Happy Public Service Recognition Week!

In honor of #PublicServiceRecogntionWeek, I want to share my experience with the incredible public servants at the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC).

This week and every week, it remains a privilege to collaborate with the hard-working, dedicated OSAC staff and the 34-member public-private OSAC Council that oversees OSAC’s groundbreaking public-private partnership.

A decade ago, the nonprofit International Security Foundation (ISF) was founded by private citizens in the global security industry to support OSAC’s programming. Since 2011, private funding from generous U.S. corporations and individuals to the ISF has helped to transform OSAC. ISF funding supports programming – industry- or region-specific security gatherings around the world, seminars and webinars, special-topic forums – that OSAC is prohibited from funding by federal regulations.

James Weston, OSAC Acting Executive Director, and Peggy O’Neill, ISF Executive Director

OSAC creates and manages these programs and a truly impressive daily reporting system of real-time threat alerts and security analysis to help keep Americans and American interests abroad safer and more secure.

That was the simple, visionary goal of the late George P. Shultz when he founded OSAC in 1985. Then Secretary of State, he realized that the critical work of the public servants at the U.S. Department of State could create a safer world by working in partnership with the private sector. This public-private partnership was pioneering then, and it remains the gold standard today.

OSAC’s information-sharing, benchmarking and networking, online and in-person, have created a resilient community of security experts around the globe. I hear time and again how an OSAC event or email or phone call with an OSAC expert have vastly improved someone’s ability to respond to ever-evolving threats and disasters.

And it’s free for every one of the 5,400+ OSAC member organizations and 18,000+ individual members from corporate, nonprofit, academic and faith-based groups of every size. To join OSAC, visit osac.gov.

Thank you to James Weston, acting OSAC Executive Director, and his entire team of experts at OSAC. Your service to the private sector and to your country is remarkable and deeply appreciated.

Peggy O’Neill, Executive Director
International Security Foundation