FirstNet Taps Deep 911 Industry Knowledge for New Senior 911 Advisor

Meet Bill Hinkle, Representing 911 for FirstNet

If you haven’t heard by now, Bill Hinkle has been appointed as FirstNet’s Senior 911 Advisor. He is charged with serving as the primary point of contact to engage with the 911 communications community in developing and implementing a national public safety broadband network. Bill, who joined FirstNet in the fall of 2015, comes to this position with more than three decades of experience in public safety at the local, state and national levels.

If you need someone to represent all of the folks in 911 when planning the largest ever conceived national emergency responder communication network, you’d want it to be Bill. I’ve known Bill to be a tireless advocate for 911 callers and telecommunicators. He has always been the person willing to speak up and say the right things for the right reasons. He arrives early and stays late to find out “what really needs to get done.”

He was most recently the Senior Vice President of Strategic Industry Relationships at Intrado before joining FirstNet. Throughout his career, he has been a part of some very important 911 and NG911 projects.

He served on DOT Secretary Mineta’s Wireless E911 Steering Council that developed the Wireless E911 Initiative Priority Action Plan; he is a charter member of the Transportation Safety Advancement Group (TSAG) and past President of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). And his work to support the collaboration of 911 with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is also well known to many.

His entire career has been focused in public safety communications and advocating for more advanced 911 systems. FirstNet is lucky to have him, and we are even more fortunate to have him working on our behalf.

Laurie Flaherty
Coordinator, National 911 Program