Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel recently joined the agency’s Air and Marine Operations (AMO) and National Air Security Operations Center – Grand Forks (NASOC-GF) in opening a new air facility.
“We have a lot to celebrate here today,” Jonathan Miller, executive director of National Air and Security Operations, said. “This is one of very few MQ9 training programs outside the DOD and of those, the only federal law enforcement program. We have scores of new pilots and sensor operators who come through this center every year.”
The initiative stemmed from April 2017 dialogue in which the Air Force (USAF) asked NASOC-GF to relocate its operational facility due to the expanding USAF Global Hawk mission and the adjacency to their existing Global Hawk mission. Congress provided AMO $8 million to fund the relocation effort on GFAFB to facilitate the request.
“I could not ask for better integration and collaboration across the board,” William “Hunter” Robinson, director Air and Marine Operations, said. “I’m honored to lead an incredible team of consummate law enforcement professionals, as well as technical experts within our mission space.”
National Air Security Operations-Grand Forks operates fixed and rotary-wing aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems and conducts initial and recurrent UAS training as well as enforcement operations with manned and unmanned aircraft.