First Person: Beth Jones
by Stephanie Koons
Beth Jones, a member of the Advisory Board for Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology, understands the importance of adaptability in a rapidly changing world.
She took her oath of federal service in 2003 after completing more than 25 years in private industry, and six years teaching secondary English and communications. At United Airlines, she “did everything but fly the planes or push the beverage cart.” Currently, as the public liaison officer for the Transportation Security Administration in the Department of Homeland Security, her areas of responsibility include crisis management, crisis communications, counterterrorism, and the planning and execution of national preparedness exercises.
A native of Harrisburg, Jones currently resides in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Lebanon Valley and a Master of Arts in American Studies from Penn State.
Jones recently spoke with iConnect about her role on the IST Advisory Board and how she thinks that the College of IST can prepare its students to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Q: What made you decide to switch from working in the private sector to the federal government?
On Sept. 11, 2001, I was with United Airlines. I was working for 23 years at United Airlines when I saw our planes become weapons of mass destruction. Government representatives looked to professionals who had knowledge of the airline industry. The overarching decision was really the calling to engage with my fellow Americans, to ensure an attack never happens again on our soil.
Q: How does your previous experience in the corporate world translate to working for the Department of Homeland Security?
There’s an obvious nexus to transportation, years of professional managerial experience in applied critical thinking…just the ability to execute concepts. And I also have years of focus on relationship building.
Beth Jones, a member of the Advisory Board for Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology, understands the importance of adaptability in a rapidly changing world.
Q: Why did you decide to become an advisory board member for the College of IST?
I saw an opportunity to give back to my alma mater. I saw an opportunity to hopefully encourage a new generation in an emerging career field. I saw an opportunity to influence formal curriculum development through my experience in homeland security. Through the discipline of IST, I can learn as a board member and take some of those practices back and hopefully improve homeland security through my affiliation with the board.
Q: How do you think that the College of IST can effectively prepare its students for careers that involve national crisis management and combating terrorism?
It can be accomplished through development of partnerships between public and private sectors. Homeland security faces asymmetrical threats—we face an enemy without borders, an enemy who is continuously gaming us. We need to encourage creative, out-of-the box thinking. We need to be innovative in our curriculum development so theory translates to practice. We need to teach how to strategize theory and application. Crisis management is about creating good, executable plans. We just can’t get pigeonholed and focused on certain areas of risk analysis. We have to look at the whole scope of data.
Q: What is your vision for the future of the College of IST?
I think curriculum development is key. We are not a field that is based in conventional thinking. We need to increase interdisciplinary curriculum. I think we are just on the very frontier of leveraging opportunities via social media. I think we need to collaborate with other academic institutions, with government and with industry. I also see opportunities to teach modeling systems, virtual environments, artificial intelligence, geospatial analysis, human factors integration, and augmented reality. I’d like to see us become a leading institution in this type of research and work.
Q: What can alumni do to help the College of IST achieve this vision?
I think we need to invite them to come back to the classroom to instruct on best practices based on their professional experiences. I would like to see us create an information repository where our alumni who go on to graduate studies share their theses and academic publications. We have the opportunity to incorporate the work of our alumni into curriculum development and into our planning for the future of IST.
Q: Finally, what do you enjoy most about your work for the Department of Homeland Security?
The one thing I enjoy most is just the feeling of satisfaction that I am serving my country, that I’m contributing to a mission that is ongoing. I am humbled and honored every day to serve with some of the great Americans that I have the opportunity of serving with.
Beth Jones serves on the Advisory Board independently, not as a representative of the Department of Homeland Security. The views expressed by Beth Jones are her personal opinions and not statements by her employer.
