The Eye-Opener At New York State Sheriff’s Association / C-PASS Conference

One of the benefits of sponsoring conferences is not just getting your name out there, but also listening to others’ experiences in Public Safety. Attending the New York State Sheriff’s Association C-PASS Conference (Committee on Policing and Safeguarding Schools) was such a great learning tool.?

Every region of our country has different response capabilities, physical and technical challenges, and are at different stages of innovation. C-PASS brought together large and small agencies alike. Most people do not realize that Public Safety, while enormous when looking at a national scale, is mostly made up of very small individual agencies.?

Eighty-percent of Police Departments in the United States are composed of less than 100 sworn officers, and two-thirds of U.S. Fire Departments are completely volunteer. The majority of 911 call centers in the U.S. still operate on analog technology. This brings such a unique perspective to both the challenges faced and the products we build.?

Most tech companies in the Public Safety sector build big for revenue; they look to have large ticket items for massive Departments with big budgets. A $250,000 system may not be much than an obscure line item for the NYPD, with over 30,000 officers and an annual budget that starts with the word BILLION. But for small towns and municipalities across the nation, they are priced out of the market for emerging technology. That’s why we see them struggle, as volunteers or full-time Public Safety professionals, to keep their communities safe. Moreover, these are areas where critical events happen.?

Not many heard of Newtown, CT before Sandy Hook, Parkland, FL before MSD, or Oxford Township in Michigan before their high school shooting last November. These areas also have amazing Public Safety professionals, who have become agile thinkers to overcome challenges.?

The men and women at the NYSSA Conference flooded my brain with new ideas, add-on features to brainstorming hardware to complement software. The majority of the Fire Departments in the conference area (Saratoga Springs near Albany, NY) are volunteer. For them, CERA can help right out of the gate to organize their personnel, often all responding from different areas.?

This is precisely why we went against the grain to design CERA for the size and affordability of small agencies. We can always scale outward for large organizations, but rarely can one scale down without compromising the technology. I get fired up to know we have the ability to positively affect small communities everywhere.

The C-PASS conference solidified our company’s direction, and we are grateful to Chuck Gallo and Jon Becker of the NYSSA for allowing us to sponsor and be part of their journey.