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Fences aren't the panacea for border-security woes, a Department of Homeland Security official said at a conference in Tucson on Monday.

"There has been an awful lot of discussion, especially in Arizona, about building fence; fence is not the solution, it's part of the solution," said Liz Schmelzinger of the Secure Border Coordination Council office within the Department of Homeland Security.

"Building a wall in and of itself is not the solution, we know that. Our economy would not respond very well to that, that's not the goal of our program."

Homeland Security officials recognize that a one-size-fits-all solution won't work across the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border, she told about 120 people attending the conference.

Her department is working to find the right mixture of technology, infrastructure and personnel for each area.

"We are all about working smarter, and if technology is available that would make us more effective, we should absolutely embrace that," Schmel-zinger said.

In addition to the construction of a planned 370 miles of primary fencing and 300 miles of vehicle barriers across the southern border, Homeland Security is also dedicated to virtual fencing, which uses technology such as surveillance towers and ground sensors to detect illegal border crossings.

The department's virtual-fence test project, though, still isn't off the ground four months after the planned launch.

The Boeing Co., which is being paid $20 million to administer what is known as Project 28, is still trying to remedy a software glitch with information sent from nine high-tech surveillance cameras to command centers.

The cameras are located in a 28-mile stretch of border flanking Sasabe, southwest of Tucson in the Altar Valley.

Despite the setbacks, Schmelzinger said Homeland Security still has a goal of putting in 105 new high-tech surveillance cameras in Arizona by the end of calendar year 2008.

She was speaking to representatives from business, government and universities across North America who are in Tucson for a border security, defense and commerce conference organized by ComDef, a company that organizes these types of events around the country.

It is the second consecutive year that the company has organized an event in Tucson. This year's conference, which started Monday and runs through today, is at the Westward Look Resort on the Northwest Side.

Participants come to hear the latest about border security, to network and to make business deals. With multimillion-dollar contracts being awarded by Homeland Security to private companies for fence construction, virtual fences, computer systems, transportation of illegal entrants and a host of other services, companies know the border security business is booming.

"That's why we want to get in on that," said Michelle Felix of Simply Bits, a Tucson-based Internet service provider founded in 2004. "We want to introduce ourselves … We want to see what opportunities are out there for us."

The University of Arizona sent John Grabo, director of marketing and international programs at the Office of Economic Development, to promote the university's border-security research and market Tucson as a "thought leader" in border security, he said. Like many here, Grabo insisted that the focus should be on creating a secure and efficient border.

"Securing the border is only part of the equation," Grabo said. "You have to make sure that a secure border allows commerce to continue."