SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The September 11 attacks changed the nation's security landscape forever and inspired a new generation of public servants to step up.
On Nov. 25, 2002, roughly a year and two months after the attacks, President Bush signed the Homeland Security Bill, creating an entirely new cabinet department: the Department of Homeland Security.
The department originally consolidated 22 different federal agencies under one umbrella with the goal of keeping America safe.
Organizations like the Coast Guard, TSA and FEMA became part of Homeland Security. It also led to the creation of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, agencies that had previously operated together as the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Eric Frost, an emeritus professor of Homeland Security at San Diego State University, said public awareness of terrorism shifted dramatically after that day.
"Before 9/11, people's awareness of terrorism for the most part was probably very low compared to what happened on that day," Frost said.
Frost said the consolidation of so many agencies under one department has come with both benefits and challenges.
"The nature of all the different groups that are there and all competing for the same money and it ends up being a complexity," Frost said.
Despite those challenges, Frost said the department's overall impact has been significant, though not without controversy.
"It is something that I think DHS overall has had an enormously positive effect, but it also has an enormously bad PR for lots of different kinds of reasons," Frost said.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, San Diego State University created a graduate program in Homeland Security. More than 1,200 alumni have graduated since. Many of those early graduating classes were inspired by what happened 25 years ago.
"The primary motivation behind it for people to do it has been public service and that started at the very first class and so people go into it because they're saying, I want to help my community," Frost said.
The Department of Homeland Security now has more than 260,000 employees, with jobs ranging from border and cyber security to emergency response. A cabinet department that did not exist 25 years ago is now the third largest by workforce.
Frost said the department's effectiveness could be improved with action from lawmakers.
"In many ways, much of what DHS could become more effective is if Congress made the laws a lot more effective of what we should actually really do," Frost said.
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