Courses boil down security

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Dec 18, 2005 by PAM ZUBECK THE GAZETTE

Homeland security is the buzzword of the new century, with schools and businesses scrambling to find their niche in the war on terror.

A Colorado Springs man is among those who think they've identified a place in that avalanche of products and services.

Richard White, former Air Force Academy instructor and retired Air Force major, has developed courses for universities, business and government about the Department of Homeland Security.

The agency was created in 2002 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. It grouped 22 existing agencies and 180,000 employees into a megapartment charged with preventing and responding to domestic attacks and disasters.

White's courses -- which sprang from his curiosity about why the country needed such an agency -- help students, workers and other government agencies understand the nation's security strategy, he said.

White also is drafting a curriculum for a homeland-security degree on behalf of several institutions.

"Colleges are scrambling to put together degree programs," said White, who teaches homeland security at Pikes Peak Community College.

He's not the only one trying to help the academic world supply workers for the national-security arena.

Among those working on standardizing degree programs is the Colorado Springs-based National Homeland Defense Education Consortium, a group of more than 100 universities and agencies, including the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and U.S. Northern Command based at Peterson Air Force Base.

White said universities rely heavily on public-safety professions to teach homeland security, because there's a shortage of graduates from scarce homelandty degree programs.

"This stuff is still evolving," he said. "I'm trying to fill the need."

He's teamed with two others to create two new companies.

The first is Aesir Group, which employs 10 people to educate government civilian workers about military procedures and organization.

The other is CW Productions Limited, which develops degree programs.

White and his CW Productions partner, Kevin Collins, based in Massachusetts, have produced a 474-page reference book that outlines the department's divisions, how they function, their mission and policies that guide those missions.

The book contains detailed explanations of areas such as chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, the availability of materials to create them, history of technology and use.

Much of the book is borrowed from official sources.

For example, it gives detailed descriptions of the department's 15 disaster-planning scenarios, which caught the spotlight after Hurricane Katrina hit in August.

Only two focus on natural disasters.

The 426-page National Response Plan, a blueprint for how the nation responds in a disaster that also drew public interest because of Katrina, is boiled down in White's book to a 26-page summary.

"If you were to go to the Department of Homeland Security Web site, it wouldn't tell you what you really want to know," White said. "This book tells you who, what, when, where and why in one concise location."

But the book, published earlier this year, is quickly becoming out of date, he acknowledged.

White is revising it to add recent developments, including the appointment of a national intelligence director, opening of the National Counter Terrorism Center and President Bush's June directive for the FBI to create a branch to gather and analyze intelligence within the United States.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0238 or zubeck@gazette.com

To get a copy of the book, go to www.pearsoncustom.com/ index.html?best/0536152950.html