Abt Associates Inc. services with three recently awarded contracts to support the work of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Office of Regional Operations, the National Commission on Children and Disasters and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). The value of the combined contracts is approximately $1.5 million over three years. Abt Associates will provide a range of consulting services designed to enhance coordination between FEMA headquarters and the ten FEMA Regional Offices where disaster preparedness, response and recovery efforts take place. Such services range from mission planning and analysis to leadership training and executive coaching. The Office of Regional Operations is responsible for coordinating FEMA's policies and programs with the Agency's Regions and other regional partners. Under a contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Abt Associates will provide support to the National Commission on Children and Disasters, most notably helping the Commission prepare a final report that will advise the President and Congress on children's needs as they relate to preparation, response and recovery from disasters. The company will also provide facilitation support to the Commission's stakeholder outreach initiatives, field hearings, and public meetings.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Materiel Command, Fort Detrick, Maryland, has awarded Abt Associates Inc. a 4-year, $5 million contract to study the effects of the war zone deployment of U.S. military service members on the mental health and related outcomes of their spouses and family members. The study seeks to address both risk and resilience factors associated with the process of post-deployment adjustment for family members. The Abt Associates team, which includes collaborators from the San Francisco VA Medical Center, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center, and the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, will conduct a community epidemiologic study of mental health and other outcomes for a probability sample of spouses and children of deployed military service members.

Abt Associates Inc. announced that Stanley J. Lukowski has been elected Chairman of the company's Board of Directors. Lukowski succeeds John A. Shane who served as Chairman since 2005 and retired from the Board in July. Lukowski, who joined the Abt Associates Board in 2006, is the former Chairman and CEO of Eastern Bank Corporation, a position he held from 1992 until his retirement in 2006. Abt Associates President and CEO, Wendell Knox, who will remain on the Abt Associates Board when new President and CEO, Kathleen Flanagan, assumes her responsibilities in October.