GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany – Dr. James MacDougall, American deputy director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, opens the Fourth Annual Seminar on Transatlantic Civil Security Alumni Community of Interest Workshop here April 23. The event gathered about 70 people, including 43 alumni participants from 32 countries around the globe under the theme “examining lessons learned: civil security operations in major disasters and national security events.” Alumni community of interest events are a cornerstone of the center’s Alumni Program, which serves over 9,500 alumni of the center’s programs. This event brings together multiple classes of the STACS program from 2008-2011 and focuses on networking, updates on civil security topics, sharing of lessons learned, updates on the alumni program and tools available to graduates as well as other professional education. It joins additional alumni community of interest events for graduates of the center’s Program on Terrorism and Security Studies, the Seminar on Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction/Terrorism and the former Seminar on Security, Stability, Transition and Reconstruction programs and for counter narcotics and illicit trafficking. (DOD photo by Karlheinz Wedhorn/RELEASED)