Remarks by Sue Swenson, FirstNet Chair
Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Program Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder Meeting, San Diego, CA, June 7, 2016

—As prepared for delivery—

Good morning and welcome back to San Diego - America’s Finest City!

As I’ve looked at the agenda for the next couple of days, I see that [PSCR Program Manager] Dereck Orr and team have put together another great conference dedicated to Public Safety.

I don’t know about you but it sure seems to me that we’ve moved from concept topics to actual implementation topics. With the Nationwide Pubic Safety Broadband Network rapidly approaching reality, I’m delighted to see the focus on how to execute because we need to ensure that we deploy and manage this network excellently.

This conference always provides an opportunity to take a look back and reflect on what has happened over the last year. More importantly, it provides an opportunity to look forward to make sure we’re all clear about what needs to happen to ensure that we realize the vision that many of you have held for years - and that is to have a Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN).

So let’s start by taking a look back at 3 key areas of focus and accomplishment this past year:

#1. We continued to strengthen and build the FirstNet organization

We brought on a great CEO in Mike Poth last August. As you all know by now Mike brings a combination of Public Safety and Technology along with years of leadership experience. We were very fortunate to have someone like Mike interested in this important role.

We were able to create the role of President for FirstNet and appoint TJ Kennedy to that position. TJ’s background and his experience at FirstNet are key to its success. I am very happy that we were able to create the CEO & President roles for FirstNet. While

very different for the Federal system, we felt it was very important to have these roles replicate that which you would find in a company outside the Federal system and it was an important message to everyone that we intend to run this organization like one in the private sector.

We also firmed up the roles of CTO, CFO, and General Counsel with Jeff Bratcher, Kim Farrington, and Jason Karp. I know that people were concerned about all of the interim roles we had in the organization. It wasn’t a concern for us as this is fairly common practice in the private sector. However, it’s nice to have that off people’s minds.

We brought on key staff in all areas of the organization to insure achievement of key objectives. Some of those were:

• Key staff members in our Government Affairs group with relevant and important experience in this key area of focus;
• Key staff members in our Regional Outreach leadership roles that bring local experience - again key to understanding the perspective of our local constituents;
• Key staff in Technology bringing expertise in Cyber Security and other key technical areas;
• We also were able to bring on a couple of FirstNet Board members who have engaged significantly in key strategic discussions and key external meetings for outreach and acquisition - Ed Horowitz and Neil Cox.

#2. We continued to reach out to the many constituents of the NPSBN through the Consultation and Outreach efforts

The key focus for outreach this past year was to prepare states and territories for State Plan delivery and ready stakeholders for adoption and use of the FirstNet network. We broadened engagement with stakeholder community (including but not limited to):

• Public Safety disciplines;
• Tribal Community;
• State and Territory Single Points of Contact;
• The staff conducted over 400 events reaching close to 60K people;
• We continued our ongoing communication with key stakeholders on Capitol Hill to ensure they had the facts about key elements of the legislation and the status of our Strategic Roadmap;
• We continued our engagement with our State Single Points of Contact through webinars and face to face meetings;
• And our Public Safety Advisory Council (PSAC) continued its good work on tasks important to the operation of the new broadband network.

#3. A significant area of focus this past year was acquisition related activities

We issued a Draft RFP and responded to hundreds of questions, providing good input to ensure we had an effective RFP.  Remember that our RFP is objectives based and not requirements based, enabling the offerors to provide their innovative solutions to the key objectives such as:

• Building, Deployment, Operation and Maintenance of the NPSBN
• Financial Stability

• First Responder User
• Adoption

• Speed to Market and
• Cyber Security
to name 5 of the 16 objectives in
• the RFP

And I think much to everyone’s amazement we actually Issued an RFP in January 2016 and received bids on May 31st.

So it’s been a very busy but successful year - once again delivering on the commitments we made in our Strategic Roadmap that was published early in 2014.  I think the FirstNet organization has demonstrated that it can be counted on to deliver what it says - as evidenced by what the team has accomplished since it shared its first Strategic Roadmap in 2014.

Now let’s take a look ahead to see what’s important before an award can be made later this year. You may recall that TJ Kennedy shared our updated Strategic Roadmap in our recent March FirstNet Board meeting which covers what needs to be accomplished through the issuance of the State Plans and subsequent deployment of the NPSBN. Some key milestones during this next phase are:

1. A few administrative/regulatory actions need to get completed by NTIA and the FCC. We are working collaboratively with these groups to ensure some necessary elements are in place such as the Opt-Out Review processes, Spectrum Relocation, and Fee Review Rules;
2. Obviously the evaluation process is a critical activity that we’ve planned for and the work has already begun since receipt of the proposals on May 31^st;
3. Outreach at the State Executive level is absolutely critical. We’ve said from day 1 that we want to be sure that the Governors make informed decisions so those meetings are occurring and will continue well in to the next calendar year;
4. We want to make an award sometime later this year; and
5. We want to deliver State Plans, get decisions from the Governors and start deploying the NPSBN.

I don’t know how many of you may be familiar with the Chinese Zodiac symbols.

I took a look at them and found them to be an interesting correlation to FirstNet’s history and perhaps a predictor of its future.  I went back to 2012 when FirstNet was first established and found:

• 2012 - Year of the Dragon - Think big; full of vitality & enthusiasm.  As you know, this enthusiasm got us off to a rocky start;
• 2013 - Year of the Snake - Shed skin and take up something new; which we did to get on the right foot;
• 2014 - Year of the Horse - Capacity for hard work is amazing; Enjoy a good challenge and be prepared to devote themselves to it; This is the year when we developed and communicated our first Strategic Roadmap;
• 2015 - Year of the Goat - Persevere; gentle on surface but tough on inside; getting ready for the Draft RFP and the final RFP;
• 2016 - Year of the Monkey - Lively, quick-witted and versatile; outreach and evaluation, and award;
• 2017 - Year of the Rooster - High standards of excellence which at times frustrates others; this is where the rubber meets the road for the beginning of the deployment of the network.

For those of you who have been around and seen the evolution of FirstNet, I’m sure you can see how descriptive these Zodiacs correspond to our past and may just predict our future.  Obviously our Strategic Roadmap has served us well over the past couple of years and I expect will continue to guide our work going forward. While all the things that we’ve outlined in our Strategic Roadmap are important to actually get this network deployed, I must tell you that the one thing that has been on my mind since the inception of FirstNet and is increasingly on my mind today is the need to plan for the excellent operation of this network.

I think we all need to understand that the operation of this network has to be done better than any network in the world today. We all get annoyed when we can’t make a voice call or send an email or a text, but what we’re talking about here is the difference between life and death.

On the FirstNet Network, seconds and minutes matter.  So while we’re all caught up in the moment of the RFP responses being received, and we’re focused on getting through the evaluation of the responses, awarding a contract, and delivering State Plans over the next several months – all important work ahead of us before the network is deployed – I would suggest that WE ALL start thinking about what has to change to ensure that we operate this network in a way that will meet the needs of our first responders.

Before I close, I want to thank a number of people who have helped get us to where we are today.  I’d like to thank everyone in this room who is here because they are interested and believe in FirstNet.  I’d like to thank the four people who resisted the suggestion that Public Safety give up their pursuit of the D Block and and Nationwide network. I believe that those 4 people are Chief Jeff Johnson, Chief Chris Moore, Richard Mirgon, and Chief Chuck Dowd.

As I understand it during some Congressional testimony I believe that Chief Johnson’s answer to the suggestion of giving up the pursuit was “Public Safety is not paid to give up.”  I don’t know about you but I sure am glad that Public Safety didn’t give up. That effort and the efforts of many, many people over the past 3.5 years brings us to where we are today - and that is on the cusp of realizing the dream and vision of a Public Safety Nationwide Broadband Network.

I also think it’s important to remember something very important that Chief Johnson mentioned during our Public Safety Advisory Council Meeting yesterday and that it is the fact that FirstNet exists because Public Safety demanded it. They worked very hard on Capitol Hill for four to five years to get the needed support to pass the legislation that brought us FirstNet. This was not a Federal mandate or a Federal program crammed down on Public Safety. While we may not have everything we would like, we are certainly a lot better off than we were years ago, and, with any legislation there are compromises.

I believe that the FirstNet Board and the FirstNet organization, along with the help of many over the past three years, has done a pretty good job of maneuvering through the challenges it has faced.  I think it’s important, that while we can be frustrated once in a while, we should never forget that this was demanded by Public Safety, it’s being shaped by Public Safety, and that this is Public Safety’s network.

So thank you for your support, your patience, and our faith.
And remember...I still feel that if we don’t get this network deployed we should ALL be shot!