The Foreign Service Journal, September 2020

64 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL On December 31, 2019, we stood up the Middle East Task Force in response to attacks against U.S. Embassy Baghdad and escalating Iranian aggression that threatened regional stability. Less than a day after that task force moved to on-call status on Jan. 23, we partnered with the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs for the Wuhan Evacuation Task Force to evacuate our staff at U.S. Consulate General Wuhan and Americans trapped in China after the city was unexpectedly locked down to contain the novel coronavirus. Within just days of standing down that second task force, we formed the Diamond Princess Evacuation Task Force to evacuate Americans from a cruise ship off the port of Yokohama, Japan. That, too, was a clearly focused mission with specific, measur- able objectives. Then came the biggest, most challenging task force of them all: the Repatriation Task Force. On March 19, with the world- wide spread of COVID-19 escalating and its acknowledgment as a pandemic by the World Health Organization, the Bureau of Consular Affairs and CMS jointly launched the Repatriation Task Force to facilitate the return of thousands of Americans stranded overseas across the world as a result of the widespread shutdown of commercial flights. As of June 24, this task force was in on-call status. In 44 years of experience responding to crises throughout the world—including 125 evacuations during the last 10 years—the State Department’s CMS had never faced a scenario where the same threat simultaneously affected our colleagues overseas as well as those charged with responding to it in Washington, D.C. That threat uniquely affected establishment of the Repatriation Task Force itself. To set it up, we had to transform the traditional model of a task force—namely, dozens of officers from different bureaus seated side by side to respond nimbly to ever-emerging issues—into something completely new overnight: a complex “virtual task force.” With more than 400 officers serving as part of the Repatriation Task Force, and tens of thousands of Americans across the world depending on us, we had to stand up and set into motion a virtual task force for the department without missing a beat. It required embracing some new tools quickly, such as information-sharing collaborative technologies and teleconferences, while rapidly creating new techniques to extend our ability to work together in real time from dispersed or far-flung environments. Meeting Pandemic Challenges At the heart of every task force, however, are the tools that each Operations Center officer brings to their job every day: the ability to work quickly, the willingness to adapt to new challenges effortlessly, and the tenacity to tackle some of the most difficult problems. We were able to pivot quickly, amid one of the highest- profile and most complex operational responses that State has ever executed, to implement previously untested tools and technologies while ensuring our vital work continued without interruption. The effort was not unlike building an airplane in mid-flight. Though most volunteers worked from home, the task force was able to provide the same uninterrupted service and high-quality reporting CMS efforts are known for. CMS developed an on- demand training curriculum to efficiently prepare the more than 400 volunteers who helped the Repatriation Task Force to accomplish its mission. CMS also created an operational planning team, consist- ing of the department’s lead operational and logistics plan- ners and regional and functional bureau representatives, to review requirements, expedite the identification of potential The Wuhan Task Force in action in early February. Clockwise from left to right: Alex Dunoye, Vietnam desk officer; Roger Burton, Crisis Action Team Director, Department of Homeland Security National Operations Center; Sarah Nelson, Consular Section Chief, Consulate General Wuhan; Pamela Kuemmerle, Crisis Management Officer, State Department Operations Center, Office of Crisis Management and Strategy; Holly Adamson, Crisis Management; Rachel Okunubi, Watch Officer, State Department Operations Center; Lindsey Spector, EAP/PD; Michael Cullinan, Watch Officer, State Ops; Valentina Hart, Program Officer, DMD/OM/PM; Stephanie Smit, Branch Chief, Consular Affairs’ Office of Citizen Services/Children’s Issues; Nick Fietzer, Country Officer, CA Office of Citizen Services; and Rob Romanowski, Consular Officer, CA Office of Citizen Services. U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE