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catastrophic were to happen, our health care system is not designed to surge as
rapidly and dramatically as necessary to take care of all of the casualties. So we identified those early on. We’re doing the same thing now in the cyber arena. It’s quite
interesting as I look back in retrospect at what we did in the two years preceding the
9/11 attacks, we are right now at that same stage in preparation for the cyber domain.
Hopefully that doesn’t mean we’re going to have a similar
catastrophic event.
It means that we’ve learned the lesson of early engagement and early preparation
and of what Sen. Gorton and others pointed to in the 9/11 Commission, was then a
failure to think big enough. We’re thinking big, and we’re preparing and planning
for something big. And we’re doing it early. That clearly involves the private sector.
Is it difficult to get individuals and businesses to seriously plan for
natural disasters?
Actually, we’ve seen private sector businesses realize the harsh realities that
following a major natural event, a high percentage of businesses simply don’t
survive, and they are taking preparations quite seriously. We’ve done what we
can to extend the resources that we can to the private sector. The Association of
Washington Business comes to our operations center every time we activate for a
major emergency. AWB has trained personnel that operate from within our EOC
so that they can push information directly and unfiltered to the members of their
organization. Puget Sound Energy does the same thing. Even beyond that, we have
formed a business outreach section in our emergency management division that
helps businesses plan, train and exercise for these kinds of emergencies … Every
time we engage with the private sector, we point out that it’s not a matter of something you should do when you can find time to do it — do you want your business
and your employees to still have a place to go to work after an unanticipated natural or human-caused event? We want to help businesses survive and thrive.
timothy j. lowenberg at a glance
• Age 65
• Wife Mary; daughter Cathy, a prosecuting attorney for the City of Honolulu.
• Serves as homeland security adviser to the governor; state administrative
agent for U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants awarded to
Washington’s state, local, tribal and nonprofit agencies and organizations;
chair of Homeland Defense and Homeland Security of the Adjutants
General of the Association of the United States; immediate past national
chairman and continuing member of the Executive Committee of the
Governors Homeland Security Council; and numerous additional board
and chairman positions.
• Bachelor of arts, political science, University of Iowa, 1968; law degree,
University of Iowa College of Law, 1971.
• Distinguished graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps,
commissioned 1968.
• Served as adjunct law professor at the University of Puget Sound School of
Law and Seattle University School of Law; guest lecturer in other Seattle
University programs.
20 association of washington business