Preparing Federal Coordinating Officers (FCOs) to Operate in Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Environments

In this thesis the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO) function is examined as it relates to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) operations. It is suggested that targeted changes can be made to ensure the FCOs are better prepared to manage the additional complexities of a CBRN environment. The changes include addressing the FCOs from the systems approachinternally to improve the FCO personal and professional development; external organizational design to improve the FCO’s cross-jurisdictional operating environment; and agency support changes to provide the FCOs with additional CBRN staffing expertise to aid in managing the complexity. If the recommendations herein are adopted, the critical command and control function of the FCO in a CBRN environment will be substantially enhanced and the readiness level of the federal response system greatly improved.