The four committees of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) board met on December 8 in Houston, and during the two-hour public portion of the meeting discussed recent efforts to ramp up advocacy and other staff and outreach plans for the coming year. FirstNet officials also said that Jeff Bratcher had been named chief technology officer on a permanent basis, from his previous role of acting CTO to which he was appointed last year.

The four FirstNet committees – Governance and Personnel, Technology, Consultation and Outreach, and Finance – briefly reviewed their prior year’s work and approved committee charters with revisions in some cases.

Amanda Hilliard, FirstNet’s outreach director, said the organization now has 30 federal user advocacy staff members. She said the staff participated last week in a three-day meeting that included a “message boot camp” and other activities aimed at creating “an enhanced baseline aptitude” on the organization’s issues and “making sure everyone is speaking with the same message and the same voice.” The group also worked on engagement strategies for six states, and has 50 more such strategies to work out before the end of this year, she said.

Dave Buchanan, FirstNet’s director-state consultation, talked about strategies to meet with state officials “who inform and influence” the decisions of state governors, and how to customize efforts for each state.   Meetings planned for that effort will include day-long sessions and also two-hour “executive” sessions, he said. The FirstNet committees met for most of the rest of today in closed session to discuss acquisition issues.  – John Curran, john.curran@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily