Charles F Dowd spent 34 years as a member of the New York City Police Department. As an Assistant Chief he commanded the Offce of Information Technology which included the NYPD's Information Technology Group with 350 members and the Communications Division consisting of more than 1,500 members. He was responsible for the City's 9-1-1 operation; the nation's busiest receiving over 12 million calls per year and the N.Y.P.D. police radio operation dispatching 4.5 million radio runs annually. The N.Y.P.D. land mobile radio network has 300 sites, with over 67 voice frequencies, 1,200 receivers, 150 transmitters, and 40,000 radios. He was the police department's lead representative on several major projects in the City of New York including a new digital recording system for 9-1-1. This system was used to run a successful pilot project for domestic violence cases to deliver 9-1-1 emergency calls electronically to prosecutors as evidence for initial court appearances. He was also the Department's lead on NYC's 3-1-1 citizen services initiative, and was instrumental in integrating the 3-1-1 system with the City's 9-1-1 system. He was tasked with the responsibility of establishing the communications plan for public safety/interoperability for the 2003 Republican National Convention held in New York City. He was the NYPD's lead on the initiative to merge police, fire, emergency medical communications, and 9-1-1 services into one consolidated Public Safety Answering Center, a 2 billion dollar project. He was the City's representative on the Public Safety Alliance, the organization that led the unprecedented effort that secured radio spectrum and funding to establish a nationwide broadband public safety network.

In August of 2012 he was appointed to the Board of Directors of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) by Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank. FirstNet is responsible for the build out of the nationwide first responder's wireless interoperable broadband network. He is the former commanding offcer of several commands, including the 88th and 77th Precincts, and as a detective lieutenant the 79th Detective Squad, where he supervised over 300 homicide investigations.
Chief Dowd was in command at the New York City 911 center on September 11, 2001, coordinating the N.Y.P.D.'s communications response. Since the horrific events of that day, he has been the keynote speaker at numerous public safety communications conferences, as well as several government communications seminars. He has testified on several occasions before the F.C.C. and the U.S. Congress on both new-technology 911 V.O.I.P. call delivery first implemented successfully on a large scale in N.Y.C. and the need for a nationwide public safety broadband system. He has had articles published in several Public Safety and I.T. publications. He has a baccalaureate degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. His wife Madeline is a retired New York City Detective and he has three children, Katie, Rob, Garrett, son-in-law Craig and grandkids Connor and Sadie.

Presenting:

• 4.9 GHz: What’s Next?
• Who’s in Charge?