Established in 1998 to enhance the capabilities of emergency responders and local officials to prepare for, respond to, and recover from catastrophic events resulting from natural events, man-made accidents, or terrorist attacks.

Congressionally mandated and partially funded by the U.S. Congress, NERRTC was a founding member of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC). Since its inception, NERRTC has provided local, state, tribal and territorial jurisdictions with high-quality, hands-on, scenario-driven leadership training, exercises, and technical assistance.

NERRTC assists and plays a major role in DHS/FEMA’s establishing and maintaining the concept of culture of preparedness and has sharpened its focus on that concept by incorporating an all-of-nation/whole community,  risk-driven, capabilities-based approach to preparedness. NERRTC provides training in eleven core competency areas across the community: cybersecurity, crisis communications, executive and elected officials education, hazardous materials awareness and operations, health and medical services, incident management, infrastructure protection, search and rescue, threat and risk assessment, and training gap analyses and public works.

NERRTC clients and customers include state and federal agencies, municipal and county governments, private industries, public school systems and university campuses, law enforcement agencies, emergency medical services, fire departments, public works departments, utility companies, and public health agencies. Since 1998, NERRTC has provided training for more than 450,000 responders in over 10,000 jurisdictions in all 50 states, U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.​