"The DRONERESPONDERS Public Safety Alliance will forge partnerships with other organizations across government, industry, and academia to continue the adoption and evolution of UAS,"
CHIEF CHARLES WERNER (RET.) | PROGRAM DIRECTOR | DRONERESPONDERS
"Hope is not a strategy. DRONERESPONDERS will prepare UAS programs and their operators to work together more effectively to save lives and property."
BATTALION CHIEF RICHARD FIELDS | LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT
ABOUT DRONERESPONDERS PUBLIC SAFETY ALLIANCE
Led by Chief Charles Werner (ret.), Chairman of the National Council for Public Safety UAS and a nationally-recognized expert surrounding the use of drones by public safety organizations, the DRONERESPONDERS Public Safety Alliance will forge partnerships with other organizations across government, industry, and academia to continue the adoption and evolution of UAS.
DRONERESPONDERS will focus primarily on three core missions of:
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PREPAREDNESS: Providing shared education and training capabilities surrounding the development, implementation, management, and flight operations of public safety-related drone programs to help first responders standardize UAS as a tool for everyday missions.
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RESPONSE: Developing and maintaining a global directory of UAS teams, remote pilots, assets, and capabilities that can be deployed when emergencies and disasters strike.
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RESILIENCE: Deciphering and standardizing concepts, regulations, and procedures across like-minded organizations around the globe to develop consistent protocols for public safety and emergency management drone operations resulting in more resilient communities.
“Public safety agencies around the globe are yearning for additional knowledge about how they can effectively use drones for life-safety emergency missions,” says Werner. “DRONERESPONDERS will function as a support mechanism to help first responders better navigate the complex unmanned aviation landscape.”
DRONERESPONDERS will strive for standardization while effecting evolution within the public safety UAS realm via a series of three key objectives that support each the DRONERESPONDERS core missions. These objectives include:
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LEARN: Producing conferences and large-scale regional events that unite UAS program managers, operators, and key stakeholders for educational presentations, workshops, and other programming that provides knowledge and develops the mindset needed to operate UAS safely and effectively for a wide range of public safety and disaster response missions
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TRAIN: Holding local training camps and clinics that provide detailed instruction to UAS field operations teams on specific functions and evolutions like search and rescue, damage assessment, HAZMAT response, news gathering and public information, aerial forensic analysis, and more.
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TEST: Coordinating drills and full-scale exercises predicated on the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) and designed to validate the capabilities of UAS flight teams and operators in responding to various types of emergencies and catastrophes.
The DRONERESPONDERS Public Safety Alliance will be run as a program under the AIRT, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit organization formed in 2017 to help provide unmanned aviation resources for public safety and disaster response. DRONERESPONDERS will work in cooperation with the National Council on Public Safety UAS (NCPSU). Werner will serve as the DRONERESPONDERS program director, in addition to maintaining his position as chairman of the NCPSU.