TSA security executive Polski receives gift (inscribed silver tray) from Woman’s Club president Virginia Sandahl after his presentation. Photo by Laura Sheridan/Woman’s Club of McLean
Retired transportation security executive Paul A. Polski, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, spoke to the Woman’s Club of McLean on March 6 about the use of technology and other measures to combat terrorism in the air. Polski, who until late last year was the director of Strategic Planning in the Office of Security Technology, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), reviewed the major terrorism events of the last 3 decades and the technologies such as advanced imaging techniques and automatic target recognition used to address them. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the TSA’s Office of Security Technology has researched, obtained and implemented $1 billion worth of technology each year.
Polski stressed his office’s "multilayered approach," which includes a wide range of airport security measures, the use of air marshals and certain requirements imposed on the traveling public, such as the "311 rule" for carrying fluids onboard aircraft (which, he said, the TSA "is trying to get away from"). Polski said that the office is also focusing on "what’s going to be the next thing" (that is, the next threat).
Polski had been with the TSA since 2002, and before that had spent 12 years heading an 80-person task force at the Federal Aviation Administration’s counterterrorism lab in New Jersey. There, as a managing engineer, he directed the research and development of counterterrorism technologies in response to the 9/11 attacks. In recognition of this effort, in 2003 he received a Service to America Medal, or "SAMMY," an annual award given by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. Polski lives in McLean.