N.Y. opens new Wing Operations Center

 

 

(1)
Maj. Tom Vreeland, New York Wing director of information technology, demonstrates some of the new Wing Operations Center’s capabilities to wing staff.

(2)
Col. Ken Andreu, New York Wing commander, cuts the ribbon to the new Wing Operations Center.


Capt. James Ridley
Assistant Public Affairs Officer
New York Wing

NEW YORK – As members watched before the start of the quarterly New York Wing staff meeting Oct. 24 in Westchester, Col. Ken Andreu, wing commander, cut the ribbon to the entrance of the wing’s newest asset -- a state-of-the-art command operations center.

The Wing Operations Center will provide operational space and situational awareness for seven to 20 mission staff personnel and will function as the Wing Academy for advanced technology training, simulations, tabletop exercises and other training when not in use for missions and operations.   

 “It’s all about how we bring what’s going on out there, in here.” said Maj. Tom Vreeland, wing director of information technology and the center’s chief architect. 

In dedicating the new center, based at Wing Headquarters at Westchester County Airport, Andreu called it “only the beginning in what we envision as the state of the art in centralized command over a large span of control.” 

Andreu regards the airport as an excellent site for coordinating efforts across the wing or on Long Island, in response to such possible occurrences as a significant coastal hurricane or flood damage, or a radiological event at Indian Point Nuclear Reactor Facility.

The wing flew daily missions out of Westchester County in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001, he recalled. The airport “was the perfect location, as it was just outside of the affected area of New York City but close enough to easily and quickly launch aerial surveillance flights.”

The center boasts advanced communications components as well as geographical information systems and weather information systems, along with high-speed internet access for accessing Civil Air Patrol’s Web Mission Information Reporting System, or WMIRS, and other CAP resources.