HENDERSON, Nev. - More than 730 Civilians and service members from U.S. Northern Command and its service components participated in the National Defense Support to Civil Authorities Workshop March 1-5 in Henderson, Nev.
The theme of the workshop was "Building Integrated Preparation and Response." Gen. Victor Renuart, the commanding general of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, along with Lt. Gen. Guy Swan III, the commanding general of U.S. Army North, provided the opening remarks for the workshop.
"Forums like this workshop help all of us work together by sharing innovations, concerns and priorities," said Renuart. "Together, we are improving our ability to keep our citizens safe where they live and work."
The purpose of the workshop was threefold, said Don Reed, chief planner, NORTHCOM future operations division, who said it is important to expand the unity of effort in the DSCA mission between DoD, National Guard and local agencies. As such, it is equally important to share lessons learned and best practices among the services. The final objective was to foster the continuing improvement of inter-agency building skills and team building.
Leaders discussed the best practices among all services and how to help improve inter-agency team building skills.
"The more team building we can accomplish now, the smoother the response time to disaster," said Reed, adding that the communication will also help to increase understanding of what capabilities each organization has in addition to understanding their limitations.
The workshop provided a joint forum to promote unity of effort in DSCA between DoD and its inter-agency partners across the preparedness spectrum of prevent, protect and respond. The participants gained knowledge of current DoD and inter-agency policies, processes and procedures and current and future initiatives of each.
They did this through participating in forums that addressed a broad range of topics in which they discussed current and proposed changes in statutory authorities and policies that affect DSCA as well as promoting unity of effort during DSCA operations, said Dale Clark, Army North EPLO program manager.
The goal for next year's workshop is to increase the level of both state and inter-agencies participation in the hope that the additional governmental agencies will bring subject-matter experts to help create partnerships between U.S. and federal organizations, said Mark Werner, who is serving as the chief planner for next year's workshop.
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