Heading on vacation
I’ve posted nearly 1,000 times on this site in the last nine months, so I’m ready for a vacation, and am leaving town later today. I’m going to be out-of-pocket for the next two weeks, returning to DC on September 10th. I’m going to do my best to stay away from the blog during that time, although I might sneak in a post or two from an internet cafe. The previous post this morning contains the homeland security events list through the period of time that I’m away.
While I’m out, I’m turning over the site to two guest contributors, who will be posting as much or as little as they want under their own bylines.
The first is Kate Phillips, a former colleague of mine in the Homeland Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kate studied molecular biology at Princeton and will be finishing her master’s degree next spring (attention potential employers!) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She’s expert on a range of homeland security issues - bioterrorism, risk assessment, aviation security, etc. - and I predict that she will become Secretary of Homeland Security sometime in the mid-2020’s. You can reach her at this address if you would like to provide suggestions or feedback on any posts.
The second is Dan Prieto, a Senior Fellow at the Reform Institute, a centrist think tank here in the DC area. Dan worked previously on homeland security issues at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and as a professional staff member on the House Homeland Security Committee. He’s been a Council on Foreign Relations fellow and was an associate member of the Markle Task Force on National Security, among other prior affiliations. You can read his full bio here.
Both of them will have an open invitation to continue to post after I return. Although by no means do I expect to slow down my posting at the time - I should return tanned, relaxed and ready to bang out the next thousand posts.