TEEX Center awarded $22 million through Homeland Security National Training Program

COLLEGE STATION — The Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) announced that the agency will receive $22 million in federal funding for its National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center® (NERRTC), which provides specialized homeland security and disaster preparedness training nationwide.

The passage of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for federal fiscal year 2016 provides funding for the National Preparedness Directorate and the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium® (NDPC), of which TEEX/NERRTC is a founding member. The new funding is effective Oct. 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2018.

NERRTC administers the DHS/FEMA funding provided by the Homeland Security National Training Program Cooperative Agreement, which helps to ensure the nation is prepared to protect citizens and critical infrastructure in case of a major disaster. Since it was established in 1998, NERRTC has enhanced preparedness by training more than 560,000 emergency responders, senior officials, public works staff and medical personnel through delivery of more than 13,000 courses to state, local, tribal, and territorial jurisdictions throughout the 50 states and U.S. territories.

As a primary DHS/FEMA training partner, NERRTC offers training in 11 core competencies: 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, public works, and training gap analyses.

“NERRTC continues to seek efficiencies that will allow us to increase the number of participants trained each year — more than 59,000 last year — and we continue to add new course offerings to meet the needs of responders nationwide,” said NERRTC Director Hank Lawson. “We now offer 58 courses at no cost to local, state, tribal and territorial jurisdictions under the Cooperative Agreement.”

About the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service

TEEX is an internationally recognized leader in the delivery of emergency response, homeland security and workforce training and exercises, technical assistance, and economic development. Last year, TEEX served more than 173,000 people from every U.S. state and territory and 81 countries worldwide. TEEX makes a difference by providing training, developing practical solutions, and saving lives.

About NERRTC and NDPC

NERRTC is one of the seven members of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium® (NDPC) operating under the DHS/FEMA’s National Preparedness Directorate’s National Training and Education Division. Other NDPC members include the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston, AL; The National Center for Biomedical Research and Training (NCBRT) at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA; The Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC) at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, NM; National Nuclear Security Administration/CTOS-Center for Radiological/Nuclear Training (NNSA/CTOS) in Las Vegas, NV; The National Disaster Preparedness Training Center at The University of Hawaii (NDPTC) in Honolulu, Hawaii; and Security and Emergency Response Training Center (SERTC) at Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) in Pueblo, CO.