NAVIGATING THROUGH THE UNTHINKABLE
PREPAREDNESS WITHOUT PARANOIA®
Founder - Preparedness Without Paranoia®
Dr. Kathleen Kiernan
There are only a few times in ordinary lives when inspiration and imagination can come together and last; PWPORG is exactly that place. It provides an opportunity to use a lifetime of service and earned experience to help others invest in their own security and preparedness. Learning these skills early can last a lifetime, and literally, help save lives. There have been countless times in my law enforcement career where I witnessed avoidable tragedy in which fear always played a central role. For some, it was the result of not knowing what to do, and for others, having the knowledge but not acting on it in a timely way. I have always been inspired to serve others and I have always imagined being able to find creative ways to both learn and teach. At PWP, we have an amazing team that does exactly that.
Meet Our Team
Board of Governance
Dr. Kathleen Kiernan
Founder PWP
Dr. Kathleen Kiernan, a mission-driven practitioner and educator at heart, and is the founder of PWPORG, which is designed to bring common sense preparedness skills to kids and families in an increasingly complex world. She believes that the path to preparedness begins with education and active community engagement; skills which learned and practiced early will last a lifetime, enabling action without fear or hesitation when an ordinary day turns extraordinary.
Working with a team of marvelous volunteers, PWP also publishes a digital magazine for parents, Parents With Preparedness, which takes on the most difficult and most important issues impacting children and family safety to include bullying, school and domestic violence, human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The magazine also contains a comprehensive Resource Guide with curated, easy to access materials for busy families
Now, the President of NEC National Security Systems, she is a 29-year veteran of Federal Law Enforcement previously serving as the Assistant Director for the Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) where she was responsible for the design and implementation of an intelligence-led organizational strategy related to explosives, firearms, and illegal tobacco diversion, the traditional and non-traditional tools of terrorism.
Dr. Kiernan is a recognized expert in strategic thinking, strategy development, and facilitating critical incident management exercises for senior leaders across government and private sector organizations. These include national and international level policies related to criminality and terrorism; Active Shooter/Active Threat; Insider Threat, risk management; anomalous behavior detection; continuity of operations, crisis management and crisis communications. In addition, Dr. Kiernan has served as a SME for Risk Assessment and Gap Analysis efforts for some of our nation’s most critical assets. She was the Principal Investigator for an international project related to suicide bomber methodology; the results of which informed national level risk mitigation policies and the development of behavioral detection training, as well as countermeasure investment.
Dr. Kiernan is the recipient of a number of national awards to include the Women of Influence-Public Sector award; the American Security Today Platinum Award for Best Educational Program in Homeland Security in 2017 through 2021; and the Illinois Security Professionals Association Excellence in Emergency Management in 2019. Other highlights of Dr. Kiernan’s credentials include: Chair of InfraGard, now Emeritus, member of the Army Science Board, where she led a panel exploring the transition of law enforcement training and technology to the warfighter; member of the Air Force Strategic Studies Board; former Chair of the Domestic Intelligence Council for the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA); graduate of the FBI’s National Executive Institute (Class 26); and a Senior Fellow at the George Washington Homeland Security Policy Institute.
Dr. Kiernan is an adjunct faculty member of the Johns Hopkins School of Education and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School. She is also a member of the AFCEA Intelligence Committee, the Business Executives for National Security (BENS), ASIS International and a member of the Advisory Board for the Potomac Institute, the Washington, D.C. Police Foundation and the Advisory Board for the Center for Advanced Red Teaming at the University of Albany, SUNY.
Ernie Allen
Board Member
Ernie Allen is a global expert on public-private partnerships; the digital economy; the Dark Web; and child protection including the issues of child abduction, sexual exploitation, sexual violence, human trafficking and modern slavery. He frequently speaks to global audiences on these issues and serves on a number of boards. Through his consulting company, Allen Global Consulting, LLC he is an advisor to governments, law enforcement, technology companies, nonprofit organizations, the Vatican and others.
In 2014 he was appointed by then-Prime Minister David Cameron to serve as Chairman of the United Kingdom’s global initiative to combat online child abuse and exploitation. He continues to chair an expanded WePROTECT Global Alliance which today includes 98 countries, 53 technology companies, 61 NGO’s, UNICEF, Interpol, and others.
He helped organize the Vatican’s 2017 World Congress: Child Dignity in the Digital World where Pope Francis spoke about the growing victimization of children online. He continues to head the Vatican’s Child Dignity initiative today. In 2018 Mr. Allen worked with the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Interior to create a new global interfaith effort. He also co-chaired a Steering Committee for the Interfaith Alliance Forum hosted by the UAE in Abu Dhabi that brought together faith leaders from around the world who collaborated to create an interfaith campaign to protect children.
More than thirty years ago the problem of child abduction and victimization was largely unrecognized and unreported. Mr. Allen led the effort to create a comprehensive response to the problem and create a national resource center. He was the architect and
co-founder of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and served the organization for close to 30 years, first as Chairman and then as President and CEO.
During his tenure more than 180,000 missing children were recovered and the recovery rate increased from 62% in 1990 to 97%. He created America’s national 24-hour missing children hotline; brought age progression of long term missing children photos, facial reconstruction, other forensic services and technology to law enforcement; provided training for more than 300,000 police officers; created Team Adam and Project Alert to use retired law enforcement with special expertise in difficult missing child cases; and created a Cold Case Unit to keep long-term cases alive.
He established the U.S. national CyberTipline for reporting suspected child sexual exploitation; the Child Victim Identification Program to review and analyze millions of child pornography images to identify and rescue child victims; and a program to help the U.S. Marshals track 100,000 fugitive sex offenders.
Under his leadership revenues increased by 2400% and the organization grew to $50 million with 350 staff. NCMEC was graded A+ by the prestigious American Institute of Philanthropy (one of only ten national charities), and the organization was named one of “America’s 100 Best Charities” by Worth Magazine.
To extend the effort globally, he founded the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, and served simultaneously as its President and CEO. He built a global missing children’s network with 23 nations, trained law enforcement in 121 countries and worked with parliaments in 100 countries to enact new laws on child pornography. He worked with governments to create new non-profit centers on missing and exploited children in Belgium, South Africa, Romania, Russia and a regional center in Southeastern Europe, and developed partnership agreements with Interpol, the Organization of American States and the Hague Conference on Private International Law.
During this time he awakened financial leaders and policy makers to the risks of unregulated virtual currencies and the anonymous “Dark Web” and became a globally recognized expert on the issue. He created and chaired a Digital Economy Task Force whose policy recommendations were implemented by nations worldwide. He created and chaired a Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography involving 34 of the world’s leading financial institutions, which reduced commercial child pornography from a $30 billion industry to virtually zero. He created a technology coalition involving 9 major Internet and technology companies which collaborated to create new technologies to address child victimization. And he created a Global Health Coalition of 15 major pharmaceutical companies and health care institutions who addressed child sexual abuse and exploitation for the first time as a public health crisis.
Mr. Allen is the author of numerous articles and book chapters. He has served as adjunct or visiting faculty for numerous universities and the Mayo Clinic. His work has been widely recognized including by four U.S. Presidents, many members of Congress; two U.S. Attorneys General; the U.S. Department of Justice; the FBI; the Secret Service; and other U.S. federal law enforcement agencies, the Australian Federal Police, Interpol, the British Parliament and others. He was called “one of America’s foremost social entrepreneurs” by President George W. Bush and named “Executive of the Year” by Non-Profit Times for reuniting 5,192 displaced children with their families following Hurricane Katrina. He was named one of the Most Influential People in Security by Security Magazine, and was honored by the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit. In 2021 he was awarded the title Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
Mr. Allen has received numerous awards including being the first male to receive the prestigious Sandra Day O’Connor Voice for Women Award from the Arizona Foundation for Women, and he received Attorney General Eric Holder’s Award for Meritorious Public Service, the top public service award granted by the U.S. Department of Justice. He received the Award for Excellence in Public/Private Partnership from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Office of Inspector General. He received the Dalla Parte dei Bambini award from Il Telefono Azzurro in Milan, Italy and was the first recipient of the Champion for Children Award from INHOPE in The Netherlands.
James Robell
Board Member
President & Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board of Fortior Solutions, LLC
James “Jim” Robell is President and Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board of Fortior Solutions. He joined Fortior Solutions in 2002 after serving 19 years at Intel Corporation. He was promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer in 2005 after having served three years as the company’s Vice President of Marketing, where he created the RAPIDGate® and RAPID-RCx® brands. In 2017, the board unanimously appointed Jim to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer, and in 2018, he was unanimously made Chairman of the Board. Fortior Solutions has helped protect more than 150 United States military facilities and processed more than 1 million people through the RAPIDGate program. The RAPID-RCx program has scanned more than 500 million credentials. Together these programs have accurately and securely identified more than 50,000 people trying to enter military and critical infrastructure facilities with unsuitable backgrounds, forged credentials, and assumed identities.
Prior to his tenure at Fortior Solutions, Jim was an executive at Intel Corporation serving in a variety of roles including technical, sales and marketing positions. Notably, he founded and served as Director of Intel's worldwide Application Design-in Centers, Worldwide Intel Customer Support, Worldwide Crisis Management, the Y2K rollover and the Worldwide Intel Architecture Sales Campaign. Several of his technical articles have been published in Intel publications and he has been a keynote speaker in several capacities. Jim’s technical background strengths include active radio frequency identification, mainframe architecture, microprocessor, microcontroller, development tools, embedded and proprietary networked operating systems.
Jim has received numerous awards throughout his career, and in 2017 he was honored on behalf of SureID, with the prestigious “Semper Fidelis” award from the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. Jim currently sits on various boards, holds various clearances, is certified in Best Practices for Anti-Terrorism Security by the Department of Homeland Security, is an authorized user of Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability Information by the Department of Homeland Security and has significant experience working with members of Congress, their staffs and lobbyists. Jim has also been a keynote speaker during the Central Intelligence Agency’s industry day. In 2015, he was recognized by Dr. Reginald Brothers, Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for Science and Technology as a Subject Matter Expert for the Passenger Screening Recommendations Task Force and served on the respective industry panel. Jim has also served as a member of the Governor’s Economic Development delegation for North Dakota in partnership with Norway.
Jim has received several recognitions for his work with youth sports and the Camp Pendleton Armed Services YMCA. He also has been a strong supporter of a number of charities including the Susan G. Komen® Race for the Cure, the Make-A-Wish Foundation® and Washington County Kids (WCK).
Jewel Williams
Board Secretary
Ms. Jewel Williams is the Board Secretary for PWPORG.ORG. She is also a contributing author to the Lucky The Preparedness Dog Activity Book series and a narrator of the stories. A Mother, Grandmother, and philanthropist at heart, Jewel brings both joy and creativity to this educational charity, in addition to being responsible for its financial governance.
Chief of Accounting at Kiernan Group Holdings, Inc. with over 30 years of progressive experience in all aspects of corporate financial management and business operations. She is a highly qualified accounting professional who obtained her license as a Certified Public Accountant in 1989. Ms. Williams began her career in public accounting with KPMG, working in both the audit and tax departments. Ms. Williams specializes in accounting for government contractors and has a proven track record of consistently achieving and exceeding corporate financial performance goals. She has the skill and ability to effectively manage multiple tasks, entities, and cross-functional teams while thriving in fast-paced, dynamic environments.
At KGH, Ms. Williams manages all aspects of the accounting cycle to include accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash management, and financial statement reporting. In addition, she is directly responsible for the implementation of effective financial controls and safeguards for the organization, and the accounting policies, procedures, and systems for financial forecasting and budget management. Ms. Williams provides the financial analysis necessary to accurately apprise the CEO of the company’s profitability and performance in order to ensure proper planning and strategic direction
Ms. Williams has served numerous small businesses in various financial management positions winning the “Above All Else” Leadership Award and Special Services Recognition for her support and commitment to the Sales Teams of those organizations. She is an avid parent volunteer serving numerous youth organizations.
Advisory Board
Heather Issvoran
Chair
For two decades, Heather Issvoran has been the bridge between Federal, state, local, and tribal homeland security practitioners and officials with global thought leaders on resilience, homeland security, and emergency management. As the Director, Strategic Communications, Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School, Ms. Issvoran scours the country ensuring the Center enrolls the very best candidates for its executive and graduate programs. Her responsibilities include contract support for strategic communications, agency outreach, student and alumni relations, recruitment, and public affairs. She supervises and coordinates Center communications on the national level for print, broadcast, and web-based media, working closely with both the Naval Postgraduate School and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security leadership on these endeavors. Ms. Issvoran leads a strategic communications operation and department that shares, shapes, and demonstrates the impact and success stories of CHDS students, faculty, staff and alumni and reaches out to a national audience of academics and practitioners. In her previous position in contract support for the Center as the Director of Program Operations, Ms. Issvoran enhanced and streamlined program operations while working with government partners to accommodate additional programmatic goals. Ms. Issvoran provided logistical planning, coordination and execution of the Center’s master’s degree programs, executive leaders programs, conferences, and workshops. Ms. Issvoran has a background in the fields of education and marketing in addition to her operations experience. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Studies from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. Specialties: Marketing, operations, public relations, advertising, human resources, public speaking, business development, team-building, service training, alumni relations, strategic communications, executive recruitment (public and private sectors), and event planning.
Erin Hang
Vice Chair, Advisory Board
Erin Hang is Senior Director of Vetting and Screening Service at Fortior Solutions, LLC., where she serves as their identity and criminal history vetting subject matter expert. Erin has worked with Federal Government agencies such as Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Justice (DOJ), National Laboratories and other critical infrastructure facilities to create, implement, analyze and fulfill vetting requirements for key programs within the Government. In 2014, Erin led her company in becoming the first non-criminal justice entity to run National Crime Information Center (NCIC) checks on behalf of the U.S. military through the Department of Justice (DOJ).
She is a certified FBI NCIC Terminal Operator and Trainer and manages the company’s National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (Nlets) and DOJ JUST Strategic Partnerships, is certified under DHS Best Practices in Anti-Terrorism Security (BPATS), is an authorized user of DHS Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability Information (CVI) data and managed the companies FBI Channeling program for more than 12 years.
She has stood up and managed multiple teams throughout the last 17 years supporting more than 150 U.S. military locations. Under her leadership, her team has provided over 5 million criminal history background checks for DHS and DoD. Outside of her corporate life she and her husband are the proud parents of two school age boys. Her unique professional background gives her special insight to provide experience-based situational awareness guidance and knowledge.
Deanee Johnson, Ph.D
Chair, Emeritus
Dr. Johnson is a key player in advancing the victim services field, specifically responding to child victims of sexual exploitation and polyvictimization. She is the Executive Director of Just for Kids Child Advocacy Center in Beckley and Fayetteville, West Virginia.
She has over 20 years of experience in the crime victim field, working directly with victims and survivors, partnering with multidisciplinary professionals and teams to meet the needs of child victims and their families. She started as a volunteer mentor for adolescent sexual assault survivors in 1999 in Huntsville, Texas. She has since worked as a Survivor Specialist, Child Forensic Interviewer, Director of a statewide sexual assault coalition, and Director of a Court Appointed Special Advocates program in Southern Maryland. She has recently worked with the Serbian Center on Missing and Exploited Children by providing training on adverse childhood experiences and systematic response to trauma. She was a Visiting Fellow with the Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime and served on the National Steering Committee for the Vision 21 Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth demonstration project. Dr. Johnson has advised large-scale training and technical assistance efforts, policy and procedure implementation plans, organization management endeavors and collaborated with many federal and state agencies serving child victims. She is a certified facilitator with Stewards of Children, has advanced training in child forensic interviewing, and interviewing child victims of sex trafficking. As an OVC Fellow, she assisted the DOJ ODAG to identify the range of child sexual exploitation programs available nationwide, illuminating best practices.
Dr. Johnson has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, a master’s degree in counseling, and her Ph.D. in child development.
Tammy Waitt
Committee Chair, Advisory Board
Tammy Waitt is a co-founder and the managing director of American Security Today (AST), an industry-leading media platform that focuses on new and evolving security threats at all levels of homeland security and public safety.
AST brings the most cutting-edge and forward-thinking security solutions on the market to the company’s 75K+ readers, to ensure those on the front lines of protecting our communities have the information they need to keep our Nation safe, one facility, street and city at a time.
She holds a degree in criminal justice, has worked in a therapeutic environment with adjudicated adolescents in a medium security correctional facility, and has served as a sworn law enforcement officer in the State of New Jersey.
Tammy spent five years managing a county rape crisis office and has worked extensively with vulnerable and at-risk populations, including children. She has four children and ten grandchildren.
Nabeela Barbari
Board Advisor
Nabeela Barbari is the Executive Vice President of OTHSolutions, Inc., a national security consulting firm where she leads strategy and growth operations. Prior to joining OTHSolutions, Nabeela was a federal civil servant for 15 years, most notably serving as the Director of Resilience and Response at the White House National Security Council and Associate Chief of Policy at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
During her DHS tenure, Nabeela also served as the Deputy Associate Director of Strategy and Resources for the CISA Cybersecurity Division and on a team that stood up the National Risk Management Center. As Senior Advisor to the Secretary at the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and to the Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, Nabeela spent years advancing programs that delivered a range of federal resources and services to communities nationwide.
Building coalitions and multidisciplinary approaches to preventing violence is Nabeela’s passion and priority. She is committed to creating safe spaces for government, social service and health care providers, emergency managers, community-based organizations, academia, and law enforcement to engage for the shared purpose of optimizing security and preparedness.
Nabeela is a life-long learner with degrees from the US Naval Postgraduate School, George Mason University, and Virginia Commonwealth University. As an active member of her community, she is a mentor, school volunteer, and guest lecturer. Nabeela was born and raised in the DC area where she resides today.
Katherine Schweit
Board Advisor
Katherine Schweit is an attorney and retired FBI special agent who created and led the FBI’s active shooter program after the horrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She joined a White House team working on violence prevention matters led by then–Vice President Biden. She is the author of Stop the Killing: How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis and
How to Talk About Guns with Anybody. She hosts a podcast in its 4 th season called Stop the
Killing.
Bookending her time at the FBI, Ms. Schweit worked as an assistant state’s attorney in Chicago and director for security training for a Fortune 300 company. Ms. Schweit brings these public/private best practices to her consulting business, Schweit Consulting, which span from Fortune 100 companies, to small private schools, to the government of New Zealand.
She the author of the FBI’s seminal research on mass shootings, “A Study of 160 Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013,” and was part of the crisis team responding to shooting incidents at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Pentagon, and the Navy Yard in the Washington, DC, area. She shares free best practices and research through website and regular newsletter found at katherineschweit.com.
A one-time print journalist she has published extensively, including opinion pieces in the New York Times and Chicago’s Daily Herald. She is an executive producer on the award-winning film, The Coming Storm, widely used in security and law enforcement training throughout the United States and by the U.S. State Department worldwide. This work earned her a second US Attorney General’s outstanding contributions award.
She is a recognized expert in mass shooting and active shooter matters, crisis response, workplace violence, and corporate security policies and often is asked to provide on-air television commentary when tragedy occur. She regularly speaks to professional, government, and private organizations.
She is a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety, the local and national chapters of societies supporting retired FBI Special Agents. She is adjunct faculty at DePaul University College of Law and Webster University. She has two
daughters and lives in Northern Virginia, outside of Washington, DC. She can be reached through schweitconsulting.com.
Daniel Florent
Board Advisor
Daniel Florent is currently a Division Chief at Kiernan Group Holdings and has specialized in training worldwide organizations in Active Threat Mitigation, Workplace Violence Prevention and the execution of tabletop exercises. He is also a research writer and author of numerous classified intelligence pieces. Additionally, he is a contributing author to KGH’s Lucky the Preparedness Dog where he has added content, images and storylines related to children with special needs.
Mr. Florent served 33 years as a law enforcement professional and has an extensive network. As an Supervisory Agent for the Federal Air Marshal Service, he held collateral duties as the Supervisor of Professional Accountability, Supervisor of the Diversity Program, Supervisor of Regional Liaison, Public Information Officer, and Supervisory Field Intelligence Officer for the Boston Field Office. He was also assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Within this assignment, he was a designated Airport Liaison Agent and took the lead in aviation related incidents spanning both realms of domestic and international terrorism. He has completed threat assessments, MANPADS evaluations and produced subsequent mitigation strategies. Previously employed as a Criminal Investigator with the United States Marshals Service, Mr. Florent also broke new ground by writing for and appearing as host in a weekly television segment entitled, New Hampshire’s Most Wanted which profiled dangerous fugitives.
Mr. Florent is currently adjunct faculty at Endicott College’s Van Loan School where he has taught courses in Strategic Issues, Transportation Security and America’s Intelligence System. He has also been a presenter at the NH Police Academy. Mr. Florent holds a Master’s Degree in the field of Security Studies from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, United States Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California where his thesis examined adverse behavior detection in an aviation environment. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice Administration and is a member of numerous public safety benevolent organizations.
Dr. Stacy Phillips
Committee Chair, Advisory Board
Stacy Phillips is a Doctor of Social Work (DSW). She completed her DSW from the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work focusing on the 12 Grand Challenges of Social Work on Smart Decarceration specifically with youth. She is a Victim Justice Program Specialist at the Office for Victims of Crime in the Department of Justice and has over 20 years of experience working with children and families.
Her specializations include child welfare, trauma, and adolescent brain science. As a social innovation strategist, her expertise is in trauma- informed programming, social impact innovations, leading cross-functional teams, behavioral and decision science, and the successful implementation of large-scale transformational initiatives.
Melanie Upright
Board Advisor
Melanie Upright has more than twenty years of experience in education. She is the author of More Time to Lead; The Principal’s Guide to Empowered Teachers, Successful Students and Satisfied Parents and creator of Four Perspectives: A Framework for Helping Struggling Learners. She currently serves as a coordinator in special education for the Charles County Public Schools. Melanie incorporates systems thinking and collaborative practice to solve complex problems of challenging students. With her unique background as a speech-language pathologist, she has led projects that reduce the achievement gap in elementary mathematics, bring classroom management support to new teachers, and address access and equity problems in areas such as early reading development and communicative competency.She serves as the co-chair of the Maryland State Steering Committee for SLPs. She co-teaches Advanced Instructional Strategies through Johns Hopkins University. She has a Master of Science degree from Towson University in Speech-Language Pathology. Melanie believes in the potential of all students and the magic of the classroom.
Tara Barber
Board Advisor
Tara Barber is Vice President of Operations at Lumina Analytics where she works with clients across a variety of industry verticals, including K-12 and Higher Education, to proactively identify threats and help keep people and places safe.
In addition to overseeing all aspects of operations and customer success, she leads a team that researches, defines, and categorizes risk, continuously analyzing how online behavioral patterns can potentially be indicative of offline risk. Tara also served as Chief Operating Officer for Powhatan Information & Default Services and was responsible for all client relationships, leadership of the internal teams, oversight of a robust vendor network, and implementation of workflows with third-party SaaS providers. Throughout her career, she has built and led several teams centered around client engagement, third party operational risk management, internal risk mitigation, compliance, and vendor management. Beyond the corporate world, her most significant role is being a mother to her three young sons, which drives her passion for equipping all children, families, and communities with preparedness, awareness, and resiliency.
Tara graduated summa cum laude from the University of South Florida with a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration and Marketing. She also earned her MBA from the University of South Florida with a focus on entrepreneurship, marketing, and building a sustainable enterprise.
Christian A. Nanry, PhD
Board Advisor
Dr. Christian A. Nanry is a law enforcement professional and military veteran since 1996.
He has exercised concurrent legal jurisdictions in multiple states, military installations, and federal statutes. Dr. Nanry began his career in the United States Army with the Military Police Corps, and worked as a Special Reaction Team member and a Military Working Dog handler in the Republic of South Korea and several stateside assignments. Dr. Nanry was the 1998 Military District of Washington Soldier of the Year, a distinguished graduate of the 2000 Primary Leadership Development Course, and the overall winner of the 2000 ROK Military Working Dog Handlers Competition in Narcotics Detection.
Dr. Nanry joined the United States Marshals Service in late 2001 and was assigned to
four locations across the United States. He has successfully conducted fugitive apprehensions, threat and breach investigations, international extraditions, and protected members of the federal
judiciary. His protective experiences include the United States General Assembly, the Deputy Attorney General, and several Supreme Court Justices initiated from the Draft Leak. He was the lead agent for events such as Operation Rolling Thunder in Albany, NY and multiple high threat trials in New York City. Dr. Nanry completed numerous sensitive special assignments across the
United States and overseas. His individual accomplishments have been officially recognized by former Attorney Generals and Directors of the United States Marshals Service.
Dr. Nanry served as a member of multiple committees and working groups in the United States Marshals Service with the responsibility of creating policy, procedures, and alternatives for regulatory and operational necessity. These committees and groups consisted of Information
Technology, Biometrics, and the Financial Management Working group. Dr. Nanry was also selected as a peer reviewer for specific national initiatives. He has been a guest instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, GA and as a member of a divisional training cadre.
Currently, Dr. Nanry is a Special Agent with the Army Criminal Investigation Division
investigating financial crimes in Major Procurement Fraud.
Dr. Nanry has also been a guest speaker at the 2022 Texas Cyber Summit in Austin, TX
and presented research at the 2021 American Health Professionals Associations Conference and Expo in Denver, Co. His research and publications consist of education and law enforcement performance, human trafficking, sextortion, and crimes against children.
Dr. Nanry has a bachelorette of history from Empire State College, a masters in human
resources; training and development from Seton Hall, and holds a doctorate of philosophy from Texas State University in adult education.
Jason Stoddard
Board Advisor
Jason Stoddard is the Director of School Safety and Security for the Charles County Public Schools (MD). He is responsible for sustaining a safe learning and work environment for over 27,000 students and nearly 4,000 staff members. Since coming to the public schools in April of 2018, he has created the Office of School Safety and Security, been awarded millions of dollars in grant money, implemented major evolutions such as revolving backgrounds for all employees, options-based active shooter response, the “I love u guys” Foundation Standard Response Protocols, a state of art radio communication system with public safety interoperability, first its kind intelligence unit, drone program and most recently launched a project to install Gun Detect, an artificial intelligence-driven solution for surveillance cameras in all the system schools.
Originally from a small town in Iowa, Mr. Stoddard came to the Washington, DC, area while serving as a Security Police Officer in the United States Air Force. After completing his service obligation, he embarked on a career in civilian law enforcement. He spent over 20 years with the Charles County Sheriff’s Office, rising to the rank of Lieutenant.
His executive command assignments include tours within the Patrol Division, Special Operations Section (overseeing the SWAT team, K-9, Marine, Traffic, and Civil Disturbance), and Homeland Security and Intelligence Sections. He has a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership. He is a graduate of the Northwestern University, School of Police Staff and Command, and the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Program.
Mr. Stoddard also serves as an adjunct professor at three universities, teaches executive-level leadership for the Maryland Police Training Commission, has authored several articles for magazines on topics ranging from school safety to organizational leadership, serves as a consultant for the Department of Justice and National Institutes of Justice, sits on several advisory boards, and has often traveled the country teaching active assailant response, leadership, data/evidence-based decision making, and crisis communications, and incident management.
Romero Davis
Board Advisor
Romero Davis is the Senior Program Manager with Social Current. In his role, he works with the equity, inclusion and diversity engagement team and co-leads national technical assistance in partnership with the Office for Victims of Crime.
Mr. Davis brings more than 25 years of experience in the Social Services spectrum. Recognized as a bold leader in his community, he has had the opportunity to speak nationally in areas such as juvenile justice, youth violence and trauma, Poly-victimization, Domestic/Family violence, Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking.
Romero has taught classes at Pacific University specifically with incoming freshman in need mentorship and college and career readiness opportunities.
Mr. Davis also served as Program Director of Family Violence Intervention for San Joaquin, Contra Costa and Stanislaus counties (Northern California) which served adult and youth victims of family violence along with ones that caused harm. He has also created a youth and adult development program that focuses on building the skills and teaching them the core concepts of Service, Health, Aptitude, Resolution, Purpose, and Excellence which he facilitates at Stanislaus County Juvenile Hall.
In addition, Romero served as Program Director of Sow A Seed Community Foundation within the San Joaquin County School District for several years. In this role he coordinated opportunities in lieu of suspension and expulsion for at risk youth in San Joaquin County. These youth included foster youth, gang affiliated youth and youth who were on probation.
Romero recalls that growing up he was a kid who needed help and mentoring dealing with abuse and violence in his home. Now he takes pride in helping develop intuitive minds to make good decisions, build solid foundations for life, and to work with agencies and communities who have the same Hope!
ADAM KING
Creative Asset Manager
Adam is a graphic artist, composer, and serial entrepreneur with boundless energy and creativity. He has either co-founded, developed, or helped fund the creation of best-selling books on Amazon, on and offline teaching programs, social media channels, corporate training, and brand creation for well over a hundred projects. These include internet marketing, website development, real estate investing, personal growth, and the building of online communities that provide leverage for companies to accentuate their message and amplify their reach. In 2008, he co-founded Mosaic Internet Success with his partner Dan Ho. MIS was a creative article writing and teaching platform built around a global community that not only created a movement but also resulted in massive revenue for the health and wellness industry. He is currently working with PWPORG, designing the platform which will bring a global community together with a common purpose combined with common language around the understanding of preparedness and resiliency at a family and at a community level.
