Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 2 – September-October, 2011

United Nations disaster preparedness training in Haiti

IN a corporate sustainability context, risk management has a broad meaning. As a best business practice, it is imperative to corporate survival that we not only identify internal and external risks to our companies, but also devise strategies to mitigate and in some cases even eliminate risks that threaten our day-to-day operations and our companies’ continued existence. Clearly, when in the business of private security and contingency contracting, those operational risks are compounded with the need to protect human assets and our companies’ good names.

Although the practice of putting civilian contractors in theater in support of military operations is as old as our nation, the explosive growth of our industry is a recent phenomenon. Many of the companies working in contingency and peacekeeping operations have been in existence for less than ten years. However, while our industry is fairly young – at least in its current iteration – the leadership of these companies is made up of seasoned business professionals and former military leaders.

Those of us from the business side have had risk management drilled into us from the early stages of our education and business careers. Those of us from the military side – especially military leadership – have received extensive training and education regarding the importance of risk mitigation. If you have a military background, you may remember the big push for Operational Risk Management (ORM) analysis in every aspect of operational planning and the importance of risk mitigation, which always included a thorough training of personnel. As our profession functions in operational risk environments, it is no wonder that the Journal of International Peace Operations highlighted risk management in its July-August 2010 issue. All three risk management articles in that issue mentioned training of employees as a critical factor in managing risk, whether as the PSC or the government agency employing the PSC.