Mid Atlantic Disaster Recovery Association (MADRA) to Host Black Sky Seminar

Given increasing threats to America’s critical infrastructure and a proposed infrastructure bill to address those threats, the Mid Atlantic Disaster Recovery Association (MADRA) will be hosting virtual meeting on August 19. The speaker at the meeting will be Mary D. Lasky, Chairman of the InfraGard National Disaster Resilience Council and BC Program Manager at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Lasky will outline the impacts of these threats that are also known as "Black Sky" events.

What is a Black Sky event? According the Electric Infrastructure Security Council (EISC), Black Sky events are a “catastrophic event that severely disrupts the normal functioning of our critical infrastructures in multiple regions for long durations”. Given this description, could the winter storm in Texas be considered a Black Sky event? How about Puerto Rico and the hurricanes? The discussion will explore some causes of these impacts, and examine consensus driven solutions that can help the private and public sectors best prepare for a Black Sky event.

The speaker at the event, Mary D. Lasky, is the Chairman of the InfraGard National Disaster Resilience Council (NDRC). She is the lead editor and author of “Powering Through: Building Critical Infrastructure Resilience (2021)”, a report looking at threats, impacts, consequences and preventative measures any organization can take for long term power outages and “Powering Through: From Fragile Infrastructure to Community Resilience (2016)” an action guide on being prepared if there is grid failure.

Lasky is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP). She is also on the Foundation for Resilient Societies Board of Directors. Lasky is the Program Manager for Business Continuity Planning for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), and for many years, she was adjunct faculty of the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, teaching in the graduate degree program in Technical Management.

She was president of the Community Emergency Response Network Inc. (CERN) in Howard County, Maryland, and during her tenure, CERN received two FEMA grants on being prepared for a nuclear attack. She is also past President of the Central Maryland Chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners (ACP). At APL, Lasky held a variety of supervisory positions in Information Technology and in business services. Another President roleMary held was on the Board of Directors of Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center in Howard County, MD. She served on the Finance Committee for Leadership Howard County and co-chaired of the Steering Committee for the Leadership Premier Program.

About the Mid Atlantic Disaster Recovery Association (MADRA)

Since 1989, MADRA has provided a forum for the Mid-Atlantic's Business Continuity Planners (BCP), Continuity of Operations Professionals (COOP), Emergency Management, and the Disaster Recovery (DR) community to improve their skills through networking and education. As the regions oldest independent networking group, MADRA is dedicated to ensuring that people and organizations are better prepared to manage any type of disaster or emergency event. MADRA's meetings are free. Invite a friend or co-worker. If you think the experience is worthwhile, we ask that you support us with an annual donation of $50, which is used to support our 501(C) 3 non-profit educational association.

# # # Contact Laura Lorence – MADRA PR Director, CBCP, MBCI / [email protected]