SWE - Winter 2009 - (Page 24) Consultant Margaret Lyons observes firefighters during a regularly scheduled Hazmat drill so she can design more effective communication equipment. 24 SWE WINTER 2009 CITY OF PHILADELPHIA “I say to firefighters, ‘I don’t know how to fight a fire, but I can find out how the radio can help you as we sit, and talk, and make plans.’ ” treatment. “We need to reinvest in clean water, which is not cheap,” she stated. This observation is in answer to one of the NAE’s purposes in selecting the grand challenges, which is to inform the public of the obstacles involved in meeting a challenge. Public understanding of reusing water is another barrier that engineers must address. “There has to be more public education about the importance of water as a finite resource. We must preserve it, protect it, and consider it precious,” she said. Vulnerability Although public safety communications seems like a small remedy to fire or terrorist attacks, Margaret Lyons, P.E., knows it isn’t. She talks to firefighters, police, and emergency medical respondents who witness Margaret J. Lyons, P.E., RCC Consultants Inc.; Director Metro tragedy on a daily basis. Her goal is to take Sub-Region; SWE Fellow and Life her knowledge of electromagnetic fields and Member; SWE National Board of Directors, 1993-1995 waves and turn them into practical wireless tools. Said Lyons, “My work results in firefighters walking into a burning building knowing how My fellow SWE engineers: their radios should be set so “You have this degree and talent. that they don’t have to fidWhat will you do with it? dle with small dials with Remember, it’s more than the their huge gloves; or figureconomic good for yourself and ing out how to help a police your family. You are an engineer force economically purchase and there is something bigger forward-thinking public out there.” safety grade radios to avoid the ‘new every two’ shelf life of the ubiquitous consumer cell phone market.” One of the lessons reinforced by 9/11 is that communication between public safety entities is vital to saving lives and property. Having been at RCC Consultants for more than 20 years, Lyons knows how a simple trash fire can become a conflagration. She knows that search and rescue teams must be informed quickly about situations as they occur. These problems are the fundamentals of vulnerability. As an engineer, she provides those who respond with tools that can adapt as the emergency changes. “We are the link to the folks in the field,” she said. She is responsible for business forecasting in her region, and for the design, development, and implementation of private radio systems for RCC clients. Not surprisingly, she was tapped to work with the Department of Homeland Security for public safety and interoperability communications in the Philadelphia area as well as with the Fire Department of New York to assess their communications systems and implement technological improvements after 9/11. She commented that 9/11 brought publicity to the problem of interoperability. “The advances are moving steadily along,” she said, pointing to her work developing one communications system for police, firefighters, and Engineering plays a emergency medical persignificant role in the sonnel. Her contribution design of firefighters’ equipment. to this enormous chal- CITY OF PHILADELPHIA
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