The American Red Cross of Greater Grand Rapids will be honored with a Leadership award at tomorrow’s Michigan Homeland Security SELECT Awards in Lansing for its CERT training.
Headlines Prove Homeland Security Needs
Daniel Schoonmaker
During his preparation for the Michigan Homeland Security SELECT Awards tomorrow night in Lansing, NuSoft Solutions President and Michigan Homeland Security Consortium Chairman Keith Brophy was inundated with calls from schools and universities he had recently spoken to about his firm’s launch of Guard Dog Technology, a multi-platform emergency alert system.
Barely interested when first introduced to the service, which delivers Web-based alerts through text message, e-mail, phone and fax, the campuses became likely clients following last week’s mass shooting at Virginia Tech University.
“It’s a sad thing about this industry, that it seems to grow in spurts,” said Brophy. “Hurricane Katrina was a huge spurt for this sector, 9-11 was a huge spurt, and now, unfortunately, Virginia Tech will be a huge spurt.”
Oddly enough, mass shootings were a limited discussion topic among officials attending the consortium’s recent School and University Security Symposium in Kalamazoo, a distant concern behind gangs and weapons, despite a dozen instances nationwide in the past decade.
“When someone in my industry looks at things like Virginia Tech or the World Trade Center, we don’t think ‘how could that happen?’” said Tom Hines, President and CEO of SecureMatrix in Grand Rapids and consortium president. “We say, ‘It’s just bigger than what’s already happened.’ The World Trade Center was attacked before, and in K-12, we had Columbine.”
In the coming months, educational institutions nationwide will likely begin preparing for the unthinkable, but inevitable, arrival of the next Columbine, Virginia Tech, Nickel Mines, Pa. (where 10 Amish schoolgirls were shot last October), or one of the three other mass school shootings in the U.S. since August, adopting practices and investment in technology that weeks ago would not have been deemed cost-effective or practical.
“What we want to do through the consortium is drive fluid, steady progress. We don’t want a spurt reaction to a catastrophe,” said Brophy. “We think the market today is ready to be proactive in spending and adopting these various technologies.”
The consortium’s founding principle is to drive development and marketing of the state’s homeland security industry, largely for the purpose of economic development. The world today, in Brophy’s words, “is a dangerous sea of need,” and Michigan companies should be working to fill those needs. It is the consortium’s intention to put those efforts into the spotlight and help bring the product to market. Tomorrow’s awards ceremony at the Lansing Center is the trade group’s largest step in that direction to date.
Dave Laugen, co-designer and co-founder of Hydrant Hat LLC with David TrenBrick of Holland-based High Tech Industries, devised the idea for his company’s signature product while serving as a trustee for a snowbound county in northeast Ohio.
“We had a house fire, and when our volunteer fire department got there, the hydrant was covered in snow,” recalled Laugen. Hearing the fracas on his police scanner, he brought his recreational metal detector to the scene. As the house burned, firefighters finally uncovered the hydrant, only to find that it was frozen shut. Reacting to this experience, Laugen contacted long-time friend TrenBrick, and over the following years the two developed the Hydrant Hat, winner of the Out of the Box SELECT award.
Soon to be mass produced in Holland, Hydrant Hats are sturdy, tamper-resistant plastic hoods that are placed atop hydrants. They have been ergonomically designed and tested for removal by firefighters in full gear. Since its initial launch, Hydrant Hats have been sold to military bases, national parks, municipalities and schools, which have also used the covers to childproof hydrants on playgrounds and athletic fields.
Renae Wallace, who recently relocated her fourth-generation airport electronics firm from Wyoming to Kingsley, near Traverse City, hopes the SELECT Entrepreneur award will help launch her company’s Nightingale Infrared Lighting System, a covert and overt lighting system for military and government installations. Available in fixed and mobile units, the system can be used in existing airports and new construction, as well as temporary drop zones and training areas.
“I hope this will bring us some needed visibility,” Wallace said. “Hopefully, the awards will help get the Nightingale System off the ground.”
Brophy said he hopes the awards will provide winners with not only publicity, but also affirmation. He attended the Michigan Celebrates Small Business ceremony in Lansing earlier this month, where several clients received honors from the Edward Lowe Foundation and the Small Business Administration, noting that the credibility and affirmation of the award opened doors for the winners.
Another local award winner, American Red Cross of Greater Grand Rapids, counts preparedness as part of its mission. Chapter CEO Lisa Marks said that the nonprofit organization has always existed to take care of people in large-scale emergencies, and that has become even more important in the post-9-11, post-Katrina world.
“There is a misconception about homeland security that the government can throw a protective blanket over the country and take care of everything,” Marks said. “But it’s really the responsibility of individuals, families, businesses and communities to make certain they are doing everything they can to be prepared.”
One of the largest accomplishments for the local chapter is the initiation of a Community Emergency Response Team and Metropolitan Medical Response System. The former brought $80,000 in federal homeland security funding to the area for 14 elaborate training exercises over 14 months.
“This money was going through our community, but no one was picking up the responsibility, and it was going down the drain,” Marks said. “We took the lead.”
Marks said she is excited for the opportunity to work with the consortium, as it gives her organization a chance to collaborate with for-profit organizations on homeland security projects. The need to unite businesses with government and nonprofit entities led to the creation of the Michigan Homeland Security Roundtable, an independent organization that grew out of the consortium’s original advisory council. The awards ceremony will be its first meeting in a public setting.
The group provides a go-between for consortium members and groups like the Red Cross, Michigan Economic Development Corp. and other public sector interests. State Sen. Valde Garcia, R-Livingston County, will serve as first Roundtable chairman.
Homeland Security Award Winners
Winners of the Michigan Homeland Security Consortium’s first annual Michigan Homeland Security SELECT Awards, to be honored tomorrow night at the Lansing Center in downtown Lansing, include:
Leadership
Lt. Col. Kriste Etue, deputy director, Michigan State Police
Honorable Mention: American Red Cross of Greater Grand Rapids
Security
Virtual Emergency Services, Southfield
Honorable Mention: ERT Systems, Ann Arbor
Technology
David Schneider, Coventry Diagnostics, Troy
Honorable Mention: M-Bots Inc., Ann Arbor
Entrepreneur
Renae Wallace, RS Wallace Electric Inc., Kinglsey (formerly Wyoming)
Honorable Mention: Timothy Daley, CrimeCog Technologies, Milford
First Responder
Sgt. Steven Schneider, Oakland County Sheriff’s Office
Honorable Mention: Chief Michael Reaves, Utica Police Department
Education
Dan Shoemaker, University of Detroit-Mercy, Centre for Assurance Studies
Honorable Mention: Blue Marble Security, Houghton
Out of the Box
David TrenBrick, High Tech Industries, Holland
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