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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

MCC Launches Homeland Security Institute


Today MCC announced the launching of its Homeland Security Management Institute aimed at preparing business and industry, public officials, schools, citizens and first-responders for public safety crises.

“The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the subsequent war on terrorism have led all of us to adjust how we do things,” said MCC President R. Thomas Flynn. “This is particularly true for first-responders, but security-motivated adjustments are not limited to them. Every business, elected official and citizen should live every day with a new eye toward safety issues. MCC’s Homeland Security Management Institute acknowledges these new realities and is focused on helping all of us prepare for them. We can only be a safe nation when each of us is prepared to assist.”

The Homeland Security Management Institute will be a regional source for homeland security training of first-responders, elected officials, citizens and professionals whose jobs may place them in a leadership or response role in a homeland security emergency. While focused regionally, the institute also has a role in the national homeland security training picture.

The institute will train other community college trainers, thereby extending its reach through the country’s network of 1,100 community colleges. Additionally, higher education leaders are looking to MCC to become a national model for homeland security training—one that can be duplicated across the country.

The institute has support from a variety of sectors.

President Flynn has discussed the institute at length with a number of Congressional representatives and senators. Congressmen Tom Reynolds, R-I-C, 26th District, and Amo Houghton, R-C, 29th District, have named representatives to the Institute’s advisory committee. Discussions are continuing with other federal officials.

Houghton also facilitated a visit last summer by a representative from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to MCC’s Public Safety Training Center. With that entrée and encouragement, MCC officials have been talking with Washington D.C. officials for months, building support for the institute. The College will aggressively seek state and federal funding for the institute, says President Flynn.

Local law enforcement leaders are supporting the institute. Rochester City Police Chief Robert Duffy and Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O’Flynn have met with President Flynn and endorse the institute.

MCC is working with the League for Innovation in the Community College, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and the State University of New York (SUNY) to tap existing homeland security training expertise at the country’s community colleges. Leaders from all three organizations have visited MCC to discuss the college’s Institute and national initiatives.

Community colleges already train 80 percent of first-responders, according to the AACC. In an article he co-authored in July, President Flynn said, “Our review of homeland security training and civic engagement programs in community and technical colleges nationwide reveals powerful programs in place, along with significant untapped potential. Given these findings, we should not duplicate, at great expense to the American taxpayer, education and training programs already in place.”

On Monday, Dec. 8, the MCC Board of Trustees approved the institute’s first employee: Colonel John J. Perrone Jr., an Army veteran and former Monroe County Sheriff’s major. Most recently, Perrone served as commander of the Joint Detainee Operations Group at the Al Qaeda Terrorist Detention Facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

MCC has trained police, fire and emergency medical professionals in Monroe County for nearly 30 years. Since 2001, that training has taken place at the state-of-the-art Public Safety Training Facility, 1190 Scottsville Road, a collaborative effort of the College, Monroe County and the City of Rochester.

Cynthia Cooper
Public Affairs
12/09/2003