Author: Ekaterina Yazykova Mellott

We conduct science for our advancement as a nation, its people, and ultimately for the betterment of the entire world. While issues may be controversial, either politically or scientifically, this does not mean that we should give up on expanding our horizons and working towards improving our livelihood. Science should be strategic in the sense that ongoing or potential issues should be prioritized so that our nation can conquer issues before they become unconquerable.

For example, we can look at climate change and the negative effects it has had on our society. While there are solutions trying to be made; electric cars, wind turbines, etc.; one can make the argument that true solutions to the problem are being ignored. Drawing on this example, we can use nuclear power as a solution to the issue of global warming and our reliance on fossil fuels. However, because ‘nuclear’ has become engrained with negative connotations in our society, we do not see much advancement in this field being done. Simply because this issue is controversial does not mean that it is not a necessary solution to the problems we are encountering.

For strategic science to work, we must see improvement in our policy that prioritizes looking at these ‘controversial’ issues and putting them into action. Science should be strategic because science in itself is a fluid dynamic; science is always creating new inventions, advancements, and solutions to everyday and long-term problems. Science should be strategic because our needs are constantly evolving. From power struggles, to defense, to health and wellness; science is always facing new challenges that need solutions. We want science to solve our problems, no doubt, and strategic science provides more freedom for these problems to be solved. Even if advancements fall outside of our strategy, they should be funded, as it is never known when these advancements will be needed.

Ultimately, the world we live in is not perfect, and money is not infinite. Cuts will be made to areas not deemed to be strategic. But science strategy adaptation should be continuous. Intermittent adaption presents problems, as our world is always changing and new issues arise. Strategic science must be used to tackle the problems we are currently facing, but to also ensure that the challenges of tomorrow, next week, next year, or the next decade are to be met at full speed.

The Biden administration has promised a dedicated and comprehensive reliance on science as it crafts the nation’s policies for the next few years. New sources from both sides of the political spectrum agree that the President’s selections for advisors include the nation’s preeminent thinkers in the areas of climate change, medical research, and general science. As a new national science strategy is being drafted, a similar dedication to open-mindedness and flexibility should be included. Scientific research and discovery serve many purposes.

A quick perusal of PhD literature on the topic seems to coalesce around 3 or 4 major purposes for science. First, the point of any research endeavor is to satisfy the researcher’s curiosity. Here, I would add the caveat that it can also serve to satisfy the financier’s curiosity on the subject matter. Second, exploration and explanation allow researchers to learn more about a topic, explain and observe new phenomena, and determine if further exploring or explaining (research) is necessary. Lastly, another purpose of research is application. The findings can be applied to existing technology or science or may simply be utilized in advancing the next stage research. To that end, should the conduct of science be strategic? I personally believe the strategic nature of science is inherent in the endeavor of scientific undertakings.

Albert Michelson was the first American to win a Nobel Prize in physics. After serving in the Navy for a few years after graduation from the Naval Academy, Michelson returned to Annapolis to teach in the physics department. On one sunny afternoon, Michelson decided to recreate a particular experiment with his students that aimed to provide an approximation of the speed of light. In constructing the apparatus, he found several areas in which he could improve upon the experiment. The physics department was unable to fund his experiment, but an undeterred Michelson financed most of the research personally and reached out to his father in order to scrounge up the necessary remaining funds. A few months later, he successfully determined the most accurate value for the speed of light at that time. His research enabled the subsequent research of some the greatest physicists of all time, including Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity. Michelson pursued the research because he understood the ramifications of identifying this ultimate upper limit to velocity and the impact it could have on the world of science.

It is unlikely that the discovery and refinement of the speed of the light value could be found in any science strategy from the late 19^th or early 20^th century, but some scientists allow their own strategy and curiosity to drive their research. This sort of independent thought should be incorporated into any higher-level strategy that hopes to advance society. Any successful strategy, whether it is a military, business, or otherwise, must be adaptable. Battlefield conditions can change in instant. World markets and even storefront patronage can evaporate instantly in the face of a global pandemic. Why would a “science strategy” be any different?

The federal government spends 37% of its research budget on research development, taking previously gained knowledge and turning it into new or improved products or processes. 32% of the research dollars go to basic research. This number should be encouraging for science enthusiasts everywhere. Funding basic research at such a high level shows the importance in advancing the pure scientific body of knowledge.¹ The business sector funds basic research at about 70% of what the federal government does, but doubles government spending in applied research and spends more than 650% more in development. Science is largely contextual, and if it aims to advance human society, then these proportions are likely not too far off from some theoretical idealistic spending ratio. Lastly, another approach to consider at the Congressional and agency is level is a bit more freedom for appropriations transfers and reprogramming. Let’s give the scientists the flexibility needed to execute a purer, less restricted pursuit of explaining the unknown.

As I started my journey of Graduate School in the summer of 2020, Covid-19 was just beginning to wreak havoc on our country. As a firefighter, an EMS educator, and a long time healthcare worker in the Emergency Medical Services field, I admittedly was skeptical about the seriousness of this disease and the impact that it would have on my community and this nation. We have seen over the years many diseases come around with much the same warnings in advance that did little to no damage to the nation and its people. As I got on the rig every day, I along with my colleagues treated it like any other disease and went along treating patients and doing what we do every day. Were we ever wrong in our arrogance?

As numbers continued to climb, our workers continued to be exhausted, working long hours while we worked overtime, exhausted all of our personal protective equipment and one by one, we too got sick from this very dangerous virus. One of my own contracted the virus, became so sick he fought for his life in the hospital for three months, forty-five days of which he was on a ventilator.

As workers began to become ill and forced to quarantine, this made for a managerial nightmare. Firefighters, forced to pull forty-eight hour shifts in order to keep the stations staffed, experienced many sleepless nights as our call volume went up by thirty percent. My firefighters worked tirelessly through all of this and service to our community never faltered. Masks, quarantines, and online schooling for their children have inconvenienced many people during the past year. Some have had to change the way that they do business and adapt to the current state of existence to which we live. I have seen all too frequently in the past year, the mental anguish that being on the front line of this has on the workers. Mental issues are rampant in doctors, nurses, and frontline EMS workers, and people whom I have, throughout my career, seen smiling, joking, and laughing do not do that quite as often anymore.

On January 4th, the reality really became clear. I was diagnosed myself with Covid-19 and pulled out of work to quarantine. Little did I know that after receiving that horrible news, that it would be a blessing in disguise. Two days later my father tested positive, we do not know where he contracted the virus, because he quarantined with my mother who had a surgical procedure done the week prior and had not had contact with anyone. With my mother still recovering from surgery, I was able to spend time with my dad, and take care of him as the rest of my family, due to his illness were forced to stay away. In the early morning of January 10th my father lost his life to the effects of Covid-19. When this hits your immediate family, close friend, or co-worker it becomes too real, the consequences are unforgiving.

I am not writing this for pity, for condolences, or for myself. I decided to write this for strength for others. You are only limited in this life by yourself and what you can push through in the face of adversity. I am a firefighter, an EMT, a father, and a full time student here at Clemson, and through all of this I come out of this determined, focused on the future. In this world filled with sickness and hate, choose to love, choose to be kind to each other, and make sure that the people that you care about are safe and that they know that you love them.

Innovation within the public sector, specifically governmental organizations, will slowly emerge as workplace culture shifts to a less authoritarian leadership-driven environment. In the public sector, older leadership regime protects the status quo, content with incremental changes, to preserve their status, trying to avoid major career-ending mistakes, and clinging to old skills in a rapidly shifting environment of new technologies and paradigms. Leadership will need to adapt to meet the needs of the workforce, as well as the needs of the organization as a whole. Leadership style changes are important, but more important is the cultivation of an inclusive, safe, collaborative team-based structure within the department.

While we have made great strides to create a diverse organization, inclusion is not yet a guarantee. Equality and inclusion are often granted as a matter of policy but few embrace it as a matter of culture and behavior. People want, need, and deserve validation. High psychological safety drives performance and innovation. Leaders must first ensure unconditional inclusion safety, which is the foundation of psychological safety, followed by granting learner safety.
Low employee engagement is a common problem in the public sector – according to Gallup, 71% of US government employees are disengaged, costing taxpayers $500 billion annually in lost productivity. The second stage is learner safety, and employees crave developmental opportunities and want to grow within an organization, in turn, they are much more likely to be engaged with their job and bring their best each day.

As employees grow beyond the apprenticeship nature of the learner safety stage they cross over to a contributor safety stage of self-directed performance where the organization trusts them to perform competently and respects their ability to create value, therefore becoming an earned privilege. In the final stage of psychological safety, challenger safety is based on earning the right to innovate based on a track record of performance, where the organization grants permission to challenge the status quo in good faith. Proactive, offensive innovation is a response to an opportunity and is attainable at the pinnacle of psychological safety. Without challenger safety, there is a high cost to curiosity and creativity, usually resulting in embarrassment and emotional pain. The process of challenging the status quo usually involves a degree of conflict, confrontation, and stress. Innovation is not comfortable or frictionless, and it is hard enough because there is no safety from failure. Innovation ultimately emerges from the process of inquiry through collaboration.

The key issue for innovation in government is cultivating an organizational structure capable of elevating cross-sector collaboration through encouraging less hierarchy and more organizational flattening, even if not structurally flat. Leaders must embrace the uncomfortable nature of disruptive questions, cultivate a climate necessary to encourage constructive dissent through challenger safety and endorse open, transparent organizational development. The barriers to innovation will not be the fears associated with risk-taking and how it will impact the budget but rather if we have an engaged workforce that feels valued and safe enough to share their creativity in hopes of innovating a better government.

I have been thinking a great deal recently about organizational values. They are not just words… or they should not be. How do they guide what we are? Perhaps more importantly, who do we, as an organization, wish to be?

I just surpassed my first eight months as Chief Operating Officer for a large nonprofit, Global Connections to Employment (GCE). We are a bit different from many nonprofits. We not only provide training for our team members with significant disabilities, we then provide meaningful work, often in the form of large Department of Defense contracts. My company has many different lines of business. We compete with all types of companies. So how do we differentiate ourselves when competing with other for-profit and nonprofit companies? What provides our company a competitive advantage in the market place?

A competitive advantage can be differences in cost or other differentiators in service delivery and strategy. Because of our Mission of “Helping People Throughout Life’s Journey,” it is difficult to be the absolute least expensive alternative in a contract bid. We are competitive on price, but that is not what makes us special. We focus on accommodations for our differently-abled team members and ensuring living wages. So what separates us and makes us great… the choice for our customers? I would argue that our competitive advantage is adherence to Values.

We talk about this all the time. Our organization’s values are our V.O.I.C.E.S (Values = Ownership, Integrity, Compassion, Excellence, and Service). I see our values at work all the time and at every level of the company. From our daily lineups via Zoom, to the incredible work being accomplished both remotely as well as at multiple customer sites, now in 26 States. This team embodies and lives our values!

As some of you know, I spent over 24 years in the US Army. I was both proud and humbled to serve my Country. The Army, as an institution, is at its core a values-based organization. Many times, we dealt in operations surrounded by ambiguity and with imperfect information. What drove us to be the best military force in the world? Our shared values. That is what made us strong and pulled people from all walks of life, together.

GCE is also a values-based organization. We continue to strive to be the best version of ourselves… to live our values. Our values drive us to strengthen who we are and strive to be. Our values, our V.O.I.C.E.S. are our competitive advantage.

Be well and stay safe!

The political climate in the United States is becoming increasingly hostile. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and response, presidential election, and movement to challenge police brutality are polarizing the country. Each of these bring their own health and economic concerns as well as a feeling of instability.

As of September 2020, in America there have been some 6.7 million COVID-19 cases and nearly 200 thousand deaths due to COVID-19 according to the WHO. The stay-at-home orders and mask mandates issued to curb the spread have faced political and public scrutiny. Some of the lockdowns prompted protests. In Michigan, hundreds of people, many openly armed, gathered at the state capitol building to call for the reopening of businesses. The Pew Research Center has reported growing division between Democrats and Republicans on many COVID-related topics including the perception of disease risk, opinions on measures used to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and the confidence in medical science.

The presidential election is also increasing political tensions. President Donald Trump has said that his main opponent, Joe Biden, wants to “take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God,” even though Biden is a practicing Catholic. On the other side of the aisle, Biden has said that Trump’s reaction to COVID-19 was “almost criminal” and caused Americans to die. With this rhetoric, it’s unsurprising that 54% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans “said the opposing party was so misguided as to be actually dangerous”. Speakers at both presidential conventions earlier this year did little to assuage those fears, arguing that their opponents represented an existential threat to the country.

The country is also facing civil unrest after George Floyd’s death while in police custody. Since his death, there have been protests in at least 140 cities around the United States, some lasting more than one day. Minneapolis, the city where Floyd was killed, has reported that at least $55 million in damages occurred over the course of the protests in that city alone. Killings by police are continuing to be caught on camera. After Jacob Blake was shot 7 times by police in August, protests increased sometimes drawing counter-protesters. Two protestors were killed by a 17-year-old in Kenosha, Wisconsin during these demonstrations. There are also political divides about whether systematic racism is a problem in America with the gap between the two sides growing.

Politics and partisan ideology have been creating a hostile environment, and the events of 2020 have solidified it. Their combination has led to increasing instability, frustration, and fear among the American people. When people believe that the other political party actively wants to do them and the country harm, it is nearly impossible to have a reasonable debate.

On August 15, 2020, David L. Cook, Sr., beloved husband, father, grandfather, and brother peacefully passed away at age 69 at his Culpeper home.

David was born on September 22, 1950 to William W. “Bill” Cook and Eva “Kate” (Perciful) Cook at Fort Carson, Colorado. Being the middle child – having an older sister, Lucy, and a younger sister, Kathy – David was blessed with a steadfast, compassionate insight for the human condition; one that would become his trademark in life.

David graduated from Wichita State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in History in 1972 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army the same year. He attended the Naval Post Graduate School and the Command and General Staff College. During his 23-year Army career, David served as an infantryman, aviator, and military intelligence analyst specializing in both North and South Korea. His last assignment was as the installation commander for Fort Indiantown Gap, PA. Upon retirement, he served as director for the Army Heritage Center Foundation in Carlisle, PA, then as the Defense Intelligence Agency’s logistics and facilities manager for Rivanna Station, VA. He retired from that position at the end of May.

In addition to his government service, David was an adjunct professor in the Masters in Public Administration program at Clemson University. He was instrumental in helping to develop the program, and is credited with building the Homeland Defense and Security Specialization area. David taught a series of online courses on national and cyber security issues for over a decade. He also was an avid musician, having earlier been a member of the Hershey (PA) Symphony Orchestra and Big Band for many years.

David is survived by his adoring wife, Charlotte Cole of Culpeper; a son, David Cook, Jr. of Colorado Springs, CO; two granddaughters, Madison Pallante of Mechanicsburg, PA, and Kylie Harris of Montgomery, AL; Charlotte’s daughter, Emilie Cole of San Francisco, CA; and Charlotte’s son, James Cole of Washington, DC.

Those wishing to commemorate David’s extraordinary life may consider one of the following “good works” in lieu of flowers:
The James Madison Memorial Foundation, 129 Caroline Street, Orange, VA 22960
The Free Clinic of Culpeper: 610 Laurel St., Suite 3, Culpeper, VA 22701
Clemson University MPA Student Achievement Account – Dept 5735: Clemson University Gift Management Department, P.O. Box 1889, Clemson, SC 29633
Culpeper Food Closet: c/o St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 115 North East Street, Culpeper, VA 22701
Hershey Symphony Orchestra: P.O. Box 93, Hershey, PA 17033
An online guest book and tribute wall are available at www.foundandsons.com. Found and Sons in Culpeper is serving the family.

Our American policing industry has a self-induced identity problem: it sees itself first as an enforcement business not as a crime prevention and order maintenance public service. American policing has adopted an overarching enforcement approach and a “thin blue line” perspective, both of which are unhealthy for a democracy. A culture defined by compliance, arrests, and a defensive perspective of exclusion is destined to alienate those who are policed. It also eclipses officers who run into burning buildings and dive into raging rivers. It is time for the policing industry to do a self-check.

The enforcement centerpiece of American policing has done one thing well: delegitimization of American policing in communities of color. Those communities, unlike my neighborhood, do not trust the police (though, they want to). Gated communities get police services, communities of color get law enforcement. The difference? Legitimacy. Albert Einstein and M.L. King recognized the role of justice and equity in peace—is it time for others to do so?

Both men placed responsibility for peace in government. Einstein said it with scientific economy, “Peace is the presence of government.” Sir Robert Peel recognized the essence of the values that inform this thought when he published his policing principles in 1829.

Peel, who influenced the formation of American policing, is now a footnote, replaced by zero tolerance enforcement and compliance. For brevity, I will modernize, paraphrase, and truncate Peel:

Prevent crime and disorder instead of relying on repressive enforcement; policing derives its authority from public approval and sustained public respect; policing must have the willing cooperation of the public to function; there is a negative correlation between public cooperation and the use of force and compulsion to achieve police objectives; obtain public respect through impartial and unbiased application of the law; apply physical force only after exhausting verbal persuasion and only to the minimum amount needed to achieve public order; the police are the public and the public is the police; be a dispassionate and competent fact gatherer, leave adjudication to the courts; and recognize that police proficiency is demonstrated by the lack of crime and disorder, not the presence of enforcement activities.

These nine principles were premised on three key values:

Successful policing equals a low crime rate, not a high arrest rate; crime prevention requires the participation and trust of the public; and public support is derived from ethical conduct, hiring people who accept ethical responsibility in the performance of policing, and purposeful application of persuasion and empathy before resorting to force.

Peel recognized that compliance and enforcement affronted dignity and kindled the fire of resentment (use enforcement sparingly). Peel’s principles even foreshadowed the spirit of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, 34 year later: “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” How have we strayed so far off course?

Much of the answer lies in the policing industry’s equivocation with ethics. Ethically based decisions and policies require concerted and deliberative processes that weigh procedural fairness, consideration of disparate impact, and equanimity. There is a democratic element to ethically informed policing. Instead, police executives acquiesced to, and police unions chose, the “thin blue line” of enforcement and temporized over their affirmative responsibility to forthrightly participate in transparent planning processes that solve problems. In sum, policing ethics were marginalized. Our policing industry has used 25 years of community policing to mask continued entrenchment of an enforcement and compliance culture. Are we to believe that the status quo is fine but for minor modifications?

The policing industry has been waging war on drugs since 1985 and on terrorism from 2001. The war on drugs is a complete failure but it has entrenched civil forfeiture, pretext car stops, stop and frisk, no knock warrants, 4 am raids, and prison as the normative functions of police. The war on terror has eroded civil liberties and militarized police culture. The American policing industry has adopted all the negative attributes as normative functions—said another way, as what police do. Perhaps, making policing more about ethically informed public service and less about trendy authoritarian fads that seem to arrive every 20 years is the answer.

Change will not come from slogans: it will come from transparency, empathy, forthrightness, and open loop thinking that recognizes mistakes and learns from them. The needed correction is not as simple as right from wrong—although documentary evidence on this point continues to mount—but right from the harder right.

Communities must study and understand the policing trends that now inform policing and then challenge police executives and police unions to defend them in forthright debate. There is little science behind many police practices and policies, therefore, undoing them is best achieved not from violence, but from informed, thoughtfully constructed, and undaunted questions that go to the heart of the issue: does policing make us better people?

The author, a former New Jersey police officer and retired special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is a graduate of Clemson University’s Master in Public Administration program.

The year of 2020 has brought many changes in the world. The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the many events that have affected both policy and daily lives.  COVID-19 or “Corona-virus” is a respiratory disease that is infecting people all around the world.  The only precautions that can be taken to assist in preventing the spread are staying at home, social distancing, wearing a face mask, and washing hands.  COVID-19 has changed the way people live; businesses are having employees work from home and some are shutting down due to the inability to stay open during these times.  Specifically, within the State of South Carolina, Workers’ Compensation is being affected by COVID-19 but it can potentially be a complicated situation for the Workers’ Compensation Commission, insurance agencies, lawyers, and claimants to handle.

The Workers’ Compensation Act in South Carolina offers benefits to most employees who either 1) have an on-the-job work injury or 2) an on-the-job work exposure.  Benefits that injured or infected workers are entitled to include medical treatment and two-thirds of their average weekly wage (temporary total disability, or TTD). Currently, the South Carolina House of Representatives is considering a piece of legislation, H 5482, that has been proposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic relating to Workers’ Compensation. If passed, H 5482 creates “a rebuttable presumptions of compensability for first responders, health care providers, and correctional officers who contract COVID-19.” With this piece of legislation, there will be four categories of entitlement to temporary total benefits as long as isolation is required: people directed to isolate by his/he employer due to confirmed/suspected COVID-19 exposure, people who receive a COVID-19 diagnosis from a physician, people with a presumptive positive COVID-19 test, and people with a lab confirmed COVID-19 test.

The upcoming months within workers’ compensation is cloudy. Besides providing benefits from COVID-19 exposure and/or diagnosis, there are other elements that could be changing as a result of this pandemic. The workplace environment that is covered by workers’ compensation will be debated on due to the number of employees that are now working from home; and many employers are considering keeping this way. If an employee is working from home and is injured, will that be covered by workers’ compensation if the injury would have been if they were still located in the workplace? For example, if Sarah were to trip over her computer cord while working at home and break her wrist, would she be entitled to benefits under the act? If that same situation were to take place in the office, it would or should be covered under the Act. If her house is now her workplace, if that considered the same thing?

COVID-19 will continue to make an impact on the Workers’ Compensation Act and system for years to come. There are many implications that are arising out of the pandemic and litigation is only just beginning. Claims are now beginning to be filed and even then, litigation does not begin. Some claims may not ever see a hearing; others will be drug through many hearings and in-depth debates. Workers’ compensation has a long road ahead of them but with Bill proposals already in the State’s House of Representatives, it is hopeful that the Act and Legislatures can be proactive rather than reactive once larger priorities are able to be managed.

The first act of Federal disaster relief in American history was through the Congressional Act of 1803 following a devastating fire through a seaport town in New Hampshire in 1802. The assistance was in the form of suspended bond payments for the merchants affected by the fire, as the areas of the seaport that was destroyed threatened commerce throughout the northeast. Devastating fires remained a significant hazard for cities in the 19th century in which more ad hoc legislation addressed incidents on a case-by-case basis; most often in the form of an authorized suspension of financial obligations for disaster survivors.

Public opinion began shifting with the rise of the Progressive Era demanding reform and regulations in the early 1900s. Demands rose for greater government action out of response to the lack of federal assistance provided to the relief efforts related to the Galveston Hurricane in 1900 and the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906. Several significant floods between 1849 and 1936 moved Congress to enact federal flood control measures. Federal resources were sent to integrate into the efforts of the American Red Cross and private sector groups during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, making it the first time the Federal Government directly assisted in disaster response and recovery efforts.

Hoover later became President in 1929 and was able to push flood control work as a legitimate federal activity and used it as an unemployment relief measure. The Hoover administration provided a bridge between the Republican Era of the 1920s and the New Deal concerning flood control legislation. The New Deal initiatives involved the federal government in areas of American life that previously belonged to local and state governments. In doing so, it constructed a social safety net to support a long period of growth and prosperity. The New Deal was incremental, as well as experimental, as seen by the quick implementation of the National Labor Relations Act as an alternative solution to address the inadequacies and failures of the National Industrial Recovery Act.

Congress enacted to Federal Disaster Assistance Program in 1950, which authorized the federal government to respond to major disasters. The New Deal era lasted until the onset of the Cold War. By the late 1970s, several areas of the federal government were involved in disaster relief resulting in federal agencies shuffling tasks around as responsibilities were shared. Parallel programs and policies at the state and local levels further fragmented emergency and disaster efforts within an already confusing system facing internal and external political power struggles. The implications of a decentralized concept were not immediately apparent since the system seemed to work relatively well for small to moderate disasters.

The desired objective of consolidating agencies to form a singular overall coordinator of federal disaster relief and preparedness efforts was achieved through the establishment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as the lead federal disaster preparedness and relief agency in 1979. The unanticipated consequences because of federal resources remaining dispersed amongst agencies suggest the coordination effort did nothing to overhaul how disasters are handled in the United States. Policymakers expect this in the process and therefore are poised for the next incremental step, which in this case was through several reforms in 1993, where the reduction of Cold War era resource allocation could be shifted over to disaster relief, recovery, and mitigation programs. Through FEMA, the federal government continues to redefine and reconsider the strategy and tactics needed to carry out the mission and vision of the agency as it relates to preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation.