The events of September 11, 2001, marked the end of security as we all had known it, and the beginning of an era that now includes intense checks at airports, amplified scrutiny for those who want to travel across borders, a major focus on national security, and more emphasis within organizations on mitigating risk and evaluating how well they are protected. Difficult lessons were learned at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And now, from an office 19 floors above the site, Louis Barani oversees the construction and design of a security system that heeds those lessons and will take the new World Trade Center into the future.

Barani, a naval veteran who has 25 years of government and private-sector experience in security-risk management and critical-infrastructure protection, was brought in to be World Trade Center Security Director after working at the Port Authority's Office of Emergency Management as general manager for security programs. He was charged with bringing together a disparate set of security and building-management systems, as well as the many stakeholders involved in the process of developing security for what is possibly one of the most talked-about redevelopments in the world. When the redesigned and reconstructed site is finally opened, it will comprise five new skyscrapers, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, a transportation hub, a retail complex and a performing arts center.

[See an construction project]

"The conditions on the site are separate and distinct stakeholders and components," says Barani. "The five towers, the memorial and museum, the transportation hub, underground roadway, network, vehicle security center--they all have different security and building-management systems, and all are controlled by their own operations and security command centers. What we needed to accomplish was situational awareness for the entire site to coordinate responses to events that could have a negative impact."

And that is what Barani is now developing. An event- and identity-management system he refers to as a Situational Awareness Platform. The system will overlay security and building-management systems (BMS)--including access control; CCTV; alarm; fire; chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defense; HVAC; elevator control; and visitor management--and fuse and correlate information from them to create that situational awareness. It will give Barani and his team information about events, conditions and even identities that can be used by law enforcement and fire and life safety crews as needed.