kamoie, followed by this week's british prime minister's questions and late they're week a conversation with mitt romney. >> of this week on "q & a" brian kamoie, senior director for preparing this policy on the national security staff of the white house. -- for prepared in this policy on the national security staff of the white house. >> brian kamoie, what is the best thing that happened to you in your life to prepare you for government service? >> in number of things. i had influential teachers who instilled public service. i had wonderful opportunities to

come to washington to learn a little bit about how our government works. i think their education, learning to work in teams of people to solve complicated problems where you really learn it takes teamwork to do the job. those are the kind of experiences that prepared the best for public service. >> you have experience in the last two administrations. if someone were to say "advise me on going into the bush in administration and in the obama administration," with their be a different? >> in the area i worked in, not a great difference. everyone is trying to do the right thing to protect the american people. while there may be subtle differences, we have to remember the american people first, figure out what to get

the job done. >> did you see politics in either administration that's correct not when it comes time to prepare -- administration? >> when inot when it comes to prepared in a. we work in a political town. there are very few people went disaster happens who want to take the time to play politics. we are fortunate. >> several weeks ago we did a program with the united states senate youth program. 100 for seniors that come to town -- 104 seniors that come to town. they see the president, chief justice, members of congress. in that debriefing that we did on this program, we found your name popping up time and time again, quoting yo u. u.

when you spoke to them, why did you say what you said to them? what was your base? >> my basic was that i sat at those tabled in 1989. i was a delegate for the senate youth program from pennsylvania. i remember that feeling. i remember it vividly what it is like to sit there and come from afar and have access to the leaders of the united states government. it is all uninspiring. -- awe inspiring. i thought back to what i remember. the program is trying to encourage a very bright students to pursue papps of public service. i started with a mindset of what is it like to be them. now that i am in this role, what can i share with them that i wish i had known or that they

will remember when they leave washington/ ? it is a rapid fire experience. if you leave a few key encouraging messages at a time where you know it is easy to be here [unintelligible] it is easy to be cynical. correct let's go through. -- >> looks good prepared worded to grow up? >> pennsylvania. i've lived in the same house my entire but i was president of the student council in high school. i participated as a mock a government program whereby local

elected officials. i really started to see the opportunity of public life working. >> it is good to see over time people truly stick with this. not everybody spent their entire career with public- service. people remember the opportunities. >> why were you interested in high school? to your member you got you there? >> a series of teachers. my high school teacher was very active. for him learning civics was a passion, and was a service to others. i worked for a senator who was president pro tem.

he represented altoona, pennsylvania. these are figures that i saw. they were trying to do the right thing. >> word to go to college? >> dickinson college in pennsylvania. it prepared for a very thorough liberal arts education. it was one of the perce schools that sent me any literature. no one predicts it is one of the first schools the set me any literature -- it was one of the for schools that send me any literature. i visited the campus and fell in love with it. it was the right choice for me without question. >> what did you do their? in the way of produce what did you do there in the way of extra curricular activities that >> i ran a public affairs symposium

that if an issue of the importance to society. the inside so was a violent end this underseas. the got together to talk about how we can address violence in our society. he came and talked about violence. bringing smart people together to talk about how you solve problems leads into public positions. >> what did he tell you about it? >> he advocated for a return to censorship of the violence. he felt it had gotten out of hand. he gave a very interesting lecture about this. he was also from pennsylvania. >> didn't meet your wife there? >> i did. she was president of the student senate when she was at

dickenson. she was engaged as well. >> one thing after another you go where? >> i came to washington to george washington university and publicadied blockstudied lw health. my mother spent 27 years working as a nurse's aide. eiger up around the health-care system and had an interest in health policy from an early age. my father is a wounded veteran. i've interacted with the health care system. >> what war was the index >> he served in the army -- what war was the index >> he served in the vietnam war era. >> anything that was about government service? >> interacting with people in

town who were working on the hill working in advocacy organizations. they translated the academic into real-world policy. that is what people stay here. >> how were you hired in the bush administration? how were you even closer in the obama administration? >> i was teaching class is at george washington. after 9/11 death became a lot of questions about government authorities. i started writing about these issues prior to joining the faculty. i represent hospitals in new york city's.

. i am teaching and writing about these issues. the department of health and human services asked for some assistance in developing policies with regard to the department chair. they need people who focus on policy. can we help them? she said you're going there for a year. it was a direction not an invitation. i went ahead to government. i allowed the professors and others to help the government. that was in 2004. the first day was february 1, 2004. i knew this was going to be a ride.ld -- a while like wild

i went online to the government for a year. it has been 8. >> didn't matter what political party your index >> no. were in? >> no. >> let's look at a couple of these clips. for those watching or listening, months ago.this was these are young kids selected how? >> if they go through various interview and essay process these were they demonstrate their interest. it awards in a $5,000 college scholarship. there are many students interested in these programs. in the near it down to two per state. the student to participate, it

is requited selection process. >> it is underwritten by the hearst foundation. 104 students. two from each state. >> there is no gender restrictions. >> i went around asking all of them who they most remember during the week. they heard from the chief justice's. >> i am from washington. brian kamoie said "those who think they're crazy enough to change the world are the ones that do." the ones have been able to talk to everyone about their differing perspectives. one thing we all have a in common is ambition and passion. that is where it really lies in changing the world and making it so we can all come together and

actually progress. >> ambition and passion. isn't ambition looked down upon? >> i think the way she put it, passion to do the right thing. that should be encouraged. i tend to not read things to students when i'm speaking to them. i action read the text of the apple corp. "think different." it is about thinking outside the status quo, thinking differently. when that company in the former steve jobs looked at people, the round pegs in the square holes, and a solid genius. they saw people not satisfied with the status quo. we will not have the advantage if we did not have people willing to push the boundaries.

were some i think the initial ideas that promise scientists have are crazy, the solid genius. those who think they are crazy enough to change the world are the ones to do. i was encouraging them to think big. >> what is number one on your list of things you would like to change in the world of? >> that is a long list. i think we could become ever more prepared for disasters and emergencies. that is really the focus of what i do. it is about promoting the resilience of people in our society and worldwide to avoid the destruction and death and injury wherever possible. the last year has been a record one for disasters. they're getting larger and more

expensive. one of the things i want to change is to continue to improve how we prepare our society for these kinds of events. >> in what way? >> record numbers in terms of their cost. billion dollar disasters last year was at an all-time high. we had a record number of presidents declared disasters last year, 99. we are getting more frequent. they're getting larger in terms of their scale. >> if you had to list the people that you know that have done the very best job of turning about a disaster in this country, is there one you can name? >> individuals? >> either. where they got a hold of the problem. >> it takes a large team to do all of this work. i would be reluctant to point out any individual.

the preparations that now go on in the southeast for hurricanes, but they have learned from experience. i will point out craig who is of ahe administratioor fema. we have come a far way in terms of our preparedness for infectious diseases, influenza pandemic. of what we have learned collectively i think is that we do best when we involve everyone and leverage the resources. we get people in the private sector more involved in the planning and the response. we learned something from everyone. those last three years we had the flu pandemic, the oil spill.

the fukushima emergency. we learned. >> here is the student group. [video clip] >> we heard from brian kamoie. i think he got a question about when it was, when he gave up his commitment. he said the day i walk through the white house gates and i am not in all is the day i should leave. public service is a privilege. far too often we have public servants take for granted. that is a shame. >> what do you mean by "not in alwe?" >> it is all an aspiring to work there on challenging issues that matter to the nation. i am with some incredibly smart

people that are committed to public service. awe when i walk through those gates. >> as you know, there are people that feel that is part of our problem here. people walk around in awe of people who do not tell them what they should tell them. what you think? >> i am in awe of the opportunity not myself. you keep the focus of what it should be about. you're doing what is read by the american people. i do not think it is a problem the opportunity to make a difference. what it really speaks to is the privilege. you should choose wisely when you're in these roles to do what you can with the time you have to make the most difference that you can. i do not know if you have the

clip, but one of the things i said is something we say a lot. "choose carefully and execute relentlessly." we have an unlimited number of issues. you have to choose carefully what to spend your time on and work on it till it is resolved. >> what you said to these kids, you are saying that from experience or something from a book? >> primarily from experience. we have been there a lot of disasters that taught this a lot. i have had some very good formal education. i really learned from my colleagues and very bad situations. one of the things i have also learned is a lot of times people think it bears the builds character. he learned that the diversity also reveals -- that adversity builds character. it also reveals character.

this teaches you a lot about yourself and what you need to do to get the job done. >> a years in government, when do you remember having the biggest apprehension about what was going on in the disaster? >> if you think of any of the brand name disasters we have had, we have had apprehension in all of them. >> when did you say this is really not good? >> the pandemic in 2009 could have taken a turn for the worse. luckily, the virus was not as lethal as it might have been. had it been more so, that could have caused a really challenging situation for not only our nation but for the planet. fukushima, the experience there with the reactor and the radiation, radiation

understandably scared people. we cannot see it. you cannot touch it. people know bad outcomes follow. that was a very uncertain time. because a lot of apprehension. the deep water rise in oil spill, what to do to stop the flow of oil. all of these have presented a really challenging, complex problems that took a lot of people to solve. at any time it could get taken a turn for the worse. they did not. >> did i hear you say there are 104 nuclear reactors? country? >> i do believe it is 104. >> what did you think when the japanese decided to shut down all the nuclear reactor's? >> that is a decision for the japanese government about how you balance the risks and the

benefits. i thought the approaches they are taking to the situation they confronted it is certainly within the range of reasonable approaches. we may make different decisions. it i am not here to talk about energy. >> did some come in the discussion after fukushima and say we ought to move to shut down all the nuclear reactor's? >> i am sure there were discussions. we focused on responding to the disaster. we do not really focused on the energy policy moving forward. the president has very qualified pfizer's. >> how you separate the government? >> you bring them together. i do not think you ever want to separate things so much that our deliberations are not informed by the experience. you bring the right people with

the right expertise. while we may resist, the moving forward we rely on the experts. i think we can advise with the potential is. >> what are you 42? >> 440. >> you look back on your life, can you think of someone that has really spoken well on their feet and impressed to? it does not have to be a politician. why did they press you? >> i think there are a lot of people over time i remember too impressed me. it is not just because i work for them. this present impresses the when he speaks. i want to be inspired when i hear a speech. you have been in this town for decades. you heard a lot of speeches.

what i most want when i hear someone talk is someone to inspire. i want to leave that event. i want to leave that event thinking a little bit differently about the problem at hand. the presence inspires me. >> how about a high-school -- high school and senior ones have inspired me as well. professor james taught me public policy. he always had a way of grounding the academic and the practical and thinking about what are the consequences of the policies that you are pursuing. what happens to the person wants the law is written? what happens downrange? the president is an inspiring figure. it he has really advanced the college.

he really reaches back to the founder of dickenson. [video clip]ednes >> he said choose carefully and execute relentlessly. often we are not focusing on the one thing that should be a top priority. it not only happens in our personal life but with people who work in our government. >> what did you do to get picked? >> i filled out an application,

some added an essay. i took a test. i interviewed. [end video clip] >> where did that come from? >is that years? >> i'm not going to claim credit. it is just something that struck me and many of my colleagues as we look at the whole range of opportunities. we talk about disasters, you and i could sit here and a fairly short amount of time and think of all the terrible things that could befall us. the give all the things we need to do. relentlessbe to make ourselves better prepared. people who inspired me along the way, i cannot say enough about

my high school student council adviser. it is not necessarily anything he said. it is the involvement he had in my life and the encouragement he gave me that regardless of how modest circumstances are, and i get me wrong, what we did not have much, we had enough and i have a great education, but these people who are in positions of authority or have the opportunity to open new areas of knowledge, at the end of the day what most students want is someone to say "you are good enough. you are a smart person and if you apply yourself there are opportunities ahead of you." just taking the time to care is more inspiring than just about anything.

back to choosing carefully and executing. one of the other things that tell the students was that they would have a lot of opportunities to choose what they work on. what i encourage them was not to play small ball. to take on important issues and not shy away from engaging in the important debate to solve really complicated problems. among all of the things we might choose to work on, to carefully and then work it until the problem is solved. >> the government is not exactly winning high praise. politicians are not winning high praise. you are an insider. why is this the case? what do you tell your own colleagues about the public's retion? >> i think public expectations are naturally very high. it is a big government.

people expect that the government will produce results that they can see and touch that are tangible. part of it is sharing the successes that have occurred, because there are many. distrusta natural of government. that is a healthy thing in a democracy. the burden on the government to show the value it adds is always there. it does not bother me that opinion polls may be a little low. it is an encouragement to do better. >> let's go to another clip. [video clip] >> one of the quotes from brian kamoie is once you realize the magnitude, everything else will pale in comparison. this entire week is about public

service. everyone we have talked to our public servants. there is no doubt that everyone will make an exceptional public servant one day. >> brian kamoie ought to feel very good about this. he is being quoted more than anybody. [end video clip] >> what was your reaction that they heard from the president. they heard from the chief justice. they heard from leon panetta appeared to be at 546 --panetta. we have five or six quotes from you. >> i was touched. i was surprised. i was humbled knowing the roster of individuals that these students heard from. i am thrilled to know if they walked away with a few things that i encourage them in, if this thing stick with them, sometimes that is all that need. in that particular case, i think he mentioned the same ones. that is a quote from a colleague

of mine. he's the chief of staff. he talked about the various career positions he had held in government in the private sector. one of the things he incurs the young staff at the white house was once you realize the difference that can be made in public life, the outcomes you achieved in some other professions pale by comparison. >> y? >> in terms of the magnitude of the opportunity to do good. that is not to say there are not contributions being made. for him and for me i trust that for some of the students they will ultimately see opportunities they have in public life will pale to be other opportunities that may present themselves. >> as you said, where is your

office? >> in the eisenhower executive office building. >> right next to the white house. >> you have been in government for eight years. what do you want to do a public service? >> i want to keep working on complicated problems with people who want to solve them. as to what i do tomorrow, i am going to take on the same set of challenging issues that we're working on today. i do not have any particular positions in mind. the opportunity to do this work with people that are smart and dedicated is what happens. >> how often do you think about going back to pennsylvania and working in the office? >> not very often. i am occupied by the job i have. we lived in annapolis, maryland. laura is a professor at the u.s. naval academy. she provides a service to the public. she is a romance novelist on the

side. we have teed of the zero young daughters. -- -- we have two young daughters. >> i went on your wife's site for the romance novelists. s. >> she right under a pseudonym. she is an academic. she also has academic writings as well. they are obviously very different constituencies and readers for those lines of work. she writes under a pseudonym. kamoie is not the easiest name to pronounced or spell. she thought it would be easier. >> what impact does it have on your family, your life, on you that she is a romance novelist? >> she is pursuing something she is passionate about. that is something wonderful for our doctors and a reminder to me that you're only limited by your

imagination. it does have a great effect. quite how long has she been interested in this? >> about four years. his been an academic for much longer. -- she has been an academic for much longer. let's let's go back to the students. this is our final students. [video clip] >> i am from vermont. "you never quite get everything done. except it. it is liberating." everyone was saying public service is great. we're passionate. we cannot get everything done. we have to pick a few things where passionate about. we do not have to change the world. just a little bit. >> did keep have this written down? >> i think he just topped off his cuff. it was impressive. [end video clip] >> did you have this written down desk but i just had a few -- down?

>> no. i just had a few quotes down. the director of the program had called. i knew the students were in town. i know there are alumni events associated with that. i believe that was a wednesday afternoon. the students were scheduled to meet with the president. his schedule change. she called and asked to see if i would visit with him. i would never turn down an opportunity because of what the program meant to me in my life. i talked with them. the quote she is talking about, realizing you're never going to get everything done. on any given day, there is a long list of tasks the my focus

on. truly it goes back to how you choose and how you approach this. one way to approach that is to just coming here is a long list. it was encouraging to think about the importance of what they do. really to focus at the list of potential things into is the most important. it is not letting the urgent crowd out the importance. what is the most important thing on the list that you can get done today? maybe you ought to start there. >> a lot of what goes on in this town is in the form of speeches. we ask you to come and talk. what is your philosophy of

speaking? how often do you speak? how long do you speak? what works and what does not? >> in this case what works is truly a message from my personal experience. really from the heart. those are not prepared remarks. there are not formal scripted remarks. they are a series of -- there are times when you are delivering a major policy address that is very heavily scripted. you have to get out some key messages that are important. other times it is more casual. you want to impart some things that you have learned. i think my philosophy of speaking is to make it more a conversation than a lecture to the extent that it is possible to engage the audience. to always think about they are in those chairs. i am up here in a podium. what matters to them in terms of what are they seeking to learn

or understand? is this first and 20 speeches that they will hear today? no one is ever going to fall you from hearing a speech by minutes early. i have learned some things over time in talking with students. >> go back to your own experience in the youth program. what did you get out of it? >> we had some prominent speaker it then. chief justice rehnquist spoke to us, and then senator al gore spoke to us. i met my senators from pennsylvania, arlen specter. the secretary of commerce at the time. >> you were 17. >> i was 17 or 18. >> do you remember your reaction? was there ever a time were you

said i'm going to do that some day? >> i do not know if i ever said i will do that some day. i do still remember the sense of magnitude of what these people did every day. i have learned about government, it took advanced placement classes in government and high school. to really look up from the page when you are in high school. you can read about the supreme court. here is the chief justice explaining to you how they go about making decisions. it surely was a profoundly positive experience for me. while i never thought i was one to be one of the speaker some day, i certainly thought these people are working on things that matter. that to me was inspiring as it is now. >> you said you were the first person in your family to go to college? >> ps. >> what did your parents say to you about college?

>> one was always do your best. it is something i repeat to our daughters. never give up. i share with them the value of persistence. they presented to me as a choice that if that is what i chose to do they would try and assess all that they could even though we did not have financial resources. dickinson was very generous in that regard. i do remember getting the acceptance letter. that book i mentioned to you, my mother saw in that book that my freshman year at dickenson would cost $18,600. even in 1989, that was more than my family made in a year. i found your quite upset. then i showed her how dickenson was going to make that possible. >> why did dickenson make it easy for you financially? did you have to pay it back?

>> had got a very small amount a student loans at the time. but think that left owing $10,000 in student loans. i think dickinson had a commitment as it does now to accessibility to higher education. it was a place that encouraged bill durham. the college up from bloated education. cost was certainly barrier for me. >> were you a good student all through school? >> you have to look at my transcripts. i think it did reasonably well. >> if someone is not, you were a good student which led to scholarships. what would you say to somebody that is watching that they just cannot get it together and get the '80s he might have gotten tax how do they get ahead?

might have gotten? how do they get ahead? >> you do not have to be a straight a student in college to get ahead. some have decided colleges not for them. after a while they decided they had had enough. i do not want to say there is only one path to success. the individual defines its. there is academic success. one of the things i enjoyed the most of high school and college for programs like the senate youth program. it was the experiences outside of the classroom. those taught me a lot. i did a lot of theater. these are the places you'll learn how to work with people. one of the things i told the students was you have to when you go through these programs and to come to washington a comment to senior government

level positions, you walk into the room and pretty much everybody would have been a student council president or have gotten a's at a top high school. in a that matters. what matters is your ability to work together to solve problems. you can learn that in a lot of ways that do not involve getting straight a's on exams. >> here's you giving a speech at george washington university were you taught back in early 2011. [video clip] >> those principles included you have to be able withstand an incident, adapting, adapt to change. incidents bring us a different circumstances. rapidly recover. those three principles, withstand, adapt, rapidly recover, became the organizing principles about our resilience

activities. [end video clip] >> lot of words there including "resilience." is that in your title? >> it is in the title of the office of which i work. the president soon after taking office did an internal study of how his staff that advise him was organized. he decided to merge the two staffs out of a recognition that there were few issues that were truly only in the foreign affairs a base for only domestic a base. the 2009 pandemic is a perfect example. once the virus became known, it was worldwide. the president joined the staff together. in doing so, he created a few new divisions of the combined national security staff. one of them is the resilience director. pretty early on, people said

what does that mean? what does that group of people with in the national security staff trying to accomplish? we took a look at the term and its use in different disciplines. we are not the first people to clean the term. engineers use the term about bridges and buildings. colleges use the term after large storms. there is resilience in emergency management and security. we have a few options. we could go through a fairly standard bureaucratic process, come up with a precise definition that is the exact 38 words that the united states means by resilience. we decided to take a different approach. we asked what are the principles we are trying to achieve year so

the full range of activities can be reflected in that. we talk about resilience of people or our government or of the private sector, what are we really talking about tax can we with stan -- talking about? can we will stand this tax can withstand this? once the incident is over, the a consensus have changed. we adapt to that. our approach means to be something that is adaptable to what we are confronting now. we want to recover. we want people to come back. we want the economy to come back from a disaster. we want to recover and rebuild and move on. >> was the world resilience your invention? >> no.

many people have written about that and to emergency management and homeland's security before i arrived. >> does it ever get to be difficult? can make it through this bureaucratic talking get to the point? >> we have driven their pretty quickly. we get a lot of requests for the precise definition. he will see it reflected in the president's national security strategy. what are the guiding principles about this concept? not a rigid definition that would be for all time and for all people. i think there would be a lot of hubris involved in that. we do try to cut through the bureaucratic language in get to the outcomes. >> just in researching your background, i watched the speech

you have given us on you to before a trade group. you were sizing all kinds of things including ready.gov. i found myself drowning in all of the information. i got on the website. i looked at them. how effective are these things? >> you pointed out something valuable. you have to reach people where they are. some people may not be interested in having reams of data presented to them or big thick books about how to prepare. some people would prepare to talk about it. other people would like to watch a short instructional video. other people it is as simple as updating a social media side for here are the things you should do to get ready. the messaging does need to be as simple as we can make it but as

informative as we can make it. we try to encourage people to make emergency plans. we do so anyway that we ask them "if you were stuck in washington on a bad day, had been made a plan with your family about where you to meet them? do you know how to reach each other if cell phones are not working due to great demand?" you reach people when you talk to them about their life and their families more so than wagging her finger and saying "you should do all of these things." you ask them about how they would confront certain situations and then offer them some resources. >> how for your daughters? >> my oldest will turn eight in a few days and my youngest daughter turns 6 on august 17. >> based on your experience compared to the. in your own home, what are you telling these young girls?

what do you want them to do in preparation for the kind of like you are leading? >> some of the lessons i learned as a child and that my own parents gave me an laura's parents gave her were very important, the value of persistence and doing your best at all times, of not giving up when things get frustrating are challenging. those are the kinds of values we in part. the importance of working with their friends and the golden rule. i think every parent offers to their child before you do something to think about whether you'd want that particular thing or those words said to you. i do not know that we are preparing them at this age for any particular career path. i do know that they just buy the apartment we are in, what we talk about, -- by the in

barmen we are in, what we talk about, and the books we read, they understand what goes on then. they are big fans of the first dog. anytime i can show them pictures of the dog or they see the document they are thrilled. -- dog, it they are thrilled. i cannot resist. how much do they know about the romance novels? >> they know their mother writes books. they think it's pretty cool. >> when you're introduced comic dimensions the following three words before he got on the stage. -- before you were introduced, in it, cascading catastrophe were mentioned before you got on stage. i want to know what that

means. what is an immense cascading catastrophe? >> immense conveys a sense of magnitude that it is larger than any individual organization, perhaps any individual level of government or city or state, larger instantly than any one unit of government can address on its own. we need to change our frame, bring resources from elsewhere and think about the size of what we are confronted with. >> have we had one of those tax >? >> the pandemic was nationwide. it is not as though one team of people could deal with that alone. the pandemic was immense and the scope. the oil spill was certainly an immense challenge. there's not going to be one team of people to deal with that.

the situation in japan with earthquakes, several tsunamis, and a nuclear emergency, that too was immense. cascading, when you have these events that affect the -- in the pandemic for example, you now have a demand on vaccine that is higher than it has been in a long time. that has cascading effect on industry and how quickly they can produce a vaccine, what they can do with the other lines of business they have. a disaster never agree to a hurricane is not affect structures, write? -- a disaster, and hurricane cannot affect structures, eifright? we rely on electricity.

the downgrade affects do present a cascade of issues that need to be resolved. it is not just the immediate aftermath of a harry came. then i think the last one was catastrophic -- catastrophe goes to the scope of magnitude. he is the assistant to the president. >> do you feel like you are close are far away from the president? >> we have a flatter organization. there is value placed on taking initiatives. i do not feel like there is a

bureaucracy that inhibits or constrains our thinking for our action whatsoever. we keep everyone informed. >> he said the united states is not prepared than ever before, . >> this is the mechanism by which the president provide guidance to the executive departments and agencies. the three principles in that policy interest a question. the first thing the president gave us guidance on was to take an all nation approach to how we solve these problems.

by that he meant involve the private sector. involve communities that preparedness and resilience are not just government matters. chevron has a role to play. everyone does best -- everyone has a role to play. everyone does best we combine them. our private sector is very good at logistic. we talk about how we can get this done. we should also talk to individuals and families about the types of information they need to get better prepared or what they do not need. what they do not need is an avalanche of information that is not immediately accessible to them. an example is 2009. people so what can i do?

a key message about what you can do to protect yourself and your family. cost into your sleeve rather than your hands. if you're sick, keep your kids out of school. this is the principle. the second principle was a rather than focus on every doomsday scenario and writing five or 600 page plans to deal with every conceivable contingency, focus on the key capabilities or the key things that we need to get done. we had done pandemic influenza planning for years.

earlier we were worried about the h151 influence and then we got a different virus. that virus is not the attention to the plans we had written before or the assumptions we had written about the avian influenza that started in southeast asia. we would have a lot of time to deal with border issues. we have to stay flexible. the last piece was measure our progress. how the measure preparedness? how do we have the measurement so that we can show the american people that what we are achieving th. these are some of the principles about how we do resilience policy. >> brian kamoie, dickinson college, george washington

university law school, public health, currently on the staff of the national security council at the white house. we thank you very much for talking to us about your approach to speaking. >> thank you. it is an honor to be here. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> views expressed are brian kamoie's and not the current administration. >> for dvd copy of the is programmed1 call-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at www.q-and- a.org. "q & a" programs are also available as c-span podcasts.