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Securing the Vulnerable: Threat Mitigation for Community Infrastructure is a Course

Securing the Vulnerable: Threat Mitigation for Community Infrastructure

Ended Mar 2, 2023

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Full course description

Location Live Online

Full Schedule Every week on Tuesday and Thursday, starting on 2/14/23 and ending on 3/2/23 from (6:00 PM to 8:00 PM) EST

Tuesday : February 14, 2023 (6:00 PM - 8:00 PM) EST
Thursday : February 16, 2023 (6:00 PM - 8:00 PM) EST
Tuesday : February 21, 2023 (6:00 PM - 8:00 PM) EST
Thursday : February 23, 2023 (6:00 PM - 8:00 PM) EST
Tuesday : February 28, 2023 (6:00 PM - 8:00 PM) EST
Thursday : March 2, 2023 (6:00 PM - 8:00 PM) EST

Instructor Dr. Jennifer Hesterman, Colonel, U.S. Air Force (retired)
(Click for Biography)

Instructor Dr. Jennifer Hesterman

Dr. Jennifer Hesterman is a retired Air Force Colonel who served in three Pentagon tours and commanded in the field multiple times. Her final assignment was Vice Commander, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, where she led installation security, including the security and protection of Air Force One. She regularly met and escorted the President and other heads of state on the airfield. She is the recipient of the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal with 5 oak leaf clusters, and the Global War on Terrorism medal, among others.

A counterterrorism and soft target hardening expert, she is presently Vice President at Watermark Risk Management International and designs and instructs graduate-level security courses for the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. She is the lead security expert for the 3-year effort to deploy security practices in state Departments of Transportation. She also advises the Homeland Security Training Institute at the College of DuPage and the Crisis Response Journal.

She holds a doctoral degree from Benedictine University, Master of Science degree from Johns Hopkins University and Air University, and a Bachelor of Science from Penn State University. She was a National Defense Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; is a graduate of the Harvard Senior Executive Fellows program and was a fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University.

Dr. Hesterman is a sought-after consultant and trainer, supporting DHS, FBI, DoD, the Department of Transportation, state and local law enforcement, InfraGard, Fortune 100s, Major League Baseball, and soft target locations and mass gathering events.

An academic author for Taylor & Francis Group, her book Soft Target Hardening: Protecting People from Attack was the ASIS Security Industry Book of the Year for 2015. The second edition received the same honors in 2019 and was the Social Sciences Book of the Year for Taylor & Francis. She also authored Soft Target Crisis Management (2016) and The Terrorist-Criminal Nexus (2013) and published 32 articles in a variety of journals and security magazines.

 

In this course, attendees will learn about the vulnerabilities of soft targets; understand the motivation and capabilities of the actors most likely to strike soft targets; critically review case studies of soft target attacks and lessons learned; assess the current threat against soft targets; study hardening tactics and understand their proper application; and assess a soft target and develop a tailored action plan for hardening the facility, organization or event.

Attendees will arrive at the course with a soft target in mind. This could be their workplace; a school, church, shopping venue, hotel, theater, or stadium; or an event like a parade, open-air market, or festival. For the culminating project, attendees will use Appendix C of the course textbook, The FBI’s Terrorism Vulnerability Self-Assessment Checklist, to conduct a scored assessment on their selected soft target. The instructor will guide this process throughout the course.

The instructor will reinforce concepts found in the readings during the lectures, present case studies of recent terrorist or violent criminal attacks and plots, and share her experiences assessing and hardening soft targets.

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