Eligibility Requirements for Exercise Support

All exercise support requests must be sponsored by an SLTT government organization.

• Nonprofit, private sector, and federal entities can submit requests on the condition that the support request is co-sponsored by an SLTT government organization.
• Academic institutions that are state funded can submit a request and receive support without a co-sponsor.
• Private academic institutions must submit a request that is co-sponsored by an SLTT government organization.

All support requests must be reviewed by the appropriate FEMA Regional Exercise Officer (REO) prior to submission.

• Discussion-based exercises support will only be provided for those with a conduct date of November 4, 2024, or later.
• Operations-based exercises support will only be provided for those with a conduct date of February 2, 2025, or later.
• The NEP inbox should receive your exercise support request packages no later than 11:59 PM ET on the designated submission date of March 1, 2024.

• Completed or draft plan to be exercised.
• The current Integrated Preparedness Plan (IPP) that your exercise is a part of, if available.
• Corrective actions from past real-world events or exercises.
• Finalized After-Action Report/Improvement Plan from a previously supported NED exercise, for sponsors that have previously received support from the NED.

Missing documentation will require a meeting with the NED to obtain clarification and information.

It is possible to receive support for an exercise series. You can choose to either submit multiple exercises from a series to the same support request round or split submissions over multiple rounds depending on development timeline. You are required to submit separate Exercise Support Requests for each exercise in your series.

Real-world After-Action Report development is not eligible for NED support; any submitted support requests for real-world After-Action Reports will not be considered.

My Jurisdiction Does Not Need Any Exercise Support From NED, Can I Still Participate in the NEP?

After-Action Reports (AARs) contain crucial data that, when viewed in the aggregate with exercises conducted nationwide, provide vital insights into preparedness trends and help shape priorities for the nation’s exercises. Sponsors interested in sharing AAR results can submit data directly to the National Exercise Program.

NED Exercise Program Managers (EPMs) and Regional Exercise Officers (REOs) review each exercise support request, prioritizing requests based on the documentation submitted and the pre-decisional scoping call outcomes. Additionally, each request is scored out of a total of 100 points based on an algorithm that extracts data from the Exercise Support Request (ESR) Form. The figure below shows how the combination of the score and panel priority work together to inform which exercise are supported.

Exercise sponsors should coordinate closely with their appropriate Regional Exercise Officer (REO) throughout the exercise support process.

Region	Regional Exercise Officer	States/Territories
Region 01	Kerri-Ann Trepanier	Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont
Region 02	Devin Kerins	New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands
Region 03	Chris Nemcheck	Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, District of Columbia and West Virginia
Region 04	Jimmie Bell	Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee
Region 05	Marc Chmielewski	Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin
Region 06	Justin Breeding	Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas
Region 07	John Bissen	Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska
Region 08	David Ouimet	Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming
Region 09	Kevin Wasiewski Erik Iwanaga	Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Guam, American Samoa, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands , Republic of Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia
Region 10	Stephen Simerly	Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington