RapidSOS hires Parkinson to head public-sector efforts

RapidSOS yesterday announced that it has hired Ed Parkinson—the FirstNet Authority CEO who announced his departure plans earlier this week—to be president of the company’s public-sector unit that works with 911 centers in North America today and potentially emergency control rooms in the future.

“I’ve been looking for something with a mission, and I think this is it,” Parkinson said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “I can’t wait to get started.

“I’m just looking forward to joining a tremendous opportunity—a great company with great people.”

Parkinson said his first day with RapidSOS will be Monday, May 9, just a few days after participating in the FirstNet Authority board meeting scheduled for May 4.

After helping write the initial legislation that evolved into the establishment of FirstNet more than a decade ago, Parkinson said he is proud to have played a “small role” in the development of the nationwide public-safety broadband network, which he believes has “revolutionized” public-safety-communications. However, he said he was ready to make a change, for personal and professional reasons.

“I was looking for something new,” Parkinson said. “I was looking for an opportunity in public safety—something that really has a tremendous mission and hopefully do some good. I think that this is the perfect lineage from FirstNet—I’m able to bring a certain amount of experience to this program.

“But at the same time, I’m going to learn a tremendous amount, and that’s also what I’m really excited about. I’m excited to learn something new and to be part of something that’s going to grow.”

RapidSOS CEO Michael Martin expressed enthusiasm about Parkinson joining the company, which serves 5,200 agencies providing 911 services in North America.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” Martin said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “He [Parkinson] brings extensive expertise—he was there in the early days of the formation of FirstNet, and since 2018, he’s led the FirstNet Authority as CEO. Today, [FirstNet has] over 20,000 agencies and over 3.3 connected devices, so I’m really excited about all of the scale that he brings.

“I think he shares kind of our mission orientation and also the partner-centric approach to how we do this. It really is about connecting all of this rich information from these 400 million devices into all of the different layers that work together to facilitate an emergency response.”

In his new job, Parkinson will lead the RapidSOS outreach efforts to PSAPs in North America—and possibly control rooms in other countries as RapidSOS explores expanding internationally, Martin said.

RapidSOS is best known for bringing broadband data from various sources into PSAPs, including 911 centers that have not yet begun the transition to IP-based next-generation-911 (NG911) architecture. Martin said he believe Parkinson has an ideal background to serve as president of RapidSOS.

“We connect any connected device into 911 and first-responder systems,” Martin said. “He [Parkinson] has done all of this work basically to build this rich data pipe out to first responders in the field. Obviously, RapidSOS has all of this rich content and information that we want to put in the hands of first responders, so we been operating sort of tangentially.

“I think Ed had followed our work kind of closely and was getting excited about the scale of it, as we were thinking about going across the United States and our international footprint, etc.”

Parkinson said he is eagerly anticipating the opportunity to gain more knowledge about 911 operations and the people who serve in the sector.

“I’ve got to integrate myself into the 911 community,” Parkinson said. “While I know a lot of the people and the players, etc., I want to get out there. I want to visit with folks and listen, because—at the moment—I’ve been so focused for such a long time on the FirstNet side of the equation, and it’s time to learn again. That’s really pretty exciting.”

For years, Parkinson said he has recognized the importance of integrating 911 with FirstNet in a manner that would let public safety maximize the benefits of broadband technology to deliver more efficient and effective responses to emergencies. By working at RapidSOS, he hopes to be able to help impact this integration between broadband in PSAPs and broadband in the field.

“I think there’s a lot of great potential,” Parkinson said. “The mission of trying to solve NG911 and make life safer for everyone in this country—and I know that they [RapidSOS leaders] have got global aspirations, too—I certainly want to be part of that.”