GSN Digital Edition April 2016

Government Security News Awards Programs –
What they’re all about
By Adrian Courtenay
GSN’s first awards program took
place in 2009 and featured a gala
Awards Dinner at New York’s historic
Roosevelt Hotel. In a
collaboration between GSN
and the International Association
of Airport and
Seaport Police, the partners
selected Frances Townsend,
former assistant to President
Bush for Homeland
Security and Terrorism, as
recipient of the 3rd Annual Fred V.
Morrone 9/11 Award.
Previous winners of the Award
had been New York City Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani and former Department
of Homeland Security Undersecretary
Asa Hutchison.
Fred Morrone was the highest
ranking police officer to lose his life
at Ground Zero on September 11,
2001, and Ms Townsend, who has
appeared many times on national
television as an expert in Homeland
Security and terrorism, delivered a
moving tribute to Fred Morrone as
well as the many other heroes and
innocent souls who lost their lives.
There was hardly a dry eye in the
house as the bagpipers of the Airport
and Seaport Police played their
traditional salute to fallen heroes.
9/11 will not be forgotten by the
Courtenay family either, as we lived
only a few hundred yards from
the World Trade Center on Duane
Street, and two of our children
went to school every
day at PS 234, which was
immediately across the
street from the Trade Center.
Our oldest son Clark
and I walked through the
Trade Center almost every
day on the way to his preschool
at Trinity Church. There was
also a fire house nearby
where the fire fighters
would often let Clark sit
in the driver’s seat of their
big fire trucks – which is
about the greatest thrill
that you can give to a
4-year old boy.
We’ll never forget the
kindness of those wonderful
guys at the fire house. Tragically,
eleven of those brave men perished
on 9/11 trying to save other
people’s lives.
In 2010, GSN decided to host its
Awards Dinner in Washington, DC,
where many of the defense contractors
and homeland security technology
companies are located. For this
12
event, we had the spectacular good
fortune, thanks to Mark Hatten, the
brilliant CEO of Mutualink, who
introduced us to retired Four Star
General of the Army Barry McCaffrey,
who agreed to serve as Keynote
Speaker in the 2010 Awards Program.
Here are a few lines from my
description of the dinner and Keynote
address of General McCaffrey:
Forty-five awards, an elegant
dinner and a rousing speech
On the evening of November 8,
2010, in a packed ballroom at the
JW Marriott Hotel in Washington,
DC, an audience of federal, state,
county and municipal government
officials, along with thirty-plus
tables of government contractors,
systems integrators and vendors of
IT and physical security products
and solutions, dined on halibut
and filet mignon and witnessed the