We have rescheduled the TISP membership calendar year to January through December beginning in January 2010. Those members who renewed their membership in October, November, or December 2009 earned complimentary members with a membership renewal date of January 2011. We are in the process of contact members of the change in the membership calendar year.

TISP finances programs and member value based on this revenue from membership dues and meeting fees. The revenue helps pay for member value services and program activities. Learn more about the 2010 program activities and how you can participate. Do you part TODAY by joining TISP.

Already a member? Then do your part as a member to grow the membership or sign-up to be a member volunteer on a committee or action team.

Bill Anderson

Director and COO

The Infrastructure Security Partnership

Letter from the Chair

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the TISP Board of Directors (Board), I wish you and yours a prosperous and healthy 2010. As a newly appointed Chair of the TISP Board, I am honored to have the opportunity to serve TISP and I am excited about the future that lies ahead.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate and extend our deepest gratitude to Mr. Ed Hecker, who has honorably and skillfully served as the TISP Board Chair for the past three years. Under Ed's leadership, TISP has re-emerged as a stronger organization and has made great strides towards enhancing our collective understanding, actions and focus on critical infrastructure resilience.

As we embark into the New Year and reflect back on this past year, we can be proud of what was already accomplished. For example, organizational advancements were made, such as establishing the 2009-2014 TISP Strategic Plan, ratifying an Operating Charter, and reinitiating four programmatic committees. We brought back our annual meeting and held four forums on topics advancing our mission. We also brought together seniors leadership from DoD and DHS to discuss supporting collaboration among homeland defense and homeland security industries.

As we look forward to 2010 and beyond, TISP will continue to focus its efforts on serving its membership, partners, and stakeholders and other entities by:

a) being a fully integrated knowledge based organization,

b) providing a wide range of technical, programmatic, policy and technological expertise

c) actively engaging with Federal, State, Local agencies in addressing common priorities and challenges related to protecting critical infrastructure

d) serving as a leader in creating more effective national, regional and local resiliency practices for infrastructure

e) fostering collaboration and coordination across various stakeholders and sectors that share a common vision

As a nation, we continue to face threats from man-made and natural hazards, and as such, we must continue to plan, prepare and respond to such threats and protect our nation's population and critical infrastructure. As such, I encourage each of you to actively participate in TISP by serving on committees, supporting initiatives, and being involved in related activities

I look forward to working with you and wish you a great year!

Albert Romano

Senior Vice President for Homeland Security

Michael Baker Jr., Inc.

TISP Surveys Regional Disaster Resilience Guide

TISP is conducting a survey of the uses and advises of the Regional Disaster Resilience: A Guide for Developing an Action Plan. The survey is being conducted through Zoomerang until March 8, 2010 (http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22A5GUN6A6UThe information gathered in this survey is confidential and will only be used to validate developing resources supporting RDR Guide and CIR Guide program initiatives. TISP intends to aggregate survey responses and share the results with members of the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Committee (CIRC).). Responders should be able to complete the survey in 15 - 20 minutes.

For more details regarding the survey and the RDR Guide read this article.

To download a free copy of the RDR Guide click here.

To learn more about how you can participate in either the RDR Guide Working Group or the CIR Guide Working Group, contact Bill Anderson, Director of The Infrastructure Security Partnership at wanderson@tisp.org or at 703-549-3800, ext. 170.

Transitions: A Message from Past Board Chair

In December, we transitioned the board chairmanship Albert Romano of Michael Baker Jr. Inc., who had been serving as the First Vice-Chair since we established the Board of Directors under the governance structure of SAME. Al is an extremely talented Leader and professional engineer, and is enthusiastic about the future direction of TISP - we are fortunate to have such a capable Leader assume the Chair as we move to address the many challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for TISP in 2010. Al has already impressed me in his leadership of TISP when the executive officers of the board met with Mr Darrell Darnell, Director of the White House Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Policy and Strategy. The outcomes of the meeting offer many opportunities for TISP to connect resilience concepts into the national strategies of homeland defense and homeland security within in his office. Al will offer more details on the many activities TISP has planned this year in that regard.

Although I am disappointed that the time arrived for me to step down after 3 great years as the Chair, I will continue to help develop and lead the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Committee, and am working to set up a senior advisory group composed primarily of past Chairs. I am very much looking forward to these and other opportunities to support the TISP mission, even as it continues to connect directly with the critical infrastructure objectives of the Corps of Engineers. As we like to say in the Corps: "ESSAYONS"!

Edward J. Hecker,

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Outcomes of TISP Annual Conference

"The Conference was phenomenal," said Georgia Borovilos P.E., City of Chicago, of the 2009 Annual Infrastructure and Regional Resilience Conference held in Grapevine, Texas, December 9 & 10. Many attendees have shared similar opinions of the value of attending our conference. The TISP Board of Directors declared the meeting a huge achievement for the organization since its transition under the Society of America Military Engineers (SAME). As an outcome of the conference, TISP used the meeting as an opportunity to facilitate the development of the 2010 TISP initiatives and activities. We look to use the conference in the future in a similar manner, offering members and partners a prospect to lead.

TISP is currently running a survey of the attendees to ensure that the conference will improve to optimize its potential for attendee value. More information on changes to the conference will be forthcoming. The conference will return to the Gaylord Texan Hotel and Conference Center in Grapevine, Texas, on December 8 &9. Make your plans to attend!

The 2009 conference offer attendees a workshop on critical and regional disaster resilience, two plenary sessions with senior government officials from DoD and DHS, five technical sessions, and opportunities for networking. Michael Baker Jr. Inc. sponsored a webcast of the workshop and plenary sessions to ensure as many of our members and partners could participate in the conference. We also included an Awards Ceremony and Luncheon sponsored by SAME. More details regarding the award winners who were recognized during the luncheon is offer in a press release in this newsletter.

Dan Catlett, Manager of the National Hurricane Program at FEMA, is chairing the Program Committee for the 2010 conference. In March, TISP intends to open the Call for Papers for the conference. We will send out a separate email message, post an announcement on our website, and offer details on the TISP LinkedIn Group. We will also work with our partners to help promote the event and its call for papers.

TISP Awards Leaders in Infrastructure Security Industry

The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) recognized three individuals for their distinguished leadership in critical infrastructure resilience and volunteer service during an awards luncheon as part of the TISP Annual Infrastructure and Regional Resilience (AIRR) 2009 Conference in Grapevine, Texas.

TISP Annual Award for Distinguished Leadership in Critical Infrastructure Resilience, 2009 Public Sector Award

Todd R. White, Homeland Defense Bureau, City of Phoenix, Ariz.

TISP Annual Award for Distinguished Leadership in Critical Infrastructure Resilience, 2009 Private Industry Award:

Jami S. Haberl, MPH, MHA, Safeguard Iowa Partnership, Des Moines, Iowa

TISP Annual Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service

Edward J. Hecker, Chief, Office of Homeland Security, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Click here to learn more about the achievements of these outsiding individuals.

2010: The Year of Critical Infrastructure Resilience

TISP is committed to maintaining its level of excellence as it sets a path to a national standard for critical infrastructure security and resilience. As TISP is a partnership of civil and corporate entities, we examined specific functions of security and resilience planning such as continuance of operations, resilient communications, common risk assessment measures and methods, the national strategy for disaster recovery, homeland defense, and homeland security, interdependencies, life cycle assessments, and the resilience of critical infrastructure. We discovered three subjects with which TISP can utilize its core functional resources to advance the security and resiliency of our nation's critical infrastructure. By developing public private partnership initiatives to address these subjects TISP enables many possibilities such as the development of an entity capable of pre-assessing disasters to determine loss of infrastructure and resources and the impact of the loss on scale of the nation, regions, states, and communities. TISP's primary programs for 2010 -2011 include:

1. Thought Leadership at the Intersection of Homeland Security, Emergency Management, and Risk Science.

2. Update the Regional Disaster Resilience Guide and develop a new Critical Infrastructure Resilience Guide.

3. Incorporate Resilience in the Whole Infrastructure/Build Criteria.

Read the full article to learn more about our 2010 Progression Plan

CALL FOR PAPERS: West Point Student Critical Infrastructure Symposium Reshaping the Emergency Management Cycle

NOTE: Submission requirement and key dates can be found here. Call For Papers deadline is March 1.

While the emergency management cycle of Prepare-Incident-Respond-Recover is graphically represented by three equal length arrows in a circle, our National Strategy for Homeland Security and the associated implementing documents seek to minimize the time spent in the Respond and Recovery phases. The West Point Student Critical Infrastructure Symposium invites presentations into all activities in the three phases to minimize the time spent in the Respond and Recovery phases. Changing a graphic has the power to change how we see a problem.

The Symposium will assemble 60 undergraduate and masters level students from colleges and universities to present student projects and research on critical infrastructure protection in 5 divisions, each moderated by an invited critical infrastructure protection professional. After their presentations, students will discuss a current critical infrastructure issue and formulate a recommendation. The best papers and the combined recommendations will be presented on May 5, 2010 in Washington DC at a forum hosted by The Infrastructure Security Partnership.

Divisions and Moderators

Understanding the All-Hazards Environment

Dr. Paul Mlakar, US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering Research and Development Center

Network and Target Assessments

Eve Hinman, President and Founder, Hinman Consulting Engineers

Building a Resilient Society

Dr. Mike Chumer, Research Professor, College of Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Rapid Restoration

Dr. Dale Jones, Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs Virginia Commonwealth University

Implementing Security, Protection, & Resiliency Solutions

Dennis Schrader, former Deputy Administrator of the National Preparedness Directorate in FEMA

Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report

The Department of Homeland Security delivered the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) Report to Congress on February 1, 2010. The QHSR outlines the strategic framework to guide the activities of participants in homeland security toward a common end.

The QHSR is the beginning of a multi-step process. It offers a vision for a secure homeland, specifies key mission priorities, outlines goals for each of those mission areas, and lays the necessary groundwork for the subsequent steps. The next step, which is currently underway, is a bottom-up review of the Department mwhich will align the programmatic activities and organizational structure of the Department with the strategic framework set out in the QHSR. The third and final step of this process will culminate in the Department's fiscal year 2012 budget submission.

View the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) Report to Congress (PDF, 108 pages - 949 KB). Read the executive summary of the report(PDF, 4 pages - 57 KB). For more information, click here.

FEMA Releases Draft National Disaster Recovery Framework

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in coordination with the interagency Long Term Disaster Recovery Working Group, today issued a draft of the National Disaster Recovery Framework -focused onengaging state, local and tribal governments, nonprofit partners, the private sector, and the public to enhance the nation's ability to recovery from disasters.

The report is now available for review by visiting DisasterRecoveryWorkingGroup.gov. Read the full article here.

FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

CALL FOR SPEAKERS: Annual HAZUS Conference

The 4^th Annual HAZUS Conference: "Back Home Again in Indiana" is encouraging attendees to submit abstracts. The program committee will evaluate papers based on quality and relevance. All submissions are held in confidentiality prior to publication in the proceedings.

Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

· Best Practices using HAZUS for Mitigation Planning

· Best Practices using HAZUS for Emergency Management

· Best Practices using HAZUS for Floodplain Management

· Best Practices using the Earthquake, Hurricane Wind and Flood Models in your Community

· CDMS and HAZUS-MH Data Collection

· Updates from HAZUS User Groups (HUGs)

· Innovative Approaches to Decision Making

· Best Practices using HAZUS Internationally

Deadline for submissions is March 31, 2010. Please limit word count to 500 words or less.

Submit abstracts to Rebecca Blankenship at meetings@opp-inc.com

Please visit www.hazus.net/2010 to register. Admission to the conference is FREE.

For more information about HAZUS-MH visit: www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/hazus.

HAZUS-MH is the Risk Assessment Tool for Risk MAP. For more information about Risk MAP visit: http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/fhm/rm_main.shtm

Secretary Napolitano Launches Public Engagement Website

Web tool will increase transparency, collaboration as part of Open Government Initiative

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced the launch of a new online public engagement tool designed to solicit input from the public on ways to enhance transparency, participation, collaboration and innovation at the Department-part of President Obama's Open Government Directive.

"Creating an open, transparent, more efficient and effective government is one of our top priorities at the Department of Homeland Security," said Secretary Napolitano. "This new online tool allows the public to play a major part in our Department-wide efforts to enhance openness and accessibility."

The new online tool-available from Feb.6-March 19 at www.dhs.gov/open allows members of the public and interested stakeholders to submit ideas and suggestions on ways DHS can enhance transparency, participation, collaboration and innovation-while saving taxpayer money.

The ideas submitted will help guide the development of an official DHS Open Government plan.

On Dec. 8, 2009, President Obama issued the Open Government Directive to begin breaking down long-standing barriers between the federal government and the people it serves, and instructed agencies to take immediate, specific steps to open their doors and data to the American people. Agencies across the federal government will begin engaging the public through similar online tools this week.

For more information, visit www.dhs.gov/open

FFC Symposium: Legal Considerations When Building Green

You are cordially invited to attend a presentation titled "Legal Considerations When Building Green" by Christopher Cheatham, Stephen McBrady, and J. Catherine Kunz of Crowell and Moring LLP. The presentation will be given on Tuesday, March 2, 2010, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. in Room 110 of the Keck Center of the National Academies, 500 Fifth Street N.W., in Washington, D.C. It is sponsored by the Federal Facilities Council's Standing Committee on Sustainable Acquisition, Design, and Construction.

Chris Cheatham and Steve McBrady are construction attorneys experienced with green building and sustainable development (Chris is LEED certified), and Cathy Kunz is an experienced procurement lawyer with expertise in Green government contracting. They will discuss a range of issues related to green building and risk including LEED certification, federal, state and local laws and regulations, green building risk management, and the effect of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Green building and sustainable development initiatives across the country.

Please RSVP to Lynda Stanley, Director, Federal Facilities Council at lstanley@nas.edu if you plan to attend. Feel free to forward this message to others who may have an interest.

NFPA 1600 and 14 NFPA first responder codes and standards receive DHS designation as "Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology"

NFPA 1600, Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs and 14 other NFPA codes and standards have been designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as "Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology" (QATT) under the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002 (SAFETY Act). This is the first block of standards to receive this designation by DHS. Under the provisions of the SAFETY Act, these standards were also certified as "Approved Product(s) for Homeland Security."

Read the full Press Release here.

Thanks to our Keystone and FoundationSponsors

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