The Blue Cell Intel Summary Vo. 3, Issue 8

GLOBAL TERROR THREAT STILL REAL



http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/02/us-to-shut-down-american-embassies-around-world-as-terror-threats-grow/

The Blue Cell Intel Summary Vol. 3, Issue 7

This months post is dedicated to the Prescott 19.

https://www.facebook.com/InMemoryOfPrescottFirefightersLost6302013

The BLue Cell Intel Summary Vol.3 Issue 6

The concepts of ordering, validating, accounting for and tracking resources is a challenge nationwide. Several initiatives are now underway Nationally to address this in the incident and emergency response community. The Blue Cell internally has four projects in development to meet the needs of its customers and is collaborating with one of the leading firms in the field, Salamander Technologies.

Here is an article for HS Today Magazine on changes coming in the HSPD 12 conversation.

 http://www.hstoday.us/industry-news/general/single-article/dhs-to-award-new-hspd-12-credentialing-contract-in-2013/e963fc2125e23cbb56694e80e92b0001.html#.UYqTSop5y5M.gmail

The Blue Cell Intel Summary Vol 3. Issue 5

The link to article below is from the New England Journal of Medicine and is on the topic of Mass Casualty Preparation. It was so well done I thought it was worth reposting in the Blue Cell Intelligence Summary for the month of May.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1305480?query=TOC&

The Blue Cell Intel Summary Vol. 3 Issue 4

The success and expansion of The Blue Cell, LLC has been meteoric and beyond anything our initial business planning had envisioned.

After a significant 1st quarter 2013 sprint, we are catching our breath and continuing to delivery quality training, exercise, consulting, deployment and technical services. However, our drive and innovation presses on.

We have five new major product and service subsets under development in the areas of distance learning, field grade products, advanced exercise solutions, international services and a new web interface, designed to connect homeland security, emergency management and frontline responders in ways not available previously.

Look for these new initiatives beginning in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2013.

Todd Manns, Owner
The Blue Cell, LLC and Command School TTX

The Blue Cell Intel Summary Vol.3 Issue 3 (repost)

The end of February I attended the Colorado Emergency Management Association Conference this week as a representative for The Blue Cell, LLC. This conference not only proved to be a great learning experience and a wonderful opportunity to meet key players in the field of emergency management here in Colorado but also helped me identify areas where the Blue Cell can be effective in helping organizations to mitigate their challenges and meet their goals. Some topics covered at the conference included; an Incident Roundtable covering the Waldo Canyon and High Park fires, Cultural and Historic Issues during Disasters, a discussion on the Colorado Information Analysis Center and how emergency managers partner with the fusion center, a presentation by the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab, Lessons Learned and Recovery Collaboration from last year's devastating fire season, and a presentation on how one Colorado County uses their EOC Exercise Plan to empower and educate others.

Some resounding similarities I discovered in each of these presentations are the importance of multi-organization coordination, leadership, team building, exercising before an incident occurs, synchronizing efforts and plans, sharing information, needing the right tools to successfully respond to an incident, and that frequently one hazard will become a multi hazard event.

The first step in improving your organization's ability to successfully prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters and emergencies is to determine areas that need improvement and then identify the appropriate means of making those improvements. 

 

 

The Blue Cell, LLC

Ashley Cox, Acquisitions Lead

ashleycox@thebluecell.com

800-866-0840 Ext 3 

The Blue Cell Intel Summary Vol.3 Issue 2

The Blue Cell, LLC Responds to the Recent Rise in School Violence with The Comprehensive Emergency Management Program for Educational Institutions

With the expansion of The Blue Cell, LLC through the recent acquisition of Command School TTX, the number of products and services The Blue Cell, LLC offers has notably increased.  In an effort to simplify the process of choosing the products and services that are most suitable for your organization, The Blue Cell, LLC has created package options which can be modified to fit the specific training, exercise, and consulting needs of your organization. The Blue Cell, LLC offers courses in the following categories: Incident Command System, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Emergency Management Series, Leadership Series, and Advanced Planning Concepts (The Blue Cell’s flagship training course).  In order for your organization to receive the specific training, exercise, and consulting services you need, The Blue Cell will feature package options highlighting courses available within the categories listed above.  The featured package for the month of February is The Comprehensive Emergency Management Program (CEMP) for Educational Institutions.

In light of recent terrorism events at our nation’s schools, as well as historical criminal acts against our students that date to the mid 1990’s, The Blue Cell, LLC and Command School TTX have created a number of individual product sets that specifically address educational institutions’ safety and security.

As a potential solution, The Blue Cell, LLC has established The Comprehensive Emergency Management Program for Educational Institutions. As we all search for answers to protect our students, the only approach in our experience is risk based ideas and actions to reduce vulnerabilities.

While our package options will be modifiable, The Blue Cell, LLC encourages educators to embrace this package in its entirety versus selecting portions of the program.  This approach will ensure the greatest reduction of risk and harden the institution’s vulnerabilities while ultimately increasing student and staff safety and security.  The Planning components of the program include a Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, a Security Assessment, Plan Review, and Plan Synchronization.  The Training components include courses in Incident Command System, Protecting Soft Targets, Understanding and Planning for School Bomb Incidents, and Multi-Hazard Planning for Schools.  Two exercises are suggested for this package, a table top exercise for school staff personnel and a functional exercise for both school staff personnel and outside agencies.  The program then ties each component together by conducting a plan review, making any necessary adjustments discovered throughout the process, and then implementing the plan.

The Blue Cell, LLC is compelled to use their expertise in the field of planning, training, and exercising for disasters and emergencies to help reduce and ultimately eliminate the violence occurring in our nation’s educational institutions. 

Contact Ashley Cox at ashleycox@thebluecell.com to learn more about The Comprehensive Emergency Management Program for Educational Institutions and start the process of protecting your school today.

Ashley Cox, Acquisitions 
The Blue Cell, LLC and Command School TTX

The Blue Cell Intel Summary Vol. 3 Issue 1

2013 is officially underway. The Blue Cell, LLC would like to start the first issue of our 3^rd volume of The Blue Cell Intel Summary by welcoming Ashley Cox to our staff. Ashley is a graduate of the University of Idaho, where she received a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Crime and Justice Studies. She also holds a Certificate in Homeland Defense from The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and a Master degree in Public Administration from the University of Colorado at Denver, School of Public Affairs.  In addition to her strong educational background, Ashley has previous work experience at the federal , state, and county levels in both the criminal justice and emergency management fields. On a personal note, she was an accomplished soccer player at the collegiate level, Division I. 

Ashley will be assigned to The Blue Cells Contract and Acquisitions element focusing on client contracting in support of our Texas based Consulting Services. In addition to client contracting, like all Blue Cell personnel, Ashley will be supporting efforts in the Blue Cell’s training, exercise and deployment services activities.

We are particularly excited about Ashley coming on board and the specific expansion of our contractual relationship with the University of Nebraska’s public policy center. Signed in July of 2012, the purpose of the collaboration with UNL is to deliver effective planning and consulting service that combines the real world planning experience of The Blue Cell with the appropriate academic and intellectual foundation in policy to institutions, agencies and governments across the United States.

All too often in this newly emerging vocation that we call Emergency Management, the adherence to the rule of law or policy is ignored or not fully comprehended due to a variety of motivations or simple ignorance.  There are countless examples from major incidents in the past decade that illustrate this. The goal of this effort is to assist jurisdictions in the preparedness phase (consulting and planning) to be more effectively and efficient in the response phase.

Ashley will be working out of the Denver metro area and can be reached via email: ashleycox@thebluecell.com or by phone 1-800-866-0840 extension 3