Our project was not unique to the team we finally chose, but to us it was "everything." We had received a large grant from DHS. We were on a very tight deadline due to unexpected delays and now needed experts that really knew how to perform and get "it" done.

Our selection process was not easy and took long discussions. In the end, our choice was the team at the Naval Postgraduate School – Center for Asymmetric Warfare, affectionately known as CAW. Looking in the rearview mirror – we could not have done better! This team was always on top of their game and maintained the project at least one step ahead of us, if not three or four.

If you are looking for a team to augment a project or help move it to a new level, you cannot go wrong with CAW!

The CAW team was very well-organized, professional, and focused. Their ability to orchestrate a complex three-day exercise and recruit so many participants is a testament to their reputation, dedication, and skills (negotiating and technical!). The events involved more than 170 personnel from over 50 local, state, federal, military, and private sector organizations.

Through CT-12, the CAW enabled my project team to exercise the Concept of Operations and the functionality of the technologies. We were able to leverage the expertise from many participants (especially law enforcement) to improve our CONOPS and systems. This experience will prove invaluable as we work to bring these capabilities to our partner nations to fight illicit trafficking activities.

The turnout by so many different local and federal agencies was impressive. Bringing together all of those components is a true testament to your professionalism. The technologies that were utilized today were top notch, we look forward to continuing to work with you

Thank you for your hard work in planning and executing this year's Hampton Roads Full-Scale Exercise conducted from May 17 through May 19 in Hampton Roads. It was impressive to see local, state, and federal government work together on this vitally important exercise program to improve coordination, communication and enhance capabilities between entities during a disaster event.

I authored legislation to fund the Center for Asymmetric Warfare’s AWI exercises in Congress because these exercises are crucial to national preparedness in the global war on terrorism. The training, testing and experimentation opportunities provided to Los Angeles and Ventura counties and the sixty Federal, State, and Local agencies who took part in a recent exercise will help them to act as a cohesive group in the event of an actual incident. I strongly encourage agencies to participate in future exercises as well.

Since September 11th, Los Angeles has formed even closer partnerships with federal, state and local agencies to share intelligence and respond effectively to any incident. [Asymmetric Warfare Initiative 2004-South] put our front line police officers and firefighters, their commanders, and the civilian leaders of this city to the test, and provided us with a useful assessment on how we can further perfect our operations. It is important that our first responders in the City of Los Angeles continue to exercise critical incidents of a catastrophic nature, and Determined Promise created a scenario that dealt with the impacts of such an incident on the public and the environment at the Port.

I am pleased to have worked closely with representatives of the dozens of local, state and federal agencies that participated in the exercise. I also appreciate the close coordination and cooperation from the State of California’s Office of Emergency Services, California National Guard, and California Office of Homeland Security Exercise Program. I look forward to additional opportunities to collaborate with these agencies on future exercises in the future.

Readiness for responding to terrorist attacks is essential. The public safety community must train and exercise to respond to a range of disasters and emergencies that may occur at anytime, anywhere. Joint training among all Law Enforcement, Fire, and Emergency Service personnel from the local, county, state and federal agencies is a vital part of enhancing our capabilities. Participation in joint exercises such as the [Asymmetric Warfare Initiative 2004-South] exercise is a critical part of ensuring that each agency knows its role and is prepared to work together to protect the communities we serve.”

We had the opportunity of seeing some work they were doing with the Navy. We found that they had a great capability, a capability we could take advantage of. We could never duplicate that capability in any consultant or any other outside group.

Operation Golden Phoenix 2010 involved over 133 agencies and about 800 participants. It was really a large exercise that crossed many city lines and covered the entire county, extending even to adjacent counties. It involved a great deal of organizational skills to get that group of people together, to get them organized, and keep the exercise planning effort moving.

The CAW developed this exercise, oversaw its implementation, and is writing the after action report. Our experiences were so favorable, in terms of working with them. This was a very difficult project – it’s one of the largest exercises that public agencies in the area have put on… The CAW was very responsive to all of our inquiries and were dogmatic about ensuring that we responded to them in a timely manner. They developed incredibly strong injects that kept the exercise moving.

The exercise went seamlessly, from an organizational standpoint. There were certainly areas of improvement for usbut, in terms of what [CAW] had to do, the exercise really went seamlessly. It was quite a pleasure to work with them.

I would like to extend my appreciation to the Naval Postgraduate School and the Center for Asymmetric Warfare. I thought the whole crew did an excellent job. Their expertise, their steadfastness, their dedication to duty, and the great work that they put in was a tremendous help to us. I don’t see how we could have down this, in the timeframe that we did it, without their expertise.

We in Los Angeles County and the Operational Area had a great deal of satisfaction working with them and I think a lot of good work in terms of interagency and multi-jurisdictional cooperation will come out of this.

From the city perspective, in Los Angeles, [Operation Golden Phoenix 2010] was a huge initiative – a very large complex exercise, involving multiple departments, all the way from our field response assets, to our EOC, and all the way up to our executive level. With the short amount of time that this exercise was given to meet the deadline, the Center for Asymmetric Warfare, I think, did a tremendous job.

I think, for a lot of us, the scope and complexity of this exercise needed leadership and oversight at a higher level than we’re used to dealing with. We are all training and exercise designers, so we do have that expertise. But when you’re revolving an exercise around the detonation of a 10-kiloton nuclear device, you reach a level of complexity and scope of integration that a lot of us have never encountered before. I think CAW being the center point of coordination was really instrumental in bringing us all together in a more collaborative environment.

I think being introduced to the [ICBRNE program] was an excellent way to tap into our input and integrate an exceptional capability into the EOCs. We’ve never seen this kind of technology before and that tech component was really great. Adding in the public information piece which we all know, at the local jurisdictional level and the operational level, is critical in getting safety alerts and warnings out to the public and in keeping them informed – we got a chance to actually do that through CAW’s exercise design.

This may sound really trite, but we could have not done it without them. They did a great job.

I want to ensure that [the CAW team] knows how appreciative AUVSI is for the hard work that went into making last year’s event a tremendous success. FF-TTX 2010 would not have happened without the NPS team assisting with coordination, facilitation, and all of the other details that your team seamlessly pulled together.

AUVSI has received excellent feedback from the event … and the report generated after the exercise has received terrific reviews. AUVSI could not be happier with the outcome of FF-TTX 2010, and none of this would have been possible without cooperation and support from the NPS team.

FF-TTX 2010 was a tremendous success and will be referenced frequently as unmanned systems are increasingly utilized by the public safety community. The support that you, the NPS team, and all of the attendees and participants provided to make this event a success is nothing short of amazing. Thank you for everything that you have done over the last year to ensure that FF-TTX 2010 was the best exercise it could be.