“I want to spend a moment talking about that supporting and supported relationship”. One of the other elements of our mission at USNORTHCOM is a state engagement program. We feel it is very important to spend a lot of time out on the road…preaching the gospel…of USNORTHCOM’s role in our nation’s defense, in support of civil authorities, and to support elements of homeland security”. Our goal is to get to every governor and every state adjutant general and every emergency management director… the message is we are here to support the needs of the Nation; we are here to support the requirements of a state when they’re in trouble, when a disaster strikes or when they have a unique security event occurring….our role is to create those capacities ahead of time so that when a state has a need, they don’t have to decide that they’re in trouble and then make a call and go through the administrative process and then, a week later, the support shows up. If you look at how we prepared for Hurricane Dean just a few weeks ago when we thought a Category Five hurricane was going to hit Harlingen, Texas, we had people in place well before the event occurred, well before it turned south and began its movement towards Mexico. And they were there to prepare medical evacuation capabilities so that critical care patients could be moved out of the Harlingen and Brownsville area of Texas….so we worked very carefully with our FEMA region partners, our Defense Coordinating Officer, and the state of Texas to ensure that we knew what their needs were and that we went and found those capabilities…. So it’s that kind of day-to-day interaction that we’ve been communicating to the governors, to the adjutants general, and to the emergency management directors of all the states. “We’re there to help them succeed. We’re not there to be in charge. We’re there to ensure that the Title 10 forces that come are professionally trained, equipped, disciplined, and supportive. We’ve done a supporting/supported relationship in our military for many years. We understand how to do that. I understand that the governor leads the effort in their state. If the people of a particular state elected a governor and then felt that that governor couldn’t take care of them when disaster struck, it’s a bad message. Our job is to make sure the state succeeds….And we’re prepared and leaning forward to do that. I have an execute order that is signed for the hurricane season that gives me access to about 9,000 military, both in terms of assessors, responders, security forces, logistics capability, rotary-wing lift, and the like, that I can begin to move before an event even occurs. So that’s authority that Tim Keating didn’t have as we got to Katrina. And certainly it’s that authority that we need to consider expanding as we look to the future. So that mission of engagement with the states is critical, and we continue to work on that very, very hard”. (USNORTHCOM, Remarks by General Gene Renuart Homeland Defense Symposium, Colorado Springs, 3 Oct 07)