Friday I had the opportunity to sit in on a conversation about the public-private interface. The new DHS Director for the Office of Private Sector Initiatives, Bridger McGaw was in attendance.
He shared that DHS wants to take the public-private partner beyond discussions and what I would call preparedness to "operationalize" it. What that means was not explained, perhaps become involved in the actual disaster operations and recovery. He acknowledged the progress that the Puget Sound Region has made in knowing one another and sharing information. It seems we are still way ahead of many areas of the nation.
Here's my thoughts for DHS and anyone else looking to bring business and government together:
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He shared that DHS wants to take the public-private partner beyond discussions and what I would call preparedness to "operationalize" it. What that means was not explained, perhaps become involved in the actual disaster operations and recovery. He acknowledged the progress that the Puget Sound Region has made in knowing one another and sharing information. It seems we are still way ahead of many areas of the nation.
Here's my thoughts for DHS and anyone else looking to bring business and government together:
- Generally if they want to concentrate their efforts it should be in the larger urban areas where companies have a significant headquarters presence.
- Note that I did not say large cities. Urban areas are more than the big name city itself. Many times the area surrounding the city will double or even triple the size of the city. Large cities are not used to partnering (in general) and want to have things go their way. It is the same with big counties and big business.
- You need a neutral party, or an entity that functions as a neutral party to convene people and organizations. There will be suspicions for sure, but over time you can build trust by being trustworthy and not having hidden agendas. The Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and King County when I was there tried to do this work.
- You cannot take a cookie cutter approach to this in order to establish a national effort. Each "region" of the nation is different and it will take a bit of detective work to find out who is interested and who might be that neutral party.
- Most organizations don't have the staff that can be devoted to a regional effort. That means that people who have full time jobs already will have to do this "regional work" on top of what they get paid to do by their organization.
- Keeping the effort going will take a lot of work. There must be something meaningful accomplished in order to keep people engaged in the effort.
- Since DHS does not have regional offices, I propose that FEMA Regions be tapped to help with this bridging the gap between the public and private sectors.
- To clarify: A region is one that shares a common population and resources. Therefore, I'm not typically talking about multi-state efforts--unless the geography dictates otherwise.
