Before she was one of two Democratic women candidates for Governor of Massachusetts, Juliette Kayyem made her bones as a Homeland Security executive, Boston Globe columnist and Harvard lecturer. Given her past, Kayyem will lend her expertise to a panel aptly dubbed “Whole Community Resilience: It’s Not an Accident” to shed insight on how government agencies can work in tandem to better manage and communicate data to reinforce public safety.
The event will take place on Tuesday, April 8 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. at the Hynes Convention Center on Boylston Street.
The panel is part of a Harvard Kennedy School symposium titled Leadership Lessons From the Boston Marathon Bombings. Kayyem worked previously as the Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs for the United States Department of Homeland Security, where she was able to use her intergovernmental and interagency prowess to help respond to the notorious BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
She hopes to share some of that acumen with some of our commonwealth’s, and our nation’s, leaders of tomorrow while bestowing upon us all lessons for the upcoming 2014 Boston Marathon. This entails discussing how she was able to coordinate data between government agencies, and we can learn by taking similar steps in the present.
“Using this model of training, data sharing, and coordination throughout state and local government could be instrumental in preventing future attacks,” noted Kayyem’s press office in a statement.
“The bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon rocked the city and the nation,” bills the The National Preparedness Leadership Initiative on Harvard’s Kennedy School website. “The leadership response demonstrated extraordinary professionalism and contributed to robust community resilience. Leaders rose to meet the challenge in a week of tragedy and, ultimately, triumph.”
Along with Kayyem, speakers slated to participate include Col. Timothy Alben, Superintendent, Massachusetts State Police; Ed Davis, former Commissioner, Boston Police Department; William Evans, Commissioner, Boston Police Department; Thomas Menino, former Mayor, City of Boston; and current Mayor Marty Walsh.
