 It is a noon hour once again on Thursday, folks. Ted Rolston here, our think tech studio is downtown, momentarily transposed to Ammanalo Beach, where the drone leads brings to our public information and ideas and problems, for that matter, that are associated with this emerging world of drones, droneism, and the behaviors associated with people who were involved. That's a lot of mouthful there. Anyway, with us today, all the way from Atlanta, or actually south of Atlanta, of Sandbridge, Georgia, is none other than one of our frequent fliers on the show, Dr. Mike Brown. And there you are, Mike, up on the screen, and we are using the magic of still photography to account for the fact that the video feed isn't working. But anyway, by a form of low-grade Skype, we have you on. We have you on by audio and an image of you in real life. Dr. Mike Brown, who is it? Uncle, is it my better image? No, your better would be, your better would be Denise. There's no question about that. He always goes back to the wife. My God, you know, man, you know what? I feel like the master of disaster. I tell you, it is good to be on. And I need to let your audience know that I do refer to you. I refer to Ted Rolston, senior, that is, as Uncle, to the term of endearment. And so I call him Uncle. I will be referring to him as Uncle doing his short interlude. Yes, I'm a core professor from Capella University and emergency management, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about this important issue having to do with Ted, the Uncle William. Did you say dronism? I said dronism. Dronism, you bet. So let's back off and set the stage a little bit here. We just, it so happens that we talk about these philosophical aspects of drones and technology aspects of drones and regulations and standards, all the important elements that are going to drive the future of drone from a design and construction perspective. What we have facing us right now in Hawaii, and I'm sure in many other places, is an ongoing low-level, I mean slowly emerging disaster, and people know about that in our lava flow situation at Kilauea, and its outbreak on the rift zone that is to the east, and in areas of Pahoa and other places that are sense are underneath the lava right now. So we have this situation taking place in a natural environment, a natural event that we can't do anything about, but we can certainly observe it and we can condition ourselves and do our operations in such a way to mitigate and minimize harm, and deal with this emerging disaster. And we've got these things all over the world these days, disasters, and the question is really Mike, drones and the ability they have to go in and get information in ways that is maybe different than we've seen before, and is lower risk because we don't have people flying them, but can provide really high useful information, be it photographs, be it video, be it chemical analysis of particular matter in the air, be it information about the ability of the radio spectrum to carry cell phone communications. Many factors can be discovered and be put to use in a positive way by drones. You, as a professor of emergency management at Capella, how do you think about and teach or generate research that promotes the use of this kind of technology in a disaster situation? Do we have policy and protocol and means by which new technology can enter the legacy stream of disaster management? That was eloquently stated, and I will state this. You use the term mitigation in an incident like this or any incident or any focusing event or disaster. The best time to think about mitigation and building resilient communities so that they can withstand the onslaught of whatever disaster or disrupted event that may occur. The best time to do that during the recovery time, you're not there yet, but when you start talking about a new technology such as unmanned aircraft vehicles, this presents an opportunity that cannot be squandered. All of the things that you talked about with collecting particulates and getting aerial photographs or something even new, I always call it the three eyes. When you have this type of technology, people need to be thinking about improvisation, imagination, innovation, the all-sing eyes, the three eyes. To do that, you need to bring everyone to the table. Here's what happens, particularly doing events like this, is you have someone who is in charge or someone or a group that's in charge, and there's, by doing so, one of the things that I teach is and I push with my students is understanding where the national movement is right now. Towards national preparedness, it is a system that says we need to strengthen our resilience and our security by systematically preparing it, our nation. And this is the clue to cyber attacks, natural disasters, and so forth. But the way that they were saying that we should do this, this would mean NGOs, every single project. So one of the things that I tell emergency managers is to do not exclude their ideas because they're... If I can intersect that vector of yours for a moment, Mike, that's a pretty cool idea. Use the whole of community solutions phase, which is a presidential directive, at least it was a while ago, as I recall. And so solving things on the whole of community level, that's actually very intriguing. That could be seen as a threat by folks who are in the current command structure of an operation. It could also be seen as an asset or an ally to them, depending on their perspective point of view and how much trust has been built up in the past. So it implies we need sort of like a new technology ombudsman or some function like that to act as the receiver of these proposals for support and a translation of that into factors that deal with how the incident commander is running his operation and what he's graded on, so to speak, and then finding a way to attach these functions to the existing operating structure. So... Well, to give you an example, I can understand an incident commander because you brought incident commander up. I can understand an incident commander. I can understand her stating and developing a policy or doing a directive that no drones, particularly recreational drones, be in an area where, for example, they're trying to fight fires in Southern California and they're trying to... You've got your C-130s trying to drop anti-suppressant chemicals from... And you've got drones in there. It poses a danger to public safety and public health. Technology and your skills are local partners with our Indian nations where fathom and incident command has happened with a press. So why may have... If you're the incident commander, you can control that and work with them. And if they're not willing to abide by it, then you can say you're excluded, but you're not working within the parameters of our point and arson that I know of, that I have worked with, that I teach, would ever do that. Come one, come all. Walmart, you want to help us with providing this... So if we take that and try to figure out some kind of a credentialing structure, a communication structure, a control structure, some level of... Some first level of structure for how that sort of thing would apply to drones... I use this term ombudsman, but this is sort of a structured ombudsman because drone people coming in would have to have a credential check of some kind and they'd have to have some form of liability and they'd have to have some form of sustainability. Yeah, so is there an example? As you're saying, I'm just thinking that maybe the medical side of us, and I think you know a doctor very well, who would... Yeah, you claim she's the only reason I'm liked, but go ahead. That's a claim, Mike. That's a fact, but... The medical profession probably has some form of credentialing in order for medics, EMTs and such to join in to an operation where they're not previously been involved. So there must be some precedent we've got here we can follow. Well, I don't think so. Not everything requires a precedent. What's happening in... But it's happening to the beautiful state of Hawaii is new. This is something... This is something unusual. So why not set the precedent? Oh, yeah, amen. In fact... If I was a senator or if I was a congressman there or if I was the governor there, I would be saying, okay, here's what I want you to do. I want no one excluded, but make sure that they meet certain requirements. Did they get trained through FEMA? Did they get trained with the FAA? Do they have a certification for doing this? Are they with one of the local television? If so, let me see the requirement. Let me let the emergency manager for the island review this. We say yes, and you bring them into the pit. So be the first to set up what is required. Be the first. Mike, and I have a degree of that obligation and I'm also a degree of guilty for not having done it so far. Let's pick up how we're actually going to do that. Let's take a one minute break here and come back and lay out how we're actually going to do that right here. Nothing is making sense. Got to be solution. How to make a product. I look familiar. He calls himself the ultra fan, but that doesn't explain all this. He planned this party, planned the snacks, even planned to coordinate colored shirts, but he didn't plan to have a good time. Now, you wouldn't do this in your own house. So don't do it in your team's house. Know your limits and plan ahead so that everyone can have a good time. It is still Thursday in our folks, Ted Ross on here in Honolulu, Mike Brown in Sturbridge, Stambridge, Georgia, giving us a very excited rendition of the various aspects that would turn into an ombudsmanship and a receptive domain in which new technology, including drones and things we haven't even seen yet, Mike, social media, can be brought in in a positive way to support Incident Command in an emerging and perhaps not practiced, not rehearsed circumstance, unlike a fire or a car accident. So while we're talking about that before the break and you have some great ideas on how we might do that, I'd like to suggest we think about some kind of a joint task between University of Hawaii where we are here or we're seeing the situation on the ground and you at Capella University where you have sort of a broad view around the country, your students are professionals in the in the game from drawn from around the whole country. So what if we talked about if we did that, get one of your classes to take this on, Michael? The University is very diversified. We have students from the Ukraine to Switzerland. I've got two students, one in Ukraine, one in Switzerland. And the majority of our students are what we call scholar practitioners. In other words, the majority of them are already with FEMA or with some agency, the fire department, and they have a wealth of knowledge. So we're not talking about the sphere of typical 18, 19, 20 year old person. We're talking about people who have been in the field, been doing this for years. I have three or four emergency managers in my various classes and that's where Capella goes and gets the adult learner and say, look, what do you want to do? Yeah, we want to get our master's and we want to do our doctorate. And so we I think I of course couldn't make that decision, but I think that that might be something that that the public service leadership of the University of Hawaii, perhaps you can add them reach out to. I think we'd love to network and work on a project, particularly this one having to do with the balganos. This is a once in a lifetime. Everyone within your ecosystem understands all the valuable information that can be gleaned from this. Colleges would, they're just, they would have a gleeful time with this. And the incident commander says, because you're not just dealing with this response, dealing with the if. So it should be a better inclusivity. And we've hit that that term inclusivity and we're looking for how to generate it in a positive trusted way. You hit the word trust again, which is of course always going to be under the underlying sinew that ties together disaster response and disaster operations. So that's, we're talking now about a pretty good idea here, Mike. And I'm thinking the trust is going to come about by virtue of, first of all, everybody being included as the system is designed. And then the the means by which credentialing and training is generated so that we have a common appreciation of what everybody else is able to do. And then the trust is going to occur through tabletop exercises or some other way to actually involve people and check real issues. I'll give you an example. The the drone community is often characterized as either very small backpack man-packable systems, which unlimber quickly, get in the air, get the job done, get down, or they can be on the other end much more complicated with generators and support and like roving tool chests that have to take with you to take them apart. So there's a rapid response and a slow response function depending on how mature the design might be. So within this credentialing domain, so to speak, we would have to be specifying that a drone that serves this mission is going to have to be able to, within a given 15 minute window, get up, get the job done, and get down. And so that the air is clear for somebody else. Uncle, I gotta cut you off, Uncle, because I think you're thinking like an engineer. Oh, the very first thing you want to do is put together the right people. The very first thing, and that's what we do in emergency management, you get the right planning committee, you get the right people in the room first, you get all the people who have created the right committee. Once you have all those done, the geologists, the scientists, the chemists, everybody, all the drones, once that committee is done, they need to determine why they're there. They need to be an assessment. Once an assessment is done of what, why they're there, what their purpose is, criterion will be for certification. What do we, and how do we want to be certified, which includes, which includes on what? The situ incident that's led the emergency manager for the island. Now if I can interject, Michael, let me just ask a question. That's, that's really great because that's basically a consensus-based design approach. In fact, what is most interesting about that is the technology side of drones are going in the same direction. That is, rather than the FAA state a bunch of typical engineering requirements, there's going to be consensus requirements established by industry and by operating teams, and so why not do the same thing at the operational level? I like that. So if we, right, in the short time, it makes absolute sense. So in the short time we've got here, we've got you at Capella, researching these problems and access to a lot of very motivated students because they're professionals in this domain. At the university here we have the applied research lab which deals with the technology and the physical aspects and the communication aspects and the sensors and the processing and this sort of thing. How do we put these together and write up a script that says this is what we could do together to serve the state of Hawaii in this, in this obligation which I happen to have and do exactly what you said. Pull in the, the, right now the competing or the contending elements and make them into cooperative and supportive elements. And I think that, I think that's an excellent idea and I think it's something maybe you might submit to the governor for review and look, this is a, this is a plan, a template for how we can include and add value with the whole community in future events that may occur like this, be it a hurricane or whatever. And then don't let us, don't let us escape from that term you used about the third time now, the whole of community, the community involvement piece. I, you and I, it's the mantra, it's the mantra, it's the national preparedness system and our governments are talking about it and and I take it, I take it to heart and it means a lot to me because you know I'm all laid up when it comes to emergency management, thanks to the wonderful school I went to. You and I can collaborate and pull others in. The main thing is to get all of the people who are on the same page with differing ideas, with the same ideas, and we take the idea, we develop the concept. You, when you have an event like this, there's not necessarily a precedent. You create precedence because what other state had this happen? You know, other than Mount St. Helms happening and that was an event that was very usual. There is no reason why there shouldn't be advantages being taken in the line of research to look at this using drones that can touch and do things that, like you stated, we can't think like an engineer yet. We think like a, we think like a public administrator and a man purpose, what is our goal, what is our objective. We do that, we do the plan, we attempt to, we execute the plan. We see what goes up, exercises, your full exercises and then you redo it again. Remember, emergency management, disaster preparedness is cyclical. I think there's a living thing within it. It evolves as the technology is evolved, as the people change, environmental. This is so exciting. Now we have this new technology of drones, a measurement, a metric. Now Michael, let me just ask you, we just kind of got a few minutes left here because we are a half-hour program anymore and got about two. But what kind, what type of resources can you, can you think of that we can bring to the table? We have Charles Warner of the National Council, Public Safety UAS. He's not available for the show today but he is able to help us. We've got your perspective from Capella. Do we need something from NFPA? Yes, yes, you know, you know, you know we need, we need a formal, a formal declaration of a memorandum of understanding to collaborate from the University of Hawaii and we will respond from, from Capella University and say, we'll look at what you're trying to do. We will come on as partners because we exclude, we don't exclude anyone and this is something that our subject matter experts embrace. So we will join you as partners but we join together and we have to, once we establish what it is that we're trying to do and how we're trying to address it, and one of the things we're trying to address is no exclusivity from being able to know if they are and these issues in the future. You almost just wrote the terms of reference right there and then we'll add to it your favorite term whole of community solution or a whole of community involvement. So those are the two main bookends that will capture this functionality in the middle that we're going to define. What's going on now, I take what's going on now is that they're not using something that's part of the concept of the presidential policy directed aid to include whole of community. That means we shouldn't be excluding in conjunction with the, with the mandates and directives of the incident commander either he or she then they haven't violated any of that and they shouldn't be excluded. So they should be sitting in the backseat sitting in the bench waiting for their term to help in any manner that they can. Amen. So what we what you and I need to do is write a one-page terms of reference and a proposal that I can work with our Department of Business Economic Development Tourism here and our legislative committee on public safety and get this action going. How would that be? That will be fine and I can do what I will do is talk to my chair and Dean and see if we can identify we have such a plethora and we're deep and rich with a lot of experience from military to national guard to individuals that know a lot about what's going on. People that work with IAEA nuclear they work the whole gamut. So we've got we're deep and rich with a lot of brain power. Okay we love the collaborate. I'd like to be part of that as you know I'm overdue and getting my connection back with Capella which I'll have to do. No you always got a connection uncle you've got me there. Okay that sounds good Michael Brown we're gonna have to cut it off at this point in time we are at the end of our time but I think we achieved exactly what I wanted to achieve. A plan to go forward I will write a terms of reference to start the ball rolling work it with you we'll work at the two universities and let's go forward how's that sound? Roger that sir and be safe can be well. Okay and you can go back to Denise. Thanks very much Denise for letting us have Mike for the last half hour. Are you? Okay pretty good and you? Fine I've been driving him crazy asking him if you were okay I've been real worried about you. Okay you take care now you too okay bye bye and we'll see y'all next week