Homeland Security Advisory Council
 
About HSAC

BENS Background


Background

As HSAC’s partner and non-profit sponsor, Business Executives for National Security (BENS ) works closely with HSAC in establishing ongoing programs to build public-private partnerships for improving homeland security in Southern California. Headquartered in Washington, DC, BENS has a twenty-five year track record of assisting America’s National Security Agencies in applying best business practices to improve their operations. This record includes extensive work with the Department of Defense, the State Department, intelligence agencies, and others. BENS began building public-private partnerships for homeland security at the regional level in 2002 and has since expanded the initiative to include eight regions throughout the country.

Headquartered in Washington, DC, BENS has over a quarter century track record of applying best business practices to achieve measurable results in improving the nation's security. BENS began building public-private partnerships at the regional level in 2002, starting with New Jersey as the pilot state.

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked BENS to accelerate public-private partnerships in several regions nationally. BENS started Georgia Business Force in October 2003, which has developed working relationships with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on public health-related programs, and MidAmerica Business Force in October 2004, focused on agricultural biosecurity in the heartland states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa. In addition, BENS created a Business Response Network in Massachusetts in 2004 for the Democratic National Convention at the request of DHS. BENS recently started the Bay Area Business Force in Northern California that has developed working relationships with the California Office of Emergency Services and Office of Homeland Security.

For more information on BENS see: www.bens.org

For more information on BENS regional partnerships see: www.bensbusinessforce.org

BENS Advisory Team

  • President and CEO General Chuck Boyd (USAF, Ret.), a distinguished military commander and leading figure in national security, joined BENS in 2002. Before joining BENS, he served as senior vice president and Washington program director of the Council on Foreign Relations. General Boyd was commissioned through the aviation cadet program in July 1960 and retired in 1995 after 35 years of service.

    A combat pilot in Vietnam, he was shot down on his 105th mission and survived 2,488 days as a prisoner of war. The only POW from that war to achieve the four-star rank, General Boyd's final military assignment was as deputy commander in chief of U.S. forces in Europe. His other assignments as a general officer include vice commander of Strategic Air Command's 8th Air Force, director of plans at Headquarters U.S. Air Force in Washington, D.C., and commander of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

    More recently, General Boyd served as the Executive Director of the Hart-Rudman Commission, the federal commission that prior to September 11th recognized the threat of catastrophic terrorism and called for the nation's security priorities to shift to the homeland. The Hart-Rudman Commission recommended the most comprehensive changes to the nation's national security apparatus since 1947.

  • Chief Operating Officer Ambassador Donald S. Hayes, a distinguished Foreign Service officer for 33 years, joined BENS as COO in August 2006. Prior to joining BENS, Ambassador Hayes was senior diplomat in residence at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. working to develop and sustain the multi-party efforts to create needed constitutional and confidence building measures in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    For the four years immediately prior to this, he served as the Principal Deputy High Representative and Chief of Staff to the High Representative in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was appointed by the President in 1999 and served two years as Ambassador for UN Management Reform.

  • Lynne Kidder joined BENS in 2005.  As Senior Vice President, she oversees all operations of the BENS Business Force – providing management support to BENS’ seven regional public-private partnerships (New Jersey, Georgia, Kansas City, Iowa, Boulder, the San Francisco Bay Area, and HSAC in Southern California), and facilitating the development of new homeland security partnerships at the request of key stakeholders.
     
    Prior to joining BENS, Kidder served as the executive director of a non-profit business leadership organization in Northern California.  Her previous experience also includes executive level management in state government, eight years as a professional staff in the U.S. Senate, and cooperate government affairs for Bechtel Corporation.

    She holds a B.A. from Indiana University, a Masters degree from the University of Texas Austin, and did additional postgraduate study in public administration at George Mason University.