Since 1980, “Fletch” has contributed in various roles in the Public Safety / Telecommunications industry. He initially served 5 years as a Police Dispatcher and Special Officer in New Jersey, with the remainder of his career, focused on telecommunications. As a field engineer and on-site technician, he installed and maintained large private corporate voice networks, guided customers through Y2K remediation and then focused on the transition from Digital and TDM to VoIP, and SIP; and now WebRTC using HTML5. Through his work with the Office of the CTO at Nortel and Avaya, Fletch holds 13 US Patents, primarily focusing on managing NG911 additional data to PSAPs, as well as multimedia call handling functionality for 9-1-1 emergency call takers.
Recognized worldwide for his customer advocacy, and his work on Public Safety Standards, Fletch was honored by the NG911 Institute in 2013, where he was awarded the Industry/Technology Professional Private Sector Award by Congress. In 2015 he also received the NENA President’s Award for his work on Kari’s Law at both the State and Federal levels. On February 16, 2018, Kari’s Law Act of 2017 was signed by the President and became law.
As Avaya’s Chief Architect for Worldwide Public Safety Solutions, he manages the digital transformation roadmap for Public Safety for Avaya solutions while ensuring the functional requirements for NENA i3 compliance is met for emergency communications in both the Enterprise and Government sectors. He is a popular and regular keynote speaker at industry events worldwide and produces various Podcasts on the Avaya Podcast Network. He contributes regularly to the Avaya CONNECTED Blogs, covering emerging technologies and trending industry news. He has also been published in industry publications such as Network World. Fletch also manages the Global Virtual Team for Public Safety Solutions internally at Avaya.
Externally, Fletch represents Avaya in NENA, EENA, and APCO International, and has contributed to several standards and best practices. Between 2014 and 2018, Fletch served as a member of the APCO Standards Development Committee and Technical Subcommittee. He currently serves as the Northeast Region Liaison on the NENA Institute Board, where he provides input for the NENA Emergency Number Professional program. Fletch has also held Federal Advisory roles at the FCC sitting on the EAAC, TFOPA, and the DAC where he most recently was co-chair on the Emergency Communications sub-committee.