Montana National Guard wraps up two day Homeland Defense Conference

FORT HARRISON, Mont. - Day two of the Homeland Defense Conference has come to a conclusion, where partners and interagencies came together at Fort Harrison to begin laying down the foundation of updating Montana's military defense plan.

After hours of discussion, officials with the Montana National Guard tell NonStop Local they’re hoping to come out of this conference with a model on how the National Guard is going to continue forward planning for homeland defense in Montana and figure out how they’re going to start exercising their plan.

“It's going to take everybody working together. this is going to be a whole society response,” said Noah Genger, Montana National Guard joint director of military support.

The day starts out with a panel of technical experts, sharing their role of state in homeland defense/national resilience.

For example, Margit Myers from the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation shared her role is to provide technical and financial assistance to communities to work together with installations on various issues.

The Montana National Guard said it’s crucial to have access and help like technical and financial resources to help move forward with their military plan.

“The more we can build those relationships with NORTHCOM, with the National Guard Bureau, with regional centers that are available, there’s really a lot of expertise out there that we can harness here in Montana," said Genger.

Colonel Tommy Banker presented best practices and lessons learned from the Colorado National Guard.

He shared the problem that the Centennial State did not possess a comprehensive, critical infrastructure protection plan that effectively identifies systems and assets.

Genger said Colorado is a great example for the Montana National Guard on how to update their plan.

“Colorado is really kind of setting a benchmark out there in terms of how to get all of the relevant players into the room to discuss what is critical infrastructure for our state and how we are best at defending it,” said Genger.

Genger said the Montana National Guard is doing everything they can to look ahead at future threats, what exists in Montana and how best are they going to be prepared to respond for Montanans.