Maturing Defense Support of Civil Authorities and the Dual Status Commander Arrangement Through the Lens of Process Improvement

During large-scale emergencies or disasters, National Guard forces regularly operate alongside Active Component forces in response to requests from civil authorities. In an attempt to promote unity of effort between state-controlled National Guard and Active Component forces, states and the Department of Defense agreed to use dual status commanders-military commanders authorized by law to serve in both state and federal statuses simultaneously-as the primary command and control mechanism during unplanned incident response operations. This unique command arrangement was used for the first time in response to an unplanned incident during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Though the arrangement worked well in many ways, there are definitely opportunities for improvement.