By Peter J. Brown
Satellite technology plays a pivotal role in homeland security today and will play an even greater role tomorrow. Many satellite companies are trying to establish new ties with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), or trying to expand ongoing relationships with existing clients in the form of one or more of the 22 agencies that have been absorbed into DHS. Others are watching for signs within state and local offices of emergency management who are seeking satellite solutions via various grants from DHS and from the public health sector.
Everyone realizes it will take time to erect the structure of DHS. Many important programs will take a number of years to complete as well. Budgets are tight, and while the people who set the priorities at DHS may have satellite on their screen, they have not completed the complex process of transforming 22 agencies and approximately 180,000 employees into a single unified organization.
According to Rich Cooper, business liaison director for science and technology in the private sector office, which is part of the Secretary's Office, interested parties should begin by reading the DHS Strategic Plan titled, "Securing Our Homeland," in order to better understand the challenges that DHS has to address in hopes of fulfilling its responsibilities to the American public. The strategic plan is available on the DHS Web site http://www.dhs.gov.
"By taking a look at those challenges, it will help companies better understand what we face. Each of our challenges is unique and dynamic and if you can tell us how you can address those circumstances flexibly and affordably, the opportunity to help [DHS] will avail itself," says Cooper. "Paying close attention to Broad Agency Announcements (BAAs) as well as announced contract opportunities will also help identify specific persons to speak to when it comes to considering satellite services within the Department."
As a former member of the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) team at NASA, Cooper is quite familiar with satellite technology and especially the power and versatility of Ka-band. Given his background in research programs, Cooper is quick to advise the commercial satellite industry to review the BAAs that the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) has released since its beginning last year, in order to grasp the priorities and interests of HSARPA.
"I always encourage companies to attend at least one of the workshops that HSARPA sponsors throughout the year. It is important that they hear directly from David Bolka [director of HSARPA] and his management team about what they are doing and what avenues they as companies can take to answer their needs," says Cooper.
According to Cooper, two of the biggest priorities at DHS are uninterrupted communications ability and the capacity to acquire geospatial imagery and related tools. He identifies sensor development for biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological agents as the number one priority for the DHS Science and Technology Directorate.
"No one knows more about sensors than the satellite community," Cooper says. "I would not expect anyone from DHS to post a formal "To-Do" or "Wish list" for the satellite community. We are asking people, industries and communities to look at our responsibilities whether that be in patrolling our borders and ports, exchanging information with law enforcement, or helping a community plan, respond and recover from a natural disaster such as a flood, forest fire or hurricane and see how they can contribute to the homeland mission," says Cooper.
"We have to work more closely with DHS as an industry," says Susan Miller, president of Intelsat Government Solutions Corp., which provides bandwidth and managed services to numerous government agencies that now reside within DHS, along with technical support and consulting services in many instances. "More partnering is necessary as DHS forges a series of guidelines as opposed to pursuing its current ad hoc approach."
This ad hoc phase may be slowly coming to an end, but does it mean that DHS is easy to work with or that successfully identifying the right players is something that can be done overnight? Most satellite equipment manufacturers and satellite service providers say it is not. The overall situation, however, is improving with the initial confusion and hesitancy on the part of DHS as its departments transitioned. Industry executives are quick to point out, however, that there is still confusion on which procurement activity will occur locally at the state and municipal level, and what will occur at the national level.
When it comes to making the first move with DHS, besides studying the recent BAAs, and attending HSARPA workshops, be aware that DHS is reaching out to the satellite industry in other ways.
At the first Maine Homeland Security Conference this past May, small business owners were directed to pursue a number of beneficial options by Kevin Boshears, director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at DHS. Besides reviewing information posted on a new DHS Web site,
http://www.dhs.gov/openforbusiness, and obtaining a copy of the DHS report titled, "Forecast of Contract Opportunities," Boshears urged small business owners to, among other things, either contact DHS directly or to consider working with a large prime contractor by identifying a niche, skill or service that the prime contractor might not be pursuing for a variety of reasons. In addition, Boshears also urged all interested parties to contact Joe Capuano at DHS by phone at 202/401-3517 or by e-mail at
Joe.Capuano@dhs.gov, for more detailed information and assistance. While these state and local orientation sessions are going on all the time, there is a sense that a more focused event would serve everyone's interest.
In addition, there are a considerable number of applications from commercial satellite companies that overlap both the DHS and Defense Department (DoD), and, that many companies are benefiting from long-term partnerships that have their origins in the vast DoD satellite-related inventory.
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