out to DHS and TSA at your earliest convenience to begin the process of establishing these important partnerships with your local and national points of contact to access these resources and opportunities to enhance security in your environment .
DHS / TSA has recently collaborated with NAPT , the American Association of School Administrators ( the school superintendents association ), and the Association of School Business Officials International on a project centered on cyber-security in the K-12 market space . School superintendents and school business officials don ’ t seem like traditional transportation security partners . How did this project come about ? Was this a “ one-of ” for DHS / TSA or are you expanding your scope ?
TSA has many examples of leveraging its many programs , including the I-STEP , to bring together partners that may have a vested interest in working together to enhance security within their environments . What I mean by that is whether we connect through a national-level effort , like we did in this case with the cyber-security exercise in the K-12 market space , or we work through our state-level or local partners , the idea is to bring people together to raise awareness of potential security threats or identified vulnerabilities in their system , discuss and collaborate on mitigation strategies and actions to counter those threats and mitigate those vulnerabilities , and provide additional resources to assist our partners in maintaining an advanced security posture to protect the overall transportation systems sector . This particular event came about by bringing together TSA and NAPT officials with long standing relationships to have an open discussion of how we approach addressing this important issue . In the end , it ’ s about bringing together those with that vested interest I mentioned earlier and brainstorming on how we collectively address a specific topic . One thing that I take pride in is that TSA is very open to partnerships through collaboration . At the end of the day , we all share the same goal to protect our transportation systems sector and our nation as a whole .
Are there any other thoughts or suggestions you would like to add ?
Again , I think the key is for school bus industry officials and representatives to be proactive and take advantage of all of the available resources and opportunities . DHS and TSA as well as other federal agencies have regional and local points of contacts to partner with to prevent and protect your sub-sector against both man-made and natural disasters . If help is needed in identifying your local contacts , please do not hesitate to reach out to me through the NAPT . I would be happy to help make the connection and put the wheels in motion for a safer and more secure school bus industry .
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