WG5 Homeland Security, Homeland Defense and Civil Support

page owner julie.seton@thoughtweb.com

Time continues to march along, completely oblivious to those of us who are struggling to keep up with our jobs, volunteer efforts, family, and life in general.  Here we are already AFTER the new year and I have been remiss in my duties as Chair.  I want to thank Mr. James Weber for catching my error on the mission of USNORTHCOM in the WG-5 Prospectus and to Mr. Tom Denesia, our solid and calm advisor for answering Mr. Weber's concern so quickly.  I am submitting the revision to MORS today. 

We have less than an month before abstracts are due in and I encourage each of you to go out and drum up some great projects to be presented in our WG this coming June in Leavenworth.  Our focus includes

1) the collaboration among defense and civilian response agencies in their respective roles to defend US infrastructure, citizens, and property;

2) policy issues regarding the role of the military in a civilian-led response, and

3) how to we effectively address the information sharing issues between military and civilian organizations.

This is the reminder to send the Call for Papers out again to your colleagues, partners, and office mates well in advance of the deadline of 13 Feb 2009.  Submissions are to be sent electronically over the new submission site that is accessible through the mors.org website.

Regards,

--Julie

Hi Folks,

After reviewing the notes from the MORS Symposium in June, I found that there was high interest in changing the name of the WG5 to incorporate our newest MORS sponsor, DHS.  My suggestion is Homeland Security, Homeland Defense and Civil Support.  It is long, but it really covers the topics involved with the cross-over and interaction among DoD and DHS.  The draft Perspectus for WG5 is with the advisors, Tom Denesia and Jerry Diaz for comment now.   Any thoughts or preferences about this?

I want to make sure that everyone knows about the MORS Special Session on Consequence Management that is being hosted by Virginia Modeling and Simulation Center (VMASC) in November.  This is a great opportunity for the WG5 community to participate in a critical aspect of homeland protection that is often overlooked or ignored because it is not as exciting as the "fight" or initial response to an incident, whether human caused or natural.

I'd really like to make this wiki an active space for the entire year, not just for the Symposium preparation.