ep.164 Deploying 800 Starlink Kits in 56 Hours: Inside Florida’s Digital Hurricane Response with Keith Pruett, Emergency Support Function (ESF) 20 Coordinator at Florida Digital Service

Joe Toste [00:00:00]:
Hey, what's up everybody? This is Joe Toste from Techtables.com and you're listening to the public sector show by techtables. This podcast features human centric stories from public sector, cios, cisos and technology leaders across federal, state, city, county and higher education. You'll gain valuable insights in the current issues and challenges faced by top leaders through interviews, speaking engagements, live podcast tour events. We offer you a behind the mic look at the opportunities top lead yours are seen today and to make sure you never miss an episode, head over to Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Hit that follow button and leave a quick rating. Just tap the number of stars that you think this show deserves.

Joe Toste [00:00:34]:
Keith welcome to the public sector show by tech tables at the Florida Digital Collab annex.

Keith Pruett [00:00:40]:
Isn't it awesome?

Joe Toste [00:00:41]:
Are we still calling it the annex?

Keith Pruett [00:00:43]:
Expansion maybe expansion, extension, expansion.

Joe Toste [00:00:46]:
I'm not sure it's an extension of an expansion. So introduce us.

Keith Pruett [00:00:50]:
Keith Pruett born and raised in West Virginia and was fortunate enough coming out of high school. I got to go to a pretty nice division two school in Tennessee, Carson Newman University, and played football there. And while I was there, stumbled into the Army ROTC recruiter's office one day because wasn't sure what I was going to do after college and that embarked on a 21 year career in the army. Four tours in Iraq, one tour in Afghanistan, and last assignment brought me to Tallahassee where I was the head of the Army ROTC program for Florida State University. And coming out of there, we made the decision to settle and retire here in Tallahassee effective April of last year. I retired after 21 years and started working here with the Florida Digital Service and currently I am the ESF 20, which is emergency support function 20 coordinator. It's a cybersecurity but also digital response that we provide to the state concurrent with either emergency situations activations in the UOC, but then also what Dem, what division of Emergency Management would refer to as blue skies grayskies even during blue sky operation non emergency situations. I would represent Florida Digital service as a liaison between our two agencies.

Keith Pruett [00:02:19]:
All matters cybersecurity. While I am not the technical hands on problem solver, I am the facilitator of information and it is my job to keep Florida digital service, our brothers with FDLE and some of our federal partners in concert and make sure that the information is being shared when it can be shared to all those impacted.

Joe Toste [00:02:41]:
That's great. Thank you for serving. Love it. Always love meeting folks who have served. And you played football. I did okay, so how do you and Jamie get along in the office?

Keith Pruett [00:02:50]:
I think Jamie avoids me to bring up any unfair comparisons. No, I know Jamie and his passion for Auburn football, and it often leads to great banter in and around to break up those days, especially Monday mornings or Sunday mornings after a rough evening of watching your team peril. But yeah, it bodes well because honestly, being a part of an organized sport, whether it's at high school level or beyond, the longer you do it, I think the more it sticks with you. And I think those foundations of teamwork and understanding who has to pull their weight, not only did that transfer over to my career in the military, but it has also transferred into my career with the state government because everybody does have to pull their own weight. And you may not understand why some person that is an offensive lineman doesn't have to do the same as a wide receiver, but at the end it's about pulling your weight. And honestly, that is apparent with my time here with FLDS and it's something I think that has served me well.

Joe Toste [00:03:51]:
That's great. We're going to get to Hurricane Ian and then how you think about the upcoming hurricane season. But I love what you said about the organized kind of team sport, teamwork, pulling your own weight. I think as I coach high school basketball, so I talk about this all the time on the podcast. I learned so much about leadership from twelve high school boys that I'm trying to get to be one team and whether that's removing ego from playing time and just focusing on the mission of what we're trying to accomplish that particular season and then serving in the military, everything you learn. I didn't serve in the military, but everything you learn from those traits carries over to the real world so well. And I always recommend that folks, kids actually get in and play a sport because you just learn so much about yourself and just discipline and sticking to a schedule and showing up and working out and I love that and actually had a great talk with this guy's the director of infrastructure for the city of Houston. Same thing.

Joe Toste [00:04:51]:
He's everything I use today. There's a technical component for him, but interacting with the city, making the business case to get money, having relationships, building support, everything he learned in sports.

Keith Pruett [00:05:03]:
And it's funny that a lot of those foundations, it's easy for us to teach or pass on, I would say specified meaning, hey, it's on paper, in basketball you have to put the basket through the hoop to get points, right. Those are specified tasks. Hey, pass it to the open player. But what they don't realize is the importance of the implied task. How do you work to get someone open? How do you get them involved? What are you doing that isn't as transparent to everyone behind the scenes that is actually making these things successful? So not only does it apply in sports, it applies in the military, but it applies in life. You don't necessarily see all of the things that you do for your family on the surface, but it's behind the scenes. It's after everybody's asleep or it's before everybody wakes up that you're actually doing things that have these lasting impacts.

Joe Toste [00:05:50]:
Yeah, I love that. And the last thing on the sports front, I know everyone who's listening to this podcast is like, joe always talks about sports, but that's just how it goes, the x's and o's. And so, like in sports, you can have, we're going to run this play. This is what it's going to look like. And then exactly what you said on the stat sheet. You may run the play and there's the stat sheet, but there's so many intangibles that show up. And there are players who may score zero points and they may have zero steals, but their hands are everywhere and they're moving and they're communicating, they're talking. They're just providing leadership on the floor.

Joe Toste [00:06:29]:
And that doesn't really show up in the stat line, but it shows up in the game film.

Keith Pruett [00:06:33]:
That's right. Dennis Rodman. I'm a lifelong Laker fan, but the circus that he became throughout his career. But if you go back and look, he wasn't an offensive prowess. He wasn't anything. But. He got the rebounds, he played defense, and he got in people's heads, and it was the intangibles. And to be honest, those are the people that make or break your successes.

Keith Pruett [00:06:53]:
It's the behind the scenes action, I think.

Joe Toste [00:06:55]:
Yeah, no, I love that. Did you watch the Jordan or the Bulls documentary on Netflix?

Keith Pruett [00:07:01]:
Did you catch that one? Not only have I watched the last dance, if that's what you refer to, and then I've watched Showtime, the story of the Lakers again, those things really are very telling because it honestly takes an approach of, yeah, this was all about Michael with the Bulls, but what was his accompanying players who were the complementary pieces that actually allowed him to be, you know, now we see everything with him and Scotty in the media.

Joe Toste [00:07:29]:
It's funny, but, yeah, no, I really like the last dance. I think the piece where now you think it's oh, Michael Jordan, he's so famous. He took this team, but when they were going up against the Pistons, he was just getting brutally beat. I mean, he had to not only go put on weight and get stronger, but then he had to go recruit a team.

Keith Pruett [00:07:49]:
That's right.

Joe Toste [00:07:50]:
And he figured that out. And where I think a lot of players think they can do the solo show, but you can't win without a team.

Keith Pruett [00:07:58]:
That's right.

Joe Toste [00:07:59]:
And I think on that team, I'm trying to think of, there's so many funny stories. I love the one with Steve Kerr, and he's the coach of the warriors. He actually won a ring afterwards with San Antonio, with the spurs.

Keith Pruett [00:08:11]:
That's right.

Joe Toste [00:08:12]:
And he had the fight with Michael Jordan and then he bought him a.

Keith Pruett [00:08:17]:
Yeah, they got into it at practice and that's referenced, I think, in the last dance. They talk about how that impacted them, but it's funny how those two were able to overcome that. And if you're looking at the news today, the whole issue between Jordan Poole, Draymond Green and all of the stuff, and now Jordan Poole has been traded. And after the season, comments from coach Kerr, who went through something like this with his own teammate. Right. Yeah, it broke up their team. So it just shows how mentally strong the Bulls teams were that they could overcome that and put egos aside and get through it, and they succeeded. But maybe today's athlete is a little bit different because it didn't seem that the warriors recovered from it, according to them.

Keith Pruett [00:08:55]:
I don't know. I'm not a golden state fan.

Joe Toste [00:08:56]:
Yeah, I'm a huge golden state fan and I think there's nothing more. Even the whole Kevin Durant leaving. For me, it comes back to ego and humility, and if you can't control your ego, you're going to have a real hard time. And it just takes some humility for the greater mission of, hey, we could go out and win six or eight rings if we still had Durant and everyone's healthy. Instead, I think Draymond was declining his player option. The whole thing is just in shambles.

Keith Pruett [00:09:28]:
Right now, I think. So we're witnessing the end.

Joe Toste [00:09:32]:
It's heartbreaking. As a Warriors fan, I guess I really like Stefan Clay, and I really thought they had a really good sense of humility on the team, and then I thought they could try to keep the package together, but it's tough on teams. What are your thoughts? And I know we'll jump to the hurricane because I really want to talk about that, but just thoughts on ego. Humility. And what you've seen from the military to coming into public sector.

Keith Pruett [00:09:57]:
Now, what I think is, again, one of those things that transcends agency, industry, whatever background you come from are the intangibles. And if you are going to be in positions of leadership, I think you have to embrace not just the attributes that we expect out of a leader, but you've got to embody and believe in the principles and the responsibilities that come with being a leader. And that starts with no success is accomplished and owned individually. Successes, especially in an industry, are shared successes because it takes more than one person to bring those things to fruition. And where ownership comes into play, I think, is, as a leader, is my responsibility to own failures but share successes. And the people that I think embody those attributes are destined for greatness or destined for success. And those are, if you're looking across the board, at who you want to build your team around, those are the personality traits, I think, that stand out because they have, in my opinion, an understanding of the harmony and the orchestra and how every instrument in the orchestra has a vital part to making the music right. You've got people that will pretend to be something that they.

Keith Pruett [00:11:18]:
I. At Florida State, I used to tell my cadets this all the time. There's a very thin line between wearing a uniform and honestly wearing a costume, because it represents what you are projecting. The uniform is now a telling sign of who I am, what I am, and how you should address me. But underneath, that uniform is still a person. And when you're in costume, it's representative of who you're pretending to be. But when you're in uniform, it's supposed to be an expression of who you are. Either way, once that clothing comes on, it's not only important for you to be present in charge, however you want to describe that, but it's also important to be authentic.

Keith Pruett [00:12:03]:
And the reason authenticity is so important is because your team, whether it's your soldiers, subordinates, your teammates here at the state government level, the people that you work with, if they don't know the true versions of you, what do you like when you're happy? What do you like when you're aggravated? What do you like when you're angry? What do you like when you're sad? If they, over a course of time, don't get to experience that. When that version of you surfaces, they're going to see a stranger. And the reason that is so important, I think, is because when the crap hits the fan, your real self is going to come out so if you've been faking who you are this entire time, and suddenly a crisis emerges and something, and we go sideways and this different version of you comes out, your team is going to be like, who is this? I don't recognize this person. I don't trust this person. I'm not following this person. But if you've been authentic and you've been yourself the entire time, that's Joe when he's upset, I know what to do. That's Joe when he's happy. We know what we need to do.

Keith Pruett [00:13:03]:
You know what mean, like, it's easier to inspire, motivate, direct and guide if you've been authentic. And to be honest, that emotional intelligence, that emotional awareness, that self awareness, those attributes I think get instilled when you play sports. And I won't limit it to military service. I think law enforcement, search and rescue teams, fired EMS, hospital workers, there is a team dynamic to all of those. There's someone in charge. But then everybody's playing their part. And in those stressful environments and combat and two minute drills and whatever, maybe er operate rotations, those are the times when that authenticity is going to come out. And it's important that your subordinates see that.

Keith Pruett [00:13:50]:
And I think that all goes back to those type of exposures with military and sports and whatnot.

Joe Toste [00:13:56]:
That's a great transition. Okay, so crap hits the fan. Let's go back to last October. It's last October, right?

Keith Pruett [00:14:03]:
Yes, give or take. September 20 eigth, I think is the official impact day.

Joe Toste [00:14:07]:
So take us back there, give us leading up to that. And then the response, Hurricane ian, the.

Keith Pruett [00:14:13]:
Spaghetti models and everything that was showing the track. It wasn't a matter of if, it was a matter of when and where. Because the trajectory kept changing as the storm was making its way through the gulf towards about the 24th, 25 September, it was a known, hey, it's going to make impact in the state. There was little chance that it was going to divert at that point, so we had to start doing preparations. Now, ESF 20 is one of two new esfs. Earlier in 2022, we had just exercised some of the functionalities and we're trying to iron out some wrinkles on how ESF 20 was going to be engaged, employed and how it could impact disaster response through the state EOC. And we had some familiarity. We had, I would say, a rough draft going into it, but no situation is going to be completely replicated of any preparation or exercise that we've done.

Keith Pruett [00:15:13]:
We practice certain things. Those things may or may not ever happen, but we do exercise some functions, and we get a basic understanding of how we're going to engage ourselves, employ ourselves, and how we can best serve the citizens of Florida. And so, as Ian was making its way, there were ongoing discussions on not just a cybersecurity perspective, because in its purest format, ESF 20 is derived from ESF two, which is telecommunications. And it's really focusing on that cybersecurity aspect and our posture and maintaining statewide security, not only at agency level, at state level, but at the county, municipality levels as well, and having a good understanding of our footprint. And concurrent to that, FLDS has been part of the establishment for state government enterprise. And it's taking what we're practicing or what we're preaching and trying to put it to practice, and then reinforcing that when things get a little excited, as Hurricane Ian brought plenty of excitement for us. September 20, 627 28. September 20 eigth it hits, and immediately we are looking at a catastrophic event.

Keith Pruett [00:16:24]:
I'll never forget moment in the EOC when the meteorologist was saying, okay, so Hurricane Ian is a category four, but it's only 2 miles an hour away from being a category five. And for those of you that don't know how much that is, she blew into the microphone like that, and it was like, oh, wow, it is so close to being a cat five. And it makes landfall and does this huge swath of damage. And I'll never forget Jamie coming in and saying, hey, KP, we got something. I want you to run this down. I want you to look into it. And it was this acquisition of Starlink and how we could now take this huge capability of satellite Internet that was reliant only on clear line of sight to the sky and power. So if we could get a generator in a parking lot, we could turn on and get some connectivity.

Keith Pruett [00:17:11]:
And so from there, we planted a seed, and it grew exponentially.

Joe Toste [00:17:18]:
Okay, so let's go a little bit more on the Starlink. Dive a little bit more into the details, because I think it would be valuable for other, because I think a huge part is Internet access broadly across the US. So anytime there's a natural disaster, can you go a little bit more on the Starlink?

Keith Pruett [00:17:33]:
Absolutely.

Joe Toste [00:17:34]:
And how successful that was, it was an overwhelming success.

Keith Pruett [00:17:37]:
And to be honest, we weren't really sure we were limiting its capabilities based off of our understanding. But what you realize is the more thought you apply to it, the greater capability actually came with it. So at first, there were some previous discussions in the event of a compromised election or any type of statewide event that required secure communications. When potentially a bad actor has disrupted communications, could we break contact with that server and stand up something independent and secure? And so I think, to date, Starlink, because of their fleet with SpaceX of satellites, that they have low orbit satellites, they're the only ones that can provide that outside of some military capabilities, which we're not going to get. And it was readily available. Discussions had been going on, and so it was something that would take time through the normal legislative process to forecast. What would be our requirements? How could we employ these? Where would we store them? What would we do? How would this be a benefit legislature doing its due diligence and asking these questions? It wasn't something that with great rapidity, we were going to be able to roll out. Then Ian happens, and you go through the emergency procurement process, and there is a different way for which we are able to acquire.

Keith Pruett [00:18:58]:
And so it expedited the normal procurement process and made it a little bit more palatable. And we could easily show this is something that is going to be vital to the way of life, because the more technologically dependent we become as society, the more technological access we need. So Ian comes, and Lord knows the damage that happened. Get on the EOC floor. We understand there was an initial number that we could readily acquire. We got those. And the first people that I spoke with were search and rescue teams, Department of Transportation, and some of the utility companies that were having to send folks out. Obviously, search and rescue, obviously, Department of Transportation for roadways, surveillance and bridge and causeway, and search and rescue going line by line clearing properties.

Keith Pruett [00:19:51]:
Well, a lot of that in the past was dependent on teams go out, collect information, come back, upload it to a place where service has been restored. But this Starlink gave us real time so they could take these portable kits with them, and as long as they had access to the sky. And we worked with SpaceX and made sure that there was increased coverage, and we were able to get network priority so that others could not interrupt ongoing operations, rescue operations, survey operations, and power restoration. And so once we got these, within 56 hours of Ian making landfall, we had these about 30 kits out in the field making these assessments. And it's, wow. Search and rescue going by latitude, longitude, and clearing, and being able to identify and upload and give real time information to other search and rescue teams and Department of Transportation out there looking at the causeways, going out to the islands and doing roadway assessments and utilizing technology to give aerial coverage. And there was all of these things, they're inspecting bridges with drone footage, and that is being shared live with the state EOC. And we were scratching the surface of something that we had not experimented with before, and we're just really tapping into, I think, the capability set that came with it.

Keith Pruett [00:21:11]:
And from there, it just grew. And as it grew, we started thinking about, what about hospitals? What about pharmacies? What about schools, these locations and schools probably a little bit later, because we had to get life, limb, eyesight, established pharmacies, banks, some of the bigger grocery stores. People don't think of grocery stores as life, limb, or eyesight. But if someone didn't have a home or someone didn't have power, what are they getting for food? And how are they preparing the food? But then, oh, let's get the banks up and running. Also, because people need to get cash. And some of these businesses relied on credit card transaction, and they were going cash only, but people couldn't get cash because there was Internet connectivity for the atms out there. We were turning on all of these different facets of life, and it was really creating this return to normalcy for day to day livelihood. And restaurants, banks, schools, grocery stores.

Keith Pruett [00:22:08]:
And then from there, we started looking at public hotspots. Where can our citizens go without going to somewhere to buy something and start reaching out to family members and start maybe supplying insurance information or doing requests and starting those processes? And it really just continued to grow and grow. And at its peak, on one single day, we had 632 kits active in the impacted area. But throughout the. There were over 800 deployments of Starlink kits throughout the impacted area. And it's really just changed, I think, how we see not just the role of ESF 20, which, again, at its purest sense, was cybersecurity related. We monitored cybersecurity connectivity during the storm, but there wasn't a persistent or elevated threat at the time. So we had the bandwidth at ESF 20 to incorporate this enhanced digital capability.

Keith Pruett [00:23:09]:
And as Florida digital service, it just seemed like a perfect opportunity and a perfect marriage. And being an army logistician, it really was suited for me because it gave me the opportunity to acquire, deploy, monitor, reconcile, redeploy, reconcile, and then store. And that's the life of a logistician. But in the military, property, accountability, connectivity, taking care of your people, all of those things integrated into this response, and it was a huge success.

Joe Toste [00:23:47]:
I love that. Okay, so you said 800 starlink kits, is that right? 800. Okay. Emergency procurement process. How long would it that have taken if it wasn't if it would have just gone through the normal procurement that.

Keith Pruett [00:23:57]:
Is dependent on the current slate of legislative agendas. So who knows? There would have been those that I think would have been against it. There would have been those that have been for it, and it would have been a job of convincing does the need or the necessity warrant the cost? And in doing that, is that something that we want to pursue, and is it something that we want one agency to manage or do we want multiple agencies to manage? And I think it could have been a drawn out process, but I can't speak. That's hypothetical. Who knows? Maybe it would have been a slam dunk and it would have went right through. But I know that at the time we felt, hey, we don't know enough about this to prepare to the full legislative route to get this across the finish. There were other initiatives that warranted more attention than that. But then the disaster hits and it's, you know what? Let's revisit that because there is a definite need and a real world case applicability to this.

Joe Toste [00:24:55]:
That's great. I always love asking folks just the difference between kind of the normal procurement process and then the emergency procurement process. And I think that the biggest example is Covid of what took ten years to get things that people suddenly are deploying next week. So any emergency type, you can accelerate. And I'm always curious how in government we can accelerate what we're doing, but not through an emergency.

Keith Pruett [00:25:22]:
Right.

Joe Toste [00:25:23]:
Kudos to you guys, to the state of Florida for getting out 800 Starlink kits. And I think I was reading a story, too, that there was a bridge that collapsed somewhere in south Florida. They got the bridge back up in four days a week. It was pretty impressive. They were right on top of it. The execution was fantastic. I'm just like, I was reading all the stories because we were going to have a live event in Tallahassee and we were going to highlight a bunch of the stuff from Florida, which totally changed because then when we did in Orlando, we were highlighting both the local cybersecurity grant program and the response from Hurricane Ian. So how are you thinking about the 2023 season coming up? I know you're not going to be able to forecast everything.

Keith Pruett [00:26:01]:
Let me look in the crystal ball on September 14. No.

Joe Toste [00:26:06]:
Or just more like around planning and lessons that you would maybe give to other folks in different states around how you think about somewhat regular occurring seasonal activity.

Keith Pruett [00:26:17]:
Well, again, I don't know if this may seem obvious to some or lost on others, but you're only as good as your most recent experience. And I think, if anything, Florida is very experienced right now. To date, our state EOC is still at a level two, meaning it's still on an activation. We are still closing out and monitoring residuals from Ian that has not fully been encapsulated and closed and put away. We take lessons learned. Any victory or loss warrants, I think an after action review. What could we have done better? What do we seek to sustain? What do we seek to improve? And so one of the improves for us and the sustain, it's got some duality there, but we are now postured and ready to deploy these kits even faster than we were with doing it within 56 hours of landfall, because we have been able to maintain this fleet and they're centrally located. And some of them I have already and am still continually transferring ownership of some of these kits throughout counties, other agencies and other departments, specifically Department of Transportation.

Keith Pruett [00:27:33]:
One of the first ones that we were able to give kits to, we allowed them and set it up and transferred some ownership of some kits to them. So that initial requisition, that activation, that transfer, that deployment, that part is already taken care of. It'll just now be a matter of getting them. We have looked at who are the most likely, what is the most beneficial, and who has the biggest need. Not all counties in Florida are created equally, and some never have to worry about some of these disruptions, but some more than others. Maybe every storm that comes through Monroe county down in the south, every storm that comes through at some point seems to impact the keys, southern Florida, and then over closer to Pensacola, get closer to Louisiana. It seems like that there is these certain counties, certain areas that experience a lot more than others. And those are the areas where we try to now lean forward and take what we just went through and better position ourselves.

Keith Pruett [00:28:33]:
I'll use a sports reference here. I'm a Steeler fan. Coach Tom will always. He has all these quips and these great bites and press conferences, but the standard is the standard. And jokingly with some of my teammates here at FLDS, I'll say, yeah, the standard is the expectation, but the expectation is to exceed the standard. And that is now what we have established. We changed how we will digitally respond to an emergency event through what we put. Proof of concept was Ian.

Keith Pruett [00:29:04]:
Everyone had ideas, everyone had this opportunity, but we're now going to take those ideas. We saw how they worked. We're going to embellish on those a little bit, or adjust some of those and incorporate those into standard operating procedures. So working with the county eocs to make sure. Here's another we talk about primary alternate contingency and emergency forms of communication. If you and I have primary communication and then a backup, and it's a landline and a backup is our cell phone and then our contingency is a satellite phone. Well, the further down those echelons you go, if someone else doesn't have an emergency form of commute, then you're just basically carrying a paper with I'm down to my sat phone, but I'm only going to be able to talk to other people with a sat phone right now. It's not like I can use my sat phone to call your cell phone because we've already passed the triage of cell phones are out.

Keith Pruett [00:29:59]:
Knowing that we have redundancies in place and our redundancies are as good as the availability to everyone predistributing and pre positioning starlinks throughout the state, having them more readily available, cut down on the lag time to which it would take us to deploy them. And then again, having relationships with agencies and counties, county emergency management centers, having those things already out there is going to cut down on what we have to do in the moment of execution. So it's easier to turn those things off. Let's have them out there. Let's have them ready. Better to have and not need than not have and want. I think we are really prepared for the next emergency. Covid was in and its own beast, in and of itself, its own beast.

Keith Pruett [00:30:47]:
And there were responses and some of the systems that we used from a digital standpoint, technology standpoint, we were able to apply some of those lessons learned and personnel and methodologies and put that into practice with Ian. So it only makes me think that the next event, however far out it may be, we're better postured for that because of our recent practices and the anticipation from whatever experts, it looks like it'll be a quieter season, hurricane season this year, El Nino, La Nina. I think it's an El Nino year. So be it. But you have to stand ready because not everything goes according to plan. And our job is to be prepared for when things go off script. And I think that's where we're at.

Joe Toste [00:31:35]:
I love that after action review, distilling down all of the lessons and how you can improve and optimize. And I think what comes to mind is, I think as we're wrapping up is who at the Florida digital services on the team. Would you love to highlight from the hurricane response you're like, hey, this team member was.

Keith Pruett [00:31:55]:
Would. The only way I can describe it to someone is that there was a point where I don't necessarily know whether it was a personality conflict, and I shouldn't say conflict. We all come to work and we have our, I think, in many instances, tunnel vision. We're focused on what we have to do today, and that's great. You want that work ethic, you want that personal motivation from employees. But I don't think that there was ever an opportunity for me as ESF 20 to really get an understanding of what's going on with service experience, what's going on with the executive team, what's going on policy wise, what has happened legislatively that might impact what I do on a daily basis, or what's the concert of messaging that's coming down and who's making sure that these messages are getting to the right people. And then on the cybersecurity side, Ian happens. And without missing a beat, you started to see the talent pools from each of the respected sections.

Keith Pruett [00:32:54]:
We had the fastest integration and deployment of ServiceNow. I think that is a correct. Who would have known how we could have integrated Servicenow? Who would have known how we could have taken that and use it as an asset management tool for ESF 20 to manage Starlink and then getting the buy in from the team, that created visibility, that allowed our data team to plot latitude longitude points on a map that search and rescue could now take and see on real time how effective their efforts are. And this is all being controlled through Starlink connectivity in an area where there is no connectivity. And so, honestly, I can't highlight an individual. We had leadership. We had vision. We had Jamie, we had our chief of service experience, our head of cybersecurity, the state, CISO.

Keith Pruett [00:33:42]:
We had all of these folks, each in chorus, doing their parts and just to see it come together. And then, as the ESF 20 coordinator, having to message that and channel that towards the director of emergency management, Cert chief. And then making sure that information is not a one way flow. It's a top down, bottom up, and it's got to come through me being a part of that. And then the money and working with budget and working with invoice and making sure that we're accounting for expenses and monitoring invoice statements and making sure that they are reflective of what is really going on and due diligence on behalf of the taxpayer. And it's part of servant leadership. We're doing our best. And just to see all of that come together.

Keith Pruett [00:34:28]:
And it had not, to the best of my knowledge, happened because Florida Digital service had not had that role in the past without ESF 20. So it was this entry point, it was this exposure into a new world, and it was an incredible team effort. And that's truly all I could say to describe it.

Joe Toste [00:34:45]:
It was kind of a half trick question, but you passed with flying colors by answering with the team. Pete, I really appreciate it, and this is a blast. I heard your name for a while when I was in Orlando. I heard your name, and before that, and Jamie has only said high praise about you. So I'm excited that we were able to finally connect in Tallahassee, and excited just to share the story and really the unified team effort that the team was able to do in such a short amount of time, deploying 800 Starlink kits in 56 hours. And I know Jamie has told some more stories around just coming into the EOC. Yeah, it's a who's with me? And people working 20 hours a day.

Keith Pruett [00:35:28]:
That's right. I know we got to go. But it was so funny, because unless you were directly immersed in it the way we were to the outside, some of the things that we were saying seemed ludicrous. No, you weren't doing 20 hours days. Yes, I was. No, you didn't get these that fast. And we were able to convince SpaceX, and they were great partners, by the way, the things that they donated up front services and included some priority set up on our network access, repositioning satellites so that we had a bigger footprint, bigger aperture for our antennas to reach the satellites. Seeing all of those things, you would think, okay, you're not.

Keith Pruett [00:36:11]:
No, that really was happening. Phone calls non stopped. West coast, east Coast, in the Pacific, it didn't matter. People were coming from all walks of life and contributing and out of we're now. Florida is not only leading the way in many aspects, specifically with enterprise architecture and how we're developing our digital posture, but it's now trickled over into our digital response. So we're having these communications with Georgia and North Dakota and several states have reached out like, hey, we want to do some of that. And even within Florida, some of our counties, we want to be more posture. We want to do these things.

Keith Pruett [00:36:45]:
And it's great to see that you lead by example, you practice what you preach, you do right by people, and good things happen. And I think that's what we're doing in Florida.

Joe Toste [00:36:55]:
I love it. Florida is coming for the other 49 states. On the technology front, yeah, it's exciting to see and just sharing those lessons, whether it's with Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, or any of the California, Arizona, Texas, whatever it is, it's great to see folks come together. And the biggest example is having that unified team and then coming out with that digital response and experience is fantastic. So, Keith, thanks for coming on the pod.

Keith Pruett [00:37:24]:
Appreciate it. Joe, thanks for having me, brother. Yeah, thank you, sir. Thank you, brother. I really appreciate it.

Joe Toste [00:37:28]:
Thank you for telling your story.

Keith Pruett [00:37:30]:
Appreciate you having me.

Joe Toste [00:37:30]:
Hey, what's up, everybody? This is Joe Tofki from techtables.com and you're listening to the public sector show by techtables. This podcast features human centric stories from public sector, CIOs, CISOs and technology leaders across federal, state, city, county and higher education. You'll gain valuable insights into current issues and challenges faced by top leaders through interviews, speaking engagements, live podcast tour events. We offer you a behind the mic look at the opportunity top leaders are seen today and to make sure you never miss an episode, head over to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and hit that follow button and leave a quick rating. Just tap the number of stars that you think this show deserves.