National Security Professional Development - The Power of People

Post Katrina, Executive Order 13434, National Security Professional Development of May 17, 2007 envisioned a major national effort to build the human resources required to meet the challenges of our new national security environment.

The Project on National Security Reform completed a study that was submitted by the President to Congress in December 2010. http://pnsr.org/web/page/682/sectionid/579/pagelevel/2/interior.asp

The Report called the "Power of People" examined the progress to date and made recommendations for moving forward.

Over a year ago; in October 2009, I wrote an article in DomesticPreparedness.com about creating a "Community of Professionals" for Homeland Security.

We are now approaching one decade after 9/11. Over the next 20 years we will develop the next cohort of professionals that will lead national security after 2030.

We have made good progress, but we need to grow a more integrated senior leadership team in the next 2 decades.

The PNSR report suggests we have to set a course and get moving.

The Power of People may be our single biggest leverage for the future.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis R. Schrader

http://www.drs-international.com/

The Road Ahead for Resilience - Personal and Private Initiative

I attended The Infrastructure Security Partnership's (TISP) workshop last Friday at the Army-Navy Club in Washington, DC. It featured short briefings by many of the Federal agencies on their Resilience initiatives.

It was a very encouraging session, in particular because of the language from several officials.

The most important message I heard was that practitioners should use the definition of Resilience in the National Security Strategy (NSS) and Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) and move past the definition to action.

I find that very liberating.

For what it is worth; the Resilience definition in the NSS - the ability to adapt to changing conditions and prepare for, withstand, and rapidly recover from disruption. The QHSR definition is very similar.

This should be music to the ears of everyone who has been wanting to see Resilience move ahead. It suggests that the Federal government will be supportive, but is looking to private and personal initiative to lead the Resilience effort.

Rather than spending wasted time and effort parsing a definition organizations and business should be laying out action plans that create resilience.

There were many interesting initiatives previewed by the federal agencies including health and Science and Technology (S&T) perspectives.

I was particularly impressed by the FEMA concepts of Maximum of Maximums and Whole of Community. These concepts have the potential to involve the private sector in a very productive way.

Rather than waiting for bureaucratic guidance we are challenged to move ahead.

The ball is in our court!

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis R. Schrader
http://www.drs-international.com/

Putting the Horse before the Cart; Building on Private Sector Resilience

Last week, I started discussing the notion of practical approaches to building on private sector capabilities.

An appropriate analogy for the culture change the government must embrace is to imagine the government as a cart and the private sector as a horse. The private sector is the power behind resilience and the government has to learn how to hook the cart to the horse.

One private sector element of Resilience is Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR). SCOR is a tool for measuring and improving supply chains.

I will be exploring and discussing this technique over the next few weeks.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis R. Schrader

www.drs-international.com