>> colonel. >> thank you very much for allowing us to come here and participate because it is important. we really appreciate very much this opportunity. we're doing well right now but there's khal lefrpgs we can do better on and that's exactly what we're looking forward to do. we're looking forward to build upon and leverage what we're doing here. communications, that was one of the first things. it's different with our active duty forces because you see here, we send our aircraft all around the world. we can't necessarily just invest in some components in the aircraft and call it good because those assets may be gone and deployed but we have work arounds for that. we are looking forward to that as well in addition to the training. lastly is we again kind of relish the opportunity to

participate in the operations against an active enemy. at least here, it's fire. we appreciate the fact we can go ahead and enter a tactical command air control. those are operations that are familiar to us and they are, it's a great exercise for us tactically as well. we are able to integrate with cal fire itself with the objective being the fire itself. those work out for us here and we can go ahead and use those skills forward as well. thank you very much, we appreciate the opportunity. >> thank you, i'd like to thank our panelists and open it up to our group for any questions of our panelists today. yes, sir, secretary. >> there are a lot of things you can do in a forest that tend to make it easier it fight a fire like most importantly burning off the fuel during the wet season so there's less for

the fire to feed on. to what extent in cal fire and all your other things do you encourage people to do things in their forest when you don't have a fire that make it easier and more effective in fighting the fire? >> it's an excellent question, sir. we spend a large time in cal fire on public education and prevention and also with respect to you were talking about fuel, the fuels program, or vegetation management program in cal fire, we have a robust program throughout the state where we are conducting burning operations and vegetation management with prieflt ranch owners and private land owners as well as on state and cooperating with our federal agencies with the u.s. forest service. so two-fold program, vegetation management, we aggressively pursue that, but also from a public education stand point. what we find in these large

scale incidents, the public is going to have to be self-sustaining and self-supporting. they need to be prepared. we try to educate them in respect that we say we'll provide the offense, you provide the defense. we talk to them about hardening their structures in a defensive measure against wild land fires. a lot of it is public education, survivability, building standards, but predominately our focus is putting the onus on the land owner, putting the onus on the private property owner, we will attempt to protect your home but the days of staying and defending your home and killing our fire fighters are done. we will not stand and defend a house that has not been prepared by a land owner and die for it. we don't do that any more. that's one of our doctrinal changes and we set forth some new guidelines with that. >> thank you.

>> question, mr. secretary. >> in a large scale disaster relief, where the military is called in to assist the civilian components there is an obvious issue of how you get the command and control and in particular what telecommunications is used to support that command and control. your exercising together is very critical, i think, to working out command and control but you still have an equipment problem because the equipment, telecommunication equipment designed for the military was different from that used. how are you working out to get the coordination of telecommunications, particularly in disaster relief where the cellular infrastructure may be broken down and not available to support? could you comment somehow are you going to work out this telecommunications problem. >> so from a perspective of fema, we not only have a defense officer appointed by

dod embedded with us during a disaster but we actually practice and have communications interoperatability over our systems to be sure we can communicate with each other on similar platforms and also support state and local platforms, whether it was katrina or other events we've actually been able to bring in national guard platforms to provide 911 systems for cities that have lost those systems. we recently in the joplin tornados and also tuscaloosa tornados we brought in dod equipment to replace what was destroyed. from the fire side i know there's a lot of things you are doing to work around the interoperatability issues with regard to communications between fire and dod and maybe if ray or anybody else wants to speak to that. >> our communications challenges still exist. we have excellent telecom

communications, we have a layered effect of our radio systems. we have mobile command posts that we can exercise. so we're prepared for power outages, reduction of telecoms, we have a layered effect for our communications. but as everybody here said, we need help. if somebody here can help me get a navy or marine corps aircraft to talk to my guys on the ground tactically, i need that and i don't have that today. i use a command control helicopter, a civilian helicopter, to handle that and transfer that to an air to air victor frequency. but from a command control perspective, we're fairly robust. are we perfect, no, but we do have layered defenses against that. >> miss yeager, i don't know if you want to say anything from a national guard

perspective. >> we have some mobile explorable platforms we can send out to incidents to help provide additional infrastructure in the event everything breaks down then our units have organic communications capability so i can move that out and i can help reinforce cal fire on their incident with what i have in the aviation brigade and units through the state of california have that same communication but the iceu, which is a mobile communications platform, is ideal in events like this to push out to help. >> any other questions? >> i have one. back in 1992 when it was a big fire season and there was a lot of grass, they came to us and i was down at camp pendleton and they asked us it train marines on shovel work. what happened about 6 months later, they ended up sending two battalions to yellowstone. i haven't heard any discussion at all, do you expect the military, the

guard or the active forces to be training people to do shovel-like work? all you have talked about so far is aviation. >> one of the challenges with a ground-based attack and training a soldier to be a ground-based fire fighter is the training takes time. and it takes approximately 3 to 5 days of solid training to make sure that they are going to be working in a safe environment to learn what's going on. and most of the time that, the incidents in california will become mitigated. now, not to say that we certainly have that as an option. we have a fairly robust what we call fire crew program using cdcr inmate fire fighters. it is on our radar and it's something that we have

as a contingency if we needed to do it. >> lieutenant colonel. >> yes, general, in the mou it does address the ground portion but the focus of effort is mainly on the aviation side but it is built in there for the ground side if necessary. >> i just want to say in 2008 we did activate hand crews to fight fires and we've identified soldiers throughout the state to respond if needed. they've got the tools that they need, the boots and all that cached and available. it's really just a matter of getting the call and being ready to go. >> i was going to end with general myat. i know we've trained soldiers to do that kind of thing. after the colorado fires just recently they did put a lot of soldiers that trained, so we do still have that program who can do that if the need warrants. any other questions from out

there before i turn it over to general myat? let me thank our panel here. >> thank you. (applause). as we leave here today, we need to keep the ball moving forward. we can't -- i think most of us all here would agree, we really can't prevent the next disaster from happening. but by building the partnerships that we are here today and will continue to build in the future, we can certainly limit the number of deaths and long-term destruction. we can surge a lot of things:

resources, people. but we cannot surge trust. so venues such as this is what helps us build that trust so that when the bell does go off we know -- a comment i made yesterday and i'd like to use it again in closing today, the most important thing for me to come out of this two-day seminar and sbat -- into the future is the ability for us to physically face to face look each other in the eye, shake hands and say to each other, we are in this together. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. . (applause). >> thank you, admiral beeman. you have helped me carry out one of the instructions

secretary schultz gave to me 3 years ago, bring the fleet back to fleet week. we couldn't do it without you. i thank secretary and mrs. perry for coming, just -- i know it's, you've got some other things, people are waiting on you right now but i really appreciate you coming here. of course secretary and mrs. schultz for the entire program. vice admiral nathan, i don't know if he's here, he may have gone already, but he gave a great talk yesterday on the medical side. and vice admiral z, coast guard, our senior rep here, i can never pronounce his name but he's made things great. general speese, thank you for making this happen. rear admiral hubner, he was here, he's been

terrific working with us. rear admiral rivera coming up from the chilean navy, thank you so much. i learned a lot. we need the kind of input that we got from you, really, and we thank you so much. i would be remiss not to mention the two people that really are responsible for all this. first was lewis loeven. lewis loeven works hours and hours to do this. thank you so much. but the other is because she's committed to make it happen and it's her focus that always to learn from everything that happens, ann koninberg at dem, thank you so much, ann, for everything you do. you had to have a pass to get on the ship. i've asked captain pringle, to get off

the ship, i wonder if you can secure the hatch until they fill out their participant form. if you could do that, i would appreciate that. fleet week, we are a neutral convener of the process to improve the relation ships between this global force for good and the local civilian officials. and one of our goals is next time you put up your slide with all those logos on it, general, you are going to have the san francisco fleet week logo on it, too. i look at what we accomplished in 2010, we had a meeting to understand dsca, in 2011 we had the table top exercise, we debriefed that, we had a great speaker then we had an education seminar. this time, this year we had a functional exercise in august which was

terrific, you saw the panel, a medical exercise as part of fleet week and you saw the enthusiasm of the participants, then we had the back brief. now we've had a strategic operational and tactical discussions about going forward and the things that we can accomplish. so what are you going to do in 2013? well, fill out the form and tell us what you think we ought to do but we're going to be working hard to move this forward. i think ray cheney said it from cal fire best today: we are all better off because we're in here for the last day and a half and i'm sitting here wondering, all my contemporaries, what have they been doing for the last 36 hours? they haven't been doing anything near as important as what we've been doing. i thank all of you so much for participating and stay in touch. if we've got your email address you will never be lonely because we're going to get you back here next year. thank you all so much.

(applause).

thank you. good morning, everyone. wow! [ applause ] wow. we just won the super bowl. good morning, everyone. thank you for coming this morning. a few weeks ago here we announced that my intention to appoint supervisor carmen chu and we made a commitment that we wanted to make her replace many appointment soon after we had time to talk with

residents, businesses to get their in put the about a replacement. if i have learned anything i have learned that the residents appreciate the leadership. it's been very strongly felt by many people, from park side to ocean beach. it's just in credible how that large group has appreciated the work. i have a strong push that continuity was important to the residents and the businesses in district 4. that they felt there was so much that the city had gone flew through and the

district and certainly understood the team to help her legislatively, help her look at the district, implement and communicate and all the supervisors i want to thank and all the officials that are here all of them for their constant work with carmen and to know that they have a member of the team that would present that very strong continuity for the district. i spent the last several weeks talking to the residents, having not only coffee but a number of different appointments. i talked to individuals who were interested in the position as well. i know we have one of the

finest, legislative aids who knows the board and being a presence in the public finances and helped supervisor chu work budgets, help create the plan to establish the two year budget with our office but also really talk through district and the rest of the board members in understanding deeply what our budget concerns are and then i think on the district side truly representing the interest of this district and all of it's diverse views about what it needed. so, i want to introduce my appointment today katie tang . [ applause ] . katie has lived in the

district since she 1 year old. that might have been 13 years ago. [ laughter ] you will note and i'm sure it will be part of the stories we'll tell that it was the same age as carmen when she was appointed. her parents also live in the district as well and not only a resident but someone more interested in the district and representing all the issues, and graduate of lowel high school. both of my

daughters are blowing kisses to me from new york as they also graduated from that fantastic school. she has a very distinction have gone to u c davis. obviously some very strong intelligence, a double major, of course it is a proper time to thank mr. and mrs. tang for that great lineage of parentage that is demonstrated there. i have no doubt that katie will fulfill these incredible obligations responsibly for the district, representing everybody. she has been literally every corner and again the residents have continued to say can we have continuity. we want to have things done. we don't want name

calling or disputes. really the collaborative experience that this board is demonstrating, they wanted the same thing representing district 4 which is something they felt in supervisor's chu's representation for the last five years. i have no doubt that she'll be an effective representative of the district and also can be having things running and as you know we have an election coming. part of these conversations is how can we make sure we have someone that can balance all of these things and be true to commitment to getting all of these don's done that have

been on the agenda for the last couple years, whether it's painting or a park, all things that we want to see completed and carried to the future in a most responsive way. i know we are going to have a great colleague especially from the comments that i have heard from the rest of the board members. they feel very happy with this choice as well because they know katie, they know her work and they know how she's communicated with them and certainly katie's had that great collaboration already with our key agencies in the city. so with that, i would like to introduce our appointie who we will swear in tomorrow

and have that done in haste so we can get on with the production of the city. may i introduce katie tang. [ applause ] >> good morning, everyone. i guess the suspense is over now. i want to thank everyone for being here today. all the community members, members of the city family, members of the board standing behind me, my parents. my partner justin, but i especially want to thank mayor lee forgiving me the opportunity to represent the district 4. i also have to be completely honest here. this is a very bitter sweet moment for

me, as someone who has lived in district 4 for over 20 years, i'm happy to represent the district that i grew up in, but on the other hand as a district 4 resident i'm sad to see supervisor chu leave as my supervisor. everyone says that work is work and you have to separate your personal life from your work life. for me especially in the past five years, work is very personal . when i first started working in district 4, people came to the office and wanted to rebuild the playground. i remember my own fond experiences at west sunset and thought people should be able to enjoy it as much as i did. with the pool open, i couldn't help to feel

jealousy because that's where i learned to swim and then eventually teaching lessons. when i go to my parents house and look outside of the living room window, i think wow, that's the largest solar project and our office was there. whenever i think of how i first learned how to ride a bicycle, i remember how my parents supported our businesses. they bought our first bicycle. right now i spend so much time with the businesses our district. at the same time, i'm so glad that place that i went to an as child are still there. so as we talk about job creation and economics situation of the

city, i hope to continue to work with local merchants. i think of how we are so lucky to be able to work with the beach. when we talk about access to our district and public transportation, i think about my experience writing unigrowing up. there was no 311. unihas made improvements. more needs to be done to help residents who have the largest commute to the city. one of the parents called our office distressed about the school system. i was lucky to be able to walk to and from school with my friends. i'm so proud to be a product of the public education and the san francisco

unified school drink district. as you can see i have a hard time separating my personal life from my professional life. i look forward to continue to work and make sure that our residents have parks and playground to enjoy. making sure that our representative are well represented when it comes to budget discussions and making sure that we have a thriving local economy. people choose to live in the outer sunset for a certain quality of life and i hope that i can contribute my part to ensure that people if you're a college student, i want to make

people love to live in san francisco. i would like to thank someone who has been a huge part of my life. carmen chu. to me carmen has really set a great example of what a supervisor should be. someone who should maintain integrity and someone who represents issues in a great manner and even if someone you are in disagreement with, treats you with respect. as john said, follows hilary clinton, i have big heels to fill. thank you for your work in san francisco. the city has a great person to run this city. finally i ha