Last month, EMSI delivered a customized leadership and decision-making training session to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria. Created by EMSI instructor/practitioners with expertise in crisis and incident leadership, this training was provided to responders from the IAEA Incident and Emergency System (IES). With a purpose of developing leadership and decision-making skills to be used by IES responders, the training focused on the skills necessary during the IAEA’s response to a nuclear or radiological incident or emergency.
The IAEA maintains the IES to ensure that it is prepared to respond in a timely, appropriate, and efficient manner to any event that may have actual, potential, or perceived radiological consequences to health, property, or the environment. The IES additionally covers the emergency preparedness and response arrangements to nuclear and radiological incidents and emergencies regardless of whether they arise from accident, negligence, or deliberate act.
The IAEA’s roles in response to nuclear and radiological incidents or emergencies are:
• Notification and official information exchange
• Assessing potential emergency consequences and providing a prognosis of the possible progression of the emergency
• Informing the public
• On request, providing assistance
• Coordination of inter-agency response
Recognizing the importance of training and exercising to their plans, the IAEA requested EMSI develop and deliver a course to ensure its members had the requisite knowledge and skills to respond to an emergency. As such, EMSI’s training course focused on:
• Incident Leadership Principles
• Incident Assessment and Complexity Analysis
• Leader’s Intent and Command Direction
• Command Climate and Decision Making
• Communications and Information Management
With extensive experience in nuclear and radiological incident management, EMSI has worked with several U.S. federal agencies on nuclear and radiological incident management, including the U.S. Department of Energy. Providing emergency management contract support to DOE since 2007, EMSI currently works with several DOE program elements. EMSI personnel have been involved in the management of several complex hazardous materials incidents, including the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster in 2011. EMSI Vice President of Operations Billy Haley responded to Japan with DOE as part of the U.S. Government’s response to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster. For his contributions, Billy earned the DOE Secretarial Honor Award and the USAID Meritorious Group Award. Indicative of our corporate knowledge and vast experience in complex incident management and hazardous materials response, EMSI has helped inform some of the advanced incident management approaches to Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) incident management.
Since inception in 2000, EMSI has played a major role in helping government and industry clients alike, prepare, train, and respond to emergencies of any cause or size. Comprised of national and international all-risk, all-hazard response experts, EMSI’s seasoned cadre gives us a unique background and perspective in dealing with incident and responder needs at every level of government and industry, to include the international community. As a global response leader in all-risk, all-hazard, multi-discipline incidents, EMSI has a proven track record in helping the myriad of local, state, national, international, and private sector entities with their incident management and emergency management programs. EMSI is a service disabled veteran owned (SDVOSB), minority business enterprise (MBE) that supports a broad range of clients. To learn more about EMSI and how we can help your organization’s response preparedness, please visit www.emsics.com.