PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – United States Northern Command leaders met Aug. 2 with members of the Business Response Task Force, a newly formed group of the Business Executives for National Security.
BENS is a national, non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., formed to harness successful business models from the private sector to help strengthen the nation's security.
The BENS Task Force was formed to review and recommend to the U.S. government steps to integrate the capability of the private sector as a component of comprehensive disaster response.
During the visit, BENS National Business Force Senior Vice President Ern Blackwelder briefed USNORTHCOM's Joint Interagency Coordination Group on the Task Force's efforts to define the role of business in incidents of national security.
"What we do," Blackwelder said, "is develop models and implement models for improving the way business and government work together. So we hope we can be a channel of communication in the private sector to test ideas and make recommendations for policy."
Also visiting were BENS Task Force members from Bell South Corporation in Atlanta; Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in Colorado Springs, Colo.; and BENS vice president for policy from Washington, D.C. The group visited with, among others, Lt. Gen. Joseph R. Inge, USNORTHCOM deputy commander; Maj. Gen. Paul J. Sullivan, USNORTHCOM chief of staff; and Rear Adm. Steven W. Maas, USNORTHCOM director of logistics.
BENS' 12-member Business Response Task Force, chaired by Duane Ackerman, Bell South chairman and CEO, and co-chaired by Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker, and John Breaux, former Louisiana senator, will develop its recommendations in September. It will then give those recommendations to several audiences, including Congress, the Department of Health and Human Services, the White House, state and local governments, and the press, Blackwelder said.
The Task Force members are taking two things away from their NORTHCOM visit, Blackwelder said.
"First, we have a strong sense from everyone we've met with that there's great interest in improving communication and cooperation from the private sector. And second," he said, "we have additional clarity from senior leadership here regarding the best way for business to plug into federal government during major catastrophes."
The Task Force members were encouraged at USNORTHCOM's appointment of Joe Catalino as Private Sector Integration, Domestic Initiatives, "to make that more of a full-time outreach in this community," Blackwelder said.
"I look forward to working with organizations such as BENS," Catalino said, "to promote unity of effort between NORTHCOM and the private sector in times of national crisis."