EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – NC4, Inc., a leader in situational awareness, incident monitoring, crisis management, and secure collaboration, today announced that Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties plan to deploy E Team to enhance emergency preparedness throughout the Tampa Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI).  An information-sharing tool, E Team empowers emergency managers in the region to work together in preparation for, and response to, critical incidents, as well as planned and unplanned events. “As the heart of this region, it is important for the City of Tampa to be able to coordinate with our neighboring jurisdictions, as well as prepare for, and respond to, any incident,” said Chauncia Willis, emergency management coordinator, City of Tampa, Fla.  “Tampa selected E Team because we required an out-of-the-box emergency management solution that did not need to be assembled or significantly customized, and could be up and running quickly without intensive training.  E Team provides efficient communication and collaboration throughout the region, and offers intuitive, Web-based, Incident Command System forms for easy information exchange.” Tampa chose E Team based on its proven history of performance, and ease of implementation, requiring minimal training or IT support.  Funded via a Department of Homeland Security grant, Tampa’s self-hosted E Team implementation arms the emergency management team with a complete set of Web-based incident management tools, geographic information system capabilities, and a resource tracking utility.  E Team’s common framework ensures Tampa can receive and share information, as well as manage incidents in real time.  Recognizing the value of regional information sharing, Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, and its neighbor to the west, Pinellas County, also moved to adopt E Team via the UASI umbrella. “We value E Team’s open architecture – it allows our team to work with the application on a daily basis while keeping the most current data on the system, ready for use during any emergency,” said Sally Bishop, director, Pinellas County Emergency Management.  “Pinellas County needed a powerful, user-friendly emergency management system that could also facilitate collaboration within our region.  E Team came highly recommended from Tampa and other Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs) in the area, confirming our decision to use the system.” By linking E Team systems, EOCs in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties can benefit from instant information exchange.  Additionally, cities and counties connected through E Team can manage mutual aid agreements, transmit requests for resources, and share meaningful reports with the click of a button.  This information is available to all users, allowing them to track incidents and resources every day, as well as in the event of a disaster. “Hillsborough County’s legacy emergency management system lacked the capability to share information with our neighboring jurisdictions, making collaborative response and recovery arduous and time intensive,” said Larry Gispert, director of emergency management, Hillsborough County.  “E Team allows us to capture events as they unfold and, importantly, gives us the capability to share, document, and report data.  The software makes information sharing among Hillsborough County, the City of Tampa, and Pinellas County effortless - we now have the ability to view and post updated status instantly throughout the region.” E Team Demonstration NC4 will demonstrate E Team January 29-31 in St. Pete Beach, Fla. at the 2008 Florida Emergency Preparedness Association (FEPA) Conference.  The FEPA annual conference provides Florida’s Emergency Management professionals a training opportunity for the purpose of advancing the Emergency Management programs of the State of Florida and its 67 counties in an effort to preserve and protect the quality of life for 16 million Florida residents.  NC4 representatives will be available at booth #2 for demonstrations. About NC4 NC4, through its incident monitoring centers, improves the Situational Awareness to both business and government clients by providing real-time, global, 24x7 proactive incident information and alerts.  NC4 issues timely, relevant, and personalized alerts covering incidents near an organization’s key locations that may impact life and safety, physical assets, and continuity of operations.  This includes incidents such as transportation, severe weather, hazmat, law enforcement, fire, terrorism, and other incidents that have the potential to cause disruption. Additionally, NC4 provides Situational Response through its E Team offering, which provides sophisticated software and planning tools to enable emergency managers to effectively process the massive amounts of information generated during a major event, crisis, or disaster.  E Team’s Windows-based, browser-accessible software has been used for project management during events ranging from 9/11, multiple Olympics, and political conventions to hurricanes and other natural disasters. NC4 also provides Secure Communications and Collaboration through its ESP offerings.  ESP is an application service provider that provides government agencies and corporations with a common platform for secure communication and collaboration.  ESP provides a thorough security solution for diverse organizations to share Sensitive but Unified (SBU) information through highly secure, compartmented, Web-accessible portals.  For more information, contact: Samantha Archey, O'Keeffe & Company, Inc. Phone: (703) 883-9000 x. 115 Email: sarchey@okco.com