Centers of Excellence
Since Noblis works closely with a wide array of government agencies and organizations, we have developed an in-depth understanding of their programs and capabilities. Our clients include the Departments of Defense, Justice, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Agriculture, Interior, Commerce, and Energy; the Intelligence Community, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the General Services Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. We also work with more than 30 states and numerous local jurisdictions in the areas of public safety and improved delivery of essential government services. We have pioneered the concept of Centers of Excellence to solve common technological problems across state and local government, thus gaining economies of scale and reuse of proven approaches. For example, our Center for Criminal Justice Technology and Information Technology Support Center bridge federal, state, and local governments and are operated as partnerships with academia and government.State and Local Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response
State and local governments and the public and private health systems represent our first line of defense in countering the threat of catastrophic biological attacks to the homeland. Noblis has proposed a new partnership for linking federal, state and local governments to maximize the benefits of future investments and to create an operational capability that is greater than the sum of its parts. The center would address common needs ranging from response planning to decontamination. We are continuing our internal research on system architectures for situation awareness, information sharing and coordinated response. We are also working with the ER One project, a federally sponsored demonstration program seeking to define the emergency department of the future that is designed to respond to all threats, including those posed by chemical and biological weapons.
Agricultural Security
Transmission of foreign animal diseases beyond national borders has the potential to devastate the US livestock industry, as well as to threaten public health and international trade. In spite of various government and industry initiatives, the nation’s capacity to ensure that U.S. animal health is safeguarded from such disease outbreaks remains a challenge.
As one part of the solution, Noblis has proposed the creation of a Center of Excellence in Emergency Management Coordination that would be the focal point for emergency management excellence within USDA and the agricultural community at large.
Other Initiatives
Counterterrorism creates an urgent need for extensive information sharing and collaboration across organizational, geographic, economic, and political boundaries. Noblis is working with groups representing state and county government and academia on initiatives to create centers of excellence for infrastructure protection and medical preparedness and research. This interest stems from our early work in support of the President’s Commission for Critical Infrastructure Protection, our development of the first comprehensive plan for a national, cross-sector information sharing and analysis center (ISAC) as defined in Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD-63), and our success in operating similar centers (CCJT and ITSC). These successful models—and the infrastructure behind them—are available to support comparable initiatives in homeland security and to host functions like the information-sharing and analysis, knowledge management, or biosurveillance functions described above.
