Dennis Schrader Perspectives

Osama bin Laden - May 1, 2011

2011-05-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

Late last night when I was writing this post, the news of Osama bin Laden came over the TV. I decided to wait until this morning to make this post.

It is a moment for reflection on the importance of vigilance and a long view towards the situation we face as James Carafano has advocated.

We must be grateful as a nation for all the dedicated professionals who have maintained their pursuit of bin Laden and for the bravery of our military and civilians that carried out and supported the operation.

It also demonstrates that we have the will as a nation to pursue our national interest over the long run.

Ironically two weeks ago, I was privileged to attend a seminar called "Terrorism - The Thinking Man's Game" at MIPT in Oklahoma City.

Tim Manning from FEMA opened the seminar on Monday, April 18th. The seminar was attended by many other well recognized figures in the field. Brian Jenkins from Rand and Mike Walker from Naval Postgraduate School gave major presentations on the current status of terrorism in our world.

Frank Cilluffo, Vice President at The George Washington University facilitated the day and Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin addressed the group at lunch.

The news of bin Laden's death is a reminder that we are confronting ideologies and not traditional nation states. These ideologies in the context of 21st century globalization create an environment that calls for vigilance, determination, and professionalism in the pursuit of securing our people.

The Oklahoma City Memorial Museum provides an incredibly detailed account of the domestic terrorism bombing, the investigation, and the aftermath of the event in 1995. I try to go there whenever I'm in town to refocus my attention on the task at hand.

The seminar was followed the next day by the Annual Memorial Ceremony remembering those who were killed, survived, or affected by the Murrah Building bombing on April 19th, 1995.

Tim Manning participated in the ceremony and read some of the names of the 168 victims.

It was a fitting venue to refocus on the issue of terrorism and continue to call attention to the vigilance required to prevent terrorism.

The news of bin Laden will evoke many emotions, but we must remain cool headed in the moment.
The death of Osama bin Laden is an important milestone in the world's struggle with terrorism and should be a moment of relief for our nation.

It is also a sobering reminder that we must be quietly on our guard in the coming weeks and months because he was only a symbol of a larger narrative.

Thanks for checking in.

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

PPD-8:PKEMRA and 6 U.S. Code

2011-04-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Now that PPD-8 is established as Policy it is a good opportunity to go back and look at the law and what has been required for the past 5 years since 2006.

Title 6 U.S. Code Domestic Security, Chapter 2 National Emergency Management, Part A, National Preparedness System, Sections 741-754 [heretofore referred to as PKEMRA] did an excellent job of outlining the requirements for National Preparedness.

It would be worth examining the progress thus far, given that we are coming up on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and the 6 year anniversary of Katrina.

Since following the law would be a good place to start, it will be interesting to see where we have come in 5 years.

6 U.S. Code was so comprehensive that I always felt that it would take 7-10 years to fully implement in the spirit and intent of the law.

Section 749 requires the development of a Comprehensive Assessment System and Section 752 outlines Reporting Requirements. The reports for Federal Preparedness and State Preparedness are required annually since October 2007.

The first report required by PPD-8 may be fairly easy if the annual reports have been done as required.

If not this will be a good first step forward.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis R. Schrader

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

PPD-8 and Post Katrina Act of 2006 (PKEMRA)

2011-04-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

Now that the new Preparedness Policy Directive (PPD-8) is in place, it would be useful to test what elements of the PPD-8 are codified in PKEMRA.

The PPD directs that it should be implemented consistent with PKEMRA, so it probably makes sense to examine what is already in law.

For example, PKEMRA Sections 643 and 644 defines The National Preparedness Goal and the 8 components of the National Preparedness System.

(1) Target capabilities and preparedness priorities.
(2) Equipment and training standards.
(3) Training and exercises.
(4) Comprehensive assessment system.
(5) Remedial action management program.
(6) Federal response capability inventory.
(7) Reporting requirements.
(8) Federal preparedness.

The time lines in the PPD are very ambitious, but since PKEMRA has been in place, it is a safe assumption that the core requirements are already in place.

The good news is that the reporting requirements and basic components have been in process for four years and are more than likely well under way.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

More to come as we examine the comparison going forward.

Thanks for checking in.

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

FEMA Strategic Plan 2011-2014 and PPD-8

2011-04-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Last month I wrote about the compelling vision painted by FEMA's Administrator. I was wondering how the vision would be implemented to sustain this bold vision through the ebb and flow of major events and changes in Administration.

I was delighted to see that the vision had been carefully documented in the updated FEMA strategy 60 days ago in February 2011. The strategy outlines 4 major initiatives. The first two cover the keystones of Whole of Community and Maximum of Maximums. The second two outline the ideas of deploying Regional Threat and Hazard Identification Assessments (THIRA) and the Organizational Development activities that will transform the culture and human resources to execute the vision throughout the national enterprise.

The strategy clearly supports the QHSR and the legal requirements laid out in the Post Katrina Act 2006.

Even better news this week is that the updated Presidential Directive on National Preparedness (PPD-8) fundamentally embraces the Post Katrina Act, adds Resilience as a priority, and builds on the work of the past decade to continue to mature the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Enterprise. It also directly addresses the desire to empower the private sector and NGO's as resources in the enterprise.

I recommend watching Brian Kamoie's presentation at the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) program this past Friday, April 8th.
http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/events/PPD8_national_preparedness302.cfm

More to come as we analyze the implications of these developments, but it certainly is cause for optimism.

Thanks for checking in,

Dennis R. Schrader

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

National Capital Region (NCR) Flashback - 2003

2011-04-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

I was reflecting on how time flies. If you recognize everyone in this picture, you've been around awhile.

It was at an NCR UASI event in 2003 to reaffirm the 8 commitments that the NCR jurisdictions had made to collaboration in 2001.

Thanks for checking in,

Dennis R. Schrader

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

Private Sector Leadership - Designing Security into the Built Environment

2011-03-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

I met Barabara Nadel a well known Architect at the New Stock Exchange event sponsored by TISP and DRII on March 21st.

Meeting her reinforced my believe; that away from the tumult of a decade of political dialogue in Washington, there is quiet but significant effort underway in the private sector by design and construction professionals to make our nation safer.

Barbara has written extensively on designing security into the built environment. She edited a comprehensive handbook on Security. I plan to review it, but the Table of Contents and first chapter seem to cover the waterfront of the topic by over 50 contributors.

Building Security: Handbook for Architectural Planning and Design by Barbara A. Nadel 2004
http://www.barbaranadelarchitect.com/book_overview.php

The thesis of her book; Achieving Transparent Security through design reminded me of my own experience at the University of Maryland Medical System. We had a bad security situation in the medical center in the late 80s , but after careful master planning and steady facility improvements over time we were able to improve the security of the operation without creating an armed camp.

I'll keep you posted on my findings.

Thanks for checking in;

Dennis

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

Applied Disaster Resilience: Private-Public Convergence

2011-03-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

Last week was a whirlwind of activity from New York City to Washington, DC.

The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP), the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII), the All Hazards Consortium (AHC), and Domestic Preparedness Journal/DomPrep 40 each held events exploring the issues of Private-Public Sector Disaster Resilience.

I could only attend 2 of the 3, but was delighted by the energy that these initiatives have generated. All three events were interrelated and demonstrate the way forward. If a true "Whole of Community" capability is to emerge, it will require sustained leadership by the private sector.

The New York Stock Exchange hosted the TISP-DRII event on Monday, March 21st that explored the status of the PS-Prep Program. DHS officials attended and many senior Business Continuity leaders from major companies shared their thoughts about the standards based program.

Wells Fargo, Disney, and Pfizer were well known names in the audience.

The design and construction industry was also well represented. Besides Al Romano, there was Bob Prieto from Fluor, Cathy Carr Clinch from URS, John Friedlander from Cushman and Wakefield, three representatives from Parsons Brinckerhoff, Barbara Nadel; an architect who has written a book on Security Engineering, and Mike Chipley from PMC.

I saw this as the beginning of a long private-public conversation. TISP and DRII will collaborate on a white paper to DHS as the outcome of this discussion.

Al Berman (DRII), Al Romano (Michael Baker, Jr.), and William Anderson (TISP) deserve great credit for this symposium that emerged from the DomPrep 40 event at the National Press Club last November 2010.

The AHC meeting was held at the Newark Airport Renaissance Hotel to discuss Regional projects both in the public and private sector realm. I was very impressed by the quality of the projects and especially the work that New Jersey has done with the food industry.

Joe Picciano from New Jersey; current AHC President, has painted a clear vision of the AHC's focus on integrated planning by the private and public sectors. I had the privilege of moderating the second day's discussions on March 22nd.

The panelists from Morgan Stanley (Gregory Ferris) , Wakefern Foods (Michael Ambrosio), and Sprint/Nextel (Richard Zinno) were outstanding. They committed almost the entire day to the project panels and their involvement made a major contribution to the discussions.

The goal will be to hold several follow on workshops that are industry specific with owner/operators in the Region. The Private Sector panelists were Continuity leaders from their companies. Richard Zinno is a DRII certified Continuity Professional.

Ira Tannenbaum from NYC Office of Emergency Management (OEM) discussed a very interesting preview to his initiative to weave private interests into the Urban Area Preparedness in New York City. It was fascinating how highly evolved the projects are from NY/NJ and Philadelphia. Scott Di Giralomo (Morris County, NJ) and Noreen Cardinali (NJ DOT OEM), and Joe Liciardello (SE PA Task Force) and Captain Walter Smith (Philadelphia PD) presented excellent projects on their private sector initiatives.

I missed the DomPrep meeting in Washington, DC on March 21st. It was a recap of the survey led by DOMPrep 40 member; Bob Stephan (Dutko Worldwide), on the work being done to plan for and protect Special Events which are generally large scale gatherings. I would have loved to hear this and will look for the survey results.

Al Romano, Joe Picciano, and I are also members of the DomPrep 40 and believe the effort is a solid contribution to the private-public convergence process. I am optimistic that this type of continued dialogue will aid the convergence of language that will lead to true Private-Public convergence.

Thanks for checking in,

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

Craig Fugate Paints a Compelling Vision at HSDECA

2011-03-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

This was a busy week.

Let me start by referring you to my website to see the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) 2010 Annual Report.
http://www.drs-international.com/
MIPT is establishing itself as a solid niche training program for Line Officers in the Intelligence Collection process.
Police Chiefs love it because it provides training that can be used for All Crimes and is part of their routine annual training.

I also attended the 5th annual Homeland Defense and Security Education Summit at University of Maryland University College (UMUC) in College park, MD. I'm on the faculty at Towson University and was delighted to hear the progress that is being made in Education programs.

The program is sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School, Homeland Security and Defense Education Consortium Association (HSDECA) https://www.hsdeca.org/, UMUC, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Craig Fugate was a keynote speaker and he delivered a compelling vision for his Whole of Community and Maximum of Maximums Strategy for Preparedness. His key themes were that we must view the public as a resource rather than a liability, that we must build teams with the private sector, and that we have to plan for hard events not easy.

His vision demands a major culture shift in the private and public sectors and requires long term emphasis on educating future leaders and practitioners in the Disaster Preparedness Community.

I've heard Craig deliver these themes many times before and hope we are all successful in building the capabilities to make it a reality.

Thanks for checking in.

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

Planning, Design and Construction Professionals Focus on Resilience

2011-03-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

The key to long term Resilience is the linkage of the Public Safety and Design and Construction communities.

I was delighted to attend an event this week organized by Engineering News Record in partnership with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and National Building Museum.
The meeting was held in Washington, DC. and sponsored by several design and contruction organizations. See the link for the other sponsors.

http://construction.com/events/2011/mitigatingdisaster/

The title of the meeting was of particular interest:

Mitigating Disaster through Design and Construction

The panels included very practical presentations by a multi-disciplinary group of private and public sector professionals including significant representation from the Insurance Industry.

I was particularly impressed with the presentations by Julie Rochman from the Institute for Business and Home Safety and Robert Fenza from Liberty Property Trust.

The Institute is a recently constructed and an innovative test facility that performs tests on built structures.

Robert Fenza spoke about reducing costs for insurance by achieving more effective facilities.

The meeting was an encouraging step forward by the Design and Construction industry to focus on Resilience. I hope this is just the beginning.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis R. Schrader

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

National Security Professional Development - The Power of People

2011-02-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-16T04:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-08T18:43:00.000-08:00

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

Private Sector Language - Owner/Operators

2011-01-29T17:53:00.000-08:00

There is a growing recognition that government needs the active involvement of private sector owner/operators to create a resilient national infrastructure and disaster resilient communities.

Unfortunately, government struggles to effectively make these relationships happen in a way that brings the private sector to bear in a response and recovery framework.

The private sector is however, more capable and prepared than the public sector realizes. The key is to try to understand the private sector from their perspective and language.

The private sector manages its business everyday using Risk management, Continuity, and Supply Chain as the language of preparedness.

Rather than trying to pull the private sector into the public sector in a haphazard manner, maybe the public sector should be engaging the private sector in its environment and by adopting its language.

There are some emerging initiatives that are attempting to bridge this gap:

The mid-Atlantic All Hazards Consortium led by Tom Moran and Joe Picciano is a state-centric group that has private sector sponsorship. The Consortium will begin focusing its efforts on bringing in owner-operators to develop projects that build regional resilience through Intergrated Regional Planning.

The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) is collaborating with Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII) to explore the progress on the federal government's PS-Prep program. DRII is a natural partner since they have 8000 continuity professionals worldwide that have been certified by their continuity training and exams.

The TISP team is also developing an owner/operator resilience handbook.

These efforts are the beginning a renewed focus on creating a Homeland Security enterprise that builds on private sector capability that already exists.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis
www.drs-international.com

Convergence of Private Sector-Public Sector Preparedness

2010-11-04T17:35:00.001-07:00

I must apologize for not posting for 4 months without checking in.

I was distracted with a local community project that is now completed.

I have continued working with my clients of course and some limited pro bono work with ASCE, DomPrep Journal, TISP, and MIPT.

As a new blogger for 7 months, I learned a valuable lesson and I want to become more efficient in my blogging.

I've observed the emerging professional blogger community in my local area including a gentleman named Tom Coale. I hope to get better at this.

Now, on to business.

I'm working on a project for Dom Prep 40 that explores the relevance and knowledge of the public sector regarding PS-Prep and private sector preparedness.

The national strategy and policy that embraces resilience suggests that there should be a convergence of public and private sector efforts in preparedness.

Since the Y2K episode a decade ago, the private sector has been focused on continuity and supply chain resilience as key business strategies to protect their revenue streams. The NFPA 1600 standard and the Disaster Recovery Institute certifications have been evolving for two decades.

In my next few posts, I want to examine this convergence and some of the issues I am observing. I'll be on a panel for DomPrep on Nov. 15th at the National Press Club on this topic. More to come.

On another note, The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) in Oklahoma City has been successfully pursuing its retooled mission to train police officers across the nation in intelligence collection. There was an excellent article in Homeland Security Today that describes the initiative. http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/15309/149/

As I've mentioned before, I am on the MIPT board and am proud of the work David Cid and the Board have done in the past 3 years. They have also recently established an advisory board that includes notable figures like Josh Filler, Nancy Dragani, Dr. Van Romero, Chris Geldart, and David Carey.

That's it for now.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

www.drs-international.com

Managing the White Space in Homeland Security and Incident Management

2010-06-17T07:58:00.001-07:00

I decided to take a break for a few weeks to reflect on the breathtaking activities that have transpired over the past 4-6 weeks.

I had been focused on the QHSR Strengthening the Enterprise strategy, Bottoms up review and the coordination of the Public Safety and Engineering communities in Resilience. Suddenly the Gulf Oil spill and the departure of DNI Dennis Blair caused me to step back and pause so I could try to grasp what was happening.

I shared with someone recently why I believe there has been a significant shift in Homeland Security over the past 2 years. The shift actually has nothing to do with the change in Administrations, but with a natural cycle of events. It revolves around three critical issues that stem from the fact that the novelty of Homeland Security has worn off:

1. Homeland Security is a horizontal process not a vertical function. The very hard work ahead is developing concepts like resilience into real actions.

2. There really isn't significant money to be made in managing the horizontal especially in the security domain. Americans want and value security, but will not pay excessive amounts for it.

3. You can't keep throwing money unconstrained at an issue that is competing with other priorities.

So that leads to the issue of Managing the White Space in Homeland Security.

I believe that Homeland Security at its core is about managing the white space.

For example, in my opinion to be effective as DNI you have to strip out the overhead and focus on managing the network. That is a difficult task for senior officials who are accustomed to being in charge with line responsibility. The role as senior intelligence advisor is to provide the President with the recommendations and staff work that he or she needs to provide direction. That is easier said than done. It requires a different style of leadership that is in short supply.

The Gulf Oil Spill is another example of a system that is still under development. I believe that the spill and subsequent response is a case study for the review of Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)-5, the National Incident Management System (NIMS), and the National Response Framework (NRF). It may well be that the law establishes the Coast Guard and EPA as the lead agencies, but what happened to the Joint Field Office (JFO) concept defined in the NRF. This was declared a spill of national significance weeks ago. 40 CFR provides the authority for who is in charge, but shouldn't that be in the context of NIMS and the NRF?

The Emergency Management community and the House's T and I Committee have been saying for 5 years since Katrina that there was no need for a Principal Federal Official (PFO) during an incident. They also have said that all incidents are emergencies. Unfortunately this isn't a Stafford Act incident, but isn't this an incident that is an emergency?? Why haven't we organized around the NRF.

After this incident is under control, we should do of a sober review of NIMS, HSPD-5, and the NRF. When that happens, it should be done with a recognition that there will always be white space in these situations and hopefully we will move past the parochial interests and recognize that we need to plan for the worst and hope for the best.

More to come in the weeks ahead.

Thanks for checking in,

Dennis

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

Light Weight Sustainable Networks - Key to Regional Collaboration

2010-05-20T04:03:00.000-07:00

As you may know, when I was the Maryland Homeland Security Director, I became convinced that the key to Regional collaboration was lightweight sustainable networks. The Mid-Atlantic All hazards Consortium (AHC) was an outgrowth of that thinking. http://www.ahcusa.org/

The AHC convened an outstanding UASI conference on May 10th and 11th to explore the future of UASI and regional collaboration. Tom Moran and Evalyn Fisher deserve credit for a terrific workshop. I also want to recognize the great work of outgoing President, Bob Crouch former Homeland Security Advisor for Virginia for his efforts in maturing the AHC concept.

Why is this important?

The QHSR advocates for "promoting regional response capacity" in order to "Foster Unity of Effort" and encourage mutual aid that builds "resilience in time of disaster". This is an excellent objective.

In August of 2008, FEMA Preparedness sponsored a workshop hosted by the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) and facilitated and documented by the Naval Postgraduate School. A paper was developed to better understand how and why multi-jurisdictional, networked alliances formed and were sustained. http://drs-international.com/uploads/Bach%20OKC%20Report%20FINAL%20formatted.pdf

There are not enough resources to build stand alone security focused organizations that are very costly. They will not be sustainable. The fact is that our culture values security, but will not invest excessive resources for it over the long run.

Lightweight networks are a technique for achieving sustainable regional collaboration.

Thanks for checking in,

Dennis

http://drs-international.com/

Maturing the Enterprise-|Acquisition Career Development

2010-05-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

You may want to keep your eye out for the BUR. For those of you who are not Washington insiders, it is not associated with a saddle, but is the Bottoms Up Review that implements the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR).

One area that should be addressed in the BUR as part of maturing the enterprise is the Acquisition workforce.

Every program manager at DHS and its components has an acquisition responsibility.

In the early 90's Congress passed the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA). It required that there be certifications for the acquisition workforce within specific training requirements.

The Acquisition life cycle is a critical element of developing capabilities from early stage Science and Technology (S&T) to training and staffing the capability to life cycle replacement of assets.

The Homeland Security enterprise probably needs this kind of thinking.

It will be interesting to see what the BUR produces.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

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

Functional Exercises - Lower Cost Options

2010-04-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

I've been reflecting on a recent Washington Post article about the National Exercise Program. I'm not sure what the article was trying to communicate, but one thing is clear.

In my time as a state Homeland Security Director in Maryland, there was a lot of concern about "exercise fatigue" and the ability to get actual cabinet leaders to engage in exercises.

With Governor Ehrlich's support and his Chief of Staff's participation, we developed a process that focused less on the full scale "field show" and more on executive decision making.

We established mini-drills that were made part of the daily work schedule and embedded table top and functional exercises as part of the routine cabinet retreats and meetings.

One morning, we had every cabinet secretary go to the nearest state police barracks on their way to the office to do an emergency radio check to the Governor's mansion to simulate a state wide emergency where all normal communications had been disrupted. The whole thing was done in 60 minutes and we learned a lot from it.

We held a statewide local elected officials seminar to reach out to those officials. That was very well attended. We did small functional exercises with key decision officials to game our operational plans.

On another occasion we did a 2 hour table top on Avian flu as an agenda item at a cabinet retreat.

So, when we received then Governor Napolitano's letter when I was at FEMA, I was sympathetic to the substance of the letter.

We went about trying to redirect the approach to designing future national level exercises. I was very satisfied with the outcome of the Phoenix based functional exercise and went to each venue to observe the activity during NLE-08. The play was very serious and the players were definitely being pressed.

NLE-09 was designed as the first prevention exercise without the type of field play previously done. We also asked FEMA Region 6 to lead the engagement with the states involved. The Intelligence Community was very well represented and from my vantage point and made a terrific impact in the early planning. We also pressed to have real private sector play in the planning process.

These changes caused some consternation, but were the first small steps in addressing the problems addressed by the Governor's letter.

We also developed the National Exercise Simulation Center (NESC) to support federal play anywhere in the country and to allow for a federal simcell co-located with the National Response Coordination Center (NRCC).

I've been away from it for 15 months so I'm not sure how things have unfolded since then. By all accounts it appears as if NLE-09 went off well.

It will be interesting to see where the road ahead leads.

Thanks for checking,

Dennis

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

Maturing the Homeland Security Enterprise-Federally Funded Research and Development Centers(FFRDC)

2010-04-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

The QHSR lays out an ambitious agenda to mature and strengthen the homeland security enterprise. In order to accomplish this agenda, DHS will will need to employ a comprehensive systems engineering capability both inside DHS and in support of the federal inter-agency and state and local jurisdictions nationally.

Dr. Michael French (Mitre) and I presented our groundbreaking paper at the American Society of Public Administration conference last week in San Jose, CA. that discusses the use of FFRDCs and UARCs to support state and local governments. The link to the paper-
http://drs-international.com/uploads/ASPA_Paper_FFRDCs_and_UARCs_final_submitted.pdf

DHS S&T has access to significant resources and capability to facilitate the use of FFRDCs and UARCs to do systems engineering work in the enterprise.

The program managers in DHS Headquarters activities and the operational components will have to become more familiar with S&T resources and processes in order to create the collaboration necessary to deploy systems engineering to improve the enterprise.

DOD and DOE and other federal agencies have effectively used systems engineering to develop their programs over the past 65 years through FFRDCs and UARCs. This proven methodology bears careful consideration.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

http://drs-international.com/

Maturing the Homeland Security Enterprise through Regional Preparedness

2010-04-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

The QHSR has identified Fostering Unity of Effort as one of the 4 strategic aims to mature the enterprise. The seven objectives to support this aim are highly inter-related and definitely on target. The objective to promote regional response capacity ties very nicely to the objectives for professional development, institutionalized planning, and the military-homeland security relationship.

One current initiative, the Regional Catastrophic Grant Program (RCGP) is being piloted in the Tier I Urban Areas and four of the Tier II Urban Areas. The results of this effort will be coming to light in the next several months.

One way to build on this effort would be to link the RCGP to the development of the FEMA regional preparedness organizations. FEMA developed a Concept of Operations for this effort in February 2008. This was in direct compliance with the Post Katrina Act requirements. I've included a link to the document.

http://drs-international.com/uploads/Reg-Natl%20Prep%20CONOPS%20_final_.pdf

I would urge state and local public safety officials to become familiar with this document and engage the FEMA regional preparedness organization. This will enhance the RCGP efforts over time and mature the enterprise.

This is also consistent with the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) recommendations.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

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

TISP Sends Resilience Recommendation to White House

2010-04-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) developed seven resilience recommendations for a white paper it submitted to the White House last month.

TISP White House resilience letter

The engineering community can make an important impact as resilience policy is developed in the next 2 years.

Bill Anderson from TISP and Ernie Edgar from PBSJ deserve a lot of credit for driving this product.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

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

Systems Engineering and the Homeland Security Enterprise

2010-03-14T05:51:00.000-07:00

The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) identified 4 strategic aims and 18 objectives that support the goal of Maturing and Strengthening The Homeland Security Enterprise. The objectives deal with recognized challenges in planning, information sharing, resilience, professional development, risk assessment, and science and technology.

The key to achieving this ambitious goal is applying systems engineering approaches to the objectives in order to create the enterprise changes that are envisoned.

The private sector and Federally Funded Research and Development Centers provide opportunities to address this systems engineering need. I want to address this issue in my next several posts.

Today I want to address the Resilience mission area.

The reason I got involved with the ASCE Committee on Critical Infrastructure (CCI) and The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) and am intrigued by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE); http://www.incose.org/, is that heretofore resilience has been described at a strategic level by macroeconomic thinking.

For example, Scott Jackson recently wrote a very fine review of Steve Flynn's book, Edge of Disaster. http://drs-international.com/index.php?page=publication-library.

The book continues to discuss the macroeconomic challenge. I believe that systems engineering is where the difficult work lies ahead to convert resilience theory to reality.

The reality is that engineers working in the microeconomic sphere have to develop cost effective systems solutions and then sell them to investors and owners of infrastructure who make microeconomic investment decisions.

The Obama Administration's willingness to embrace Resilience is exciting and the recent effort by the TISP partners to develop and submit a white paper to the White House is the kind of "grunt work" that is required.

The ASCE CCI Guiding Principles project that focuses on project level tactics is another good effort.

It remains to be seen if practical resilience solutions can be engineered into our systems.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

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

QHSR and the National Homeland Security Enterprise

2010-03-11T11:42:00.001-08:00

Rich Cooper from Catalyst Partners wrote a very interesting post about the recent National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) mid year meeting that I want to pass along.

I attended two of the meetings on Sunday and witnessed the same tone that Rich writes about.

http://securitydebrief.adfero.com/2010/03/09/the-comforting-feeling-at-nema/

This is very encouraging. In my last post, I discussed my optimism about the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) mission areas. I am also delighted by the focus on Maturing and Strengthening the Homeland Security Enterprise. As Rich points out; now that the debate over the structure has been decided, the nation can turn its attention to maturing the enterprise.

We should savor these occasional moments in what will be a long hard road to securing the nation.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

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

New Homeland Security Strategic Framework - A Reason for Optimism

2010-02-27T19:45:00.000-08:00

I've been digesting the February 2010 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) and believe it offers an opportunity to move the National Hoemland Security enterprise to another level over the next decade. http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/gc_1208534155450.shtm

The underlying premise is that the Homeland Security mission areas will migrate from a focus on Prevention, Protection, Response, and Recovery to that of Preventing Terrorism, Borders, Immigration, Cyber Security, and Disaster Resilience.

To accomplish this transformation will require significant change leadership. This change will come about from the design of people, processes, and rewards that create the kind of national enterprise envisoned in the QHSR. I learned over a decade ago from my two former colleagues Brad Schoener and Betsy Hostetler about Jay Galbraith's star model of organization design. The model differentiates typical organization design efforts that primarily rely on structure to create change. http://www.jaygalbraith.com/services/starmodel.html

I have practiced this approach many times over the years and know it works, but it requires incredibly hard work and dedicated leadership over extended periods.

The good news is that the change required to create the mission area focus across the Department of Homeland Security will drive the kind of change that might not otherwise occur with the Prevent, Protect, Respond, and Recover paradigm.

The change will also require a commitment to career development and systems engineering as tools to drive the enterprise in the direction to support the defined missions areas.

Since 2002 we have had the first national strategy, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the Post Katrina Act of 2006, and the 9/11 Act in 2007.

The QHSR has the potential to set a course to make the changes necessary to move the National Homeland Security enterprise to a mission focused one that overcomes the stovepipes of the current previous mission areas.

Thanks for checking in,

Dennis

www.drs-international.com

National Disaster Recovery Framework

2010-02-14T06:16:00.000-08:00

The draft National Disaster Recovery Framework has been released for public comment last week.

The three links below can take you to the FEMA announcement, the draft document, and the comment venue.

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=50366

http://disasterrecoveryworkinggroup.gov/

http://globalmessaging1.prnewswire.com/clickthrough/servlet/clickthrough?msg_id=6500773&adr_order=112&url=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5yZWd1bGF0aW9ucy5nb3Y%3D in Docket FEMA-2010-0004

The document is groundbreaking doctrine and should be reviewed by those in the engineering and development communities. In particular, local elected officials should have their staffs analyze the doctrine.

The deadline is February 26, 2010 for comment.

Resilience, Protection, Mitigation, and Engineers

2010-01-24T17:10:00.000-08:00

Last May, I gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation about Unfinished Business at FEMA.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandSecurity/hl1125.cfm

I made the point that there should be better coordination between Preparedness, Mitigation, and by inference Critical Infrastructure.

Now that there is growing recognition that resilience is a key strategy for a safer homeland, the time has come to better involve engineers in the process.

For example, FEMA Mitigation has a strong engineering orientation and done some excellent work in creating many publications in their Building Sciences Division. Those pubs should be a foundation for the work of Preparedness and Infrastructure Protection.

The organization structure potentially creates barriers to collaboration. What is needed is leadership and processes that facilitate it. Hiring more engineers into Infrastructure Protection and creating working groups composed of Mitigation, Preparedness, and the Office of Infrastructure Protection (OIP) would be a good first step.

In the private sector, The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has been producing a report card for several years that could be an input to the resilience measurement process. I'll have more to say on this next week.

Thanks for checking in,

Dennis

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

Creating a Roadmap for ASCE National Infrastructure Guiding Principles

2010-01-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

I wrote a few weeks ago about the recently developed National Infrastructure Guiding Principles by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). http://ciasce.asce.org/

The four guidelines are supported by 15 recommendations.

1. Quantify, communicate, and manage risk

2. Employ an integrated systems approach

3. Exercise sound leadership, management, and stewardship in decision-making processes

4. Adapt critical infrastructure in response to dynamic conditions and practice

An initial effort to introduce the guidelines to students will take place at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in April. The call for papers describes the symposium and can be found on the home page of my website. http://www.drs-international.com/

Lieutenant Colonel Steven D. Hart, Ph.D., P.E., US Army Corps of Engineers has organized the symposium. He is also a corresponding member of the ASCE Committee on Critical Infrastructure.

Joe Manous, the Chair of the Task Group that developed the Guidelines has been making presentations around the country to communicate the guidelines. His briefing can be found on my website.

http://drs-international.com/index.php?page=articles

The implementation roadmap will be developed over the next year to implement the guidelines.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

National Preparedness System: PNSR studies pathway to the future

2010-01-05T05:31:00.000-08:00

The Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) has published a new report that outlines the root cause problems with improving National Preparedness and suggests some possible solutions. The report called Recalibrating the System: Toward an Efficient and Effective Resourcing of National Preparedness is available at the PNSR website http://www.pnsr.org/ or my website below.

The report was facilitated by John Morton for PNSR and I was pleased to lead the issue team that included former senior representatives from DHS and FEMA, state and local government officials and the private sector.

The report outlines two key problems: (1) Unresolved Conflict over All-Hazards Risk and (2) Inadequate Capabilities for Catastrophic Operational Planning to include the issue of grants as the primary tool for resourcing national preparedness.

The solutions focus on assumptions that are built on the continued implementation of the Post Katrina Emergency Reform Act (PKEMRA).

The report is well worth reading.

Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terror (MIPT), Executive Director David Cid commented this week in an Oklahoman –MIPT opinion piece- “Is the Shark Moving?” (12/30/09). He provides an interesting perspective on the Flight 253 incident.

http://newsok.com/is-the-shark-moving/article/3428317?custom_click=headlines_widget

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

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

Community of Professionals and the Long War

2009-12-29T07:23:00.000-08:00

The recent failed bombing of Northwest Flight 253 highlights an emerging reality that was documented in the book by James Carafano and Paul Rosenweig, Winning the Long War. We are in a long global war with transnational terrorists that is not going away regardless of our routine changes in political leadership. http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/the-long-war.cfm

This year alone we have experienced successful terror attacks in Arkansas and Fort Hood and several foiled plots in Dallas, Illinois, and New York.

We must continue to focus on the long term development of our Homeland Security and Emergency Management community to keep pace with the circumstances that face us.

The fact is that in the Department of Defense military planning and readiness is a process that has at least a decade long horizon. The development of people is done in career long cycles that span 20-30 years. Changes in political leadership do not change the underlying capability of our defense infrastructure easily.

Long term issues like Critical infrastructure resilience and the radicalization of our youth are just two examples of the challenge we face in domestic security.

If a flight were to break up over a major metropolitan area it would be a nightmare for emergency management professionals. Securing the debris field and managing collateral casualties on the ground are just two issues that must be imagined and planned out.

The role of English speaking clerics educated in the United States like Anwar al-Awlaki who was a trained engineer at Colorado State University creates a radicalization problem we have to confront.

Since the early 1990's and the first world trade center bombing, front line professionals have been developing their understanding of the evolving domestic security challenge.

Developing the career path for tomorrow's interdisciplinary senior leaders and executives is more important than ever.

Thanks for Checking in.

Dennis

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

Career Development and the Future of Homeland Security and Emergency Management

2009-12-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote about the emerging Community of Professionals for Homeland Security and Emergency Management in Domestic Preparedness Journal. The article is available at my website or on the DomPrep website. http://www.domesticpreparedness.com/Training/

Last week, the annual meeting for The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) was a great example of this professional development paradigm.

TISP is a forum for engineers to be engaged with other professionals in this national security issue.

I'm convinced that engineers and law enforcement professionals should be collaborating on critical infrastructure protection and resilience.

Albert Romano, a Michael Baker., Jr, Inc. Senior VP is the new Chairman of TISP taking over from Ed Hecker of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The engineering community must be more involved in the public policy development for critical infrastructure resilience and there should be more engineering influence in the DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection.

The efforts of TISP and the ASCE Guiding principles that I wrote about last week are opportunities to evolve the Community of Professionals over the next decade. I'm encouraged that this will happen.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

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

Guiding Principles for the Nation's Infrastructure

2009-12-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) is holding their Annual Infrastructure and Regional Resilience 2009 Conference on December 9th and 10 at the Gaylord Hotel in Grapevine, Texas. http://www.tisp.org/index.cfm

William B. Anderson, TISP Director has worked hard to pull this together.

Joe Manous, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is moderating a panel with David Pezza (USACE) and myself to continue the process of communicating the American Sociey of Civil Engineers (ASCE) new Guiding Principles for the Nation's Infrastructure. http://ciasce.asce.org/

Also this past week; the Chair of the ASCE, Committee on Critical Infrastructure (CCI), Karen Moran, PE and VP at Whitman, Requardt & Associates, LLP held the quarterly meeting and set direction for the committee's work to develop a roadmap to implement the Guiding Principles. I've agreed to play a leadship role on the subcommittee to move this initiative ahead. More to come on this initiative.

Lastly see my latest article on the recovery and resilience convergence. Check my wesite or go to DomPrep Journal direct. http://www.domesticpreparedness.com/

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

Disaster Recovery and National Resilience

2009-11-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

This is the first posting for a weekly blog that discusses current issues that I am encountering in my work around the country.

I plan to keep it short and to the point and refer you to other references or articles where appropriate. I will also be writing more in-depth analysis on these topics for other publications like the Domestic Preparedness Journal.

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking on a panel at the Heritage Foundation for the Fourth Annual Consortium for Homeland Defense and Security in America that examined Homeland Security’s Wicked Problems.

Mark Debosier from the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Division and myself were on a panel moderated by Matt Mayer from Ohio's Buckeye Institute dealing with Disaster Recovery.

I touched on three themes in my talk:

1. National Recovery Doctrine is a major gap for large scale disaster recovery.

2. States must reassert their responsibility for recovery and empower the private sector to help them.

3. There is a strong linkage between disaster recovery and infrastructure resilience.

Since my May 2009 lecture at Heritage, which focused on Recovery as a key piece of Unfinished Preparedness Business at FEMA and an August 2009 article in Domestic Preparedness Journal about a lack of Recovery Doctrine, there has been an encouraging public process launched by the White House and DHS/FEMA to develop a National Disaster Recovery Framework. The details are available at http://www.disasterrecoveryworkinggroup.gov/ along with 16 probing questions for public input.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that my speaking about it influenced the process, I'm just glad it is happening.

I also advocated that Governors must reassert their authority and take charge of recovery and pre-incident recovery planning. In addition, each state should have a State Disaster Housing Plan that would be a requirement to receive HUD-Community Development Block Grants.

Finally, I spoke about the groundbreaking work that the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is doing on Infrastructure Resilience. It has published a set of Guiding Principles for National Infrastructure that is now a companion to its Infrastructure Report Card. The ASCE has a speakers bureau to get the word out on the Principles and there will be more to follow.

I'll have a lot more to say on this topic in future weeks.

Thanks for checking in.

Dennis

Website Coming Soon

2009-10-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

I plan to launch my blog soon after my website in the next several days.

Stay tuned.