COD Instructor Receives Prestigious Award

College of DuPage instructor Dr. Michael Fagel recently received the first ever Security Book of the Year Award by the American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS) International for his book "Crisis Management and Emergency Planning: Preparing for Today's Challenges."

"I am honored to receive this award," Fagel said. "This book was written to educate people and help prepare them for the future. I never thought it would be nominated for anything, much less win."

Founded in 1955, ASIS International is a not-for-profit organization of more than 38,000 security practitioners worldwide, which advocates for the role and value of the security management profession to business, the media, government entities and the public.

Fagel was officially recognized during an award ceremony and book signing at ASIS International's 60th annual conference in Atlanta, GA. He said he was honored to receive this prestigious recognition from admired peers in the field.

"The six authors on the committee have published more than 45 notable books between them," Fagel said. "It was humbling but great to be welcomed into that group."

The author of several published books on topics related to safety and security, Fagel has nearly 40 years of experience working in emergency management, fire services, industrial safety, law enforcement, rescue and government. He is a Homeland Security Analyst at the Argonne National Laboratories, has spent 10 years at FEMA in their Occupational Safety and Health Cadre. Fagel has responded to incidents and disasters such as the Oklahoma City Bombing where he worked as a safety officer and CISD de briefer, and spent over 100 days at the World Trade Center for FDNY at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks. He has provided his skills and experience as a subject matter expert at several organizations including the National Organization for Research (NORC) at the University of Chicago, the National Center for Security and Preparedness (NCSP) at the University of Albany and the National Center for Biomedical Research and Training (NCBRT) at the Academy of Counter-Terrorist Education at Louisiana State University. Fagel also teaches at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Northern Illinois University, Eastern Kentucky University and Aurora University. He has also taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and Benedictine University. He has written over 300 articles on safety & disaster planning and served on the National Domestic Preparedness Office SLAG team (NDPO) at the FBI in Washington.

Fagel has recently signed on with College of DuPage to teach new classes on Terrorism Planning and Response as well as Homeland Security, at the Homeland Security Training Institute. He said he was impressed with the College's recently constructed Homeland Security Education Center.

"I have taught homeland security all over the world, at numerous facilities; from palaces to tents and all types of classrooms," Fagel said. "The facilities at the HEC are second to none. They are world class in both design and implementation."

Fagel added that he is proud to be a part of College of DuPage and that the College's goals align perfectly with his own.

"I am proud to be affiliated with the HSTI program at COD." Fagel said. "I think our mission, which has been my mission since 9/11, is to create a world-class environment for training and educating the leaders of the future and that is what this facility and staff is focused on."

Housing the College's Criminal Justice and Fire Science/EMS programs, as well as the Police Department, State-certified Fire Academy and the Suburban Law Enforcement Academy, the 66,000 square-foot Homeland Security Education Center is the only comprehensive multijurisdictional training center of its kind in the Midwest. The facility features a wide range of high-tech training spaces including a full-scale indoor street scene, forensics and cybercrimes labs, a hazardous materials leak simulator, a two-story smoke room with moveable walls, a full-size ambulance, an outdoor training tower for confined rescue and rappelling and a command center designed to instruct National Incident Management System protocols.

Looking back on his career, Fagel said that the biggest challenge he has faced comes less from the actual threat of emergencies than from the underlying opinion of what safety and security entails.

"Safety and security are not just plans; they are a continuous process," Fagel said. "It's not just guards, gates and guns; it's an underlying attitude and approach. Decision makers in organizations need to understand that risk is an ever-evolving threat. Too often, people wait until it's too late and make poor decisions based on knee-jerk reactions."

Fagel said that through his work he hopes to train the leaders of tomorrow and to train as many people as possible to be "comfortable, cognizant, aware and trained to take over and take care of the next generations." He added that after all this time working in safety and security, his primary focus and motivating principle is simply to make a difference.

"I'm going to do as much as I can for as long as I can for as many people as I can. That's really what drives me," he said.