While security remains a top priority for our nation, the FAA’s Logistics Center is dedicated to providing exceptional services to their federal partners and customers, one of them being the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Personnel in the Logistics Center are responsible for important elements associated with establishing and maintaining a newly designed system, one that helps CBP monitor areas of the border where monitoring capabilities previously did not exist or were insufficient. This system is known as Relocatable Towers.
The illegal entry of people and contraband across U.S. borders pose a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. This threat constantly evolves and relocates based on where individuals believe the border is most vulnerable. Relocatable Towers, as the name implies, allows CBP to setup tower surveillance systems in areas deemed most vulnerable. Cameras on the towers can be controlled and viewed remotely from Command and Control Centers (C2).
The CBP Relocatable Tower Support Team refined the system requirements, preparing for appropriate procurement documentation, assessing potential vendors of the towers and selecting vendors based on best value. The Team has participated in several trips to South Texas to assist in the selection of sites upon which to position the Relocatable Towers. Multiple sites were evaluated, based on strict criteria, ultimately resulting in selections and the establishment of several key Relocatable Tower observation sites along the border.
The team refined the vendor requirements regarding the type of fencing to go around each of the sites ensuring that each Relocatable Tower site is protected from sabotage. In addition, the teams designed, procured, outfitted and established two separate Command and Control Centers in the Laredo and McAllen locations.
These towers represent a new, critical and technologically advanced solution to combating drug and human smuggling, along with human trafficking, and other illegal activities which occur on a daily basis along what some is considered the most volatile area along the southwest border. These towers also enable border enforcement, with less physical exposure to danger. These efforts on the behalf of the CBP Relocatable Tower team represent the epitome of providing unprecedented team efforts in collaboration to satisfy an urgent and crucial customer need. This team successfully executed the concept-to-realization deployment of a completely new border surveillance solution for CBP. Thanks to the innovation of the team, and the close partnership of CBP personnel, they were able to combine tried and true procurement and project management techniques, along with inventive problem solving and compression of project delivery techniques to provide an excellent, efficient and cost effective solution. This solution not only exceeds all customer requirements, but undoubtedly leads to the reduction of illegal border activity while simultaneously reducing the risk that border patrol officers face on a daily basis.
The FAA is proud to support the mission of Customs and Border Protection in protecting our nation with highly effective training and technology in thwarting potential threats across our nation’s borders.
