BRISBANE, Australia -- After two weeks of information sharing modules, equipment checks, and field testing, nearly 250 participants of Exercise Pacific Endeavor 2016 (PE16) came together for a closing ceremony at Gallipoli Barracks. The exercise put military experts from 22 Indo-Asia Pacific nations, non-government organizations, and academic advisors to work improving standard operating procedures for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HA/DR).

In addition to validating and documenting existing cyber, radio, and spectrum technologies, partakers found that the real valuable part of PE16 was the face-to-face interaction with their counterparts.

“It’s an opportunity for small nations like Papa New Guinea to build a network of friends from other nations in the Indo-Asia Pacific Region. Should we need the assistance in the future, at least we know we have friends and we can rely on,” said Maj. Joe Mwawesi, of the Papa New Guinea Army.

“It’s the relationships that we’re building here that means that when we start planning and we execute an operation to support any country within the region, the first person you’re speaking to is hopefully somebody you know. It’s that reassurance that they are there to help, and you know them, you have that relationship that will see you through to the rest of the operation,” said Lt. Col. Michael King of the Australian Army and co-host for PE16.

“I believe that this also provides an opportunity for us to bring the regional counterparts to Australia to see what Australia is, to come and visit Australia, meet the people, and see that we are a generous people who actually want to go and help other countries when they face the worst circumstances. That’s something that Australia has done over and over again, and for them to see that, that’s important for us,” Lt. Col. King said.

Rear Adm. Kathleen Creighton, U.S. Pacific Command Director for Command, Control, Communications and Cyber Directorate stressed the importance of the partnerships strengthened during PE16.

“It’s really important to have everyone represented in Pacific Endeavor because it’s really the only event of its type in the region for senior communicators to get together as equals and to share experiences, develop relationships, and learn about trends and at Pacific Endeavor, we’re all partners,” said Adm. Creighton.

In the future, organizers from U.S. Pacific Command’s Multinational Communication Interoperability Program (MCIP) are looking to expand on the lessons learned at PE16, in addition to exploring communication as a new “basic need of life.”

“We’ve always learned that basic food, water, and shelter are the three primary needs during a disaster, but it’s actually more-so than that. Now, it’s communications,” said Scott Griffin, Director of U.S. Pacific Command’s Multinational Communications Interoperability Program (MCIP). “We’ll continue on with our systems interoperability, we’ll continue with our information sharing. I think as a program, we need to look at ways we can better support that in a disaster, and we need to understand, what are the requirements so we can do so.”

Next year, MCIP officials are looking at hosting the event in southern California, which by design, would put the workshop much closer to academic and industry leaders in the communications arena.