Emergency Response Command Center Opens at Pease
By Jerry Miller
Union Leader Correspondent
Saturday, August 12, 2006
NEWINGTON – At its grand opening at Pease International Tradeport yesterday, Global Relief Technologies was hailed as a "great local economic development success story" by U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu.
The privately held company has developed a hand-held, high-tech rapid reporting device to assist humanitarian and government agencies in relief efforts and related logistics operations around the world, according to CEO Michael Gray.
Its Virtual Network Operations Center, unveiled at Pease yesterday, is a centralized command facility where data, including satellite imagery, can be collected and transmitted between emergency responders and operations centers around the world during natural and man-made disasters. Gray explained that when he was a U.S. State Department official, he was often frustrated in attempts to address conflict and refugee relief operations in places like the Balkans and the Middle East.
"We were there to coordinate U.S. and NATO assistance, but we lacked the most basic communications capabilities needed to collect critical and accurate information about the conditions, locations and number of refugees and communicate that data to a large NATO force that was being deployed to provide emergency assistance," he said.
Gray said the hand-held device addresses that problem and has been used by the U.S. Marine Corps in places like Haiti and Iraq. Marines also used the device to transmit data on the conditions of bridges, roads and buildings damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
"There is a huge unmet need for this kind of technology," Sununu said. "This company is a success story in the way its technology has affected people in the U.S. and around the world." The senator, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in many situations, "information like this becomes incredibly valuable in saving lives."
He was joined yesterday by fellow Republican, First District U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley, a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
"GRT does outstanding work on behalf of first responders and reconstruction personnel and the development of their hand-held PDAs provides a critical capability to our first responders, while at the same time bringing high quality jobs to the state of New Hampshire," Bradley said. GRT employs 20 people at Pease.