In the aftermath of the
September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, New York State, the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and a group of local defense and
technology companies helped design a facility to deal with natural and
human-caused disasters that affect the region. The Applied Science Center of
Innovation and Excellence in Homeland Security (the Center) in Bethpage, NY, is
located on the site where the Lunar Module was built in the late 1960s. The
Center is intended to be a research center under normal conditions and an
emergency operation center (EOC) during critical events. Using robust
technology, it will operate as a communication hub that provides a common operating
picture (COP) for government assets when called upon.
The Center was envisioned and passionately spearheaded by the late C. Kenneth
Morrelly, president of the Long Island Forum for Technology (LIFT), and it was
made possible because of the support of New York State Senator Dean Skelos and
a $25 million grant. Construction of the Center will be completed late this
year.
Functioning as an applied science and a regional emergency operation hub, the
Center will conduct operation analysis of EOC activities whether they are
planned drills or actual emergency responses. The Center’s duality could help
it become a unique national or even global model that addresses the geographic
concerns of particular regional challenges. A typical workday will see applied
research underway along with various homeland security projects.
For example, deploying an interactive COP in the Center improves the
capabilities of first responders to manage an incident in an effective manner
by sharing actionable information between local, state, and federal responders
for enhanced situational awareness. Extending this capability beyond the Center
through a mobile technology package will provide local incident commands the
ability to deploy COP for field use by the individual first responder,
providing direct access to a common view of an unfolding emergency event.
An operational test bed at the Center for integrating, testing, and
productizing new sensor technologies from National Labs, DHS-sponsored
research, and commercial initiatives, will add improvements to the COP such as
communication path optimization, data fusion, and cyber layers. The ability to
correlate disparate datasets and legacy systems will provide additional data to
a regional COP for emergency-response situations, including imagery warehouses,
deployed surveillance and tracking systems, access to city-wide street and
parcel databases, and facility building systems, thus adding another level of
intelligence to an incident response.
While Long Island and the entire eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast states must
contend with hurricanes, the West Coast deals with earthquakes and wildfires,
the midwest sees tornados, and New England has the potential to see crippling
ice storms. Long Island is also in very close proximity to New York City, where
anything is possible. A policy room within the building enables political and
other high-level officials to discuss courses of actions during critical
events.
The Center’s anchor tenant will be Northrop Grumman, and the facility will also
house local resident research partners that include Siemens Enterprise
Communications, Globecomm Systems, AFCO Systems, Applied Visions, Retlif
Testing Laboratories, Balfour Technologies, Strategic Planning, Cameron
Engineering, and my company Power Management Concepts. There is also continued dialogue with
other major government organizations that expect to sign on early in 2010. The
Center will also collaborate with university research partners including
Polytechnic Institute of NYU, NYIT, Farmingdale College, Hofstra University,
CUNY, St. John’s University, Dowling College, Stony Brook University, Adelphi
University, and Long Island University. The presence of a constant revenue
stream from the research partner tenants provides the Center with a
self-sustaining and sound year-round business model.
As a dual-purposed facility, the Center can be reconfigured to accommodate
emerging new technologies, and is capable of becoming a major fully operational
EOC equipped to handle regional training exercises and emergency events and
incidents. With the quickness and
precision of a static transfer switch, the Center will transform from research
to emergency operations armed with technology solutions that expedite response
using its unique COP.
The vision and passion of the late C. Kenneth Morrelly and the LIFT
organization will create new technology jobs helping develop-leading edge
Homeland Security solutions, while fostering a unique model of innovation that
integrates both resident and university research partners.