National Domestic
Preparedness Consortium (NDPC)

Each of the institutions focus on developing and delivering products and services according to their institutional base of expertise. Under this arrangement, the consortium has achieved remarkable results in the nation’s unified effort to bring all levels of government, business, and the emergency response community to new degrees of preparedness. Together these members collectively assist in preventing, protect against, respond to, and recover from incidents of national significance.

The consortium’s strategic coordination and planning activities are led by a chairperson, who is assisted by one principal from each member institution. The chairperson position rotates between member organizations on a biannual basis. Each institution also provides a working group that coordinates and integrates the operations of the consortium.

The Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) is a vital training component of the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Training and Education Division. The CDP develops and delivers training for emergency response providers from state, local, tribal and territorial governments and, when appropriate, the federal government, foreign governments, and private sector entities. The CDP offers over 50 training courses at its resident campus in Anniston, Alabama. Training at the CDP campus is federally funded at no cost to state, local, tribal and territorial emergency response professionals from multiple emergency disciplines. In addition to resident training, the CDP has an active mobile training capability that provides critical advanced hands-on training in local jurisdictions across the country.

The CDP's Chemical, Ordnance, Biological, and Radiological (COBRA) Training Facility is the nation's only federally chartered toxic agent training facility for state, local, tribal and territorial emergency responders. This unique facility serves as the platform for tactical operations training in a contaminated environment that includes nerve agents (VX/GB-Sarin), biological hazards (Anthrax/Ricin), and radiological sources. The CDP's Noble Training Facility (NTF) is a hospital venue that serves as a platform for multiple healthcare, emergency medical service, public health, and environmental health courses. NTF provides participants with a realistic training environment designed to prepare and challenge professionals for mass casualty incidents as a result of a catastrophic natural disaster or terrorist act.

The Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC) at New Mexico Tech (NMT) is the consortium’s lead partner for explosives, live explosives, and incendiary devices training.

Founded in 1889 as the New Mexico School of Mines, NMT has evolved into a research-oriented public university specializing in science and engineering. The institution has earned a worldwide reputation for the quality of its research and academic programs. As a result, NMT has consistently garnered high ratings from several sources, such as US News and World Report and the Princeton Review. NMT conducts applied research in explosive technology, explosive materials engineering, information security, and modeling and simulation for numerous U.S. Government agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Justice, State, Transportation, and Energy. The campus of NMT is located 70 miles south of Albuquerque, NM. EMRTC’s additional training site, Playas Training and Research Center, is located in the southwestern corner of New Mexico.

As a major department of New Mexico Tech, EMRTC traces its roots back to the development of the variable timing fuse — commonly known as the proximity fuse — during World War II. In the past 60 years, the department has grown to a highly regarded research, development, test, and evaluation complex. Currently, EMRTC is a close knit team of more than 100 highly experienced professionals who on a yearly basis perform 200-300 in-depth scientific investigations and studies involving energetic materials. EMRTC offers the consortium a unique blend of facilities, expertise, training development, and research opportunities.

For more information visit respond.emrtc.nmt.edu

The National Center for Biomedical Research and Training (NCBRT), Academy of Counter-Terrorist Education at Louisiana State University (LSU) is a founding member of the NDPC. The NCBRT has been involved in the development and delivery of training and related efforts in support of the Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support since 1998, and now for the Office for Grants and Training (G&T). Since that time, the NCBRT has developed many courses and delivered them for the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture, as well as for State and local jurisdictions, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. Courses deal with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), counter-terrorism, and high consequence events, for all disciplines including emergency management, law enforcement (including tactical operations), HazMat teams, public health, EMS, hospital, agricultural, and others. The NCBRT has also developed and delivered numerous workshops and seminars, developed scenarios and exercises, and has provided technical assistance to governmental and non-governmental entities. Not only are the capabilities of the NCBRT wide and deep, but they can be readily augmented by the scientists, researchers, and educators available from LSU, the flagship university of Louisiana.

For more information visit ncbrt.lsu.edu

The National Emergency Response and Recovery Training Center (NERRTC) was established in 1998 as part of the NDPC and approved in 2000 by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a national disaster response center. The NERRTC's mission is to design, develop, and deliver training, exercises, and technical assistance for the nation's emergency responders. NERRTC combines traditional classroom work, small group instruction, field exercises, participant activities, case studies and vignettes, multimedia scenarios, and computer-aided training and exercise simulations to train individuals and jurisdictions. Since 1998, NERRTC has trained over 710,000 participants across the country and the US territories

NERRTC is a center of excellence within the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX), one of the largest providers of workforce training in the nation since 1919. TEEX is known for its innovative, customized programs, including hands-on and on-site training. TEEX is a state agency of the Texas A&M University System. It is headquartered in College Station, TX with seven regional training centers and offices located around the state of Texas. These facilities support nine agency components, all of which offer workforce training in particular subject areas, and collaborate to provide TEEX customers with a seamless training venue. TEEX courses are taught locally throughout the state, at customer facilities, and at TEEX-approved locations both nationally and internationally.

For more information visit teex.org

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Nevada Site Office (NSO) runs the historic Nevada Test Site (NTS) located some 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. NSO is a charter member of the NDPC, and has been involved in the development and delivery of radiological/nuclear (rad/nuc) training since 1998.

NNSA/NSO provides weapons of mass destruction (WMD) training to teach first responders to detect, prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from terrorist acts through research, development, test and evaluation, training, and intelligence support activities. More than ten thousand first responders per year receive this highly specialized training conducted on behalf of DHS FEMA/NPD. These training courses and exercises are conducted at the NTS, in municipality-hosted locations via Mobile Training Teams (MTTs), and online.

The Nevada Test Site’s Counter Terrorism Operations Support Program (NTS/CTOS) conducts this training for the NSO. NTS/CTOS has developed and delivered six different courses dealing with response to, and prevention of radiological and nuclear WMD for a variety of disciplines. These disciplines include emergency management, fire service, law enforcement, HazMat teams, public health, EMS, hospital “first receivers”, and others. NTS/CTOS has numerous training capabilities that can be readily augmented by the scientists, researchers, and subject matter experts (SMEs) from the NSO’s Remote Sensing Laboratories, DOE’s National Laboratories, and private industry.

For more information visit ctosnnsa.org

The TTCI training approach, a proven, focused curricula combining classroom and laboratory training with contiguous full-scale hands-on field exercises for preparing first responders, has attracted new programs for additional surface transportation security and emergency response training from government agencies.

In 2006, TTCI began training the incoming TSA (Transportation Security Administration) surface transportation security inspectors in basic railroad operations and safety practices, a program that has continued to grow. On August 3, 2007, TTCI received congressional authorization as a Member of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC). TTCI was subsequently designated within NDPC as the National Center for Emergency Response in Surface Transportation.

Heavy freight transport systems remain our core operation, offering advanced first responder training to government and private sectors with open enrollment and contract classes. These activities will continue to grow and expand along with the new emphasis on security issues, an increased emphasis on passenger rail and encompassing complementary infrastructure integrity research.

For more information visit ttci.tech

The center provides high quality disaster training to ensure that island communities throughout the Pacific are ready and able to respond, recover, and reconstruct after catastrophes. U.H. has one of seven federally funded FEMA National Domestic Preparedness sites nationwide.

For more information visit ndptc.hawaii.edu