EPP’s Caffrey and Unger Speak at the USEPA Conference

Hammonton, NJ – October 2008 – Michael Caffrey and Eileen Unger presented a workshop titled “Designing Effective Exercises” at the USEPA Region III Emergency Preparedness & Prevention & Hazmat Spills Conference on October 26-29, 2008 in Richmond, VA. EPP was also a Conference Champion for the 2008 conference, and is proud to support their mission of providing training for first responders, counter-terrorism professionals, emergency managers, and medical, fire, law enforcement and industry personnel.

Designed for small to medium size businesses, this USEPA workshop was intended for personnel who have been tasked with developing their organization’s emergency restoration training. It could be a small tabletop exercise conducted within a single facility, or the “big one” with participation from multiple locations across their company or federal, state and local agency.

This workshop focused primarily on private sector exercises and provided ideas on how to make exercises more effective: from the make-up of the exercise design team to the execution of the exercise. Topics covered included: assembly of the exercise team; developing the scenario; planning and conducting the exercise; evaluating and critiquing the exercise; and, exercise follow-up. Discussion focused on two major exercise types—tabletop and functional.

This USEPA workshop included the sharing of participants own experiences and ideas. Said Eileen Unger, President of EPP, “The collective wisdom of the group is more powerful than any one person’s perspective. We can all learn so much from the experiences of each other.”

Alice Looney, the Volunteer Asst. CERT Trainer for the City of Richmond Office of Emergency Management said, “Eileen Unger and Michael Caffrey of Emergency Preparedness Partnerships presented an incredible workshop on designing, developing, conducting, and evaluating effective emergency preparedness exercises. As a result, I now have a much better idea of what we need to do to plan and execute different types of emergency exercises that will help build a strong and effective CERT program in Richmond.”