Craig Fugate Paints a Compelling Vision at HSDECA

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

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

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

Private Sector Language - Owner/Operators

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

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