Franzi Economy walks through her journey of exploring emergency management by interviewing experts in the field.
Hosted by Franzi Economy, the EM Student podcast works to bring interviews of industry and academic leaders by discussing trends, topics, and issues that affect emergency managers, first responders, military, higher education, public safety, communications, disaster volunteer organizations, public health, humanitarian groups, NGOs, professionals, students, and researchers.
The EM Student podcast is a part of The Readiness Lab, a network of podcasts owned and operated by Doberman Emergency Management.
This Podcast has moved to the Readiness Lab.
Host: John Scardena (0s):
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Host: John Scardena (1m 48s):
Welcome back to the show everybody, it’s your host, John Scardena. I am so excited for this episode! About a month ago now we introduced the Readiness Lab, we were so excited for that. We brought on some other shows, really great content creators, really great information across the field. Today we want to highlight one of those. We're going to be talking to Franzi Economy, she is amazing. You'll find out why in a second, she runs EM student. So she just created several episodes there and we want to talk about some of the content that she found and EM Student. She can really go into more about that. But EM student, really this focuses on the learning aspect of our emergency management. We kind of focus on changing and the future of emergency management and what she on this show and what she does is saying like, hey, if you're going to be approaching this topic of emergency management, what does that even mean? By getting different people's perspectives, she's been able to formalize several ideas, which we think are really exciting and fun. So, without further ado, Franzi welcome to the show. So EM Student, you're part of the Doberman family, now we're very excited about that. Let's talk about some of the big shows you've had recently, what have they been focusing on and what are some of the things that you've been learning about?
Guest: Franzi Economy (3m 3s):
Yeah, absolutely. I was really excited for this kind of series that I've been working on. I think the idea behind it was, you know, I'm relatively new to emergency management and kind of wanted to just explore and kind of see where my curiosity would take me and just kind of assuming too, that a lot of the questions that I would have, a lot of other people that are either new to the field. I think a huge theme in a lot of people that I've been talking to in emergency management is just that so many people have this kind of always learning mindset. So I think people are just always kind of curious, and as the field is evolving, I just thought a lot of, you know, people would be interested in hearing about some of those things.
Basically, I just started by making a huge list of questions that had tons of questions, you know, that I would love to talk to people about. So, some of those were more about how to navigate the field, how to find education, how to break into the field and things like that, or how to pivot if you're already in the field, but would like to kind of change what you're doing. Then, as I really started talking to people, I really found that emergency management is such a kind of broad topic. I mean, you know, we've kind of talked about this before, how it's kind of like business where there's so many different aspects of it.
It touches so many different other fields and I think where the emergency management kind of intersects with a lot of those other fields was really what I found interesting. So, then I started talking to different people who kind of had emergency management experience, but also could really speak to a lot of other areas. Some of those were talking about kind of where economics and emergency management come together. I talked to somebody who is the communications manager for the city that they work at. So, she kind of brought the communications perspective. I talked to somebody that was really nodular about data. So trying to figure out like what the role of data and data management is and emergency management, and just kind of been this overall connectivity in that, how all fields work together and how we can utilize all these different expertise areas to just really creatively problem solve and really help people. So that was kind of the angle that I was coming from.
Host: John Scardena (5m 28s):
Cool. So man, you just made me want to ask 30 questions based off of that, but let's start with this. So, if emergency management is so broad, right. It is right, it is like saying like the business, what do you do in emergency management? If you're stepping into this field as a kind of a student yourself and this perpetual education aspect, what were some of the most surprising answers? Or like, oh, I had no idea this was a thing, you know, what were some of your big aha moments?
Guest: Franzi Economy (6m 4s):
That's a good question. I think a lot of it was kind of some advice that I expected certain things about like networking's important and really just jumping in there and things like that and setting goals. But I think the thing that was really interesting for me is how different people kind of interpreted or applied that. So, they would give me that advice and then kind of talk to me about how they had implemented that in their career and how they had been successful. So, I think that was more the interesting part. What I've kind of seen is that there are all these common threads. I think there are people that work in emergency management. There are a lot of different things that are very similar and kind of bring people together in that way. But so many people have lots of different paths towards emergency management. I think, you know, that kind of diversity in the space was really cool. Just to kind of see what people learned from, you know, I talked to people who would work in the public sector and the private sector, in government, local government, and EOC, lots of different perspectives. So, kind of seeing how they utilize those different experiences and what they learned from it. I think it was the part where I was like this was really cool.
Guest: Franzi Economy (7m 25s):
I was like, whoa, I hadn't really thought about how to utilize that experience or things like that. So, I think that was probably the interesting part for me.
Host: John Scardena (7m 34s):
Yeah. That's cool, it's kind of like, it's kind of like a hodgepodge kind of industry, because you can bring in all these different things, all these different aspects of emergency management or like things that don't seem related to humanitarian aid, but once you realize how complex a responses or mitigation is, or even recovery, you realize how many different systems it touches, right. Information systems, roadways, you know, even the little building of shelters. Right. It's kind of fun to meet with people with all these different perspectives. I do think that standardization is key to increasing the effectiveness of emergency management for the future, but it keeps drawing people, even yourself.
By the way, Franzi Economy and an economist is like the greatest ever, but even yourself, your path is interestingly enough, right. Where you weren't even closest field and it's kind of starting to draw you in a little bit, right. In fact, for our listeners sake, can you kind of walk us through how that happened and how you kind of got involved, you fell into emergency management somehow, right?
Guest: Franzi Economy (8m 56s):
Yeah. As you mentioned, I definitely come from a background that's really nothing to do with emergency management. Although it is actually pretty interesting how I'm starting to see a lot of different experiences that I had along the way are kind of coming together, you know? There are so many different facets of emergency management and things that you can specialize in. So that's pretty cool. But yeah, I basically was just really interested I think, in learning about different careers and had kind of thought about potentially pivoting and I heard about emergency management. It actually was literally, my mom sent me an article on, I thought I'd be good at it. So just started reading into it and inside outside, it's really great. I really loved the main focus and central tenant is that we're helping people and sometimes I'm like the worst day of their life’s kind of thing, and really being able to have that impact. I just, yeah, that was not great, and so I started investigating more. I actually reached out to Todd Devo on LinkedIn. I mean talk about networking and he was really wonderful. Talk to me about it and gave me kind of a little, you know, insight into what it was like to be emergency manager.
So, I ended up sending up for some classes, started learning more, just really got to meet a lot of really great people, you know? Then when I kind of joined the team and started working on the podcast, to me, that was just really more an extension of the kind of exploration that I'd already been doing. Before I'd been talking to different people in the classes, I was taking the professors I had and was asking them lots of questions too. It's just that when we first started doing the podcast and I just started recording it and making you know, the answers to the questions, we all with other people as well. So you're kind of right, it does draw you in. I think the more I learn, the more I'm interested by it and you know, you get lots of answers to your questions, but then also more questions come up and more curiosity comes out. So that's kind of where I am now.
Host: John Scardena (10m 55s):
That's awesome and that's exciting. So for those who might've caught that Todd Devoe is the host of EM weekly. He's also one of the other shows on the Readiness Lab. He's been on the Disaster Tough Podcast a couple of times, and he's a great guy and a great resource. It’s just kind of funny that you kind stumbled upon his world a little bit and he pointed you in the right direction. Definitely the right direction. What's your mom's name by the way?
Guest: Franzi Economy (11m 24s):
My mom's name is Alice.
Host: John Scardena (11m 26s):
Alice. Alice. Thank you so much for sending that article to Franzi, Franzi is phenomenal. We really like working with Franzi here on the show. So again, Alice, thank you. So, send that to your mom. Yeah, because Alice you're incredible. With that then, in terms of that process, I was actually thinking about this the other day, that lots of people ask me, like, how do I break into the field? You've asked that same thing. So same question to other people, but your process is kind of the process, right?
Like you develop this curiosity for a burdensome management and you start to network, right? Those are the obvious things. But what I find most fascinating about this, and this is what I did, and this is what you did, is I immediately reached out to experts again, that networking thing. But then, I try to find opportunities within to see if I even liked it. I think the problem sometimes with emergency managers, especially those who get a degree to that, I got a degree, I got two degrees in it. I'm kind of hyper-focused, but like they want to start off at like running FEMA, right. They're like, I like helping people.
So, I think I'm qualified to run FEMA, like no, be okay with finding like different aspects of emergency management. Even the idea of linking up with Todd, taking some classes and him saying, Hey, startup, you know, do the series on EM Student. You've had this opportunity now to talk to all these different experts. Now you get to work at Doberman and we're very excited about that, obviously. So yeah, In terms of talking to other people about that, you asked that question on your show. What was the answer essentially?
Guest: Franzi Economy (13m 28s):
Yeah, I think your kind of right. I think the practice that I followed, it turned out to be one that people did end up kind of advising on. I think one of the biggest ones was really just jump in, literally whatever you can get kind of thing, you know, at whatever level, if it's even tangential, like I had a really cool example that somebody gave where, you know, she really wants to work in emergency management. Her first job wasn't in that it was in, it was still in city government, but it was like kind of in a different office. She then, not long in to her experience figured out that they didn't have an emergency manager or a coordinator for her office.
There wasn't somebody that was being responsible for bringing those principals through and what they were working on. So, she kind of volunteered to take that on. It's like a side project, so she's still working full time for getting paid, but she kind of carved out these responsibilities for herself. So, then she had stuff on her resume and she was like making connections and then her next job, she was much more able to get something more squarely and emergency management, you know, and things like that. I think when it comes to volunteering or just trying to talk to people or joining like a certain thing, anything you can do to kind of increase your contact with people who are already in the field with people you can learn from, anything you can do to kind of just put your hand up.
You know, I think that it almost is to your benefit that I think a lot of times emergency management services can be a little understaffed. So, if you're putting your hand up and saying, I will help and people will take your help and then you get experience I think it really is just looking outside of the typical standard cookie cutter. I want my title to be an emergency manager type route and just kind of any way you can get in and then just people will learn your reputation. If you're just good at what you do, then, you know, they'll have you back
Host: John Scardena (15m 28s):
That title, emergency manager is a title that is heavily sought after in our field because it's like, oh, I'm an emergency manager. That means like I got an emergency management degree. I have to be the emergency manager, but a resource unit leader, a GIS unit leader, a Ops O, anybody in operations, like those are all within the spectrum of emergency management. I think Craig Fugate was pretty smart when he called everybody at FEMA an emergency manager, you know so they could all feel like, Hey, I'm an emergency manager. So, you can get away from that and get to the core mission of emergency management, which is actually helping people.
If you're in the business to helping people and you want to help people, there's a lot of different ways to do that. I am curious though, you and I talked offline about this a little bit, but I think it's good for my audience to hear in the course of your series of interviewing people and learning more about emergency management, you have started to at least, I wouldn't say scratch the surface, but you're able to start sifting now. In that sifting process, you're finding gaps that you're like why is that a gap? I'll call out one that you noted the standardization across the field. Just the simple question of what is emergency management? People have very different concepts of that and there's a lot of history of why that happens that I can explain to for listeners' sake later. But in terms of your perspective where some things like what were the, I want to say the negative surprises, but what were some of the gaps that you've started to flush out? We were like, huh, we really need to work on this as a field.
Guest: Franzi Economy (17m 14s):
Yeah. I think kind of aside from that one, which I do think is actually a really interesting topic because I think there's kind of pull from both sides. So, I think we need a, there kind of does need to be a standardization, but also, I do think that the kind of say, diversity in fields and backgrounds that people have, I really do think that that's important to try to have all those voices at the table. So that is kind of interesting, where to be on that spectrum. I think another thing that really was a recurring theme was that kind of idea of the professionalization of the industry and that kind of idea of how to be taken more seriously or how to be given more authority, more budget, more access to decision-makers and support essentially that that was something that kind of came up over and over and over again.
I think, you know, a little bit in the conversations I had, but also, I actually just mean in my, now almost a year in kind of delving more into the industry. So that was actually kind of something that was interesting to me, I guess, from a very outside perspective, it's like emergency management is a thing, like it's an industry, it's a profession. I didn't realize that there was this kind of more nebulous gray area that it kind of is, or some people think it is, but not everybody thinks it is and that kind of thing, so it would be cool to kind of. That’s the thing, is if this was an easy thing to solve, it would be solved already. I mean, there's lots of such amazing minds, like in emergency management, it's not, you know, it's clearly not easy. But I do kind of wonder, what are some things that people could start working on or how, how to foster that and work on it? I mean, I know there already are people working on it, but you know, it's just so important that I’d be curious to work more on that and to figure that out.
Host: John Scardena (19m 17s):
I’ll ask you a question there's not a right answer to this. There kind of is, but there's not a right answer to this, are people who are in humanitarian aid and people who are first responders, are they in the same field?
Guest: Franzi Economy (19m 38s):
I think if they're in the field of helping people, then yes.
Host: John Scardena (19m 41s):
Well, there you go. Yeah. That's kind of, so like when people think of humanitarian aid, they think of like the Peace Corps, they think of Red Cross, the United nations. They think of, you know, going into Bosnia, right, they think of going to Syria now and helping out. When they think of first responders, fire, police EMS, essentially, they have very urban search and rescue urban search and rescue is the one that's like teetering on both sides of that because they're pulling people out of rebel, which is what's happening right now in Syria. It’s like, what is emergency management? What is humanitarian aid? People have these connotations. If I say first responder, they know what that is. If they say humanitarian, they know what that is. If they say they say emergency manager, they're like what? Like, what do you do? So my thought process is that everybody in emergency management, whether you're a first responder, a humanitarian, you're sitting behind a desk and trying to coordinate resources, that's actually all humanitarian work, right? It's the business of helping people.
I think I said this on the disaster zone, I was just interviewed on the disaster zone. I was like, the greatest lie or the most genius lie of emergency management is whoever came up with the term emergency manager, because you don't actually have any authority to manage but everybody here's emergency manager. So, they think you're the person in charge and kind of are, but you don't really have authority. So my thought process is like, we need to start defining our own scope and not letting other people define the scope for us, and man a lot on that later.
But I've been thinking a lot about in fact, because of you and ultimately because of your mom, Alice, but I was like, what is emergency management? Like, what's that guy to look like? How do you define each of these terms? I started writing down my own questions of what it is and what it isn't and how to box it in so that others create, could create their own framework. Like creating the framework of emergency management is like, despite people who do complex planning for a living, having figured out how to create the framework of emergency management yet, because we're still trying to figure it out I think.
Guest: Franzi Economy (22m 25s):
Well that, and I think another thing that has kind of come up just in my investigation is that it's different people within it. So, it's partly being defined, I think by people outside of the field who don't often understand. That's another thing is when I talk to people, they're like, oh, what are you up to now? You know I tell them I'm studying emergency management. A lot of people don't know what that is. So people outside the field and they're trying to put together their own, you know, understanding of what that is. But I actually even think that there is, there isn't necessarily a cohesive idea or definition within the field, like of people already in it, partly. Part of that comes because all of these people are working in such different fields and they are all like, well, no, what I do is emergency management, and what I do is emergency management. You know, they all have different ideas of what is the main focus of emergency management is, probably based on what their focuses may be. I think there are different ideas, both within the field, as well as that. That's another thing, even if you think about it, I know this is getting really nitty gritty, but even using like the term emergency manager, I mean management, you can be a manager of almost anything. So that's like not super helpful and emergencies like, okay. But there's lots of different types of emergencies will qualify as an emergency. Like if you think about it, if we're going to hear about all the different phases, so preparedness and mitigation, as well as recovery and not just response like okay, but an emergency, is it technically happening during all the times, like no. I don't know, it's just one of those things where I am unsurprised that people have trouble with that term.
Host: John Scardena (24m 12s):
Yeah. Maybe the biggest problem is everybody, kind of funny. It's coming back to what we said a little bit earlier, but we're in the field of emergency management. Therefore, everyone wants to be called an emergency manager, but that's stupid because to your point, that doesn't mean anything. If I'm an emergency support unit leader, that means something I know exactly what that person does. If I'm an ops chief, I know exactly what that person does. So maybe we should all say we work in the field of emergency management, but no one should actually be called an emergency manager anymore.
Host: John Scardena (24m 55s):
Like you and I both worked in the corporate field, the corporate world, I would never have heard somebody call themselves a business manager. Right, I'm just a manager, I'm a manager of this team. I'm like, oh, okay, now what that means? Like, oh, I manage UX, like, okay cool. I get, I get what that means. So maybe that's the big call-out maybe the big call-out is emergency management. The field of emergency management should stop giving the title of emergency manager and start using the real titles that people actually go by. Then they don't have to fight over what an emergency manager is.
I think that's a really good call-out. In my book, what is emergency management? That's going to be my first point. Stop calling yourself an emergency manager. Yeah, chapter one. There's no more emergency managers. The emergency manager just died. Podcast killed over 80 stars. Okay. I even screwed that up podcast killed the emergency, man. Oh, that sounds bad. This is why I don't sing for a living. Okay. Let's see what else? Questions that you said it's developed more questions in your mind about emergency management. What questions do you have? Let's see if I can answer one and then we'll leave it up for everybody to get back onto your show.
Guest: Franzi Economy (26m 25s):
Yeah. I think a lot of the questions that really stems from the conversations that I had, I feel like I was doing the investigating, finding out a lot about what, and I feel like I know kind of why it is helping people and things like that. But I think my next kind of set of questions would be on how so if I think we have all these like lock the ideas of, you know, and either normal ideas, we want to help people, you know, not be traumatized, you know, and help them become whole again after disaster. But so
Host: John Scardena (27m 0s):
That's the idea, to be honest, let's be real, no big deal. Like just repair everything. Yeah.
Guest: Franzi Economy (27m 5s):
Sure. But like have everybody be healthy, happy. For me then, it's like where it gets really tricky. That's the thing you know, if there even is some debate and there are still questions around what more, you can talk a lot in there. But I think when it comes to the how and how to implement that, how to work across these different fields and different levels. So, from federal to state, to local, how to walk at work across the different departments within a local government, how to work with NGOs and how does that, you know, when people always talk about, say that wrench management's out building relationships.
Okay. Well, how do you do that? How do you create trust in the community so that they trust you, trust each other, but also trust the people in charge? How do you know how much information to release? When you know, all these things are things around, how do we implement, how do we create resilience? I think there's a lot of really great work being done on that. People have a lot of ideas and there's a lot of things being tried. But to me, not only is this kind of a blanket way, it is kind of a big question, but then you start getting down to different communities are all different and they all have different needs because they face different potential disasters. There’s a theoretical level where we can talk about how to do this, but then when you start to then try to implement it, it just gets really interesting. I think there's a lot of things that we're trying and figuring out, trying to come up with answers for it.
Host: John Scardena (28m 44s):
Yeah. The how, a lot of that comes with experience. I would say my very first thought on that, and maybe this is good thought to end on, to be honest, but there's no substitute for time. Like they say, don't ever pass out your business card at a disaster. Like, that's like the worst thing you can do. It's like, hey, like I'm going a hundred miles an hour. Like who are you? What can you do for me? I don't have time to learn, like go with what we know, because that's what we've been preparing for. So never handing that business card at the disaster. I would say that the smartest emergency manager, interestingly enough, that term is the best planner and the best planner knows how to figure out who their stakeholders are before at an event.
So that when an event happens, they can just, they call Franzi. They called Todd, they call whoever and say, hey, we need to do X, Y, and Z. We know what your capabilities are. That's the other really big problem is like, Kevin Coleman actually on the show, he's had it really well. He was like, hey, you asked for the need, you don't ask for the tool. For example, hey, we know we need to get a hundred people in helicopters out of this flood, that's headed their way. You don't ask for the specific helicopter. You'd tell the national guard, hey, we need to air lift a hundred people out of here, they figure out which is the best tools to do that. The more you build that trust of like a need versus tool, then that changes a lot of things too. But yeah, a really fascinating to think of. Sometimes I feel like I have the blinders aren't because I've been doing it for so long that I feel like I can address it really well, obviously. But it's kind of refreshing to go in there from like, Hey, I was in economics for 10 years and now I'm going to be figuring out this thing. I would call it emergency manager and emergency management and asking people really, I wouldn't say basic questions, but the fundamental questions and the fact that we can't really answer for you tells us a lot more about us and then than you. It tells us that this field is still developing. I'm still going to say it. Every emergency manager is a humanitarian. If you're not in the business of helping people then get out of my way. Like, that's why I'm here. Right, so great call-outs, I'm going to ask you one final question, you’re closing thoughts of what you've learned and kind of what you expect to look for in the future, in your own journey of growth.
Guest: Franzi Economy (31m 36s):
That's a good question. I feel like there's one huge thing that was definitely a big takeaway from the whole experience really, of working on the podcast in general, and especially these specific episodes that I just kind of put out is that the field of emergency management is filled with really awesome people who will help you. You know, if you ask for it and again, don't ask in the middle of an emergency, obviously take your time. But when I was being put in contact with all the people I wanted to interview, I mean, everybody was so generous with their time, and was really interesting conversation. They're really helpful. You know, basically everybody has offered. They're like, yeah, you have more questions, they all want to help people. I think because they recognized that bringing more people in and more people in the field that want to help people, it’s all going to be good. Ultimately, for the communities we serve, you know? So I think in general that tends to be that way, but it was just like above and beyond what I even thought it would be in terms of people being really helpful and being willing to talk to me about kind of the huge list of questions that I had for them. So that was really great. I think in terms of moving forward, I'm definitely just interested in, you know, there's so many people talking to them, they also have a great deal of passion and in addition to their knowledge.
So that is I think really helpful kind of on my journey. I think it does, talking to these different people and kind of seeing how these different fields overlap to me. I've always kind of been interested in that, but I really was kind of seeing where emergency management touches other fields and how that can be utilized is actually something that is kind of the most interesting thing to me, at least right now, that could obviously change. I'll probably dive more into that. I think that could be really cool and just learning about how the different fields can work together and learn from each other, all those kinds of things. So I think in terms of my own knowledge, that's probably the direction I'll further in.
Host: John Scardena (33m 54s):
My drive moment. Yeah. I think that’s the right mindset. I'm really grateful to have had a lot of experiences outside of emergency management and touch other fields and be like, oh man, this applies so well to what we're doing. We need to start aggregating that including one that is kind of within the spectrum, but use our own learning. I've been on this big kick of use hard lately, especially helping out with the Miami Surfside building collapse and knowing a lot of the people who responded there. There's just been this weird, multi-month like curve outside of like my standard emo. I think that's a great call-out.
So, what I'm going to tell my listeners is EM Student, Franzi Economy. You have another host, Dan Scott, he's also great. We'll have him on here some time, but we're really grateful that you were able to come on here and talk about that. We're grateful that you're part of the Readiness Lab for Doberman. That's really great, but mostly we're grateful for Alice. She is awesome. She pointed you in the right direction. So very good, Alice, this is the show. We'll probably call this show Alice and no one will understand. Actually, Alice has a term. Alice is an acronym for active shooter training. I don't know if you knew that. So, if we call the show, Alice, everyone's going to think we're talking about active shooters, but it is actually a really great training model. Anyways, if you liked this episode, if you learned something from Franzi, especially if your education or your learning to you're trying to like boost your own career, trying to figure out how you can become more capable EM Student is a great resource for you to check out, so make sure you check out EM Student.
Like I said, if you liked this episode, check that out, give us a five-star rating and subscribe, which we always love. Share podcast as much as you want. We would love to hear that too. If you have additional questions, either for Franzi or myself, you can reach out to us in a couple different ways on LinkedIn and Doberman, or emergency management on Facebook, Twitter kind of not really, and Instagram, Instagram is our flagship. Check us out at Disaster Tough Podcast. If you want to work with Doberman Emergency Management, if you want to work with an economist named Franzi, you can send us an email at info@dobermanemg.com and we'll see you next week.