Reader Comment – 01-10-10 – Threat Training

Ed Clark, a consultant with Executive Interface, left a response yesterday to an earlier blog about a terror threat training class being offered in Winston-Salem, NC. He wrote:

“Having made THREAT my pet peeve several years in a row, this is a lot to bite off in just 4 hours. Needless to say I am skeptical at the true value of a four hour class that promises this much.”

Ed is certainly correct that a four hour class trying to cover terror planning methodology will be no more than a brief survey of the field. Those personnel who have any significant counter-terror training will likely find any class of this length to be of very little use. Having said that, there are a huge number of people in the chemical security community with absolutely no counter-terrorism backgrounds. Most facility security managers will be chemists or chemical engineers. They need the access to the very basic level of information that a course like this would cover. Hopefully, they would then go on to other courses that provide the type of knowledge that Ed and I would like to see them exposed to. Unfortunately, I have seen very little counter-terror training directed at this audience. When I do see something, even where it is really only applicable in a fairly small area, I will pass it on. I do wish that I could provide more information on the background of the instructors and the probable quality of the course, but I just don’t have the resources to do that. Again, if any of my readers have any knowledge of counter-terrorism training directed at those with little tactical background or training, please let me know.