Planes, Trains, and Drains
Show Notes:
Guests this month:
Ali Lampson, IAEM Critical Infrastructure Consortium Co-Lead: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-lampson-mps-cem%C2%AE-931408b3/
Greg Vernon, IAEM Critical Infrastructure Consortium Co-Lead: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorypvernon/
Other items referenced:
IAEM Critical Infrastructure Consortium website: https://www.iaem.org/Groups/Ad-Hocs-and-Consortiums/Critical-Infrastructure-Consortium
Register for the June 25, 2024 4pm EST meeting https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=8Unkj5SLt0-ZBm-Tnagtc2bJ8BOsWLVJky7p--9FVpdUMDk4WjRSVVI3NE1WRkdMUE4ySFMxSVpQNS4u
Critical Infrastructure Sectors: https://www.cisa.gov/topics/critical-infrastructure-security-and-resilience/critical-infrastructure-sectors
National Security Memorandum on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/04/30/national-security-memorandum-on-critical-infrastructure-security-and-resilience/
IAEM Member Orientation May 16, 2024: https://www.iaem.org/Events/Event-Info/sessionaltcd/20240516Orientation
IAEM Plugged In Virtual Conference: https://www.iaem.org/virtualconference2024
Transcript:
Taylor Frizzell:
All right. Welcome, folks, to the Just In Case podcast. I'm your host, Taylor Frizzell. Joining me, as always, is Mr. Justin Kates. I am back. I am ready to party. Thank you so much for holding down the fort last month, Justin. You did a great job. I don't think anyone jumped ship, which is a good sign, right?
Justin Kates:
We actually got some feedback that the ratings went up considerably at the last podcast.
Taylor Frizzell:
You were waiting for that. You were waiting for that moment, weren't you?
Justin Kates:
That's right. We wanted to show that we could do it without you, and we did. So it all worked out. We had a great, great episode with the Scholarship Commission, so I think we'll have another good episode today.
Taylor Frizzell:
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. In the words of Taylor Swift, I'm the problem. Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. So it's OK. I understand. But thank you for allowing me to come back, Justin. I appreciate that. I'm super jazzed to be here. We've got some awesome guests this month. We will get to them in just a moment, but I'll do a quick introduction. So this month, we're talking about all things critical infrastructure and the Critical Infrastructure Consortium. So joining us this month, we have consortium co-chairs Greg Vernon and Ali Lampson. So thank you both so much for joining us. We'll get to you in just a minute here. But before we start pestering you with all kinds of questions, I'm going to turn it over to Justin to give us an update on all things IAEM-USA.
Justin Kates:
All right, so another busy month at IAEM-USA. And one of the big events this month was the board retreat. So each year, we pull the board together for a couple of annual purposes, things like approving the budget. And typically, we'll go and reset our strategic plan types of efforts. And then we also will fill it with some of the most important topics that we have going on within the association. This month or this year at the annual retreat, we had some presentations from the Safe Events Task Force. So they provided us with recommendations from each of their teams. And those recommendations have now been completed and submitted to the board. So now the board can take action on those. Some cases, they might have recommendations for the conference committee. In some cases, that might be recommendations for the staff, providing training or putting in policies or revising procedures, all that kind of stuff. So there'll be more information to come on that. We also spent some time to review the DEI diversity, equity, inclusion recommendations that came from our consultant and try and figure out what our next steps are there. And so you'll see some communication that will come from me out to the board or out to the membership, actually, in the coming days. to talk about what we did at the retreat and where we're headed next on that. And then we also spent some time talking about government affairs and the board actually made a motion for us to start a grassroots campaign around DHS funding. So that's like the Emergency Management Performance Grant, the Homeland Security Grant Program, those types of activities. Many know that we saw some cuts in those programs for federal fiscal year 2024. And so we want to try and figure out for fiscal year 2025 how we might be able to get back to where we were, but also ask for more because we know that our emergency managers really rely heavily on that funding resource. So I am going to undertake this grassroots campaign to try and reach out to our elected officials at the U.S. representatives and Senate perspective, and we'll be pushing out some information about that in the coming weeks. It's going to be very similar to what we've just seen recently with the National Weather Service campaign that was released. And we had a great group of volunteers, including Spencer Hawkins from the Government Affairs Committee, that put that together in partnership with the National Weather Service. And we've already seen a number of IAEM members send out letters using the templates to their elected leaders to tell them how important that funding for the National Weather Service is. to keep them able to provide the critical services that we rely on as emergency managers. So the retreat was very successful. We got a lot done, and it was out in Louisville, Kentucky, because what we do is we go out to the city where we're going to be having the conference next year, so that way we can kind of see it and get an idea of really, you know, like, what's the area look like? And are there any concerns that we have in preparation for the conference? All that kind of stuff. So definitely a very productive event. The other things that happened this month, we had our virtual conference. IAEM plugged in, and that also was well attended. I actually gave a presentation there, a Stronger Stories presentation, so that was interesting to do that virtually. But there was a lot of great sessions that took place at that virtual conference, and What's cool about a virtual conference is everything was recorded. And so folks can go back and watch the videos. And if they missed a section, they can go back and see all that kind of stuff, which is something that's not possible when you do a live in-person conference. So definitely important to check that out. We've continued to work behind the scenes with FEMA and Argonne National Labs on the state of emergency management study that we've been looking to put on as a way to gather information about the staffing models and resource needs that emergency managers from around the country have. And we're now to the point where they're going to be doing testing with a select group of individuals to make sure that the questions that we've put together are appropriate and that they're going to get the useful types of information back for the study. So we know that there's been some folks that have volunteered to help out with that, and that's very, very helpful. And then we've got two events that are coming up that I just wanted to highlight. The first one, which actually is going to take place the day that the podcast is released on May 9th, is our happy hour. So if you're an early bird and get the podcast and realize it's the 9th, make sure you sign up to go and sit in on our annual happy hour—not our annual happy hour, our virtual happy hour. It would be good if we only did one happy hour a year, then we wouldn't to schedule all these.
Taylor Frizzell:
We only get one hour of happiness per year.
Justin Kates:
That's right. That's all we're getting. And then the other thing that our membership committee has been working on is the membership orientation. And this actually originated from Region 1. They were putting on the membership orientations in Region 1 and the membership committee took that idea, ran with it, and are now doing it at national level. So that's going to take place on May 16th at 4.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Definitely, if you're a new member or if you're looking to get involved in IAEM, make sure you check that out and kind of see what IAEM is all about. So that's the update for me. There's a lot of stuff that's going to take place next month as well, but I'll save that for next month.
Taylor Frizzell:
Awesome. Thank you so much. Not surprisingly, you folks have been busy, but it's wonderful to see and I appreciate the update. It's always fun to hear about some of the things going on because I don't necessarily know we do a great job of illustrating those. So I'm glad that you're able to provide us an update on some of this stuff. It's always really good to hear. And now we're going to kind of switch gears a little bit. As promised, we're going to talk about critical infrastructure this month, which I'm very excited about. I'll plead ignorance. It's not something that I have tons of background in. So I'm excited to just kind of pester you guys with questions this month. So I apologize in advance, as I always do. But I want to kick things off with some brief introductions. So Ali, if you want to start first, and then we'll kick it over to Greg, and then we'll start harassing y'all with questions.
Ali Lampson:
Yeah, sounds great. So hi, everyone. My name is Ali Lampson. I am the Senior Program Manager for Critical Infrastructure at DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Prior to that, I was with DC Water for a little over three years. So that's how Greg and I met and how we bonded. And now he's stuck with me forever. And I harass him on a regular basis about water, critical infrastructure, the weather, you name it. I am an active member in IAEM, which is really cool. I'm on the conference committee. I supported a couple of caucuses. So having the opportunity to help start this new initiative is really exciting. But yeah, that's really it. We'll learn more, I guess, as we go through. But that's what I got for you.
Taylor Frizzell:
Awesome. And Greg?
Greg Vernon:
All right, Greg Vernon here from DC Water, the Emergency Manager for DC Water. As I always said, we used to work together. I've been at DC Water roughly around two and a half, coming on three years, so still fairly new to the water, wastewater world. Before that, I was the Emergency Manager of Dulles and Reagan Airports, so both airports in the Washington DC area. with the Airports Authority there. Spent about four years there and before that worked at Metro Emergency Management. So my resume is trains, planes, and drains. So definitely looking forward to this conversation. Similar to Ali, very involved with IAEM. Was actually one of the founding members of the Transportation Caucus and It is fantastic, particularly recently the energy caucuses and a number of other caucuses coming online that are focused on this critical infrastructure arena.
Taylor Frizzell:
So needless to say, we're in good hands this month is the sense I'm getting.
Greg Vernon:
Very much so.
Taylor Frizzell:
We can only hope. I appreciate it. So for the sake of kind of level setting our conversation, I always like to kind of start with just a general overview of what we mean by the words critical infrastructure. So I don't know which one of you wants to start with that. I know it's kind of a big definition, but what is it? What are we talking about when we mean or what do we mean when we're talking about critical infrastructure?
Ali Lampson:
So I could give you CISA's definition, but everyone can Google that if you're interested. So I'm just going to give you my definition, which is kind of short, sweet, to the point. To me, critical infrastructure is any asset service, system, facility, whatever you want to call it. But should it disappear, be a detriment to the community or to the government, right? It would just wreak havoc on society. We think of critical infrastructure as a number of things. Top of mind would be water, electricity, communications, transportation. But says it has identified 16 different sectors to help outline that. So if you're interested, you can check out their website. They do a really nice job of. not only outlining all 16, but going into sector profiles. And then you can learn about the sector as a whole, the subsectors, all that good stuff. But critical, it's subjective, like most things. And what's critical to me might not be critical to Justin or to Greg and vice versa. And so we just want to make sure that we understand, you know, there's different goals for different countries, counties, jurisdictions, and you just got to kind of keep that in mind as you're talking about prioritization and planning and preparedness.
Justin Kates:
So I want to know, is Wawa critical infrastructure? That's really the only thing that's important, honestly, is Wawa.
Ali Lampson:
I mean, you have fuel, you have food. Those are two big things in my book. So you're important to me, Justin.
Taylor Frizzell:
You were the biggest Wawa advocate. Did they know what they were getting when they hired you? Did they also know that you were going to just be like their biggest marketing campaign as well, Justin?
Justin Kates:
They should pay me extra, honestly, I think.
Greg Vernon:
You have to write that into your contract. There you go. Every time you mention it, you get a little... A coupon for another hoagie.
Taylor Frizzell:
I mean, I wouldn't be mad about that. That sounds like a pretty good gig. It's a good perk. Yeah. Greg, did you have anything you wanted to add? I think it's a great definition. Do you have anything you wanted to add to that?
Greg Vernon:
Well, it's funny that we're having this conversation this week. So on Tuesday from the federal government, the president released the National Security Memorandum on critical infrastructure and resilience. Basically, it replaces the presidential policy directive PPD 21, which is over 10 years old and really defines a lot of things, such as the really what CISA is their role in the grand scheme of things of critical infrastructure. So having a better definition of what that looks like, Is fantastic and it also gives some. Understanding for emergency managers, because there are a number of different items within that memo that went out that emergency managers and really need to pay attention to and really. understand what those critical infrastructure partners are within their jurisdiction, what their capabilities are, and how they link into that relationship with CISA. So, it's really an opportunity for emergency managers to really understand what's in their jurisdiction.
Taylor Frizzell:
And that's a really good transition, actually, because one of the other things I wanted to ask about is why critical infrastructure is important to emergency management. And I think even beyond that, why is it important to the individual emergency manager? Because I think they're a little bit different, right? So I don't know if if Greg, you wanted to kind of continue that thought process, maybe and elaborate on it a little bit. That would be great.
Greg Vernon:
Great. Yeah, Justin kind of touched on this a little bit with the whole, voila, gas stations. We all know what happens when you lose the fuel line and what that looks like at the pump. I would say, and that implies to all different types of emergencies, the number one thing that the involvement of critical infrastructure is, I can sum it down to one word, recovery. If there is any type of incident going on in your jurisdiction, Involving critical infrastructure from the beginning and preparing for critical infrastructure is going to help your recovery. Get back to the new sense of normal. It is going to be one of those fantastic partnerships in that opportunity to solve resources, solve different issues with different resources that you typically don't have. And it's pretty much bringing in more of that environment of bringing back those essential functions back to the community.
Taylor Frizzell:
I know it's hard to explain it without saying those critical things, right? Explain critical infrastructure without the word critical. I commend you. You guys have done a great job so far. And Ali, did you want to add anything?
Ali Lampson:
Yeah. And from the viewpoint of relationships, this is something that I've learned firsthand since coming back to district government. I was with the private sector, and now I'm back with the public sector. It depends on who you ask, but about 80% of the US's critical infrastructure is private. And so we mentioned earlier that critical infrastructure, assets, systems, facilities, these are the things that help keep essential services running. And so we want to make sure that emergency managers are understanding the importance and the weight that goes behind building up these relationships and building up trust with our private sector partners, our critical infrastructure partners, because without them, we wouldn't be able to do what we need to do to support the community. So just want to make sure that we understand that putting in the effort to build up those relationships, building up that trust will help everybody keep things moving and make everyone's job a whole lot easier.
Taylor Frizzell:
I think that's a great point. Go ahead, Greg.
Greg Vernon:
Definitely. And one thing Ali has done particularly well in D.C. is bringing those people, agencies to the table. A lot of times emergency management, public safety in general will have these assumptions about critical infrastructure and what they can and cannot do and what actually occurs on their properties. Um, really having that initial discussion well beforehand can open a lot of eyes and really help the jurisdiction under truly understand what what's going on.
Taylor Frizzell:
I'll, I'll do kind of a plug here. But you bring up a good point. We so I'm, I'm recording this after the the region one conference, and we had a whole session today about utilities and how that's such an important part of recovery, right. But to your point, those are private entities that don't necessarily talk to those emergency managers. And so it was great to get to see some of our state and city and town agencies have a direct conversation with some of our utility providers. Because you're right, we can't recover if we don't actually have a way to utilize those resources and bring those resources back up. So it's a really excellent conversation. I hope that folks start to have some of those dialogues if they haven't already in their own jurisdictions. And if you are a private entity, I sincerely hope that you are putting in the work to talk to those other emergency management agencies as well. It's not just put it all on our public sector folks here. I want to switch gears just a little bit. I mentioned at the beginning, as part of your introduction, that you both are co-chairs of the Critical Infrastructure Consortium, which sounds very fancy. And I want to just kind of take a minute to talk about what it is, and maybe we can touch on how it was developed and what the intention was for creating it. I think that it's an excellent resource for folks, and I want to make sure we're taking a minute to talk about it.
Ali Lampson:
Yeah, so going on the same wavelength as relationships, right? We wanted to... to put something together that would tie in all of the amazing caucuses that we already have at IAEM, and then some of those gaps that we might be seeing that might not fit in a specific caucus. And so the consortium was designed to bring people together and, you know, people from that private sector, that CI side, and then the emergency management side, so then we can help them learn about what the other side does to keep that ball rolling. So the goal of this whole initiative is collaboration. We want to share best practices. We want to advance resiliency activities across the CI spectrum. Greg and I were kind of brainstorming with Justin initially like pretty early on what we wanted and we were saying you know we really want something like think tank style We want it housed in IAEM, but we want it accessible to all CI partners and emergency managers. So the cool thing about this consortium is it's actually open to non-IAEM members as well, which is awesome. So hopefully we can coax those non-members in, show them how amazing we are, and then convince them to join us because they'll see the value and the membership and they'll see all the other things that they can accomplish and get involved in and be exposed to with IAEM as a whole in the consortium.
Greg Vernon:
I couldn't say it any better. Thank you, Ali. But emergency management and critical infrastructure is still very, very, very new. And one thing about critical infrastructure emergency management is it may be a safety person that does emergency management. It may be a security person. In other places, it actually may be an engineer that is assigned the emergency management role. They all do it, but they have come from different professions. And by having that open link, provides them an opportunity to obtain that additional information, obtain those best practices that they're not necessarily privy to in their day-to-day life or day-to-day with their other advocacy groups. So it's really opening the door and involving a lot more professionals in the emergency management field that typically are not or don't or even know about
Taylor Frizzell:
Maybe you had mentioned this before we had started, Greg, and I think Ali, you had alluded to it. I think you both did actually talking about, you know, that goal of kind of sharing best practices and starting conversations, building those relationships, which I think is great, right? That's what that's what we're here to do is to build those relationships and get people to talk about things before bad things happen. I know, Greg, you had mentioned, I think before I started recording, that you folks had just had your first meeting a week or so ago, right? And I want to give you an opportunity maybe to talk about either some of the specific goals that had kind of come up from that conversation or maybe just some hot topics that had evolved from that. What are some of those kind of finite goals within this consortium that you folks are hoping to achieve?
Ali Lampson:
Yes, I mean, I can I can kick it off for the first couple goals and then Greg can take the rest of them. But I actually wrote them down because I wanted to make sure that we did this justice. So we educate the people appropriately. I don't want to be pulling things out of left field here. Stunning, Greg. I want to keep us on track. But some goals. So we wanted to create a forum for participants to learn about What resources are out there? There aren't many CI forums that stretch through all the sectors. A lot of them focus on sector-specific topics, which is great. We need that. But I think it's nice to have things at a bit of a higher level as well. Share the wealth from our own experience. We learned that many organizations have a salad approach as well. And so we want to make sure that we're bringing in those other professional organizations and groups. The ISAC groups are a huge. Thing that we could eventually loop in if they're interested. What else we got, Greg? Here we're looking to design a unique experience for participants. So I mentioned think tank style. We're looking at short presentations on current events and hot topics, discussion-based things. I know I've talked about lean coffee a bit with Justin. That's something that IAEM does love. Greg, I don't want to steal your thunder on Pecha Kucha. I think you should talk about that a bit because I'm still trying to wrap my head around what exactly it is, but it sounds awesome when you explain it. I kick that one to you.
Greg Vernon:
All right, so this is an interesting, and it's a community within its own. There are contests around the world. So Pecha Kucha is 20 by 20. You have 20 seconds per slide, 20 slides. So ends up being six minutes and 20 and 40 seconds of a presentation. And your presentation is designed to only have one picture on it. So you have to speak to that picture on the slide. So it is a really. It's in the greater community, it's a really intense forum, but in this forum, we're going to have fun with it. It's a really cool opportunity and also an opportunity, I think, to challenge us to be better at presenting. Because when you get into it and you start honing down, when you think about it, you only have 30 to 40 words potentially to explain the slide. And then you're on to the next one automatically. So it's a timed presentation as well. So it automatically flips. on 20 seconds.
Justin Kates:
It's very hard, very hard.
Taylor Frizzell:
That sounds terrifying, absolutely terrifying, but I think to your point like it's a great way to get conversations started because you I think you said six minutes to get just scrape the surface of a topic and I think um to your point Ali I think that's an excellent place to start those conversations right you got six minutes to talk about something Okay, well, what do we do now? Right you're getting people invested. I that sounds horrifying to me Um to only have six minutes to talk about something shockingly. Um But it's a great concept. I think that's an awesome idea. Justin. That's what we'll do next time six minutes for the podcast 20 seconds per point. What do you think?
Justin Kates:
I think that's a terrible idea I I I do know that there are podcasts that are out there that are like like, you know, six to ten minutes long, which you don't really get to get into the conversation that way.
Taylor Frizzell:
But, you know, it's a great stepping stone, though. I feel like it makes you ask more questions because you only get to scrape the surface of something. And maybe that'll lend itself to further discussion of those think tanks or something. Right. Like just those hot topic items that people want to talk about. It's a great idea.
Justin Kates:
I think the Pecha Kuchas are really, really useful tool for helping you develop a good, concise pitch on something. We had to do it in the Naval postgraduate school program and. I think I did mine as sort of a predecessor to my thesis, and so, you know, you imagine a thesis is like—well, it should be probably like in the 100 pages. Mine was like 300 pages. But, you know, you have to try and distill 100 pages down to 20 slides and do it in 6 minutes. I mean, it's tough. It's really a tough thing, but they're great. When people do them, they're very interesting.
Ali Lampson:
And CI is so heavy, right? Like we could really get into the weeds with a lot of different things. So it's not only a challenge, but it really, it opens the door for, to Taylor's point, really, really solid discussion and some really great questions.
Taylor Frizzell:
And I love that some of the other goals of the consortium are also tangibles too, right? I think that people love walking away with best practices, something they can take back to their organization and say, here's what everybody else is doing and it works well. And so I think that you folks are in a great spot and have some awesome ideas to run with. So I'm super excited to see what else comes from this group. Thank you for giving us a quick glimpse of it. Before I let you leave, I do want to do a plug. I know Ali had said you don't have to be a member to be a part of the consortium, which is great. I guess this is a two-parter. One, how can folks get involved in the consortium? I'm making it a three-parter on the fly. I'm so sorry. How can folks get involved in the consortium? If they're not involved in critical infrastructure, can they still get involved in it? And I'll stop there. I'll refrain. I'll reel it back. I'll just say it again. It's a two-parter. I got excited. This happens every time. I get too excited. This is what happens. I'm like, I need to talk to you about all of the things I don't know and understand. So how can folks get involved in the consortium? And if they aren't directly involved in critical infrastructure, is there still a place in the consortium? Or maybe there's a different kind of venue for some of those things.
Greg Vernon:
So getting involved, yes. Our goal, so we have a planning committee that have select various critical infrastructure partners across some IAEM, some non, and it's just a planning committee. Our goal is to have a kickoff coming up soon. Ali helped me with a date, but have a kickoff and to
Ali Lampson:
I think it's June. June.
Greg Vernon:
Yeah, I think it was June. June 25th. June 25th is the date of the kickoff. We can put it all in the notes, so you're good to know we're there. Exactly. June 25th will be our first actual think tank style meeting. And to sign up for that, we will have a page, a registration page on the IAEM website, and we will be sharing information out through various forms of social media, through IAEM Connect, just trying to get as many people as involved as possible. Do you have to be a critical infrastructure member? No. Our goal is because I think a lot more people outside of critical infrastructure are just going to learn a lot from different things. We have some pretty interesting presentations kind of already lined up for our first one, one looking potentially at our weather and what the impacts of climate change happen specifically to critical infrastructure and what that means. And another one is potentially looking at the new memo that was sent out by the White House this week and what that means for critical infrastructure for emergency managers on the local level. And on the state level, so there are some really cool opportunities and that really ties us back to one of the other main goals is our partnership with CISA. Emergency management has to really involve themselves with CISA significantly like we do with FEMA. Best way to kind of say it is CISA's critical is the critical infrastructures communities FEMA. So, and that's the kind of the avenue that you have to take particular all levels of critical for all levels of the emergency management community. get to know your critical, your CISA partners in the region, get to know who to call and how, because they got many different resources. I think one stereotype that CISA has to break is really, people think of a cyber security agency. it is not a cyber security. There is a lot more physical security that they do. They actually have their own training and exercise division that they help critical infrastructure partners design exercises. So, it's more and more so like FEMA, but there is very, they focus very specifically on the critical infrastructure community.
Taylor Frizzell:
And that's actually, I don't want to put anyone on the spot here, but I did have a, I was having a conversation with some of the folks at the conference today and I talked about, you know, we're going to talk about this consortium and what you folks had planned on doing and we'll share all that information in the show notes as well so folks have access to all the registration links and whatnot. So maybe I'll pose this to Justin and then Greg and Ali, if you are willing and able to reflect on this question too, I'd love your input. But one of the questions that had come up was how we view the evolving relationship between CISA and FEMA, especially regarding their respective missions and responsibilities. And then also kind of thinking about some of those potential challenges or opportunities that might arise from the overlap, particularly in the sphere of critical infrastructure, emergency management, and that emergency response piece. So I know that's a lot, but just kind of focusing on that overlap of the missions and maybe what some challenges and opportunities might be. So Justin, I'll start with you. And then again, if Greg and Ali are willing to jump in, we'd love to have your perspective as well.
Justin Kates:
That was a quite a question. You know, it's I don't know what it is with you today and these questions that are like seven parts.
Taylor Frizzell:
I had a month off. OK, my brain's been like flying. I have so many things I need to talk about now.
Justin Kates:
So, you know, this is an interesting question because it You know, it's something I was mentioning my thesis earlier, and this is 1 of the examples that I brought up, and it was around the creation of CISA and how it comes from. sort of this origin that really wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, where they reorganized the way that FEMA was set up, pulling back many of the legacy programs back into FEMA after Katrina, And so what it did is it left this preparedness directorate out there floating around, which changed to many other iterations over the following years until those functions combined with cybersecurity activities became so important that they said, you know, we should create a specific agency for this. But, you know, it certainly didn't eliminate the challenges of having many complementary types of activities, especially in the emergency management realm. So, there is definitely, you know, some examples of overlap in both agencies, and certainly there's a lot more coordination that states and locals need to do to ensure that They're taking advantage of the resources and technical assistance that both FEMA and CISA provide in the critical infrastructure realm. But, you know, I think one of the things that FEMA, I don't think, was really looking at When trying to identify preparedness and mitigation capabilities for critical infrastructure organizations was really around the connections between physical and cyber. And so there's so much now that we know about how cyber impacts. can impact the physical operations of critical infrastructure and vice versa. You lose power or any other critical lifeline to your cyber infrastructure and it creates significant challenges because of our reliance on it today. CISA, I think, is positioned well for this. And, you know, we've looked at this from an IAEM perspective as well. If you went to our conference this past year, you saw for the first time both the FEMA administrator standing next—well, sitting, they were doing a fireside chat—next to Director Jen Easterly from CISA. So that was a unique opportunity, and they had just released their new Shields Up program. And so that was a way to kind of promote sort of the connection between emergency management and the physical and cybersecurity aspects of our work. So, yeah, there's quite a bit of opportunities there, and we're trying to take advantage of that at IAEM as well.
Taylor Frizzell:
Thank you for plugging that because I was certainly going to if you hadn't mentioned that presentation or the fireside chat, I thought it was great to see both of those folks getting together and having that conversation, because your point, there is a lot of overlap and there are a lot of opportunities. And I think that as the world evolves and our incidents evolve, it's nice to see that they're all kind of operating on that same kind of overall picture, if you will. Ali, Greg, do you do you guys want to add anything to that?
Ali Lampson:
I mean, I can speak from my own perspective, and people can't see this, but I'm putting in quotations, a state government, right? Because I'm D.C. So we have a little bit of everything sprinkled in there. But while there is a lot of crossover between FEMA and CISA, I work very closely with both teams. I appreciate them both for a lot of different reasons. And they're great partners and great resources. And I've found that the partners that we have embedded at my agency from FEMA are also working pretty closely with our protective security advisors from CISA as well, which is nice. So that's a nice plug for them. Region three, we are rolling.
Greg Vernon:
Did we dare say it better than region one?
Taylor Frizzell:
You can't say that at this chat only because I'll get very offended but I'll allow it. I'll allow it only because I like Region 3 is fine. It's fine. I'm outnumbered to be fair.
Greg Vernon:
That is true. From my perspective and coming from the transit world, the airport world, and now in the water world, All of my regulatory authorities all have different emergency management requirements. So this overlap of emergency management and these regulatory requirements have kind of already all been there. And I think hopefully CISA will help us kind of work all that out and understand where those lines of separation are. I think by the new memo that was sent out by the White House really defines those much better. So hopefully there'll be some greater lines in the sand where people can have that greater understanding of, hey, what they are actually here for.
Taylor Frizzell:
clarity would be a wonderful thing. I agree. That would be fantastic. And we'll certainly link that memo as well so folks have access to that, especially since y'all are going to do a think tank about it. People have to be prepared for that. They're going to join the consortium and they're going to go to that think tank and they're going to have all of the background information they need. So it's a win-win all the way around, right? Do your homework. I love it. Thank you both so much for jumping on here and having this conversation. I know I feel like we only have like six minutes to talk. We had 20 seconds for each topic in our six minute presentation, but critical infrastructure is a massive massive conversation that I think we're going to continue to have. And I'm so excited to see what comes out of this consortium. Hopefully, you folks will get some more momentum from people to come in and join and start these conversations. And I know incredible things are going to come from it. So I'm very excited to see all the work that's going to come from it. And thank you, folks, for helping lead the charge on that. I know it's no small task, so we appreciate you doing it. As we start to wrap up, I do want to kind of end today's session with an ask the president question. I wasn't here last month to ask the president a question, so I feel like we have to make up. And I'll ask you a five-parter. Is that okay, Justin? I'm kidding.
Justin Kates:
I guess.
Taylor Frizzell:
I do have an ask the president question for you this month. Brace yourself. So someone had wrote in that it is becoming increasingly clear that emergency managers are expected to go beyond traditional emergency management functions, which I think we've also kind of highlighted today in the sphere of how that's branching out and all the different partners that we're going to be talking to. And someone wants to know how IAEM is changing or adapting to modernize to some of those changes.
Justin Kates:
I feel like wasn't this the question that somebody asked last month?
Taylor Frizzell:
I wasn't here last month, Justin, unless you're asking yourself a question. Oh, good point.
Justin Kates:
You're right. That's actually a good point. Maybe it was the month before.
Taylor Frizzell:
I don't know. We do talk a lot about modernizing, and IAEM does a lot of modernizing. But we need to keep it to the sphere of critical infrastructure.
Justin Kates:
If my response is anything like two months ago, I apologize. But this is a topic that has come up quite a bit around what's the role of the emergency manager. Especially when we think about the shifting responsibilities that it has to think more about those stressors to a jurisdiction or to an organization. Emergency managers find themselves in those situations more frequently now at the table helping to plan for them. And in some cases, actually helping to coordinate a community or an organization's resources to help deal with that stressor. So there's been a couple of places that I am has been involved in this topic, you know, one from our. Thought leadership perspective when we send folks out into task forces and committees and different organizations to represent the emergency management perspective, we've certainly pushed this idea that. Emergency managers are becoming more taxed when it comes to trying to perform their typical duties, but also now deal with these societal pressures that we just simply don't have the resources to help. So that's, I think, one big area that IAEM has played into this. Two is, I think, from the perspective of our conference programming, we've tried to incorporate more of these types of topics into the conference programming. So, you know, What can we do to help share information and share knowledge across jurisdictions about how a certain jurisdiction dealt with some sort of a jurisdictional stressor that takes place over months or years or longer, and how did the emergency manager try and support that? So that's, I think, another key way that we're helping there. Those are two that just come to mind now, but I'm sure there are probably more opportunities for us to engage on this. So, if anybody has ideas or wants to see us do more work in any specific space, they can always reach out and I'm always interested in talking to them.
Taylor Frizzell:
Well, and I think the consortium is going to help with some of that, too, right? Getting folks together to talk about some of the things that are stressing their agencies. And I want you to know, Justin, I went back and I checked the show notes for the past three episodes, and that was not a question.
Justin Kates:
I think it seems like it was a question.
Taylor Frizzell:
I think you just talk a lot about innovation.
Justin Kates:
Maybe people are just asking me the same questions. Maybe I'm having dreams about these questions. I don't know.
Taylor Frizzell:
I'm flattered you dream of having this podcast. That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Justin. It's going in the compliment calendar.
Justin Kates:
There you go. The fact that you mentioned the critical infrastructure stuff, that is absolutely one of the key stressors that a jurisdiction looks at is aging infrastructure. We've been looking at that for decades, is that most of the built environment has 100 years old or more. And so, you know, these are not typically things that emergency managers are seen as the solutions for, but we do see emergency managers coming to the table to come up with strategies on how to deal with this, especially when it's compounded with, you know, climate adaptation and those types of things. So, Yeah, it's something that emergency managers need to consider more. And IAEM is here to try and make those emergency managers better at doing this type of work.
Taylor Frizzell:
Yeah. And I was going to say, I think Greg had mentioned kind of the conversation around how climate change is impacting critical infrastructure. And I think to your point, it is one of those more kind of innovative concepts and conversations that we'll be having. So I'm another plug for that that think tank, Greg. We'll add all this information to the show notes so folks have access to it. Again, I want to remind you to submit some questions for Justin. You can also put them on LinkedIn and I'll happily pull them from there. The next episode will go live on June 9th as usual and then Justin will end up in the bulletin, correct?
Justin Kates:
It will. I'll turn this transcript using AI into an article and you can see everything that we've talked about in, I don't know, it's like 900 words or something. So it's magic.
Taylor Frizzell:
It's magic and also scary. I don't know. The whole thing freaks me out a little bit. I'm not going to lie.
Justin Kates:
It's okay.
Taylor Frizzell:
That seems to be the theme for today. Well, thank you again, Justin and Greg and Ali for joining us this month. Again, to our listeners, don't forget to check out the website, rate the podcast. I always prefer five stars. If you could give us like six or seven out of five, that would be great, too. And of course, reach out about what you'd like to hear about next. And we will we'll see you all in air quotes next month.
Justin Kates:
All right. See everybody later. Thanks. Have a good one.