Speaker: Omar Keith Helferich, PhD, MS

Presentation: Assessment, Compliance, and Corrective Action: Application to Catastrophic Incident Planning and Response - Katrina

Dr. Helferich is a consultant and university faculty member with experience in environmental safety engineering, supply chain, decision support systems, incident management, and continuity planning. He received a doctorate in business administration with concentrations in operations, logistics and information management from Michigan State University in 1970. He also received an MBA with concentration in Quantitative Methods, an MS in Environmental/Sanitary Engineering, and a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Helferich’s experience includes five years in nuclear, biological and chemical safety, environmental, and health physics engineering for Atomic Energy Laboratories, nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific and United States, and nuclear power safety systems engineering. He was also a member of the “Hot Spot” team that responds to US nuclear weapons accidents. During the past 15 years, Dr. Helferich has been a disaster logistics volunteer for the American Red Cross (ARC). His logistics leadership response experience includes fires, storms, train derailments, Oklahoma bombing, the World Trade Center terrorist incident and Hurricane Katrina. He is an ARC disaster logistics instructor, a member of the ARC Weapons of Mass Destruction Task Force, the ARC Critical Response Team for Air, Transportation and Weapons of Mass Destruction disasters. He is also an advisor to the National ARC Logistics Function. Current projects involve developing an improved process for food procurement and inventory management to support national disasters and security of the national food supply chain through migration programs.