By MC2 Michael Ehrlich

NPS Foreign Disclosure Officer Lt. Cmdr. Robert Kerchner, pictured outside the International Flag Garden, Aug. 11, along with Senior Intel Officer Capt. Daniel Verheul, have reached the end of a two-year effort to establish an on-campus foreign disclosure program.

"The Foreign Disclosure Program gives international government agencies, students and military officers at NPS the ability to access information that may be considered sensitive," said Kerchner, a 2013 graduate of NPS.

The appropriate sharing of information is critical to the university's diverse campus given the high number of international officers attending resident academic programs, in addition to short course and workshop attendees. Kerchner says the Foreign Disclosure Program will help students and faculty determine what unclassified and classified materials may be shared or released to the public.

"There is a misconception that internally generated material, as long as it is unclassified, doesn't have to go through the same procedures, but it does. Unclassified does not mean releasable," explained Kerchner.