Taking Stock at Mid-Year

ITS research is often a meticulous, drawn out process that takes years to come to fruition. In the first half of 2013, several long-running ITS research projects in support of Public Safety Communications celebrated milestones. In February, ITS engineer Randy Bloomfield was honored by the Project 25 (P25) Steering Committee with a Plaque and Certificate of Appreciation for his long-standing commitment and numerous contributions over the years to the P25 Standards Process on behalf of the public safety user community. ITS has been participating in developing P25 standards since the project was established in 1989.

In May, ITS engineer Andy Thiessen was honored by the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC). Thiessen received the DJ Atkinson Technical Award, created in 2012 to honor the work of late ITS engineer DJ Atkinson, for "tirelessly [working] to support public safety communications through his work at the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Program and as NPSTC Vice Chair of the Technology Committee." At the same NPSTC Meeting, Kathy Mayeda, a member of ITS's administrative staff, received a Letter of Recognition acknowledging her dedicated assistance and support to NPSTC and the public safety community. Much of Kathy's work supports practitioner involvement in subjective testing and stakeholder workshops. Over 100 practitioners participated in a series of intelligibility tests of public safety voice communication systems performed in the PSCR labs at ITS between 2008 and 2012. Also in May, ITS engineers Andrew Catellier and Steve Voran completed publication of a series of three reports (TR-08-453, TR 13-493, and TR-13-495) on this work, the design phase of which was begun by the late DJ Atkinson a decade ago.