The second edition of NCT CBRNe USA took place from May 31 to June 2, 2016 in Arlington, Virginia, and attracted over 250 delegates from the US, Europe and countries such as Brazil, Canada, South-Korea and Pakistan. The event offered a unique networking opportunity and provided an excellent platform to exchange expertise among end-users, industry representatives and decision-makers. With its comprehensive program, outstanding knowledge exchange opportunities and CBRNe capability displays, NCT CBRNe USA again proved to be the high-level networking forum in CBRNe defense and response in the US. 

Capability demonstration at the U.S. Army 20th CBRNE Command 

The 3-days event took off with a capability demonstration at the U.S. Army 20th CBRNE Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground – Edgewood Area. After welcome remarks in the Joint Operations Center by Commander Brig. Gen. William King and Command Sergeant Major 

Kenneth Graham, the NCT delegates had the opportunity to rotate through displays provided by the Nuclear Disablement Team, the CBRNE Coordination Element, the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team and the Mobile Expeditionary Laboratory. 

The participants received an outstanding opportunity to learn more about the CBRNe defense and response capabilities of the U.S. Army 20th CBRNE Command. The delegates were able to interact with military representatives from the 20th CBRNE Command that shared their best practices and lessons learned from the use of specific PPE, reconnaissance, analysis and detection equipment. 

During the briefings provided during the visit, Brig. Gen. King stressed the essential role of the Command in integrating, coordinating and providing trained and ready CBRNE forces for overseas contingencies and war fighting operations, but also for homeland defense. The 20th CBRNE Command provides an operational CBRNE headquarters for the U.S. Army Forces Command’s active component CBRNE capabilities packaged into cohesive modular and expeditionary formations. Equally important, it provides a worldwide deployable headquarters to serve as the core of a joint task force to manage weapons of mass destruction elimination operations. It maintains technical links with appropriate Joint Army Federal and State CBRNE assets as well as the research development and technical communities to assure Army CBRNE response readiness. 

Comprehensive conference program with high-ranking speakers and an innovation stream 

On June 1st, the NCT CBRNe USA conferences and exhibition welcomed over 200 participating national and international delegates. The conferences were chaired by Brig. Gen. (ret.) JB Burton, former Commander of the U.S. Army 20th CBRNE Command, and Guy Roberts, former Deputy Assistant Secretary General for WMD Policy at NATO. The main conference stream was opened by a plenary session with key-note speeches from EdwardGabriel, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Simon Limage, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Non-proliferation Programs, Maj. Gen. Lein, Commander of the USAMRMC, Brig. Gen. King, Commander of the U.S. Army 20th CBRNE Command and Will Hargett, Executive Vice President at  Bruker Detection Corporation. All the speakers underlined the evolving nature of the CBRNe threat environment and offered valuable insights in capability development programs at civil and military agencies in the US. 

The two-day conference provided comprehensive presentations on topics such as medical countermeasures, biological threats, domestic civil support for CBRN incidents, critical infrastructure protection and welcomed, among others, representatives from the FBI, National Guard, NYPD, FDNY, DTRA, USAMRICD and EPA. In addition to the main conference stream, NCT CBRNe USA hosted an Innovation Stream on June 1st that focused on novel solutions in CBRNe decontamination, detection, WMD proliferation and terrorism with presentations on novel technologies, best practices and state of the art solutions to tackle the ever growing threat of CBRNe challenges. 

The closing plenary of the conference on June 2nd welcomed a keynote speech by Douglas Bryce, Joint Program Executive Officer for Chemical and Biological Defense at the JPEO-CBD who presented the main roles of the JPEO-CBD in providing research, development and acquisition fielding of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear defense for the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy and Combatant Commands. 

Static displays with state and federal actors 

The NCT CBRNe USA event concluded with an outdoor display of CBRN analysis and response capabilities provided by the FBI Forensic Response Section, the Arlington County Fire Department, the Fort Myer Fire and Rescue Services and the National Guard CST-WMD 

Delaware. By showcasing CBRNe equipment and vehicles, the display offered an excellent opportunity for delegates to interact with first responders and to learn about the cooperation between state and federal actors in case of a major domestic incident involving hazardous materials. 

See you next year! 

Wrapping up this year’s successful edition of NCT CBRNe USA, IB Consultancy is proud to announce that it has agreed to team with VIP GlobalNet, LLC and Advanced Science and Technology Associates (ASTA), the organizers of the Combating Radiological, and Nuclear Threats event series for the organization of next year’s edition of NCT USA event taking place 19-21 September 2017 in Washington DC. VIP GlobalNet and ASTA will independently produce the Radiological and Nuclear portion of the conference, with IB Consultancy producing the Chembio and Explosives portion of the event. The event will therefore host three separate conferences: NCT CBRNe USA with a focus on Chembio, NCT eXplosive USA, the EOD/C-IED conference and RadNuke, the Radiological and Nuclear conference. Jointly, these conferences will cover all aspects of CBRNe. 

Before the US show returns to Washington in September 2017, check out the event’s photos on www.facebook.com/ibconsultancy, or sign up for the NCT/CBNW newsletter here.