Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
For a truly national mission, it must be an integrated one. What I am saying is: partnerships, partnerships, and partnerships—that's what we need. We have heard it before, but I'm going to say it again because it bears repeating. The private sector owns 85 percent of the critical infrastructure. Do you know what major entity in this country relies exclusively on the private sector to enable them to do its job? The public sector—sometimes we forget that. The business community holds a key stake in the production and transferring of goods through our nation's security routes, our seaports, our borders, our skies overhead. That means the very backbone of the country is exposed to many levels and kinds of disruptions. And frankly, we all depend on the efficient operation of the private sector from when we get up in the morning to when we go to sleep at night. Many of you remember that right after 9/11, the government reflexed; we closed our borders; they came to a screeching halt. But we realized right away that the supply chain is the lifeblood of our economy, our economic circulatory system. So what did we do? We started talking to the private sector right away. We got it going again. I remember the president calling me in after two or three weeks after I got to town, got sworn in. We used to meet every morning in the Oval Office and I remember asking him, saying, "You know, we did a good job with security at our borders right after 9/11, but it brought commerce almost to a screeching halt." It's a good reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that our security and our prosperity intersect at the borders. I remember visiting a General Motors assembling plant. They ordered seats from Ontario, which they had to bring across the bridge in Detroit. Well, what happens if the trucks on the bridge are stuck in the Windsor Tunnel because we ramped-up security? Nothing happens in that plant. So what did we do? We sat down with government and we sat down with the private sector and we said, we will make some adjustments in the number of people we have in the booths and the number of booths that are open. You need to make some adjustments in your delivery schedule and we can work this out. Once we got it back to normal, we actually improved throughout by 50 or 60 percent. Why? Because we had the public sector sit down with the private sector. There was mutual interest to get certain things done, to advance the economy and enhance security. Another great example: When the government responders stood accused of delays and miscommunication in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, Wal-Mart, Lowes, Home Depot, Verizon, Target—they tapped into their logistics expertise and within hours began delivering critical supplies and communication to hurricane victims. And another example. It was difficult for the private sector to assist after US disasters and after the disaster in Haiti. The fact of the matter is we had people that wanted to step up and help, but there is no conduit to do it. How much more effective could those responses have been if government officials would have been able to use a coordinated and integrated process that tapped into the power of private sector resources. The repercussions add up to far more than a few missed donations. The cost of overlooking the true capability of the private sector is measured in lives. It is measured in billions of dollars. Certainly we cannot prevent another catastrophe, but we can certainly build the public-private sector resiliency needed to bounce back quickly. Same as in the area of cyber security. There's a need for public- and private-sector 13