Alertus Virtual Seminar:

+ Read Christopher McLaughlin's Bio

Chris has served North Central Texas College (NCTC) and the mission of higher education for over 14 years. As the Assistant Chief of Police at the NCTC Police Department, he was a founding member of the institution’s first police department and emergency management office. Now, as Senior Director, he leads all safety related programs for the district including the police department, emergency management, risk management, and environmental health and safety.

Chris is a graduate of North Central Texas College and Midwestern State University, he earned his master’s degree in Emergency and Disaster Management from Georgetown University, and is currently a doctoral student at Vanderbilt University. He is also a Master Peace Officer, certified field training officer, cybercrime investigator, and instructor.

+ Read Ben Brewer's Bio

Benjamin (Ben) Brewer is the Chief Information Security Officer and Senior Director of Professional Services for Alertus Technologies. In this role, he consults with clients on crisis communications and continuity of operations matters, influences client-focused solution design, facilitates solution configuration and training, and manages the organization’s information security program assuring corporate information security as well as ensuring designed solutions comply with Client identified information security requirements. Ben’s crisis management, continuity of operations and information assurance experience spans more than 30 years; this period includes 25 years in the U.S. Air Force, from which he retired as Chief Master Sergeant in 2008. He culminated his Air Force career serving three years in the Pentagon as a member of the Air Staff, where he managed over 3,100 airmen performing emergency and crisis management functions at over 150 locations globally, and crafted the Air Force’s emergency mass notification system operations and capabilities requirements document.

His crisis management experience includes directly supporting Federal Emergency Management Agency operations, consulting with emergency managers and business continuity professionals to understand/establish requirements and design and implement comprehensive emergency notification solutions at the organization, local, state, and national level both within the United States and internationally. Ben has developed and managed full-spectrum information security programs for crisis communication solutions to test and evaluate on-premise and cloud-service deployment model compliance with security models including the Federal Information Security Management Act, Department of Defense Information Assurance and Interoperability, Cloud Security Alliance, and SANS Organization criteria. He holds a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and Management, a Master of Arts in Emergency and Disaster Management, and a Master of Science in Information Technology focusing on Information System Security. In addition to crisis communications consultation engagements, Ben often addresses audiences and contributes content on the subjects of resiliency, compliance, and security.

+ Read Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton's Bio

Caroline Ramsey Hamilton is a leading security threat and risk assessment expert specializing in Active Shooter, Workplace Violence and other forms of violence, related to reducing liability and increasing compliance. She is the President of Risk & Security LLC, the world’s leading security risk assessment company.

Ramsey-Hamilton was a Charter member of the U.S. NIST Risk Models Workshop and served on the working group to create a Defensive Information Warfare Risk Model, for the Secretary of Defense for C4. She has worked on Risk Assessment Models for Active Shooter for PFPA, for DOD’s Technical Support Working Group, creating risk models for Nuclear Facilities, Security for Dams and Substations, Hospital Facilities Risk Models, and Medication Error models.

She creates custom active shooter prevention, risk and threat assessment programs for Facilities Security, College Security, Hospital Security, Homeland Security, FERC, NERC, DHS, FEMA, and NFPA, and including federal, state and local governments.

She is on the Board of the South Florida Chapter of the International Association of Healthcare Safety and Security. Caroline has worked with the Florida Hospital Association on Active Shooter Security Risk Assessments, and was the featured speaker at their Annual Hospital Symposium on the Active Shooter Strategies for Hospitals.

Ramsey-Hamilton received the Anti-Terrorism Accreditation Board Lifetime Achievement Award. She speaks at security conferences around the world, and also speaks to medical boards about preventing active shooters, and workplace violence in hospitals. She serves on a variety of working groups, and policy committees in every aspect of security including, not only security risk assessment, but also compliance, standards and security policy.

+ Read Suzanne Bernier's Bio

A former Journalist and Government press secretary, Suzanne is now a multi-certified, award-winning and internationally-recognized crisis management consultant, trainer, speaker and author, who has helped governments, communities and companies plan for, respond to, and recover from disasters for over twenty years. She was named 2016’s ‘Continuity & Resilience Consultant of the Year – North America’ by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), and had the honor of being a guest speaker at The White House during FEMA’s 2016 Individual & Community Preparedness Awards ceremony.

Throughout her career, Suzanne has been professionally and/or personally involved in helping communities respond, rebuild or recover from numerous crises, including the Manchester, San Bernardino, Brussels, and 9/11 terror attacks, the 2016 Fort McMurray, Alberta wildfire, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, the H1N1 pandemic, the 2003 Northeast Blackout, the 1998 “Ice Storm of the Century” in Eastern Canada, as well as numerous floods, fires, and severe storms.

More recently, Suzanne has been helping disaster survivors, including terror and mass attack survivors, recover and heal through her volunteer work as Global Ambassador of Stars of HOPE USA, and as an advocate for the San Bernardino terror attack survivors and bereaved families. Suzanne is a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) through the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), as well as a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) through the Disaster Recovery Institute (DRI), a certified Member of the Business Continuity Institute (MBCI), and a certified Crisis Management & Communications Professional through ICOR.

Suzanne’s critically-acclaimed book, Disaster Heroes, tells the stories of ordinary men, women and children who have done extraordinary things to help respond, recover and rebuild following some of the world’s most significant modern disasters. She is currently working on several new projects, including a Disaster Heroes podcast and Disaster Heroes Too.