Second General Business Session
The Second General Business Session of APCO 2018 packed a lot of business into a short session on Tuesday. APCO members heard the results of the election of a new executive committee, the executive director’s association year-in-review, and progress reports from federal officials on their work on behalf of public safety communications.
APCO President Martha Carter announced the election results for APCO International’s executive committee of the board of directors: Tracey Hilburn was voted in as first vice president and Margie Moulin was elected second vice president. Hilburn and Moulin will be sworn into their seats today. First Vice President Holly Wayt ascends to the president’s office and Carter slides over to immediate past president, replacing Cheryl Greathouse and filling out the executive committee of the board of directors.
Before the results of the election, Derek Poarch, APCO’s executive director/CEO, explained the association’s progress for the year. “I’m pleased to report to you that the state of your association is strong,” Poarch began.
He noted that the association’s goal as NG9-1-1 becomes a reality is to ensure that citizens can communicate data – whether video, photos or text – with PSAPs and that PSAPs can communicate with other emergency call centers and with first responders in the field without technological impediments.
“It’s our goal that when the next generation comes about we are not stuck in proprietary silos as we have been,” Poarch said.
Laws and legislation brewing in Congress supported by APCO advocacy are moving that goal toward reality, Poarch noted.
Poarch said the APCO membership rose to 30,000 as of the renewal period, a 4 percent increase.
The two-year old Certified Public Safety Executive certification can now boast 64 graduates, and the APCO Institute recorded 13 percent revenue growth, serving more than 28,000 professionals. Meanwhile, the association’s initiative with Intellicom is coming to fruition 51 weeks after it began. It is expected to transform the way life-saving services are delivered with “the most advanced critieria-based guidecard software in the industry.”
After Poarch’s presentation, federal officials took the floor. Ronald Hewitt, director, Office of Emergency Communications for the Department of Homeland Security, said the office is working to update the National Emergency Communications Plan to account for new ways of communicating. He noted that a survey conducted by the office found widespread hacking victims in the public safety community, but that fewer than half of the respondents have been trained to deal with cybersecurity threats.
John Merrill, director of the Office of Interoperability and Compatibility, leads the public safety communications research and development arm of the federal government. The office conducts research and development on cutting edge technology, demonstrating that it works in the field before pushing it out for wider use.
One of the office’s initiatives is an artificial-intelligence software known as AUDREY, which is being developed as a digital assistant to first responders.
Another initiative with Houston area responders will evaluate “how DHS-developed technologies, commercial technologies and existing public safety systems integrate using open standards, and how those integrated capabilities increase responder safety and efficiency.”
Lisa Fowlkes, Federal Communications Commission Bureau Chief for the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, also addressed APCO members. She noted movement toward requirements for dispatchable location information. She also pointed to new requirements of wireless carriers that emergency alerts allow for embedded links, for Spanish and for increased character limits. She said the next frontier for FCC rule making will be dispatchable locations inside buildings using the Z axis.
She also referred to the possible move to expanding use of a spectrum band that is now reserved for public safety communications. APCO opposes sharing the 4.9 MGHz band for non-public safety communications.
“We are now starting to review the record, and I can assure you we will consider APCO’s views carefully in that process,” Folkes said.