Peter King – Since 9/11, no other member of the U.S. House of Representatives has been more a force and face for homeland security issues than Long Island’s Peter King. A regular fixture on many cable news shows, whenever any type of news breaks on homeland security, you can be sure that Rep. Peter King is ready and willing to talk about it and what needs to be done to make things better. With ten terms in Congress and as the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, King has made himself part of the homeland architecture by not just vying for the appropriate amount of resources for New York’s homeland security (which would be as many resources as possible) but also by going after issues he thinks need more attention. His hearings this past session of Congress on terrorist radicalization drew strong condemnationby his Democratic counterparts, the media, and civil liberties groups, but that did nothing to stop him from going forward with multiple versions of them. His next steps in homeland security remain to be seen as his term as House Homeland Security Committee Chair is coming to an end. Whatever that next step might be, rest assured Rep. Peter King will be seen and heard wherever he is.

Jeb Bush – There can be no doubt that there remains a lingering ‘Bush fatigue’ in the country, but if you are looking at performance records on executive leadership in emergency management, Jeb Bush’s name has to be on a list of candidates for the top DHS job. Probably more than any of his other state executive counterparts, the former Florida governor did more to elevate emergency management on a state executive level than any other. Every disaster that occurred during his term in office (1999-2008), whether it was the huge wildfires ravaging the Everglades and surrounding areas, hurricanes, blackouts, or other emergencies, he was involved front and center and made sure things happened.

It certainly helps your executive performance when you have people as good as Craig Fugate, who was then Florida’s Director of Emergency Management, on your team and get as much operational experience as Florida does year round, but former Gov. Bush put himself out front and center in what can only be called an always hostile environment. Furthermore Jeb Bush has been one of the most informed, practical and sensible voices on immigration reform. He would do a tremendous job in leading some of the corrective actions that need to be implemented in a system that has been allowed to fall apart in the all the wrong ways.

Haley Barbour – While he has long been known as one of the most successful Washington operators Gov. Haley Barbour’s most distinguished days are born from the national tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. As the then-governor of Mississippi, the state that was ‘Ground Zero’ to Katrina’s wrath (which laid waste to an area nearly the size of Great Britain), Barbour showed what the word “leadership” meant during some of our country’s most humiliating days. Barbour and his team went to work with regional leaders, elected officials and other public and private sector interests to begin rebuilding the Magnolia State. His mantra was simple – the recovery would be led by people from Mississippi, with Mississippi products and services, with inputs from the citizens and businesses of Mississippi that would create new Mississippi jobs. His understanding of how to make government agencies and networks work (and how to put them to use) allowed the response and recovery operations to begin much faster than they did in Louisiana. The results speak for themselves as Mississippi’s recovery from Katrina (while still a daunting process) is moving forward at an impressive pace and has far outpaced that of its Louisiana neighbor. Barbour’s skills as a Washington operator would also dovetail nicely in helping DHS forge Congressional relationships that are more supportive of it than the current intrusive and counterproductive manner of business that seems to have been the norm for its nearly ten years of operations. It would be foolish, as some might be willing to do, to just dismiss Barbour as a partisan hack. That would ignore his tremendous skills as a coalition builder, government executive and business leader, and the record he has in each of those very different and demanding areas.

 

Wild Card Pick

Matt Bettenhausen – Much of the nation might not know who Matt Bettenhausen is, but as folks in the state and local emergency community and those who were there during the early days of DHS know, he’s a guy who would be an exceptional leader for DHS. A former federal prosecutor and former deputy director of DHS’ Office of State & Local Government Coordination, Bettenhausen took one of the most demanding posts in the country when he became the State of California’s first director of its Emergency Management Agency (CalEMA). California is one of those places that for all of its beauty and glamour has emergency management situations on an almost daily and sometimes Biblical scale. From a year-round fire season that affects rural and urban communities, to fairly regular floods and mudslides, to rockslides and earthquakes and threats to critical infrastructure from terrorists, California has challenges like no other American state. As then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lead for homeland security and emergency management, Bettenhausen became the proverbial right hand and constant presence for working all of those “events” during “the Governator’s” eventful seven years (2003-2010) in office.

While California may be one of fifty states, it is also one of the world’s largest economies, whose importance long transcends its geographic boundaries. As home to the largest port in the United States (Los Angeles/Long Beach), one of the world’s busiest airports (LAX), tremendous agricultural resources, and a tourism and commerce center that the citizens of the world engage daily, the complexities in working with these components are enormous. Safeguarding and preserving those resources and working with the multitude of local jurisdictions in public safety, emergency management and more required a unique skill set of leadership and collaboration – skills Bettenhausen demonstrated through some of the Golden State’s most significant trials. A stalwart advocate for improved information sharing with state, local and tribal governments as well as coordination in emergency response efforts where federal resources are involved, Bettenhausen challenged DHS leaders, programs and policies to be more proactive rather than reactive in addressing emerging threats and challenges.

After leaving CalEMA at the end of Schwarzenegger’s term, he was tapped to be the vice president of security and homeland security director for AEG Worldwide, leading operations that literally cover the world. At AEG – one of “the largest entertainment presenters in the world” (owning stadiums, concert halls, theaters, sports franchises, etc.), Bettenhausen’s responsibilities are to safeguard every event, team, vendor, guest and visitor to those facilities whenever and wherever they are operating. There is no bigger stage (or terrorist target) than the Olympics, which he and AEG played a central role in supporting this past Summer at the quadrennial games in London. Needless to say, the Summer Games were “uneventful,” a fact that Bettenhausen, AEG and any number of security forces and partners can take great pride in making possible. While his name may not be as familiar or widely known as some of the others that I’ve mentioned, I have no doubt he would do a phenomenal job in the country’s toughest job.