Current Work

The Program for Applied Research in Airport Security (PARAS), an industry-driven, applied research program that develops near-term practical solutions to security problems faced by airport operators. PARAS is managed by Safe Skies, funded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and modeled after the Airport Cooperative Research Program of the Transportation Research Board. Contractors conduct the research and are selected through a competitive proposal process.

From January 2018 through 2023, AVSEC Consultants was tasked with conducting site surveys of the existing condition of airport security beginning in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) largest airport Riyadh, with an annual passenger load of over 25 million.  Site visits were conducted at all airports, except for three that were handled by an in-country partner due to security threats from Yemen where it was deemed unsafe for foreign personnel.  

AVSEC wrote tenders for the General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA) through the Prime Contractor to bring their airport's security to world class standards in expectation of the beginning of tourist traffic operations.  AVSEC remained a Subject Matter Expertise (SME) on call for services in completion of this contract.  The goal of these tenders was to bring KSA airports into full ICAO Annex 17 compliance when completed.  Mr. Salmen was the lead for the team writing the tenders and the supporting documents for the security operations for all airports. 

In January 2018, Mr. Salmen was asked to expand his role in this Middle East country to include CCTV programs as a backup to Paresh Borkar of IntrudX Security Solutions, LLC, of South Carolina; the SME for CCTV and Network Engineering programs.   

Mr. Salmen was subsequently asked to expand his role to assist a newly founded government agency that will bring European and American style management practices and structures to the country’s aviation operations that he recommended in his initial reports.  This coincides with country’s plans for privatization of airports and their streamlined operations goals to meet the coming need faced from tourism.   

An increasingly important element of all Transportation Security Equipment (TSE) and computer-based programs where digital electronic is involved is the use of surge suppression technology.  In the project scope documentation these were fully developed for the aviation authority, however they were unfortunately not included in the final deliverable.  AVSEC Consultants feels strongly that this a an area that can provide substantial benefits to equipment stability and that equipment's ability to enhance actual data provided operators.  Scientific data shows strong benefits from their properly designed integrations to all electronic equipment.  We are happy to provide documentation on the benefits of properly designed surge suppression programs and projects that have included them.   

Detailed recommendations for maintenance programs and for training for security employees was provided to the prime as part of this project that addresses workforce and mission support areas.   

An additional recommendation was made after analysis of general operations developed useful data that addresses management of security operations, that led to the creation of a TSA Inspections like government department under GACA to provide verification of proper operations and accountability for those operations.

For the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) nationwide security analysis program provided to the General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA), the final tenders produced followed MasterSpec formats and provided technical specifications for all Transportation Security equipment (TSE) for SSCP and CBIS installations and the operations thereof, as well as physical security equipment and CCTV systems.  

Of note on this project was the lack of relevant MasterSpec documentation available from the authoring committees regarding SSCP/CBIS projects. Many projects have been processed where MasterSpec components were created as one-off efforts to meet that project’s specific needs, but no attempts to revise the MasterSpec program and recommend reasonable revisions could be found officially or in research of individual projects. Mr. Salmen wrote an exhaustive MasterSpec revision for submittal to the American Institute of Architects, as the governing body. To date there is no update on that process, however movement is historically slow.  Due to the complexity of the revision and a short delivery suspense a significantly truncated versions of the MasterSpec recommendations was used and that may be updated in a next phase project.  The program’s deliverable products resulted in thousands of pages of detailed recommendations, and the important executive summaries.  AVSEC Consultants wrote the complete tender sections for Passenger screening programs as well as the baggage screening operations programs for the deliverable to GACA and assisted in writing the physical security specifications and other sections of the program.