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VFW Post 8337 - Private
Sector Liaisons Your on-site
Risk Management (RM) Resource!
Veterans are
embedded at every level of
the private sector! They're well positioned to provide 24/7 "closed loop" feedback
to incident commanders. They're well positioned to file threat
assessments and incident reports, as well as provide valuable
insight for event and contingency planners. They're well positioned
to conduct risk management self assessments, monitor regulatory
compliance with health, safety, and security legislation, and ensure
regular testing, servicing, and upgrading of security systems based
on changing threats and exposures.
Liaisons will most likely be first to
the scene, first to offer aid to victims, first to determine the
crisis type, scope, potential for scope creep, and estimated
duration. There's no set number of Liaisons/Risk Managers needed. I
teach, "We're all Risk Managers!" Ultimately, we're all responsible
for our own health and safety let alone economic well being. Those
who are 100% sure they can hire, appoint, elect, or bribe someone to
pull them out of their pool, are bound to eventually drown. No
matter how much money we pump into the public sector, no matter how
much equipment we buy or training we give, it only takes one broken
link in their response to arrive two minutes late to the scene.
If I were to pick the most valuable
lesson learned from 9-11-01, terrorist attacks, the tsunami, the
last pandemic, and Hurricane Katrina, it would be; No family,
company, or community should let the sun go down without having
their own "Worst Case Scenario" contingency plan written to the
"International 72 hour Stand-alone Performance Standard.
That's the Standard
veterans march to, and the International Standard on which the world
credit union movement has been built!
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The US military enlists troops from every
level of society and every corner of our country. It therefore
follows that veterans are embedded at every level of the public and
private sectors of our society. Seven VFW Post 8337 liaisons provide
a "closed-loop" communications link between our Post 8337 and the
community (Liberty Grove), county (Door), and country (USA) we
serve. There are three Post 8337 liaisons with the public sector
(Law Enforcement, Emergency Government with Fire Fighters, and
Legislature) who report monthly on public sector initiatives
requiring support from the private sector. And, four Post 8337 liaisons with the private sector (Homeland Security/Contingency
Planning, Health/Safety, History/Patriotism, and
Chaplain/Trauma Management). The seven liaisons form our post's
"unified" Incident Command during a terrorist attack, natural or
man-made disaster, pandemic, or large scale community crisis.
Note form the Commander:
Al Qaida has franchised their operations with the expressed
intention to embed operatives anywhere there is a disgruntled
citizen, social or political extremist, depressed or angry youth, or
anyone looking for a cause focused on attacking and destroying the
economic infrastructure of any open and free society. Across
the nation, there is a movement of collaboration between government,
businesses, and non-profit organizations to ensure that communities
are safe, secure, and economically robust.
Government seeks these partnerships as an opportunity to
utilize private sector resources
to mitigate the impact of critical incidents, engage
in pre-planning with businesses for continuity of operation
planning (COOP), and strengthen relationships with the private
sector. The business community
supports these partnerships,
as it benefits their short and long term strategic planning,
enhances their level of emergency preparedness, and strengthens
their relationship with
government
entities and officials. |
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VFW Post 8337
Liaisons
(June 2008 - July 2009) |
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Duties and
Responsibilities |
Post 8337 Liaison |
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Post Commander:
Acts as liaison between fellow VFW Post commanders in
District 8, Wisconsin, and Nationally. The commander
promotes joint operations to test contingency plans and
emergency response protocols, negotiates mutual aid agreements
between VFW Post 8337 and other VFW posts as well as the American Legion, AMVET, and
Marine Corp League posts in Door County;
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VFW Post
8337 Commander: Rich Woldt |
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Law Enforcement
Liaison: Primary
responsibility is to act as liaison between VFW Post 8337 and local law
enforcement to include Door County Sheriff and Sturgeon Bay
Chief of Police. Duties include acting as VFW Post 8337
"Liaison Officer" during any private sector "Unified"
command. This includes identifying and logging in law
enforcement personnel to the EOC and staging areas.
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Vice
Commander: Davis Sitte
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Fire
Fighter & Emergency Government Liaison:
Primary responsibility is to act as liaison between VFW Post
8337, our Liberty Grove Fire Chief and Director of Door
County Emergency Government. Duties include
identifying and logging in all firefighters and emergency
first responders into our "private sector" Incident Command
EOC, staging areas, and mobile Command Posts.
Also acts as Post' Health/Safety liaison with the private
sector.
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Post 8337
Surgeon Doctor Owen Larson |
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Legislature Liaison:
Primary responsibilities include
acting as liaison between VFW Post 8337 and our State and
Local Government Representatives. Duties include identifying
and logging in all government officials into our "private
sector" Incident Command EOC, staging areas, and mobile
Command Post. Also functions
as Post' Homeland
Security/Contingency Planning Liaison,
overseeing Homeland Security projects as they relate to
creating public-to-private partnerships and "unified"
commands during the next terrorist attack, natural or
man-made disaster, pandemic, or large scale community
crisis.
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John Mahoney acts as
Post 8337 liaison with all levels of government to include
the Liberty
Grove Town Board, Door County Board of Supervisors, State
and National legislators. |
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History &
Patriotism Liaison: Purple
Heart recipient and retired Gibraltar High School teacher
and guidance councilor George Erickson acts as our Post'
History & Patriotism Liaison. Together with Ladies Auxiliary
member and wife Annett, they oversee our Voice of Democracy
and Patriot's Pen contests, our youth scholarship programs.
George is also our liaison with Purple Heart and Medal of
Honor recipients. |
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Chaplain Liaison:
Our Post Chaplain acts as the liaison
with our faith-based community which includes maintaining
contacts with all priests, ministers, rabbis, etc. and
chaplains for other veteran' posts in Door County.
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Chaplain - 2007 - 2008 Leo Du Charme
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Media Liaison:
Acts as liaison with the media to include news papers, radio
and television stations, and news agencies on the
local, state, and national level.. Acts as "Information
Officer" during a unified command.
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| Don Jensen
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VFW
Post 8337
priority goals for 2008 include:
- Focus VA budgets
on meeting veteran health care needs,
correcting flaws in benefit and compensation programs, and
streamlining the claims settlement process.
- Ensure our active-duty, National
Guard and Reserve troops
receive increased pay, affordable health care, and adequate
housing and work facilities for themselves and their families.
- Promote veteran employment and
education through a
comprehensive GI Bill for the 21st century.
- Enlist veterans in the war on
terrorism and mobilize effort to support U.S. troops,
their mission fighting terrorism, their need for increased and
timely funding to fight the war, need to take decisive,
preemptive, and offensive global action, secure U.S. borders,
shorelines and all ports of entry, and halt the flow of illegal
immigration.
- Defend and protect our homeland:
Support increased defense
spending to fund all needed weapons programs, personnel
initiatives and troop end-strength requirements, urge the
continued development of a ballistic missile defense system,
halt the development and/or proliferation of nuclear weapons or
materiel by North Korea, secure Europe through the continued
expansion of NATO, and investigate the 1967 Israeli attack on
the USS Liberty.
- Actively promote military affairs
that seek to improve the quality of life for all active-duty,
National Guard and Reserve troops and their families, provide a
military base-pay raise to restore full compatibility with
private-sector wages, support efforts to lower the Guard and
Reserve retirement pay age to 55, oppose any TRICARE fee
increases.
- Launch new efforts to capture our
history, promote our traditions, encourage patriotism in our
schools, achieve the fullest possible accounting of all U.S.
POWs and MIAs from all wars, ensure the U.S. government keeps
the POW/MIA issue elevated as a national priority, urge the
President and Congress to fully fund the Joint POW/MIA
accounting Command through a dedicated single-line item
appropriation in the Defense budget, and support all POW/MIA
public awareness initiatives.
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Return to:
Public Sector Liaisons
VFW Post 8337.com
The Risk Management Learning Center
Guardian Vets.com
Go to: International Crisis
Management Liaisons
"Veteran to World Credit Union
Movement " |
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Ken Pollock, chaplain AMVET Post 51 points to Liberty Grove
Town Hall view from satellite. Ken is a GIS Addressing and
Zoning Specialist with the Door County Planning Department. |
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"Change is inevitable, adopting to change
is optional!"
Rich Woldt - Commanding
VFW Post 8337 |
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The Mission? Public
sector liaisons change without warning. Politicians lose elections,
get impeached, and resign. Cops go postal and firemen burn
out. It's no different in the private sector. Companies
fold, executives run off with their assistants, employees
quit and get fired, and volunteers die or retire to a better
climate. There are no guarantee you'll be sitting in the
same chair tomorrow. The motto in the credit union movement
is, "Change is inevitable, adopting to change is optional."
So here's my best advice:
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Establish an endless network of private
sector liaisons and designate one as your "primary" and
one your "alternate" contact with each organization. (In
the credit union movement we've designated one primary
Credit Union Risk Manager (CURM) and an alternate at
each credit union, Chapter, League, National and
International credit union trade association. CUNA
Mutual Group maintains Risk Managers around the world
lead by International Risk Management executives at the
world credit union headquarters in Madison Wisconsin)
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Automatically, designate the Chairman of
the Board of Directors as your primary contact whether
or not this person is your primary liaison/Risk
Managers. If you don't set the tone from the top that
"Crisis Management" let alone "Contingency Planning" is
a corporate priority, building the rest of your Homeland
Security program will be like pushing a rope up hill.
Your primary contact should have both the responsibility
and authority to act on behalf of the organization.
Your primary contact/liaison need not be physically able
to respond to the scene although it helps. (Note:
Many of the veterans I selected as liaisons to VFW Post
8337' were in their 70s and 80s, and some where
confined to their home or retirement community. They
were selected because they come to our command with vast
experience in our community. They come with reputations
of being leaders, being able to take command, define
their mission, and execute protocols.)
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Adopt International Performance
Standards!
| While the US Public Sector
response to Katrina was the most successful
emergency government response in the history of the
world, (click here to read my white paper), it was
not perceived that way. (Why? While the
Incident Command System has been taught in the
public sector since the end of WWII, there were few
if any Unified commands set up at the local level
during the first 72 hours following Katrina's
landfall.) Since Katrina the ICS and NIMS are
required training for all law enforcement officers,
fire fighters and emergency government personnel.
The credit union movement has
been using a version of the ICS since the early
1900s when they formed unified commands to build the
Hoover/Boulder Dam Project, solving the annual
flooding and destruction of agriculture in the US
Southwest. |
International Performance Standards!
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All companies, groups, clubs,
associations in the private sector should adopt the
Incident Command System to their crisis management
protocols. (There are many management systems in
the private sector that have a crisis management
components. For example, Management by Objective -MBO
and the Customer Development Process -CDP both include a
Contingency Planning, Business Continuity, Business
Resumption components. The credit union movement has
successfully integrated the Incident Command System and
NIMS into their crisis management system of choice.)
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We'll maintain a directory of liaisons
in five ICS operational areas (Life Safety and Health,
Security, Communications, Transportation, and
Recovery/Reconstruction).
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Our liaison' contact logs will be
audited quarterly.
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Embedded vets in both sectors will
update contact information within 72 hours of any
significant change.
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Web
and
buttons will be standardized, posted throughout all
Post' web sites, and tested each month during "Good of
the Order!
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Unless closed sessions are ordered, all
Post meetings will be open to Post' public and private
sector liaisons.
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Post' security protocols require
pictured IDs with written physical descriptions,
key-codes, and passwords to gain entry to Level 3
"Private Sector" emergency operation centers (EOCs),
staging areas and Mobile Command Posts (MCPs).
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Note to Risk Management Students:
These web pages contain more information than most that
use hot links to our RM library. Reason? These pages are
being used in Basic RM and Crisis management courses and I
want students to be able to copy each as a handout. In AIT
courses they will link to on-line R&D files. |
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Introduction to Post 8337 Liaisons:
Veterans embedded at all levels of the private sector
provide an in-place and mission ready defense force during a
terrorist attack, man-made or natural disaster, pandemic, or
large scale community crisis requiring mass housing-in-place
or a mass evacuation. force.
Rich Woldt |
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Veterans embedded in tavern leagues and restaurant
associations are well positioned to establish food supply
lines during a crisis, feed troops in the field, set up food
kitchen in shelters, and manage food distribution centers
along evacuation routes. They also form VIPER squads and
teach food handling health and safety protocols, |
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Veterans Posts liaison with equestrian clubs and agriculture
cooperative providing a cavalry ready to execute a
roundup, cattle drive, stock transport, or staging area
veterinarian to care for live stock pulled from a
burning barn, escaping a wildfires, sever weather, or
natural disaster putting them in harms way. |
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Veterans embedded in the services industry stand
mission ready to reinforce hospitals staff, laundry supply
lines, as well as establish delivery and distribution
systems for shelters and shut-ins. |
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Veteran Door County ski patrollers liaison
with Aspen Colorado ski patrollers, members of the 10th
Mountain Division, and private sector security for
Colorado's Ski industry. Liaison provide valuable training
in winter search and rescue. |
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Veterans liaison with local churches and the faith based
community standing mission ready to manage the victim trauma
at the scene, in shelters, along evacuation routes, or
wherever their support is needed. |
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Veterans maintain liaisons with all media outlets, forming
communication partnerships that stand mission ready to
mobilize veterans during any community crisis. |
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Veterans maintain close-loop communications with the local
press. Pictured is Door County Editor Charles Carlson and
"Viet Nam Veteran and News Editor Joe Knaapen. |
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Veteran Post Historians liaison with Medal of
Honor and Purple Heart recipients.
VFW
Post 8337 Purple Heart Recipient George Erickson oversees
this project. |
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Veterans liaison with comrades on active duty, their friends
and family. Refer to VFW Post 8337
Operations Iraqi Cover-up project and our Silver Star and
Phone Card Programs. |
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