Morgan Hertel to focus on tech and trends in new role at Rapid Response

SYRACUSE, N.Y.—In his new role as Rapid Response Monitoring VP of technology and innovation, industry veteran Morgan Hertel intends to help Rapid leverage new and emerging technology in the monitoring space.

“As I start to transition out of that operations role, it'll free up a lot of my time to be able to work specifically on the technology and other people will start to fill in the gaps on the operational side,” Hertel said. This transition will “really take shape over the next three months” and will be entirely finished by the end of the year, he said.

Hertel will also dedicate more time to industry associations, such as AICC and CSAA.

“The other part of [the new role] is making sure that systems that are internal to us, that we use on a regular basis, are performing as efficiently as possible and taking into consideration all the new technology that is coming out today,” he said.
 
Asked about new technology that Rapid has taken advantage of recently, Hertel mentioned mobile devices, such as mPERS or freight tracking.  

Monitoring wellness and activity levels is another trend Rapid is paying attention to.  “Healthcare is obviously evolving. … Telemedicine, telehealth, [and] being able to track where people are heading, health-wise, before it becomes critical in nature, is becoming more and more the central station's role,” he said.
 
However, Hertel pointed out that innovation is not always about products and services. Innovation can be “methods and platforms.”

In his previous role, Hertel “was responsible for all of operations, which included not only dispatch operations but also dealer support, software development, training, IT support and technical support for the dealers,” he said. He'll still be involved in these areas, he added.

Hertel predicted that communication paths will be an ongoing challenge for the security industry.

“Today, everybody's jumping on cellular. There's nothing wrong with that, except the expectation that it's going to live forever is completely erroneous,” he said. Some companies have been diligent in their 2G conversions, he said, but the 3G and 4G radios they put in will still sunset “and be replaced by LTE sometime around 2021.”

A variety of other communication paths could be utilized. “You're going to start to see other options. Network is still an option; Wi-Fi is starting to get some traction as well. And who knows what's going to happen in the next five years,” Hertel said.

“Also FirstNet, that's probably a ways out, but it is clearly going to be an option for us down the road,” he said. FirstNet is establishing a nationwide network for communications between first responders. “The likelihood is that [FirstNet] would be stable for 15 to 20 years.”