Chairman:
Edward J. Krause III
CEO
E.J. Krause & Associates, Inc.
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief:
Michael Rosenberg
Vice President of Security
E.J. Krause & Associates, Inc.
Deputy Editor:
Paul Scott Abbott
Operations Manager:
Anna Ferris
Contact Information:
Tel: (301) 493-5500
Fax: (301) 493-5705
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Technology is critical to maritime security,
Port of L.A. homeland security director says
Exclusive interview with
George P. Cummings
Director of Homeland Security
Port of Los Angeles
Staying abreast of leading-edge technology is essential to successful maritime security efforts, according to George P. Cummings, a retired U.S. Coast Guard commander who since February 2004 has served as director of homeland security at the Port of Los Angeles. With the Oct. 20-21 holding of the eight annual Maritime Security Exposition and Conference at the Long Beach Convention Center approaching, Cummings sat down for an exclusive interview with Paul Scott Abbott, deputy editor of Maritime & Border Security News. Cummings, who says he is always happy to talk with providers of technology, discusses how technological advances and cooperative efforts have been critical to the meeting of security objectives at the nation’s busiest containerport.
As the Oct. 20-21 dates near for the 2009 Maritime Security Exposition and Conference to be held at the Long Beach Convention Center, we are now moving eight years beyond the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. Over that period of time, how has the approach of ports to security issues changed?
We along with all the other ports – and we, of course, work very closely with Long Beach and we coordinate with the California ports through the state’s organization and through a number of different means, including the American Association of Port Authorities, through which we get opportunities to work and compare with the other ports – I think we’re at a point now where our port security program has gotten to a mature point.
Right after 9/11, this was all new for pretty much all involved – federal, state, local and harbor departments and port authorities – in terms of what this new mission of port security was going to entail. What it involved in terms of people and equipment and training and resource mandates and mission performance and so forth was really pretty open-ended. Through different types of risk assessments and lots of interagency coordination in terms of figuring out which agencies are going to do what – which are going to lead, which are going to support and who’s going to end up doing these different missions – we have now gotten to the point that I consider the picture is pretty clear in terms of how this is going to work and what of the port security missions will be performed by the Port of L.A. and how we’re going to do that and how much it will cost and how many people will it take.
What happened was what I would consider, even pre-9/11, as a very good environment as far as the spirit of cooperation in ports overall. Again, you’re familiar with my background with the Coast Guard, in this port in particular, this port was always considered an outstanding example of how agencies can work together. In fact, in the Coast Guard, it was a fantastic place for a young Coast Guard man or woman to come through to actually see part of a great example of that kind of coordination. But, after 9/11, as you would expect, things got more formalized through the Area Maritime Security Committee, which is, of course, mandated by the MTSA [Maritime Transportation Security Act] legislation. That committee really kind of formalized the protocols. And then, in terms of the actual equipment and systems, we had grants, we and Long Beach, to upgrade some of the interoperable communications equipment, and so all of that is pretty much in-hand and online now.
You, of course, have come to the Port of Los Angeles following 21 distinguished years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, including having been deputy captain of the port for L.A./Long Beach. How has this helped you in carrying out your assignment at the Port of L.A.?
I think it helped me a great deal. Coming in initially, I had a real good sense of the different agencies that were involved and what to expect in terms of their roles and missions and, when we got to the steady-state point, what you could expect from each of them to perform. And I already a pretty good sense of the Port of Los Angeles, I had real good relationships with the leadership over here and the security and the port police, so I had a good sense of what part of that the port police would take. So, when I got into this particular assignment that I’m in, which has a lot to do with really supporting the port police, in other words between [Los Angeles Port Police] Chief [Ronald J.] Boyd and our boss, [Port of Los Angeles Executive Director for Operations Capt.] John Holmes and myself, my job is to guide the discussion with them to where we want to be collectively in two years, or two to three even five years. Really, initially, we were looking at five years.
Again, I keep going back to roles and missions. That’s really sort of the crux of this: What do we want to be able to do that we’re going be able to do well, and honestly resource and perform and equip ourselves for. And then my part of the job was to go out and get the port security grants, coordinate between our own engineering staff, the port police as the end user and us, my group, keeping the responsibility for the maintenance and continued improvement of the fixed security systems, basically to get the systems online and in the hands of our port police. Chief Boyd’s part of it, of course, as the chief of police, was to bring on the young men and women that need to perform the mission and get them trained and equipped. So, when you put the two pieces together, that ends up being our contribution to the security of the port. [See interview with Chief Boyd in M&BSN’s Issue 16, Aug. 7, 2008.]
We’ve talked about coordination between entities, and I know one of the things when we conducted an interview with Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Dr. Geraldine Knatz [M&BSN’s Issue 14, June 19, 2008], was that she focused on the importance of cooperation between the public and private sectors, including the technology providers. What role does that kind of collaborative effort play in meeting security-related challenges?
I think that’s a great point, and we, actually, and I personally, commit a fair amount of time to that. If a company comes by and would like to talk to us about ideas they have for technology and how it could apply to the overall picture of port security and the challenges associated with that, we will always spend time with them. We are always very candid with them upfront in terms of what particular things we would potentially be in the market for, and, if that’s the case, then we would have a discussion about how that would take place in terms of us putting out a request for proposals and so forth.
But we will always continue the discussion. And I always personally try real hard to make sure that these young companies come away with a good clear understanding of who’s doing what and who may be in the market for different technologies so that they can have a good honest picture of the environment they are in as they move forward. We do that recognizing that these technologies, in the future, are going to represent for us resource savings in addition to more effective security.
In other words, if people come up with, for example, better enhanced analytics or camera systems that bring up a better end result of information to the human port police watch stander, better than just a whole bunch of camera images coming in to the individual, then that to us represents a more effective security that we can in the end put out into the port. So, anyway, that’s really how we see that partnership.
Without giving away any secrets, can you elaborate upon an example of a leading-edge technology that somebody came to you with that has been implemented at the Port of L.A.?
Yes, absolutely. I think that, early on, keeping in mind my group has been in existence just over 5½ years now, so, from the very beginning, from like Day 1, we would sit down and talk with these technology providers.
An example might be the analytics on the camera systems. When I first got here and saw exactly how, in terms of resources and people, we were going to be performing this mission, it became apparent that that was going to be a key. We cannot overwhelm our watch standers with too much information from fixed security systems or communications systems or what have you. It’s got to be presented in an organized fashion at the watch station. So we began talking with some of the analytics providers and having open discussion with them about what the watch station is going to look like and it’s going to be either one or two people and they may also have some other tasks. As a result, now that our camera system has come online, we feel like the return on that investment was that we got some really nice systems and features in our system to work with.
Obviously, the big overarching challenge remains keeping legitimate commerce flowing while keeping out the “bad guys” and the “bad stuff.” This no doubt is particularly challenging there at the Port of Los Angeles, if for no other reason than the sheer volume of activity as the nation’s busiest containerport, with your port and the Port of Long Beach combining to handle nearly half of all U.S. containerized cargo imports. How are you approaching this balancing act?
The first point we need to make, as the Port of Los Angeles and the City of Los Angeles, is that we are not the operational lead for the security of cargo coming into the United States through our port. That’s clearly U.S. Customs and Border Protection. And, in fact, we don’t, on a regular day-to-day basis, perform that mission. We do not have resources or people performing an ongoing cargo security mission. Our port police have a response to crime or other security incidents, and they may, in that capacity, function as a support element, if there was a U.S. Customs or a U.S. Coast Guard-led situation, our port police would respond and probably fall into an incident command and perform different types of support functions. But what I want to make clear is that it’s not our lead and it’s not a mission that we perform. In other words, we are not doing cargo x-rays or radiation scanning of inbound cargo ourselves.
That said, from the very beginning, the security of the supply chain has been considered a priority for the Port of L.A., and we’re a key node. As you mention, us and Long Beach combined do 43 percent of the nation’s containerized freight [imports]. So we’re a key node, and I feel very good about the fact that the Port of L.A. has really stepped up to the plate in terms of involvement in national and international security measures and been at the table with ideas and what we can contribute to the discussion and what we can offer at the port in terms of prototyping or piloting or different things like that.
We had a huge investment in operations at Commerce, which brought out some really key points about cargo security and the application of technologies and involvement and impact on the supply chain. One of the drivers of our interest and our investment in this part of security is that we want to see the best possible security balanced against the impact on the flow of commerce, as you mentioned. So we want to make sure that, when the federal government makes decisions on how cargo security is going to be carried out, that the impact on the movement of cargo is clear to them.
One other part of what we can contribute to that discussion is good information on what will impact the movement of cargo. Something that may not sound significant in terms of an amount of time or amount of dollars per container, but, multiplied by the number of containers that go through our port, it becomes quite significant. So that’s part of it.
The viewpoint that we have, as a player with a lot of stake and a lot of interest, both in security and in the functioning of the port, is that we can bring the industry side in to the table and, also, we see pretty clearly the needs and responsibilities of our federal government partners.
One of the things with which you’ve been working with federal government partners, like the Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration, is the enforcement and implementation of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program. How has TWIC implementation gone at the Port of Los Angeles and where do you see things heading as we move toward implementation of the biometric aspect of TWIC?
We have had a huge stake and a lot of participation and a lot of our own effort put into that program. I think it has gone very well. We have been working for years with TSA and with their contracted player on the enrollment. We worked with them on identifying the enrollment sites in the port. The first ones that they actually came out with, we saw some problems with that, so we worked with them and got them a really good location on Terminal Island – the key point in the port – much better for the longshoremen and the truckers, who are the two key populations that we wanted to get enrolled. We put the enrollment site online on Terminal Island, along with TSA, and got them going out there.
So the enrollment took place, and then the Coast Guard set the date for Phase One, which was the use of the card as just a flash pass, and that occurred this last April. In my opinion, it went very well. The impact on the port, in terms of people who didn’t have a TWIC card that day and couldn’t get to work, was very small.
We were actually quite proud to have been part of that effort and to make a contribution to it, and we are going to continue in that sense. We’re part of the field test which is going to install the electronic read. Of course, the next major step for TWIC is to implement it as an electronic biometric card, and so three of our terminals are going to be participating in that field test. Again, we’re coordinating with the terminals in the technology as well as the finances in getting the systems installed. The direction will come from TSA, but we’ll continue to assist and coordinate both the carrying out of the test and getting the data out of the test that is desired by TSA.
You said early that you feel that port security has gotten to a mature point. One of the things that Dr. Knatz said in her interview with us is that port security is “a work in process,” and she said, “You can never say you’re done.” Would you concur with that assessment, and, if so, what remains to be done?
Yes, I agree completely with the way she characterized that. We’re at the point now where we’ve got our camera system installed and operating, so that’s going to be a key component of our fixed surveillance. From this point on, we want to complete the work to get to what I would consider at least our initial sort of steady state in terms of the fixed security system that we want to own and maintain and operate in the port and then kind of go from there into a process of evaluating its effectiveness and looking for opportunities as technology becomes available to make improvements as technology comes available to make improvements.
My job, of course, is to identify the potential for improvements to systems, bring them to Chief Boyd and to my boss and see what works in terms of real officers on the ground doing the job and then line up the funding and then sort of coordinate the actual execution of the project, with our engineers possibly, or do the contracting. So that’s kind of the process, I think, as we move forward.
The technology, as you know, is pretty rapid in terms of each year there being enhancements that become available for this. So one thing we have to do then is stay on top of that and see what may be beneficial for us.
And the other real important part I see is to get the feedback from the port police in terms of how well these systems are helping them do their job. That’s sort of the philosophy between Capt. Holmes, Chief Boyd and myself is that we are making investments in security to put the right tools in the hands of our port police so that they can do their job and make their best contribution as partners in the security of the port along with the U.S. Coast Guard and our colleagues over in Long Beach and the other players in the port.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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