International Humanitarian Assistance Symposium

Dave Parsons and Jason Kelly

Most industry conferences don’t have a “Survivor Reception”, but there will be one at International Humanitarian Assistance Symposium (IHAS), 7-8 June 2012 in Miami (USA). In fact, one day is just panels of disaster survivors, including 9/11 New York and Pan Am Flight 103, and TWA Flight 800. IHAS is organized by the Family Assistance Foundation (FAF); FAF board member Jeff Morgan was Manager of Emergency Response & Contingency Planning at Delta Airlines. Check out the sponsors (bottom of the home page). A whole conference on private sector humanitarian assistance in the cruise, energy, manufacturing, retail and transportation businesses is new in organizational resilience. IHAS is affordable, too: USD 350 for two days, and even less if you register now. Miami in June? Just like a Singapore monsoon . . .

I learned about IHAS from Jeff Morgan at the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) Emergency Management (EM) conference in Kuala Lumpur in September 2011.

I was on a panel at AAPA EM with Dave Parsons and Jason Kelly answering the question, Are Crisis Leaders Born or Made? Our answer: both: about1/3 born, 2/3′s made. See our slides on SlideShare. We were moderated by Cathay Pacific Airways‘ Crisis Response Manager, Carrie Shiu.

By Nathaniel Forbes, Forbes Calamity Prevention Pte Ltd, Singapore. Posted: 12 December 2011 at 11:29 am (UTC +8 hours)