1) Tell us something about your career journey or personal experiences that isn’t included in your official bio.

From my time as an analyst in the Army to first an analyst and later a technologist at the Texas Department of Public Safety, I’ve had one very consistent through-line, and that is situational awareness. I want to present information and communications about critical matters in a manner that is timely, clear, effective, and yields faster decision-making, which translates into lives saved.

2) In your view, what are the most pressing challenges public safety agencies face when ensuring reliable communication during large-scale disasters or events?

For the U.S., it’s that there are so many independent agencies with their own proprietary tools and communication methods all converging with no commonality. We need more common apps specifically for large-scale events and we need people to train and exercise them. Everything defaults to radio, where most responders have not trained or exercised for those scenarios either.

3) How do you think agencies can overcome the limitations of traditional communication systems during emergencies?

I believe strongly in having simple apps that are designated specifically for the purpose of multi-agency events and disasters. Internal collaboration tools, computer aided dispatch, etc. fail at this because they are inevitably tailored to each specific agency, with proprietary integrations and procedures, and a focus on keeping data internal. Your everyday tool for your home jurisdiction operations is unlikely to be the tool that all your partners all use with you when there’s a disaster, so you should proceed accordingly.

4) Broadband and satellite technologies are transforming public safety communications. How do you see these technologies evolving to address the unique demands of disaster response?

LMR is the mission critical, take-it-anywhere solution that has been the bedrock of public safety communications for almost 100 years. I believe we are going to see the rise of take-it-anywhere applications and broadband, whether enabled by satellite, peer to peer comms/mesh, edge compute, and/or something else.

5) Can you elaborate on how TAK (Team Awareness Kit) integrates with satellite systems to enhance situational awareness during emergencies?

TAK is network agnostic and most of its value is from relatively small bits of data, such as GPS location updates of your teammates. This fits well with relatively narrow bandwidth satellite networks like Iridium or the early T-Sat offering from T-Mobile and Starlink.

6) Could you share a specific example of a large-scale disaster or event where communication infrastructure played a critical role in maintaining public safety?

Central Texas had the misfortune of experiencing a flooding disaster last July. Communications, both broadband and LMR were challenged by difficult terrain and an influx of first responders from across the state and country. Deployable cellular and LMR sites and satellite terminals were all critical in shoring up communications. The event really highlighted how dependent we are as a community on cellular service.

7) What can attendees expect to gain from your session at IWCE 2026?

Candid feedback. I try to be honest and forthcoming about the successes and the challenges from any initiatives I’ve worked on.

8) What are you most excited about for IWCE 2026, and how do you think the event will impact the industry?

I’m very excited about the continued development of satellite direct to device and device-to-device communications, such as via 5G Sidelink. I think that that will usher in a new era of mission critical communications.

Jared Vandenheuvel's sessions: https://agenda.iwceexpo.com/speaker/vandenheuvel-jared/62129