Home / Press Releases / All Current Press Releases

FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA, January 27, 2025 – The City of Burlington, Ontario, Canada has chosen Federal Engineering, Inc. (FE) to conduct a staffing study for the City’s Fire Department to support and improve their emergency communications services. This study is estimated to take approximately two months to complete.

Deputy Fire Chief Drew Boys explained: “Having just completed the project’s initiation meeting with Federal Engineering, we are pleased that FE’s experts will lead an onsite, structured review of the Fire Department Communication Centre’s 911 telecommunications infrastructure. They will make operational observations, identify functional issues of concern through discussions with staff, and solicit individual and agency inputs regarding the 9-1-1 system and anticipated evolution to an NG9-1-1 infrastructure.”

“The migration to NG9-1-1 requires comprehensive change management to effectively manage the technology transition, address operational needs, and ensure seamless integration. Data analysis and staffing reviews are critical to the decision process for operational changes as they often uncover important organizational, operational, and change management issues.” Deputy Chief Boys added.

In analyzing call volumes, FE will perform the following:

• Review data for call processing time, call prioritization and categorization, call dispatch time, and total call times, identifying mean and median call and dispatch times.
• Document the call volume and response times.
• Review the operational service components: call-taking, dispatching, administrative, technical support, and ancillary functions.
• Compare call processing and dispatching times to industry standards.

Mr. John E. Murray, Executive Vice President and COO for Federal Engineering, stated: “FE has extensive experience assessing Emergency Communications Centre (ECC) operations, policies and procedures, and technology. The City of Burlington will benefit greatly from FE’s in-depth knowledge acquired working with ECCs across North America. This includes similar staffing studies for communication centres serving the cities of Hamilton and Milton, Ontario; Oakland, California; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Reedy Creek, Florida; and Washington, D.C.”

“FE’s Canadian team is committed to supporting ongoing efforts to improve emergency communications services. Our team members have the resources, expertise, and experience with the City of Burlington to successfully guide the City forward. The City will benefit from FE’s unique combination of subject matter expertise, Canadian experience, local presence, broad range of systems experience, knowledge of technologies, operational backgrounds, project management background, and implementation experience,” concluded Mr. Murray.

Federal Engineering is a leading nationwide firm providing analysis, design, procurement, and implementation support for NG9-1-1, PSAPs, ECCs, EOCs, and RTCs. These services complement FE’s wide range of consulting services in public safety and public service communications involving VHF, UHF, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, and 4.9GHz mobile radio systems, LTE and CBRS. FE’s cybersecurity practice helps our clients defend against today’s complex and ever-changing threat landscape. FE personnel also serve as trusted advisors assisting clients in assessing services such as FirstNet® and the impacts of new technologies on their current and future plans. Since 1983, FE has completed thousands of communications projects in all 50 states for numerous state, local, and federal government clients and Canadian clients.

In addition to its public sector work, Federal Engineering provides design and implementation support services for voice, data, and video networks in the transportation, utilities, finance, education, and computer services industries. FE’s certified independence ensures that clients receive objective, unbiased consulting services that are not influenced by any technology, product, vendor, or approach.