MIAMI, Fla. – June 24, 2008 – Ending nearly four decades in broadcasting, acclaimed hurricane specialist Bryan Norcross announced today that he is leaving WFOR-CBS4 so he can devote even more time to America’s Emergency Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of Brampton Crest International, Inc. (OTCBB: BRCI).
AEN, a pioneering video-Internet-emergency communications network, is being created by Norcross and Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center, to serve all Floridians and many others around the nation when local or regional disasters strike.
When fully deployed, AEN will provide emergency managers, at the state level or from a large county, major city or small town, with an outlet to reach the public, the media and colleagues in other government offices. The satellite-based AEN system is designed to work after a disaster when power lines, phone lines, cell phone towers and terrestrial Internet systems are rendered inoperative.
“Lives can be saved with AEN’s system, and emergency managers are asking us to deploy it as quickly as possible,” said Norcross, AEN’s president and chief executive officer. “We are growing so rapidly that I decided I had no choice but to surrender my duties at WFOR.
“I not saying that I will never do television again, but the development of AEN is crucially important and may turn out to be the most important thing that Max and I ever have done professionally,” Norcross said.
Norcross will step away from his television duties – including his consultant’s role at the CBS network – when his contract expires at the end of this month.
For nearly 20 years, Norcross guided South Floridians through life-threatening storms, most notably Hurricane Andrew in August 1992. His 23-hour marathon of coverage during that Category 5 hurricane, at times broadcasting from a darkened bunker, earned him the admiration of the entire region and won him national recognition and a regional Emmy Award.
“Bryan’s widely respected as one of this country’s leading hurricane experts and he will always have the gratitude and admiration of this community for his efforts during Hurricane Andrew,” Shaun McDonald, WFOR’s president and general manager, said in a statement posted on the station’s website.
Norcross’ broadcasting career began in 1968 in Melbourne, Fla., and carried him to Tallahassee, Atlanta, Denver, Louisville and San Francisco before he arrived in Miami 1983, working at WPLG and WTVJ before joining WFOR in 1996. In 2006, he gave up his day-to-day weather forecasting duties so he could concentrate on hurricanes and emergency communications.
Norcross, Mayfield and their team formed AEN in 2007 to fill a void in the nation’s emergency communications system, and it has been growing rapidly.
Earlier this month, during a three-day statewide practice exercise in response to a mock disaster called Hurricane Herb, AEN streamed live media events and a situation report from the Florida Division of Emergency Management operations center in Tallahassee to emergency management officials in counties and municipalities around the state.
AEN also beamed local briefings and media events from Duval County (Jacksonville), Putnam County and Islamorada back to state officials in the capital.
Hundreds of Internet hits from Tallahassee and around the state were recorded by the AEN network as managers in emergency centers and staffers in the field accessed real-time events previously unavailable to them.
The test was virtually flawless and the response from state and local officials was gratifying.
“The system itself is a masterpiece of simplicity and technology,” said William Jayson Southworth, emergency management senior planner for Putnam County.
Shortly after the test, AEN and the state’s Division of Emergency Management, widely recognized as a national leader, signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will provide Florida emergency managers with access to AEN’s system.
For further information:
Bryan Norcross
AEN President & CEO
305-722-4800
