designed, an organization can pick only the functions they need and quickly scale up the solution if more functionality is necessary. DLAN offers both on-premise and hosted SAS solutions, allowing organizations to pick what works best for their needs and budget.

BCG works with DHS customers to understand their particular workflow and configures the software to fit in with their day-to-day operations. DLAN also includes an advanced system administration toolset that allows customers to tailor every aspect

of the product to meet the specific needs of their organization, even on the fly during an emergency. Being able to utilize the soft-ware not just in emergency situations but also in daily operations eliminates the need for multiple software packages, increasing efficiency while keeping costs down.

Q: How do you coordinate your business development efforts to make sure they match what the agencies within Depart-ment of Homeland Security are looking for?

A: DLAN was specifically designed with the needs of DHS in mind. It is built in line with the incident command system (ICS) methodology, operational processes and structure. It also supports National Incident Management System (NIMS)-type resources and is IPAWS, CMAS and MASAS interoper-able. DLAN staff are required to have been trained in the Incident Command System and National Response Framework through the ICS 800 level.

All of our maritime simulation products are designed around IMO/STCW require-ments to ensure that our DHS customers are trained in accordance with international and national standards.

BCG maintains a large in-house engi-neering staff tasked with continuous research and development to implement the quickly-changing technology and best practices of the DHS community.

Q: What do you see as major challenges over the next 12 months and how are you addressing them?

A: We foresee three major challenges over the next year: increasing use of mobile

devices, increasing importance of social media, and decreased staffing in EOCs.

BCG engineers go through an iterative development process to optimize our soft-ware for mobile devices and tablets, includ-ing implementing a responsive design and enhancing touchscreen capabilities.

Being able to view and analyze social media has become increasingly important during incidents. For example, the newest version of DLAN allows users to view, moni-tor and respond to tweets from specific Twit-ter accounts or ones that include a specific keyword or hashtag.

As budgets become tighter, EOCs have seen a decrease in staffing. BCG helps cus-tomers deal with decreased staff by pro-viding trained IMT support, just-in-time training and 24/7 technical support during activations.

As new challenges arise, BCG will con-tinue to advance our product offerings to meet the needs of the DHS community.

Q: Is partnering with other companies an important part of your business strategy?

A: Our business partners are a key compo-nent to our success. Our partners allow us to provide a full suite of incident manage-ment solutions, not just a software product, to help with all of the stages of emergency management: preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation. They also help us to provide increased services, including EOC design, risk and emergency planning, exercise/drill creation, and personnel and public claims adjustment and recovery. BCG also partners with several large defense contractors to supply our radar simulation products to DHS customers to facilitate mis-sion readiness.

Q: How do you measure success?

A: BCG’s main measurement of success is customer satisfaction with our products and services. Two other gauges for our success are the amount of business we have received from long-term partnerships and referrals from existing customers. O

Gary MastersonVice President

Buffalo Computer Graphics Inc.

indUStry interVieW U.S. Coast guard & Border Security


Features

EO/IR on the BorderPrecise surveillance optics capable of multi-mode operations help secure the border.

ID TechnologyBiometric systems are key to identifying and tracking persons of interest.

CBRN DecontaminationProtecting crisis responders from dangerous and toxic elements is a number-one priority.

Protective CoatingsMore than just paint, protective coatings reduce costs, reduce additional workload and generate longer life cycles on expensive equipment items.

Noise and Vibration ControlNoise and vibration are both bad things in a cutter at sea. Mitigating their effects is better for the crew and the cutter itself.

Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Next ISSUE

Assistant CommissionerOffice of Technology Innovationand AcquisitionU.S. Customs and Border Protection

Mark Borkowski

October 2014Volume 6, Issue 5

Annual Coast Guard Program UpdatesThe Coast Guard provides its annual review of major elements of its acquisition programs to U.S. Coast Guard & Border Security.

Insertion Order Deadline: September 22, 2014 • Ad Materials Deadline: September 29, 2014

special section

Bonus Distribution: Homeland Security Conference

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