| The Public Safety Integration Center
A Test Bed for Interoperability James W. Morentz, Ph.D. Vice President for Homeland Security Technology Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) February 4, 2004 |
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James W. Morentz, Ph.D., is Corporate Vice President for Homeland Security Technology with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). His responsibilities include managing all State and Local Homeland Security business for the company and developing the Public Safety Integration Center (PSIC). Morentz comes to this role having been an innovator in the use of information technology to improve the management of natural, technological, and terrorist emergencies since 1975.
He was the principal investigator for the landmark National Governors' Association (NGA) studies that led to the national strategy known as Comprehensive Emergency Management that was eventually implemented in all 50 states. He was a consultant to the President's Reorganization Project that created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1979. He was the lead developer of several training and exercise courses for FEMA and, for more than 14 years, was publisher of Hazard Monthly, the largest circulation periodical in the field. The experience Dr. Morentz gained by studying emergency operations in more than 250 different disasters around the world for the U.S. State Department and NGA led him in 1981 to develop the first commercial software for incident management (EIS™, the Emergency Information System™) which successively integrated Geographic Information Systems, sensors, satellite communication, packet radio communication, and intelligence analysis tools into the software making it a comprehensive command, control, and communication system. More than 9,000 licenses for the software in six different languages were operating in governments, the military, and industry in more than 30 countries in the early 1990s. He has acted as the technology consultant for organizations that include the Pennsylvania Governor's Emergency Center (which was the hub of a 70-site EOC network), the crisis command center for TRW in Space Park California, the Netherlands Ministry of the Environment, the Canadian Emergency Measures Organization EOC, NEC Corporation in Japan, and FEMA's National Emergency Training Center simulation center. Dr. Morentz was the recipient of the 1991 Computerworld Smithsonian Award for "visionary use of information technology" and the 1995 U.S. Chamber of Commerce Blue Chip Enterprise Initiative Award. He has published more than 100 articles and reports on a wide range of technology and emergency management topics. The University of Pennsylvania awarded his Ph.D. in 1976 and he is a graduate of the American University, School of International Service. James W. Morentz, Ph.D. |