Another great week highlighted by a trip to New York City!  On Wednesday, we spent some valuable time with the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg.  Mayor Bloomberg’s city has really become the gold standard for how municipalities should plan for the spectrum of catastrophes that can come at the hands of either a terrorist or Mother Nature.  They have taken the lessons learned from the tragedy of 9/11 and established a response framework that is obviously one of the best in our Nation. 

His leadership style is impressive and can best be highlighted by how he interacts with his staff and his constituents.  One noticeable example was that the Mayor has decided to not have a traditional office.  In fact, his desk is literally at the epicenter of activity for city operations.  He expressed to me that this design was the best way to break down barriers of communication and ensure that information flow between his staff and him is near instantaneous and allows for the least amount of bureaucratic obstacles.  At some level, this information design structure is very similar to NORAD and USNORTHCOM’s integrated Command Center.  Our center, which is tied to every state and territory in the United States, was designed to ensure that all of our domain watch standers (land, air, sea, space, and cyber) could provide information to our N2C2 leadership and then to me in the same unencumbered manner. 

We also spent some time talking about and pledging to each other to continue to work together.  I hope in the near future that we will be working with the City on large-scale exercises, which will truly hone our coordinated response should it be necessary. 

Next I spent the afternoon with USCG Captain Bob O’Rielly and his team at Sector NY. We had a great opportunity to understand the challenges he faces as Captain of the Port in the complex environment that is NY/NJ/CT. Weather kept us from getting out on the water!

The day ended with me attending the 48^th USO Armed Forces Gala & Gold Medal Dinner.  A great night and a great organization.  Thank you USO for all that you do for our troops!