Sunday, October 05, 2008

Frances Townsend on Opportunities during Global Instability


Former White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend is the headliner at a global conference in Denver. The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals asked Fran to kick off the event.

Keynote speaker Frances Townsend will set the stage by discussing geopolitical issues and their impact on the supply chain. Townsend will draw on her experience as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism from 2004 to 2008. This theme will be further developed during other general sessions, such as the executive panel discussion titled "Instability Offers Global Opportunities."

President George W. Bush knows how to foster instability, internationally and domestically. Fran's expertise was "risk management." She hoped to apply her knowledge on behalf of a large investment house. Wall Street cratered due to mismanaged risk, even without Fran's expert advise.

If Townsend does the same for supply chain management that she did for government, expect more failures and disruptions. Recently on Talk Radio, Fran suggested the Bush administration struggled to communicate security issues. She said the next administration should form a communications plan quickly. So what did Fran do as Homeland Security Adviser if there is no communications plan?

She did head up the post mortem on Hurricane Katrina. Who leaves out the hospital with the highest patient death toll from a Lessons Learned report? Poor delivery on an investigation, that's our Fran. Global instability, that's her boss, George "you're such a man" Bush.

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