Liaison officer

Naval liaison officers from Malaysia and Thailand coordinate efforts

A liaison officer or LNO is a person that liaises between two organizations to communicate and coordinate their activities. Generally, they are used to achieve the best utilization of resources or employment of services of one organization by another. In the military, liaison officers may coordinate activities to protect units from collateral damage. They also work to achieve mutual understanding or unity of effort among disparate groups. For incident or disaster management, liaison officers serve as the primary contact for agencies responding to the situation. Liaison officers often provide technical or subject matter expertise of their parent organization. Usually an organization embeds liaison officers in other organizations to provide face-to-face coordination.