High-quality professional development for public school teachers is directly tied to student achievement, teacher quality and retention, and national education priorities (Kroeger et al. 2000). To stay current with the knowledge, skills, and expertise that students need to succeed in the twenty-first century, educators must increasingly retool their instructional strategies and technologies, upgrade the curriculum through new research methods, take responsibility for every student's competence in core content, and improve student-learning outcomes. The Center for Defense and Homeland Security (CDHS) at Fayetteville State University (FSU) in North Carolina has instituted a new research and development initiative. The emphasis is on mitigating natural and man-made catastrophic disasters, as well as recovery, within the United States. This research and development initiative is partnering with industry; higher education; the Department of Defense (DOD); the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and other federal, state, and local entities. This professional development initiative offered an extensive collaboration with university faculty and public school teachers to enhance educational opportunities for middle-grades students and also to interest students in STEM careers. The initiative was presented to seven local school districts to demonstrate to participating teachers the appropriate curricular connections with the Common Core areas of statistical thinking and content related to homeland security and defense. This work was a collaborative effort between local education agencies (LEA), the FSU School of Education, and the CDHS. The LEAs welcomed the workshop initiative to help them interpret and implement the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics, with a focus on statistics concepts in middle school. This article describes how the workshop was implemented, the participants and subject-matter experts involved, and the strategies and tools that were used to make it a success.