Exactly one year ago, MCP announced the acquisition of Seattle-based MTG Management Consultants, which today is known as our Justice, Management, and Technology (JMT) services team. This acquisition has generated enormous benefits for our clients and the firm over the past 12 months.
Everyone at MCP is passionate about the public safety and justice communities and their critical missions. They also are passionate about things in their personal lives. Howard Miller, the firm’s new senior recruiter, is no exception – he is passionate about helping the less fortunate, especially children.
One of his favorite endeavors was the creation of the “Shop with a Badge,” program when he was a senior public relations officer for the Brookhaven, Georgia, police department. The program, which still exists and also involves the city’s fire/rescue and emergency medical departments, provides $200 stipends to low-income children that they can spend at Target, which is a sponsor.
Topics: Life at MCP, Meet Our People
Things are starting to feel more normal, if not completely normal, as the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be winding down and various restrictions are being lifted, or at least lessened. Strong evidence of this can be found next week in Columbus, Ohio, where the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) will host its annual trade show and conference. This is the first brick-and-mortar event to be staged in the public safety communications sector in roughly a year and a half.
Now that the Centers for Disease Control have determined that it is safe to travel for those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine, that’s just what Darrin Reilly, MCP’s president and CEO, has been doing, visiting clients from coast to coast. Recently, MCP Insights chatted with him to discover what he has learned during his travels.
Over the last two years, Mission Critical Partners has grown significantly through acquisition, starting with Athena Advanced Networks in 2018, and continuing with Black & Veatch Public Safety and URL Integration last year. Last month, MCP announced its latest acquisition, Seattle-based MTG Management Consultants. The subject-matter experts who are joining MCP will enable us to better serve clients in the public-safety and justice communities by helping them enhance data integration and address their technology challenges.
Nearly everyone is familiar with the story of Rudy Ruettiger, best known simply as “Rudy,” who walked onto the University of Notre Dame football team in the mid-1970s, despite being just 5-feet-6-inches tall and weighing a scant 165 pounds. Rudy had dreamt of playing for Notre Dame since childhood. After working extremely hard, Rudy was promoted to Notre Dame’s scout team, which helps the varsity prepare for its game each week.
Coach Dan Devine allowed Rudy to dress for the team’s final home game against Georgia Tech. Unexpectedly, Devine inserted Rudy for three plays. On the final play of the game Rudy found himself at—of all things, given his diminutive size—defensive end. Unbelievably, Rudy then sacked the quarterback. His tale is one of legend, and it was turned into a very popular feature film. As inspirational stories go, Rudy’s is difficult to beat.
One never knows when the proverbial light bulb is going to turn on. For Mark Athearn, who recently was promoted to consulting lead within MCP’s wireless communications services market segment team, it happened when he was in the U.S. Navy, when he was on his hands and knees scrubbing the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.
Topics: Life at MCP, Meet Our People, Wireless & Broadband
One thing that differentiates the team of specialized professionals at MCP is the fact that many of them came from the “other side.”
Nearly half of MCP’s subject matter experts were former public safety answering point (PSAP) managers or first responders who have dedicated their entire career to supporting the mission. With them comes specialized industry experience and a unique perspective on what clients really want in order to realize project success.
One such example is Heather McGaffin. Heather is a Communications Consultant at MCP, where she works primarily on next generation 911 (NG911) projects. With her comes the operational experience she’s earned from rising up the ranks in the PSAP environment. Her career began as a telecommunicator and she quickly rose to the role of assistant chief of communications in a Maryland PSAP where she worked until she joined MCP in 2015. Today, she plays a unique part in helping clients along their NG911 journey—focusing on the human aspect of NG911, which includes training and continuing education so that telecommunicators and PSAP administrators can thrive in an NG911 environment.
Walt Disney is well-known for his famous quote, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
Jackie Mines, Project Manager at Mission Critical Partners, has learned this a time or two during her 30+ years working in public safety communications.
She lived this firsthand back in 1998 when she and her team of stakeholders completed what seemed like the impossible task of leading the effort to deploy wireless enhanced 911 (E911) in a fourteen-state Midwest region at the US West telephone company (US West later became Qwest Communications International and was purchased by Century Link).
Twenty years later, her work embodied this philosophy again in her role as the director of emergency communications networks for the State of Minnesota, when she led the team responsible for rolling out text-to-911 statewide in 2017. As part of that multi-year, very complex project, not only did the 30-year old 911 system in Minnesota undergo a major upgrade that dramatically improved emergency response capabilities for the people and visitors of Minnesota, it also extended new capabilities to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
Topics: Life at MCP, Meet Our People
Todd Johnson, PE, a senior technology specialist at MCP, is a second-generation mission-critical communications expert. During his childhood, he spent countless hours by his father’s side—a major source of inspiration for him—dabbling with electronics and wiring at his technician’s workbench. For Todd, telecommunications is far more than an occupation, it’s family business.
His father served in the Navy during Vietnam and later played an instrumental role at Motorola in developing new communications platforms. His love for public safety communications and his passion for the mission began in his early years.
“I bring a unique perspective to my projects,” Todd says. “I’ve been fortunate to wear many different hats throughout my career. I’ve worked in the vendor community on large-scale communications networks, I spent time at the city of Houston working as an assistant director implementing the largest urban trunking system, and now, I’m rounding out my experience as a consultant at Mission Critical Partners (MCP).”
Topics: Life at MCP, Meet Our People
Nick Falgiatore is a senior technology specialist at Mission Critical Partners (MCP) who brings a decade of industry experience to the table. His prowess includes land mobile radio system assessment, design, procurement, and implementation support, FirstNet planning, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensing, propagation modeling, interoperability planning, and data gathering among others. He’s also one of the public safety communications sector’s rising stars – he was recently honored with an award as a leading professional charting a course in the industry in the years to come.
Team first mentality
Nick came to MCP in 2013 and was quickly entrenched in projects of all shapes and sizes implementing public safety communications systems. He has supported more than 50 clients with designing and deploying new radio and wireless broadband solutions such as Project 25 (P25) Phase I and Phase II systems. In the last two years, he’s been heavily engaged with the rollout of the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network, being implemented by FirstNet, working shoulder-to-shoulder with several state and local clients as they build their strategy to build out their network.
Topics: Life at MCP, Meet Our People
Bonnie Maney, vice president and director of facilities and operations services with Mission Critical Partners, has been working in public safety dispatch centers for more than twenty-five years. She’s always had a passion for making an impact on the first-responder mission since the early days of her career working in public safety answering points (PSAPs) in Florida.
Bonnie spent most of her career working in the public sector. In 2015, she decided to make a significant career switch by pursuing an opportunity in the private sector when a close colleague recommended she join Mission Critical Partners. “I started consulting in 2010 for a national non-profit consortium where I worked for federal, state and local clients on various levels. I always wanted to try consulting and after this experience, I knew I had found a new calling that added another layer to my already satisfying career.” said Maney.
Since then, she continues to work on project of many shapes and sizes.
One of the most rewarding aspects of her job is, “Every project is as equally important to every client regardless it's size. The work we’re doing plays a critical role helping them advance their mission, and that’s where I find the greatest satisfaction.”
Even early in her career when she worked her way up from a telecommunicator to a PSAP manager, Bonnie has always been passionate about making an impact on public safety—whether it be for technology initiatives or working one-on-one with the staff helping to improve operations and promote a positive work environment.
Topics: Life at MCP, Meet Our People
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