SAFECOM Membership Spotlight ft. Red Grasso, North Carolina Department of Information Technology
SAFECOM, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) premier public safety communications advisory body, is comprised of public safety stakeholders with a diverse set of experiences and backgrounds. Mr. Red Grasso, who has been a SAFECOM At-Large member for a year (North Carolina Department of Information Technology), shares some of his insights about SAFECOM and the direction of the public safety communications community.
Red Grasso, Director of the First Responder Emerging Technologies (FirstTech) Program, North Carolina Department of Information Technology, originally served as the single point of contact for the FirstNet project in North Carolina. Under his leadership, the FirstTech program was developed to bring valuable knowledge to North Carolina’s first responder community and empower them to make informed decisions about their technologies.
Red received his Bachelor of Science from Western Carolina University in Emergency & Disaster Management and is also a graduate from the Community Preparedness and Disaster Management program at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. After serving two years in an AmeriCorps program, he spent 10 years as a firefighter with the Town of Morrisville, North Carolina. During this time, Red also served on several committees and working groups focused on radio interoperability at different levels of government. Red was a member of the North Carolina Emergency Management Urban Search & Rescue Task Force 4 and the U.S. Health and Human Service’s National Disaster Medical Service Disaster Medical Assistance Team, focused on providing disaster communications to events around the State of North Carolina and the country. Taking on a more technical role, Red launched a new Project 25 (P25) radio system for public safety in the St. Louis County, Missouri region. Through his leadership and focus, the interoperability policy was developed, and Urban Area Security Initiative grant funding projects were secured Red is also responsible for radio communications for the annual Burning Man event, including coordination with federal and local partners that deploy their own systems.
CISA: What drew you to joining SAFECOM and what is your role as a SAFECOM member?
Answer: I have had the pleasure of being involved in a number of different working groups over the past decade and I saw the opportunity to become a SAFECOM member as a way to get more involved. SAFECOM’s mission to improve public safety communications fits well with my career path and goals. I find the people involved with SAFECOM to be devoted and great to work with, so the networking opportunity is an added bonus!
CISA: As a newer SAFECOM member what do you hope to contribute SAFECOM and its mission?
Answer: I have some big shoes to fill as SAFECOM has been in existence since the start of my public safety career and there are many that have contributed over the years. I hope to bring in my experiences and thoughts to the projects that I am working on and be a good example of an active member.
CISA: What projects at SAFECOM are you currently working on and what projects are you most excited for?
Answer: I currently serve on the Education & Outreach Committee, the P25 User Needs Working Group, and the Joint Communication Section Task Force. I find the work to be rewarding in many ways. It was really interesting to participate in the E&O Committee discussions about last year’s SAFECOM Nationwide Survey and that document will reveal gaps, shape policy, and drive some of the technology discussions. The P25 User Needs Working Group is an amazing opportunity to advance the P25 suite of standards. The Communication Section Task Force is tackling the Information & Communication Technology function within the Incident Command System, and this is inclusive of discussions on current positions such as the Communications Unit Leader (COML) to the development of new positions such as the Information Technology Support Specialist (ITSS), though some of these new positions come to us from other established groups such as National Wildfire Coordinating Group and are being looked to encompass an all-hazards approach.
CISA: What do you want those who may not know about SAFECOM to know about the program?
Answer: SAFECOM brings together voices from all over the nation and runs the spectrum of agencies and organizations. There are many different issues that SAFECOM looks to address, from the technical to the funding, from the urban to the rural, from sea to shining sea.
CISA: How do you think SAFECOM will continue to grow and develop in the next couple of years to better help local, tribal, state, territorial and federal agencies?
Answer: I think that SAFECOM will continue to develop knowledge products that will help agencies examine the changing landscape of communication technologies. The close relationship with the National Council of Statewide Interoperability Coordinators (NCSWIC) brings together a wide view of experiences and two different organizations that are working together to support responders. The outreach and recruitment efforts of SAFECOM will continue to bring in new perspectives and fresh ideas, especially from younger members who might have a new paradigm.
CISA: How has your involvement in SAFECOM impacted both your community and the public safety community as a whole?
Answer: There are a lot of ways to be involved with SAFECOM and I am enjoying being a part of a couple of different working groups and the Education & Outreach Committee. I have focused on Land Mobile Radio (LMR) issues during my career, and I find the P25 User Needs Working Group to be a great forum for those end-users to influence the work being done on the P25 suite of standards. I will beat the drum of deprecating the Data Encryption Standard as it gives a false sense of secure communication. The great work being done at the Education & Outreach Committee includes the recent completion of the SAFECOM Nationwide Survey, which will help to provide guidance on future projects and focuses.
CISA: Where do you see the communications landscape in the next 5-10 years?
Answer: Ever since I dropped my Magic 8-ball when I was eight-years-old, and let out all the blue liquid, my ability to predict the future has been hazy! The landscape has evolved to include many different applications designed for a mobile society and we are seeing some of the same challenges to this new reality as the technology moves faster than public safety can keep track. The “interoperability” conversations surrounding the many different Push-To-Talk over Broadband applications reminds me of the earlier days of LMR as new frequency bands and new modulations were introduced. Public safety suffered through those early days, sometimes with systems that only allowed for internal communications, and we are seeing something similar in the application space. We can only work at the speed of government, and these are complex issues as we support the independent decision-making of agencies, so it will be interesting to see how it can be addressed in the near term. SAFECOM is the perfect place to have these conversations.
CISA: SAFECOM strives to be an active partner to the public safety community at all levels of government. How are you working within the community to highlight the SAFECOM program?
Answer: SAFECOM is a great program to support public safety. I find myself constantly promoting the work done at SAFECOM in things like the NC State Interoperability Executive Committee as we developed our encryption plan and used The Transition to Advanced Encryption Standard White Paper (.pdf, 1.93 MB) from SAFECOM or review the Interoperability Continuum as guidance for topics within the committee, particularly data sharing.