The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, July 17, 2005

Georgia Group a Model for Nation

By Julia Malone

WASHINGTON — In pockets across the country, businesses are forming a 21st century-style civil defense effort that includes offering earthmovers, communication technology and volunteers should a terrorist attack occur.

Few of these efforts are as organized as the Atlanta chapter of Business Executives for National Security, a national organization that for years churned out critiques aimed at bringing business discipline to the Pentagon.

Now the group has formed an operational arm, the Business Force, which has been given a $500,000 federal grant to recruit business leaders to look for gaps in security and help fill them. The effort has helped organize groups from New Jersey to California.

The Georgia branch has become a model for the effort, said Ern Blackwelder, vice president of the Northern Virginia-based organization. Business groups around the country have sought copies of the security primer for companies that the Georgia group produced, Blackwelder said.

On July 28, the group's metro Atlanta branch is scheduled to partner with Georgia state agencies for a large-scale test of ways to distribute medical antidotes that are stored by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Thousands of volunteers, including many from BENS companies, are expected to participate at eight undisclosed sites that will simulate a biological or chemical attack, said Tod Rose, spokesman for the Georgia Division of Public Health.

The exercise is planned to "try to break the process" to demonstrate what doesn't work, said Chris Melton, a member of BENS and managing director of the White Oak Group, a private equity firm based in Atlanta.

"We're not in a think tank mode," Melton said of the Georgia group. "We've been able to put together an operational, tactical partnership between companies in Georgia and government agencies."
Melton, who also works for the defense contractor Datapath Inc., said that with most of the state's critical assets in private ownership, "there really is no other option than the private and public sectors working together."

The effort is aimed at protecting the state from all kinds of hazards, he said, adding that members are prepared to roll in heavy equipment, volunteers or, in his case, secure communications capabilities.
Conrad Busch Jr., Atlanta executive director for BENS, said the credo for his group is: "Homeland and national security is everybody's business."

He credits the backing of Georgia officials, starting with Gov. Sonny Perdue, for the successful partnership with the government.

Charlie Lathram, vice president for security at BellSouth, heads a BENS committee that is working with the state on drafting a system to assess the vulnerabilities of critical facilities and operations.
The telephone company has long had to deal with ice storms and hurricanes. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said, BellSouth saw that "we have a national security interest" in keeping communications systems operating.

His company has since trained a 19-person team of volunteer employees to work in protective suits in contaminated facilities to bring computer systems back into service.
Lathram said the BellSouth team was ready to go into the firm's office in Graniteville, S.C., soon after a train accident leaked chlorine into the community in January, but emergency authorities kept them out for days, since they didn't know about their capabilities.

But with the growing partnership with government, Lathram said, the U.S. Coast Guard has given his hazmat team the green light to enter "as soon as possible" after any future incidents.

Reprinted by permission of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution