One of the things I learned in my military service was how to adapt quickly to new unit assignments. This meant learning to adapt to a new corporate culture and new skills. When I joined FEMA in 1990, I was surprised to learn that there was no on-boarding process or initial training. Indeed, it was […]
The recently passed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has appropriately been lauded as a major step towards affordable housing in the United States. However, the bill includes a significant change to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG‑DR) that will have an impact on disaster recovery […]
I have written elsewhere about the work of the Principles of Emergency Management (POEM) working group convened by Dr Wayne Blanchard at the Emergency Management Institute in 2007. The main project of the group, the Principles of Emergency Management, identified eight principles that were intended to be used to guide the development of emergency management […]
The final report of the FEMA Review Council was accepted and released on May 7th at the Council’s final meeting. You can read the 75-page report here or a see a summary presentation here. The report contains ten recommendations for improving FEMA. I do not intend to summarize and critic the recommendations. For that I […]
It was an early evening in San Francisco. My workday done, I had stopped at our local BlockBuster on my way home to pick up a few videos for the family. As I was making my selection, I noticed out of the corner of my eye one of our MUNI buses pass by, shaking the […]
Ever wonder why your attempts at persuasion fail? Are you surprised when your carefully reasoned arguments seem to fall on deaf ears? The problem may lie not with your argument but with a predisposition on the part of your listener. My high school and college educations were overseen by members of the Society of Jesus […]
In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, the protagonist, Tevye, sings about how good it would be to be a rich man. One of the things he dreams about is the most important men in the town coming to him for advice and “Posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes…” Tevye’s response: And it […]
Some years ago, I was presenting a seminar to an audience of local emergency managers. Part of my presentation was a discussion on the tendency of the public to focus on the “flavour of the month” disaster rather than on true risk. One of the examples I used was the focus on Y2K that we […]
Like many emergency managers, I was anticipating the release of the overdue final report of the FEMA Review Council. If you’ve read my previous blog posts on the Council, you’ll know I did not have very high expectations for the report. However, as a former FEMA employee I am well aware of the need for […]
If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you’re probably aware that I have a penchant for history. I believe history has a lot to teach us and there are common themes that seem to repeat throughout history that have a bearing on current affairs. For example, Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror: […]