Inside OSAC's Race Against Terrorism

The Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) was set up to forge better cooperation between the public and private sector in the event of an attack like the recent Marriott bombing in Pakistan. In this Q&A, OSAC member and Honeywell security chief John McClurg explains how it all works.

By Bill Brenner, Senior Editor

September 23, 2008 — CSO —

Last weekend's bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan is the type of incident the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) was set up to deal with. Specifically, its goal is to keep such events from happening in the first place and, if necessary, help those affected by terrorist acts to bounce back quickly.

To do that, this federal advisory council works to promote security cooperation between American business and private sector interests across the globe. Participating in these activities is John McClurg, vice president of global security for Honeywell International. Honeywell is an OSAC member organization along with such business giants as CIGNA, Boeing, FedEx and Raytheon, and McClurg chairs a subcommittee designed to ensure that critical information is delivered in as many media formats as possible.

In this Q&A, McClurg explains how the organization works and how it can help corporations prevent or at least weather the next attack.

CSO: For those unfamiliar with OSAC, describe its history and main goals.
John McClurg: It's one of the longest-running and most successful private-public partnerships in existence. It started in the 1980s during the administration of (U.S. Secretary of State) George Schultz during a critical time when this kind of cooperation was rare.

John McClurg

Fast-forward to 2008: We recently observed the seventh anniversary of 9-11. With that in mind, what's the main security concern of OSAC these days?
McClurg: The center at all times for us is to ensure a proper apprehension of the validated threats that are poised to strike against U.S. corporations functioning in the global marketplace. Wrapping our arms around that ever-changing dynamic threat profile in a way that's meaningful and actionable for U.S. corporations is at the heart of the whole exercise. The growing analytic staff at the heart of the OSAC mission is geared toward that, effectively linking up with the private sector to help filter and pinpoint trends and be a source in which constituents can prepare for whatever may be coming down the pike.

Describe the specific ways in which member organizations work together.
McClurg: There are a variety of ways we work together. At one end of the spectrum is the collaboration and networking that takes place at our annual November briefing in Washington D.C. We sit and listen to reports and establish dialogues with different organizations that can best collaborate. We also rely on more than 100 country councils around the globe that are tied into OSAC. They are associated and linked to various embassies and hold regular meetings where concerns and best practices for specific local issues can be traded between members. Then there's the website, where a lot of threat information flows in on a real-time basis to our members. Of our three main committees, one is focused on that kind of content. Then there's a committee tasked with keeping up on and growing membership, then my committee is tasked with making sure all our information is delivered in effective ways, be it news articles or podcasts.

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