By TJ Kennedy, Acting General Manager, First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet)

We’ve had a busy 2014 so far and that will continue. One of our key strategic areas of focus this year has been building the foundation of our organization. When I joined FirstNet a little over a year ago, we only had a few employees. That has all changed. Not only are we staffing up the organization, we have key leaders in place, including our CTO, CFO, CIO, CAO, and Chief Counsel.

The leadership team has hired their next tier of managers and will continue to build their teams. Since January, our FirstNet employee base has grown from 24 to approximately 60. The number of contractors supporting FirstNet has grown from 10 in January to about 30. When you add in the detail assignments from other agencies, we have more than 100 full time professionals now working for FirstNet.

But we will continue to recruit talented staff to execute our mission of deploying a nationwide, interoperable network that is hardened, secure, and built to open standards for access by public safety agencies across the U.S. We plan to grow our team of professionals supporting outreach, technology, communications, and other key areas to support the planning, deployment, and operation of the network.

To provide FirstNet staff with workspace that will accommodate our mission, we recently opened our Boulder, Colorado technical headquarters and have moved into our new FirstNet headquarters building in Reston, Virginia.

If you like the idea of building something from scratch or getting in on the ground floor of an organization with a truly important purpose―supporting first responders and the public they serve―please consider joining our team. If you do become a FirstNet employee, you’ll serve with talented professionals who have worked in the private sector and the public safety community, as well as federal, state, and local government. Everything is fresh. We’re a high-tech start-up organization and that permeates our organizational culture. We are doing innovative things and the mission is your reward.

If you are interested in joining our team, please visit our job openings through our LinkedIn account and our web page at www.firstnet.gov.