The following is the introduction for one of my classes at AMU.  It describes why I got so involved in emergency management and the classes I have taken.  This class (Coll200) is to apply prior experiance, knowledge and training to gain credit twords my BA degree in Emergency and Disaster Management.  The training I took as Mayor and experiance I gained is only a small part of my future career.  From time to time I will share some of my classwork in this blog as I expand my horizons.

I hope this helps explain a few of my motivations.
Rich

I come to AMU and this class with a different background than most.  I have spent the past 35+ years in construction (25 as a Commercial Electrician) but also served as the Mayor of the City of Pacific from 2004 to 2011.  It was during this time that I developed a passion and understanding for Emergency Management and Homeland Security.  As I am now 53 years old and my productive years performing as an electrician are waning, I am pursuing a BA degree in Emergency and Disaster Management with the intent of working another 20 years in this field.

Following Hurricane Katrina I looked at how my city was prepared and what would have happened if similar type events had happened in the Pacific Northwest.  As my community is small we did not have the resources to develop a functional emergency operations plan with existing resources.  The options were to hire additional staffing, move existing staffing to emergency management (and get them trained) or pursue the training myself.  I chose that later and now have extensive prior learning and experience that I hope to apply in this class.

My first step in writing our emergency plan was attending “Restoration 2006” a FEMA / ICMA conference in New Orleans.  At this conference I took a 16 hour pre-conference workshop on Continuity of Operations.  Based on information gained at this training and applying state and local resources for reference I wrote our initial plan. As a result of this experience and the success of the initial plan (it was tested by flooding in November of 2006), I was invited to speak at Restoration 2007 the following year.  While at this conference in 2007 I learned about a training program provided by FEMA at the Emergency Management Institute (EMI).  My first trip to EMI was that August taking the Integrated Emergency Management Course .

The more I learned from classes, the more I realized what was needed to fully develop our program.  An emergency plan is much more than a printed document that describes what to do in an emergency; it is an ongoing project that includes planning, gap analysis, developing capacity and training and exercise.  Again, to leverage the limited resources we had as a community, I took it upon myself to take the classes and bring the information back and apply it to our program.  As a result I have earned credentials as an Incident Command Systems (ICS) instructor, Master Exercise Practioner (MEP) and all classwork for the Master Trainer Program (MTP).  I have taught multiple classes in ICS, COOP Planning, General Preparedness and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).  I have also written, performed and evaluated four table top exercises that tested portions of Pacific’s emergency plan.  In addition, as Mayor, my city successfully responded in five Presidentially Declared Disasters.

Outside of EMI I have taken classes at the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston Alabama and Texas Engineering and Extension Service (TEEX).  I have been though the COBRA training facility now four times learning what it is like to operate in a contaminated environment.  In the COBRAtf, I suited up in level B and then Level C hazmat suits and operated in rooms contaminated with GX and VX nerve agents.  This experience gave me a whole new perspective on Hazmat response.

In 2010 I was accepted into the Executive Leaders Program at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS.us) located at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California.  This program, one of the most competitive to gain acceptance into in the country, was less training than teaching participants how to apply critical thinking to their jobs.  In this program I further learned how interdependent and linked the world of Homeland Security is with not only emergency management, but with everyday aspects of our lives and our environment.

I could ramble on and on about the experiences I have been provided and how they can be applied in life and this course, however there will be plenty of time to do this in following weeks.  I look forward to the challenges of this program and how I can apply prior learning to my chosen degree program. In putting together professional quality portfolios applying prior knowledge to course work I hope that I will not only re-experience what I have learned, but actually expand that base of knowledge through additional application.  I also look forward to sharing these experiences with the class as well as learning from you through your experiences. In closing all I can add is wishing everyone the best of luck on their portfolios and in their academic and professional careers.