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Division Chief Public Safety Communications Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Communications Technology Laboratory
Dereck Orr is the Division Chief of the Public Safety Communications Division at NIST’s Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL). He has also served as the Program Manager for the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program since 2002. The PSCR program acts as an objective technical advisor and laboratory to the public safety community to accelerate the adoption and implementation of the most critical public safety communication standards and technologies.
From October 2003 until October 2004, Mr Orr was detailed to the Department of Homeland Security to serve as the Chief of Staff of the SAFECOM Office within the Science and Technology Directorate, to help establish the new program. Prior to working at NIST, Mr Orr served as a professional staff member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, and Related Agencies under Senator Fritz Hollings. In that position, Mr Orr was responsible for the appropriations accounts relating to state and local law enforcement issues. Prior to that, Mr Orr served four years at the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) at the Department of Justice.
Mr Orr received a Masters in Public Policy from the College of William and Mary and a Bachelor of Arts in American History from the University of Texas at Austin.