After several years of discussions regarding a command rally with agencies in North Carolina, the North Carolina Command and Communications Rally came to fruition on April 10th, 2015.The NC Command Rally was a joint planning effort between PEAKE North Carolina Emergency Management and Guilford County Emergency Management. PEAKE sponsored the event and NCEM and Guilford County EM served as the hosts. The collaboration of planning efforts began in late 2014 and culminated to a successful event at the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, NC with nearly 200 participants.The rally was developed to give statewide agencies the opportunity to meet up, share insights, demonstrate their communications and command vehicle capabilities, participate in training, gather information and collaborate with one another. Private vendors were invited to show participants the latest technologies on the market as well as provide support where needed.Roman Kaluta provided two one-hour long training sessions on Raytheon’s ACU interoperability solution, which is used widely throughout the state to bridge radio networks and connect disparate audio devices. Jeffrey Childs, the NCEM Statewide Interoperability Coordinator, presented on Statewide Assets, while Trooper Lane Hobbes presented on the NDCPS VIPER radio system. There was also a presentation for COM-L and COM-T training and information.Many agencies and organizations throughout the State brought command and communication vehicles to demonstrate including Charlotte Fire Department, Greensboro Fire, Raleigh Fire, NC State Highway Patrol, Asheville Fire, Guilford County Sheriff, Air National Guard, North Carolina Emergency Management, Transportation Security Administration, Lincoln County, and Salisbury Fire. Two out of state agencies joined the rally including Alabama Emergency Management and the Virginia Communications Cache. Cisco TacOps also joined the rally with their communications trailer, ECU-1.PEAKE has planned and sponsored an annual command rally in Maryland for several years. With a strong customer base in North Carolina, it was a logical step to begin an annual rally in the state. Several communication vehicles built by PEAKE participated in the rally including Cisco TacOps ECU-1 and Utility-1, Charlotte Fire Field Comm 1, Asheville Fire communications trailer and flyaway kit, Greensboro Fire T-Comm Avalanche and Raleigh Fire’s p-Comm 355.The number of participants exceeded expectations and the logistics of the day ran smoothly. State, local and federal agencies based in NC were able to collaborate and demonstrate capabilities, as well as train on systems used widely throughout the state. The event was a success, capped off with a great barbeque lunch from Carter Brothers, from High Point NC. PEAKE looks forward to next year’s NC Command Rally.To take a look inside the NC Command Rally, click here to watch a video.If your agency would like to host a command rally in your region or state, please contact sjones@peake.com for information and sponsorship opportunities.