Perry Center staff and faculty completed the first-ever regional seminar on Defense Institution Building on Friday, December 11 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. The seminar was attended by 31 members representing ten Caribbean Basin nations. Trinidad and Tobago Defense Force Chief of Staff General Rodney Smart congratulated the participants in a closing ceremony. “During this challenging course, you examined reforms and transformation techniques that are critical to the development of our forces,” he said. The seminar – titled “Security and Defense Institution Building: Methods, Practices, and Tools,” required critical thinking, advanced methodologies, and developing a framework to modernize the security forces of Caribbean nations, he added. Despite the complexity of such topics, he encouraged the course participants to return to their nations and put what they learned to use. “Failure is not an option,” he concluded.

General Smart singled out Perry Professors Dr. Salvador Raza, Dr. Scott Tollefson, and Kara O’Ryan as representatives of the exemplary staff and faculty of the Perry Center. The course participants concluded a week of hard work with an examination of metrics, education initiatives, and measures of effectiveness (MOE) on Friday morning.