Edward W. Eaton, MBCI
August 5, 2010 by Robert Bradshaw · Leave a Comment
Edward W. Eaton, MBCI is a senior consultant with over seventeen years experience in government and private sector preparedness in crisis management, business continuity, oil spill and emergency response, including planning, training, drills and exercising.
Mr. Eaton has a breadth of consulting experience in a variety of industries and in the Department of Defense. Recent projects include developing tabletop exercise materials for use by a client training team, and leading the Exercise Design Team for a large multi-team University functional exercise. Other recent projects have included developing and delivering a tabletop exercise for headquarters and regional emergency teams for a hospitality client, supporting development of business continuity strategies for the headquarters of a regional gas company, and support for a financial institution’s business continuity policy and exercise program.
Mr. Eaton has built his practice on delivering preparedness consulting services to companies, financial institutions and university clients. He has served clients in developing and maturing their crisis management programs and often retains relationships built in these efforts for years. He organizes project teams shaped to meet clients’ specific objectives, drawing on relationships with other consultants and specialists, and reaching out to subject-matter-experts to provide value to clients.
He has facilitated numerous crisis and emergency exercises and assisted corporate clients in such industries as petroleum, transportation, pharmaceuticals, paper & packaging products, chemicals & plastics, financial institutions, cosmetics, tobacco, food and beverage, and hospitality. He has worked in such areas as crisis management, business continuity, crisis communications, human impact, oil spill, aviation accident, reputation management and information management.
Mr. Eaton looks to leverage technology to enhance the impact of training materials and to expand the ability of clients to train their remote teams. He developed a DVD-based crisis management training program for a Fortune 25 food and beverage company. He has used technology solutions to support inclusion of multiple teams for a global hospitality client. He has used DVD based news videos for use in functional exercises for crisis management and emergency response.
Mr. Eaton is a former Supply Corps Officer in the US Navy and has held operations, management and consulting positions in private sector firms.
Mr. Eaton has a B.S. in Geology from Duke University and an M.A. in Management from Webster University. He has completed certificate work in Waste Water Management and Business Continuity. He has been a Member of Business Continuity Institute since March 2001 and is a member of the ASIS Business Continuity Management Standards Working Group.
American Electric Power
March 23, 2010 by Robert Bradshaw · Leave a Comment
After the myriad of physical security changes implemented for the nation’s nuclear power plants following the attacks of 9/11/01, the nuclear industry completed the “Hostile Action-Based Event” (HABE) exercise program, led by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). Through 2007 – 2009, every US nuclear power plant was required to plan, develop and execute a non-evaluated HABE exercise designed to explore and improve the communications and coordination between the plant and its neighboring community emergency responders.
These HABE drills were unlike the traditional Radiological Emergency Plan (REP) exercises in that the unique scenario, designed to begin with some type of threat or hostile action directed at the nuclear plant, introduced new and different response challenges. In these exercises, the participating organizations’ primary tasks were to coordinate resources and personnel, using the National Incident Management System and the Incident Command System (NIMS and ICS, respectively).
In Feburary of 2008, the staff of CMCG was contracted by DC Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman, Michigan to manage, develop and execute a Hostile Action Based Event exercise in accordance with Nuclear Energy Institute’s 2006-04 initiative.
For this project, CMCG staff members (who were also involved in the design and development of the NEI guidance), provided industry-leading expert project management, design, development and execution support for integration of the Offsite Response Organzations and the onsite Emergency Response Organization.
Offsite tasks included outreach to Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement for coordination with station security forces and the Emergency Preparedness department. CMCG personnel planned and executed a full range of coordination and development activies, such as Buffer Zone Protection Plan (BZPP) integration and refinement, Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) validation, planning, testing and validation of ICS integration, and scenario development.
Onsite, CMCG personnel provided extensive planning, training and process development work for the licensee. From targeted NIMS and ICS training for the ERO, simulator development, onsite scenario event design to final production of the scenario manual, CMCG staff led the station’s staff which resulted in a Tabletop Exercise and a Full Scale Exercise that received wide-ranging accolades from local, state and national observers and participants.
The end-product also included a Homeland Security Exercise & Evaluation Program (HSEEP) compliant After Action Report / Improvement Plan (AAR/IP) used by the licensee, the Local Emergency Planning Council and the state of Michigan Emergency Management Division.
The model used at DC Cook was used for successful execution of similar HABE projects at seven other nuclear power plants throughout the US in 2008 and 2009.
