Schriever Improves Security Following Annual IDC

SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., March 12 -- The U.S. Air Force Schriever Air Force Base issued the following story:

Following a Schriever Integrated Defense Council meeting Feb. 26, wing leadership is aiming to protect the base and its personnel to a higher standard while maintaining similar manning and resource levels.

This year's IDC was chaired by Col. Bill Liquori, 50th Space Wing commander, who also appointed the voting members. The group of voting members typically consists of group commanders and the commanders of major tenant units and mission partners.

"I'm very impressed by the level of detail that went into the IDC recommendations, but even more important was the critical analysis that experts across the base brought to the process," said Liquori. "The combination of the two enabled us to make decisions on how to further improve protection of base personnel and resources."

The IDC is an annual requirement as defined by Air Force Instruction 31-101, Integrated Defense, which addresses processes to maintain the best possible installation security through a set of programs that enable operational capability to continue performing the mission with limited or no impact to execution.

"The IDC typically accomplishes several critical tasks intended to enhance the overall protection of the installation's critical assets, personnel, and processes," said Chief Master Sgt. James Herkel, 50th Security Forces Squadron chief enlisted manager. "The IDC approves the designation of, or any changes to, controlled and restricted areas, waivers or deviations to current security standards, approval of any revisions to the Schriever Integrated Defense Plan, several security enhancements and approval of the Integrated Defense Risk Management Process."

The IDRMP, led by the 50 SFS Installation Security office, is a tool to assess risk. It's also the process that requires the most effort and collaboration, in regards to the IDC.

"It's a process that allows the IDC and the installation commander to see where the highest risks exist to assets, facilities, and personnel and make deliberate decisions to accept risk or direct actions to mitigate risks to more acceptable levels," said Herkel. In other words, the IDRMP identifies risks for the council, which then decides to accept risk or to approve strategies to mitigate those risks. The process includes three independent assessments: criticality, vulnerability and threat.

"By combining criticality, threat, and vulnerability, senior leaders can easily determine the highest risk on their installation. This knowledge allows them to adjust security as needed, implement new procedures or leverage funding to address these risks," said Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Hazelwonder, 50 SFS installation security NCO in charge. "In a nutshell, the IDRMP is a process for leadership to keep the mission on track while protecting the personnel and resources required to accomplish the same."

After the 50 SFS Installation Security office develops a complete list of the base facilities and assets requiring protection and confers with subject matter experts for those facilities to rank the most critical to least critical facilities, security experts, such as the 50 SFS Weapons and Tactics Section, the 50 SW antiterrorism office and others meet to conduct a comprehensive vulnerability assessment across the installation.

"We looked at everything from a holistic view," said 1st Lt. Michael Bruton, 50 SFS weapons and tactics officer. "We took a step back to look at it from a larger standpoint to determine how everything combined influenced the wing. We wanted to make sure all areas were covered so the IDC could have the appropriate data to support new initiatives."

The final step in the IDRMP process occurs when the team evaluates the local Air Force Office of Special Investigation's periodic threat assessment.

"Air Force OSI's role is to advise on potential threats to the installation according to previous trends and reporting [through a program known as Eagle Eyes]," said an OSI agent at Schriever AFB.

The data from all three assessments (criticality, vulnerability and threat) are loaded by installation security personnel into a software program where all of the information is analyzed to identify the overall risk assessment. The software identifies logical target-tactic matchups and identifies where certain facilities may be particularly vulnerable to certain threats.

After the new threat rank-order is compiled, the IDC can then vote on several options.

"They can manually adjust the results of the risk assessment based on information that the software can't accommodate, they can approve and accept risk as it is presented by the software," said Herkel. "They can also draw a line in a particular spot in the risk [rack and stack] and direct the security team to take steps to bring down the risk level, such as hardening of certain facilities, security procedural changes, or increasing standoff distances, for anything above the line."

The IDC assessment is referred to as the commander's risk tolerance level. Enhancements and improvements planned as a result of the IDC include modifications to vehicle inspection procedures, response priorities to better reflect asset criticality and potential alterations to installation gate hours.

"It's quite impressive, in my opinion, the amount of teamwork and effort that happens behind the scenes," said Herkel.

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