Guest Blog Post by Amanda Hilliard, FirstNet Director of Outreach

Today, I had the opportunity to participate in the Chatham County Hurricane Conference held in Savannah, GA. As hurricane season nears, it was a great to see so many local and state emergency responders working together and with their partners to prepare for the 2014 season. We realize this is a busy time of year for everyone involved, so FirstNet would like to thank the Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) for giving us the opportunity to present at two workshops today.

“Planning to Win” is the theme of this year’s conference, which featured several workshops aimed at increasing preparedness and sharing lessons learned across the emergency response community. The topic of emergency communications cropped up during many of the discussions here, including a workshop on planning for communications before, during, and after a disaster.

Planning was also the central theme of my presentation, which provided an overview of FirstNet and addressed the upcoming consultation and planning processes. FirstNet plans to distribute the Initial Consultation Packages to all 56 states and territories later this month– including the checklist that we have developed in coordination with state and local stakeholders across the nation.

I explained the role that the state Single Point of Contact (SPOC) plays in the process and encouraged attendees to work with the Georgia SPOC to ensure they are involved in the state’s consultation and planning activities as early and often as possible. I also discussed how FirstNet will be coordinating conference calls with each state and territory over the next few weeks to help answer any of their questions about the checklist and the overall consultation process. In July, FirstNet will be holding a quarterly webinar to walk through the process in more detail with the SPOCs.

I appreciate the feedback I received from workshop attendees. Following my presentation, Joe McKinney, who is with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and works for the state SPOC, discussed how Georgia will be increasing its statewide outreach about FirstNet in the near future.

Thanks again to CEMA for hosting us. The FirstNet team appreciates the opportunity to meet with state and local public safety officials to learn more about their communications needs and challenges as we plan for the deployment of a nationwide public safety broadband network. As the Director of Outreach, I am looking forward to building up FirstNet’s regional teams so we can participate in more events like this all over the country.

If you have any questions about FirstNet’s outreach and consultation activities, please feel free to contact me at Amanda.Hilliard@firstnet.gov or my colleague Dave Buchanan, David.Buchanan@firstnet.gov, Director of State Consultation. Thank you.

-Amanda