CHDS ELP Alums Honored for Chicago Building Security Leadership

Two longtime colleagues who helped lead downtown Chicago through everything from the COVID-19 pandemic and the civil unrest as a result of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police to the NATO Summit in 2012 and last year’s Democratic National Convention have been honored for their efforts by an international commercial high rise trade industry association.

And both Erin Belknap (nee Parks) and Tom Henkey are Center for Homeland Defense and Security Executive Leaders Program alums who encouraged and supported each other to attend the nation’s premier homeland security educational institution.

Erin Belknap

Belknap (ELP cohort 1802) and Henkey (ELP cohort 2302) were honored in November by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Chicago with the 2024 annual Industry Champion award, which recognizes association members whose “exceptional contributions” have advanced the industry’s advocacy efforts. BOMA is a public-private group comprised of security professionals representing commercial office buildings, including more than 200 high-rises, in downtown Chicago, as well as representatives from local law enforcement and government agencies.

Belknap, who served a five-year enlistment with the U.S. Marine Corps before leaving as a Sergeant and currently serves as Managing Director of Security for the property development and management firm Sterling Bay, and Henkey, a former Senior Emergency Management Coordinator for the city of Chicago who works as Director of Emergency Management for Titan Security Group, are longtime friends who served on the BOMA Preparedness Committee for nearly two decades including as Chair and Vice-Chair from 2019 to 2024.

According to BOMA, they were honored for being “instrumental in leading the Committee’s efforts, providing vital resources and guidance throughout pivotal moments from the pandemic to civil unrest. They led monthly meetings, facilitated critical tabletop exercises, and fostered strong, collaborative relationships with law enforcement and public agencies. Their initiative in organizing appreciation events for the Chicago Police and Fire Departments further exemplifies their dedication to our community.”

Tom Henkey

Henkey said their volunteer roles on the BOMA preparedness committee were “time-consuming and challenging, but they were successful in growing the size, scope, and objectives of the committee during their five-year run.

“Erin and I were true collaborators from the very beginning to make as much progress and be as relevant as possible to our colleagues and then to move aside and transition leadership before we lost that momentum,” he said.

Belknap, who spent five years managing security of top-secret facilities in the U.S. and abroad as a Marine, and whose 20-year career includes security management of critical infrastructure sites, noted that she met Henkey when she first joined BOMA and he was making presentations to the association about emergency management, and she said she thought his job was “fascinating.” While she didn’t end up going into the emergency management field, Belknap said she greatly valued the opportunity to work with Henkey on BOMA.

Henkey, who also serves as adjunct faculty at DePaul University’s School of Public Service with a specialization in emergency management, and worked in the non-profit sector, called his career arc something he “certainly didn’t plan but it has empowered me to be a loud-and-proud advocate for cross-sector collaboration because I’ve seen how critical it is from every viewpoint.”

Both Belknap and Henkey wrote letters of recommendation for each other’s CHDS ELP application packets, according to Henkey, and have valued that connection throughout their collaboration.

Belknap said she highlighted her experience with BOMA when she applied for CHDS. She said ELP appealed to her because she didn’t consider herself an “‘academia-type person'” and was more interested in learning “tangibly valuable things and meeting interesting people that would help me professionally.”

“[CHDS] was a fantastic opportunity and definitely everything I wanted as far as a more interesting way of learning, and learning different areas of emergency management and security that I may not have had if I’d done a more traditional graduate program,” she said.

Henkey said he bonded with his cohort on the first in-person session and he remains in contact with “literally” every fellow student in the cohort.

“I took away a lot of great leadership traits and learned that real-world application of leadership in extreme stress situations,” he said. “You cannot get that from a book. Since attending CHDS, I’ve consciously tried to apply some of the leadership lessons and techniques we discussed and tried to emulate some of the exceptional traits exhibited by my public-sector cohort. It is still ‘early days’ for me as a recent graduate of the ELP, yet I can truly state that my management style has changed for the better.”

INQUIRIES: Heather Hollingsworth, Communications and Recruitment | hissvora@nps.edu, 831-402-4672 (PST)

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