May 10, 2002

CONSULTANT HAWKS TERRORISM PREVENTION AS BEST DEFENSE
Tamarind Phinisee

Dr. Saul Wilen believes prevention is the best medicine. In fact, he's built his company, International Horizons Unlimited (IHU) Inc., around this idea.

The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 have garnered even more recognition for his national consulting company as it recently began providing its services in terrorism prevention.

The 56-year-old president and CEO says the company's attention was directed toward this type of prevention the day after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I got a call the next day from some of our joint venture partners in Seattle and San Diego. And they both said, `Saul, we have what they need,'" Wilen recalls. "It was their belief that the systems we had developed in the area of accountability were readily applicable to dealing with terrorism prevention."

What they were referring to, Wilen says, was the programming of the software that IHU and its partners had developed for use in educational accountability. That software is called the Education Logic Model.

The software allows education administrators to access records of teachers and students, as well as state mandated requirements, by computer using horizontal databases. In other words, records that would normally be in separate places, and not so readily available, are all linked and available in real time and accessible when needed.

At the suggestion of its partners, IHU applied the same programming to develop software for terrorism prevention. That software is called Cybershield.

IHU combined this software program with its research on prevention of violence in the schools and began marketing its new product to government agencies. Since then, Wilen says, those in the company are becoming known as prevention experts.

"Not terrorism experts," he says. "And we are being asked all over the place to come and present our (model)."

"We're into what to do before it happens," adds Frederick Van Wert, director of education and training development with the company.

What the IHU team developed is a computer program that connects a series of horizontal databases, and updates all the databases in real time. The software could connect databases all over the world. With the software, if a potential terrorist made a move, agencies with access to the database would be able to input the information and immediately notify all the other agencies.

"If someone came here with a student visa, for example, it would immediately be known by the Department of Justice. And if that person gets a license to move radioactive waste materials, that information would be available for every (agency) to know ... so that they can track him ... ," Van Wert explains.

In addition, the software program contains information on biological agents and the potential impact on the American people, as well as experts available to deal with a crisis.

"It's a program with a series of horizontal databases, which means that as data comes in, it is sent simultaneously to all agencies ... at the same time," Van Wert says. "(The information) would be available in real time."

Right now, he says, different agencies have separate databases with different levels of information, which causes a lag in communication. But using its system could change that.

CRITICAL NEED
Robert Davidson, deputy regional health administrator for the Department of Health and Human Services' regional offices in New York, says the work that Wilen and IHU are doing comes at a crucial time for the United States.

"He's an adaptive kind of guy and his organization has to be because as the need arises, they try to answer the need for information and training and the conceptualness of these things," Davidson says. "And we're in a time of need right now for all new kinds of concepts, because our concept of what security is and safety is, has been questioned."

But, he says, the acceptance of the company's and Wilen's ideas will not come easily.

"He's slowly chipping away at the resistance to new ideas, and I hope he's got the answer and that we see some changes," Davidson says.

Presently, Wilen is a member of the New York Electronic Crimes Task Force of the U.S. Secret Service and of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office Working Group on Community Structure for Crisis Management, Planning, Preparedness and Recovery of the U.S. Department of Commerce. As such, he has presented his work to many government agencies, including Congress and the New York State Legislature.

Jim Mackin, spokesman and agent with the Secret Service, says Wilen spoke at one of the agency's New York Electronic Crimes Task Force quarterly meetings. But, he declined to comment on Wilen's research or any of its work.

"Mr. Wilen is one of 200 members of the New York Electronic Task Force for the Secret Service, which has partners or members that come from academia and the private sector," he says.

John Boffa, president of Washington, D.C.-based government relations firm Boffa & Associates, who's served as an adviser to Wilen in cultivating relationships with government officials for two years, says he thinks Wilen's perspective is right on target.

"He's ... actually one of the most highly regarded terrorism (prevention) experts in the country because of his focus on the need for terrorism prevention," Boffa says. "I have a lot of respect for him, because his focus is different from other people in the government as far as spending millions of dollars in response to terrorist acts."

MAIN OBJECTIVES
Though Wilen has been called to Washington frequently to speak on terrorism prevention, he says it's not his first love.

The 20-year-old company offers consulting services in other areas, such as in education, health care and the workplace.

In a nutshell, Wilen describes International Horizons as a think-tank or problem-solving and educational company that develops strategies to solve problems. A client comes to IHU asking for its services. IHU, in turn, assesses the needs of the client, puts together a task force to address those needs and comes up with a solution.

In fact, much of the company's functions revolve around educational program development and school safety.

"School safety is of major importance to me," Wilen says. "And, it's one of the areas that we have dealt in for many years because our children are our future. It's really that simple. And, it's our obligation to give them a safe environment to learn."

Currently, the company is in the developmental stages of an online project called the School Safety report. Through this report, Van Wert says the company will try to get a national perspective on school safety by asking visitors to the Web site a series of questions. (The site can be found at http://www.schoolsafetyreportcard.com/).

"Based on those questions, we're going to put the results of the information out and make them available to anybody who wants it," Van Wert says. "It will identify where the needs might be to improve school safety."

The goal, Van Wert says, will be to see if problems that could result in death or injury are promptly reported and addressed, if schools have safety programs and crisis management teams, and if parents are aware of these programs.

THE EARLY TIMES
Wilen first came to San Antonio in the early '70s as part of the military. After completing his time in the service, he briefly worked for the University of Texas Health Science Center at the medical school as a pulmonary specialist. In 1973, he opened a private practice in internal medicine, pulmonary disease and critical care.

"At that time, critical care medicine was an absolutely new field that had no organizations or certification programs," he says. "I realized there was a need in critical care and went out and decided to go into private practice."

Wilen says he, and a handful of doctors he brought in from other parts of the country, spent years training others in critical care and helping them establish critical care practices in other cities and towns.

After 20 years in private practice, Wilen says he wanted to pursue other interests.

"I was ready to make a move and to put my efforts into education, which has always been a prime interest of mine," he adds.

While in private practice, Wilen says he served as a part-time consultant to International Horizons, which at the time was known as Medical Horizons Unlimited. Wilen retired from private practice and joined the company full time in 1993 as director of expert and consultant recruitment.

In its infancy, in 1982, the company was operated by a group of local physicians, attorneys and psychologists and focused on issues surrounding health care and education services in litigation.

But since 1993 the focus of the company moved from just health care to education, the community and the workplace.

Wilen moved up in ranks in the company, until he was named president in 1999 and CEO the following year.

Today, Wilen says the company continues to expand its focus -- including the areas of school safety; educational program development; legal education; and environmental issues in school, home and the workplace. Wilen says the company has seen between 10 percent and 20 percent increase annually in revenue over the last several years. But his goal, he says, is not to focus on the numbers, but to increase the quality of the company's services.

"Our vision is not so much on expanding in size, but in honing our quality to higher levels," he says.