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IAEM-USA REGION 3 NEWS ARCHIVE 2010
The annual meeting of the IAEM-USA Region 3 Caucus held Sunday, Oct, 31, 2010, in San Antonio, was well-attended. I want to take this opportunity to personally thank all the members that joined us during the caucus meeting. Official minutes of the meeting by Secretary Stephen Krill will be posted on the website later this month.
We were extremely pleased to have as our guest FEMA Region 3 Administrator Mary Ann Tierney. As a new FEMA RA, she joins us with years of experience from New York City, and later with Philadelphia. She noted that her Region 3 priorities will be to have greater stakeholder engagement, put together a business plan for Region 3, encourage collaboration among employees and integration of the programs of FEMA Region 3, increase emphasis on collaborative and integrated planning with a focus on training and exercises for local jurisdictions, and develop a SOP for grants in keeping with the anticipated new emphasis on greater regional coordination and regional empowerment. She emphasized that she sees the regional role to provide "rules and tools." She anticipates that there will be a greater role of the Region 3 Regional Advisory Council as the RAC is reorganized. One of the topics was a possible partnership to have an IAEM Region 3/FEMA Region 3 Conference during 2011.
Other activities of your President included attendance at the Government Affairs Committee from 8-12:00 on October 31st, and attendance at the Board of Directors meetings on Saturday and on Thursday.
Five individuals volunteered time as part of the volunteer conference staff and received their conference staff shirt (value $20) from Region 3. Region 3 participated in the Student Live Auction and donated $225 toward student scholarships. KEMA has committed to providing $350 toward student stipends.
- Kimberly Cunningham was one of our student scholarship recipients and came in person to thank the Region 3 caucus.
- Michael M. Walter sent the following thank-you note to pass on to Region 3 supporters: "I regret that I was unable to met you at the 2010 IAEM Conference this week in San Antonio or be able to thank you in person for your contribution towards the cost of my attendance. Only with the help of generous donors such as yourself can we promote and enhance the field of emergency management among collage and university students. Once again, thank you and good luck in the coming year."
(09/13/10)
Pennsylvania:
KEMA Partners with IAEM-PA Conf
Thanks to the Keystone Emergency Management Association for a donation of $360 for student stipends to the IAEM Annual Conference in San Antonio. The donation supports the strategic goal of KEMA to encourage students to become involved in Emergency Management. The strategic plan was updated at the KEMA annual meeting at the conference in Lancaster. Jim Davis, President of Virginia Emergency Management Association, was a speaker at the KEMA dinner. Kathee Henning, Pres. Region 3, was invited to speak on IAEM and CEM®. The conference was a huge success; three years ago, the conference attracted 350 participants, and this year there were more than 650 attending. KEMA will retain its 501(4) C status and not seek 501(3)C at this time. Kay Carman, KEMA Past President, who was instrumental in planning the conference, organizing the exercise for local emergency managers, and pushing IT for KEMA, was given an Honorary Life Time Membership to KEMA after she announced that she will be retiring in October.
Virginia:
New Conference Venue
Jim Davis, President of VEMA announced that the annual state conference will be moved to Richmond, the state capital, for the next two years.
Maryland: Update on MEMA
MEMA worked with the CEM® Commission to get the conference hours approved so that the certificates of attendance would meet the format recommended by the Commission. MEMA continues to work with its Certification work group on a recommendation for a state certification.
(05/14/10)
- Kathleen Henning Liaison Activities
- Commission on Children in Disaster, Evacuation, Transportation and Shelter Subcommittee:
Kathleen Henning has been working as a member of the Commission subcommittee on Evacuation, Shelter, and Transportation (chaired by Bruce Lockwood). She attended the meetings in Washington March 22-23, sponsored by HHS. The Subcommittee met on Monday. FEMA Administrator Fugate addressed the Commission on Tuesday. Kathee continues to participate in conference calls with the ETS Subcommittee. The next meeting is May 11th in Washington. Among issues under discussion are recommendations for required disaster planning for child care providers and comprehensively integrating the needs of children across all inter- and intra-governmental disaster planning activities and operations.
- Citizen Corps:
Citizen Corps announced the second annual National Citizen Corps Achievement Awards and Kathee forwarded a copy to the Board members. It is posted on the IAEM website. Filing date is May 17th for achievement recognition for events from Jan 2009- May 2010. Still waiting on comments back on the National Conference on Community Preparedness Report forwarded to FEMA.
- NVOAD: K. Henning participated in the NVOAD Volunteer Management Committee conference call on April 27. Alex Amparo, who was on the committee, is leaving Volunteer FL to move to Washington to be a Senior Advisor to FEMA Administrator Fugate. NVOAD has revamped its committee structure to require that all its committees have a minimum of 50% membership from NVOAD members. The IAEM Board will be advised if we will be asked to change our role since we have been involved for more than a decade. There was a discussion about reviewing the various documents that the committee has produced on Spontaneous Volunteers. These were developed under the previous All-Hands/UPS grant to see if updates are needed. FEMA has hired a private contractor to develop documents which came as a surprise to NVOAD committee members. They have scheduled a focus group to discuss this with the contractor at the NVOAD annual conference. There is a new manual developed on Volunteer Recovery for long term recovery. Looking at two perspectives- what the volunteers can expect from the host group, and what the host/callout agencies should expect from volunteers.
- Women in Emergency Management: Kathee continues to participate in the conference calls for the EMPOWER Liaison Committee. On April 27th they partnered with EMForum.org for a webinar.
(05/14/10) The Public Private Partnership Caucus has convened its initiative task forces via conference call. Current efforts are toward getting task force members trained on a collaboration tool that has been offered to us free of charge by one of our task force members. This will take place in the next couple of weeks. Once this training is complete, we’ll move forth with development of both the Electronic Best Practices Journal and the Public Private Partnership “How to” Guide.
Co-Chair Shane Stovall has a meeting set with Daniel Stoneking, Director of the FEMA Private Sector Division on June 8. The intent of this meeting is to discuss IAEM PPP Caucus initiatives and how FEMA and IAEM can further collaborate on these initiatives.
(04/16/10)
- Virginia: Hui-Shan Walker and Kathleen Henning attended the VEMA Symposium March 31-April 2, 2010 at the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton, Va. Kathee Henning was an Opening Session speaker on Making Partnerships Work in Tight Times.
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Maryland: Plans underway for the Maryland Director's Conference to be held June 1-4 in Ocean City, Maryland. Region 3 participates annually in the scholarship Auction and provides sponsorship for an activity during the event.
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Pennsylvania: KEMA (Keystone Emergency Management Association) announced a new electronic newsletter at http://www.kema-pa.org/docs/newsletter03-10.pdf.
Kathleen Henning Liaison Activities (note that beginning in April the Committee and Caucus Reports are filed separately by the Board Liaisons with the Board)
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Commission on Children in Disaster, Evacuation, Transportation and Shelter Subcommittee: Kathleen Henning has been working as a member of the Commission subcommittee on Evacuation, Shelter, and Transportation (chaired by Bruce Lockwood). She attended the meetings in Washington March 22-23, sponsored by HHS. The Subcommittee met on Monday, and the Commission met on Tuesday. She also participated in a conference call with the ETS Subcommittee.
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Citizen Corps: K. Henning presented the Post Conference Report on the National Conference on Community Preparedness to the Board at the Board Retreat March 16, 2010. The Board approved the report with minor modifications, mostly to format. The report was finalized and sent to the staff at national Preparedness Division/Office of Citizen Corps and they have indicated they want to provide comments.
- Citizen Corps Achievement Awards: Citizen Corps announced the second annual National Citizen Corps Achievement Awards and Kathee forwarded a copy to the Board members. It is now posted on the IAEM website. Filing date is May 17th for achievement recognition for events from Jan 2009- May 2010.
(03/09/10)
- Officers Elected Special Elections: A vacancy was created in the Region 3 VP slot when Hui-Shan Walker was elected to 2nd Vice President of IAEM-USA at the IAEM-USA Annual Conference in Orlando. In accordance with the bylaws of Region 3, John Conklin was elected to Vice President in a special election. Because he was Secretary, another special election was held and Stephen Krill JR of Virginia was elected as Secretary.
- Government Affairs: Sent out the survey to region on EMPG from GA Committee.
- Virginia: The next annual symposium will be held March 31-April 2, 2010 at the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton, Va. Kathee Henning will be a speaker for the Opening Session. VEMA has a new and improved website: www.vemaweb.org. It has also implemented a new improved certification program that correlates very closely to IAEM's CEM certification program. They have also added a student membership category to their membership. Kathee worked with VEMA to get a booth for IAEM.
- Maryland: Kathee is working with the conference committee to arrange for a Region 3 sponsorship event or booth at the State conference.
- Pennsylvania: John Conklin will be attending the Region 3 Officer meeting at midyear at EMI.
Liaison Activities
- Public Private Partnership Caucus:
Committee Chair Shane Stowall reports that "as of the IAEM Annual Meeting on November 1, 2009, we currently have the following breakdown of active members – 15 public sector, 22 private sector, 3 non-profit, 2 higher education, 2 other. The committee is currently kicking off initiatives via task for the following projects: 1.) Developing a PPP Best Practices Journal; 2.) Developing a PPP Guidebook for Emergency Managers in the Public and Private sectors; 3.) Developing a database for private sector entities to track where disasters occur in order to proactively push supplies, materials, personnel, donations, etc. into affected areas. At the last meeting the PPP Caucus members developed a task force to solicit and collect comments on the new DHS PS-PREP Program, which is a private sector preparedness accreditation program. It is the intent for the task force to be able to serve as a conduit for IAEM members to DHS about this program and visa versa. " K. Henning was a speaker at the annual conference on PPP and Shane Stowall was invited to make a presentation at her session about the activities of the PPP Caucus.
- Haiti: K.Henning participated in the USAID conference calls for NGOs for issues of volunteerism. DHS continues to remind nonprofits and individuals to go to serve.gov to sign up to volunteer.
- Commission on Children in Disaster, Evacuation, Transportation and Shelter Subcommittee:
Kathleen Henning has been working as a member of the Commission subcommittee on Evacuation, Shelter, and Transportation (chaired by Bruce Lockwood). She attended the meetings in Washington February 1-2, sponsored by HHS. The Subcommittee met on Monday, and the Commission met on Tuesday. She also participated in a conference call on February 18th with the ETS Subcommittee. Discussion focused on issues of daycare oversight, and the general issue of information sharing at all levels of the Emergency Management system during a disaster about the specifics on the children involved. (Noted that the data already exists in many cases, but needs to provide more specifics the closer the individual gets to hands on with the child; at the top level need aggregate data to deal with planning and response issues.) Committee looking at what defines the trigger to share information in situations below a disaster declaration. K.Henning is scheduled to attend next Commission meeting and subcommittee meetings on March 22-March 23 in Washington DC.
- Women in Emergency Management: Jacqueline McBride has been working with Beth Armstrong on behalf of IAEM to identify "pioneer women in the field of Emergency Management." Information was forwarded to President L'Heureux. Group is requesting information on committees, including Hall of Fame nominations by March 11.
- Citizen Corps:
K. Henning and staff are working together on the after action report for the National Conference on Community Preparedness. Work on the project was deferred until after our own annual conference and the report will be issued later in March 2010.
- NVOAD: K. Henning participated in the National Donations/Volunteer Management monthly partner call March 9 on "exercising the plan," with FEMA, National VOAD and Aidmatrix donations specialists. Regional Exercise is scheduled for April 14th.
By Kathleen Henning, CEM, IAEM-USA Region 3 President
download report (01/07/10)
Sept. 26-20, 2009, Harrisburg, PA
download report (01/07/10)
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