#76 Preparing Cities - Interview with Asher Morris

What does it take to stay ahead of the threat? How do we successfully build relationships? Asher Morris answers these questions and so much more on this week’s episode. Asher Morris is a seasoned emergency services and emergency management professional. A trained paramedic, he also has experience in healthcare emergency management as well as coordinating specialized projects for vulnerable populations.

Asher currently serves as the Emergency Preparedness Manager for the City of Atlanta’s Mayor’s Office of Emergency Preparedness.

On this week’s episode, Asher discusses preparing major cities for all types of hazards and major events. He delves into the nuances of emergency preparedness at the local level. He also highlights the importance of leading through serving others first. Through his insights, we learn how to work more effectively within our respective communities as a whole.

[Asher’s comments and opinions are his own and do not represent an official statement from the City of Atlanta Mayor's Office.]

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Host: John Scardena (0s):

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Host: John Scardena (1m 41s):

Welcome back to the show, everybody, it's your host, John Scardena. I am so excited for this episode. After Morris comes to us out of Atlanta, Georgia Mayor's office. He has a very long title for a very long panel, eight to speak both to that, but they're focusing on preparedness. I've been before focusing on the tornado response. It's about 17 or so plus. Asher comes with an additional feather in his cap. If you remember last year, we had Ashley Loria golden on here, big fan of hers and what she's done with mitigation. She's worked with Jima, she's worked with Forsyth county. Now she actually works with Doberman. She just said, hey, you got to have this guy on the show. He's really, really smart. So Asher, welcome to the show.

Guest: Asher Morris (2m 26s):

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Host: John Scardena (2m 29s):

All right. So first things first, can you give us the entire title? It might be a paragraph or two, but

Guest: Asher Morris (2m 34s):

Yeah, emergency preparedness manager. We have Atlanta mayor's office of emergency preparedness. It’s not so long.

Host: John Scardena (2m 42s):

You guys like preparedness? Yeah. Okay. So I look at preparedness a little bit differently than some based off of my past experiences. We use all these buzz words, resiliency, preparedness, five areas of preparedness FEMA. It, which doesn't really make sense for response. You don't prepare to respond, you actually respond. So I call it readiness. So if you're the preparedness manager, are you focusing on all actions pre disaster or are you actually doing disaster response yourself?

Guest: Asher Morris (3m 13s):

Yeah, the majority of what we do is mostly the preparedness piece as you would traditionally think of it. So we do a lot of special event preparedness, crisis management, pretty much anything, but the recovery and mitigation piece. We even do some mitigation aspects as well. Okay.

Host: John Scardena (3m 28s):

Okay. So that's tough for me because mitigation is preparedness, but you know what mitigation isn't really preparing because it's stopping right. If you're doing mitigation, right? So with national preparedness month happening right now, this is like your month, like your a month to shine. So Atlanta is complex for those who don't know Atlanta, basically it's three seasons of construction and like kind of a rainy season, kind of gets cold, so that's how I know Atlanta. In terms of preparing Atlanta and events that could happen there, especially hazards could happen there. What is your office doing right now to prepare your city?

Guest: Asher Morris (4m 12s):

So, you know, obviously we just faced a lot of severe weather with rain coming through the last several weeks. So we frequently meet with a lot of our teams and make sure that everybody really has their good preparedness plans. Ready. Our role is primarily the cross-organizational coordination. So we reach out to the various departments, make sure that they're ready. And then when it comes time to activate any type of plan, we'll be there to assist in that execution really, if you will. But you know, we prepare for all sorts of things. It's labor day weekend coming up. So we're also looking at all the different, special events that are coming into town and working with the different teams and the different departments and making sure that everybody's got their plans ready and that we're ready to really safely host these events. And we are, we're excited about doing that also.

Host: John Scardena (4m 60s):

Yeah. So that's interesting to think about and preparedness in terms of the live shows. I mean, Atlanta is such a huge hub it's hub, you know, it's Delta Delta's hub, it's kind of the landing ground for so many different things, it has such a rich history in itself. You also have a medical background, right. So going to events and looking at it from that lens, how do you pair actually, I need to ask kind of a fun question first, because if there's a cool concert rolling into town, you're like, Ooh, we gotta do some extra preparedness. Can you get tickets to that? Are you able to like get behind the scenes and start preparing for the event?

Guest: Asher Morris (5m 42s):

I’m Sure I could.

Host: John Scardena (5m 44s):

I was gonna say if you can, you know, there's several concepts I would love to be able to help you out with, but yeah. That's why I volunteer my time. Okay. So in terms of hazards, you're really talking about two separate things. So at the same time you're talking about, obviously flooding major issue down south, especially in the Gulf region, but now you're talking about kind of that, that manmade more like accidental manmade of maybe something is planned, but most likely you're going to have a situation where some accident happens and you have to, you have to manage that. So in terms of your time, how do you differentiate between the manmade stuff and the natural stuff, especially as you're identifying your hazards.

Guest: Asher Morris (6m 30s):

That's a, actually a very difficult question. I don't know if there is much of a differentiation of time spent really we're it's very broad spectrum, right? So we're looking at all of the different things that are happening. We're looking at the weather systems, we're monitoring that, we're looking at our event calendars and monitoring that and working really a lot of times it's with the same teams. So we're really working from multiple angles, with the same groups of people to make sure that we're staying on top of it. I mean, our motto with our team is to stay ahead of the threat. So regardless of threat, regardless of natural versus man-made versus whatever else, our goal is really to stay ahead of it. So for example, one of the things we're already starting to plan for is winter weather. So we're already getting our teams together, discussing winter weather T plans and you know, that that's partly one of the big projects that I work on as well. So we're really full swing ahead, full throttle, going through this winter weather, looking at projects, projections for temperatures for precipitation, and getting really all of our planning stuff together.

Host: John Scardena (7m 33s):

How has the weather you have seen, so at least from my perspective, from a GIS perspective, IT, I deployed a lot more often to the golf than I thought I was going to, you know, 10, 15 years ago as the weather tends to shift and it's changed in those impacts. So it's amazing that you're already looking at that out. I mean, I guess that's preparedness in a sense, right, In it's full sense. As you're looking at that, how have you had to change tactics in terms of your strategic vision for preparing for heavy hitting events that are probably happening more often than what they predicted 20, 30 years ago even? Do you look at that, I mean, do you look at those long term trends? Is that something you care about?

Guest: Asher Morris (8m 23s):

I would say personally, I care about it. Like I said, one of my major projects is winter weather. Actually I oversee all of the warming center operations. So shelters that we set up during for the temperatures, for our individuals experiencing homelessness. So I'm looking at trends and seeing, for example, two years ago, we met the activation criteria at 23 times versus last year, or I'm sorry, three years ago, 23 times last year, two years ago, 34 times, and last year it was like 47 times. We're obviously seeing a significant increase. Then of course you can't forget where we were working through COVID as well in my office has been pretty integral in that, in everything COVID. So, yeah.

Host: John Scardena (9m 7s):

Absolutely. It was like all hands on deck, like last year and a half and it's going to keep rolling out, especially as the COVID response is intertwined with so many other areas that it requires true emergency managers to really focus on that, especially because you have a medical background even better. Yeah. It, it made me think, like, you're talking about the increase, go into some of the reasons why you think that increase happens. Do you think it's purely just because of the weather, or do you think it's because knowledge is like, you know, there's like a lot of knowledge growth of like that these warming centers are available. Is that a growing homeless population? What are some of the factors that go into those warming centers?

Guest: Asher Morris (9m 51s):

Yeah. So we're very metric based when it comes to the activation. So we meet specific temperature or other criteria and we activate, so, I mean, I think it's definitely an increase in cold weather that we're seeing the last couple of years. You know, last winter, we got very lucky we didn't, I don't believe we saw a single snowflake, which for Atlanta is not totally unheard of. That's actually one of the things I love most about Atlanta, you can really kind of see all four seasons in one day, some years, but it is, it's one of the selling points that I think, you know, in the middle of the fall, you've got all four seasons. Maybe you'll see a flurry here and there, but I definitely think it has to do with the weather. It's the temperatures, the temperatures are dropping and lasting longer. You know, some days we'll have, or some weeks we'll have a cold snap that lasts one day and sometimes it'll last three days in a row and we have to have contingency to keep our operation open.

Host: John Scardena (10m 45s):

Yeah. That's interesting. So our company Doberman emergency management, we've been heavily dealing with the impacts of weather on the opposite side bed, the heat side, because of California. We actually still have an operation. We moved our headquarters recently to St. Louis where I'm at now, but we have an office in LA and in California specific and it really is a nationwide issue of power outages, but the utility company was found liable for these major wildfires. So they were told that they had to put a plan in place. This is really just for the audience state for a lot of those emergency managers who don't know about this, but they created something called public safety power shutoffs.

Host: John Scardena (11m 26s):

Basically they think the wind or the weather, the heat was the right combination of factors was going to cause a wildfire from their power lines. They were going to kill the power. Well, now we have cooling centers. Now we have to deal with cooling centers without power and so our company, you know, we were poised to be able to work in that environment. We were, I would say very grateful and, and having to feel to obtain clients there and said, hey, we want to do this right. So a big part of our plan is those homeless populations. Really, you know, we also work with tribes and tribes can bring in a lot of money through casinos, or they can be desperately in need for assistance and work off of grants.

We have been focusing on those that need, you know assistance and so pulling all that in together and looking at that coordination piece of how you get to the generators, the fuel that's needed, how do you maintain that? Who are your stakeholders? Who has responsibility during that event? And really when you look at those types of events, it's that coordination piece between all those stakeholders, which amazingly smartly, you called out at the beginning and said, hey, mostly what I do is coordination. So in terms of the national preparedness month perspective, our podcast is kind of taking the spin that we want to prepare our emergency managers for the future. You know, as emergency managers, prepare the public, as you're focusing on the public, what advice could you give to emergency managers who might have to deal with cold snaps or deal with those heating, you know, those heat waves that are going to have to deal with car cold centers for the homeless, what are like maybe top five things that they should focus on as they do?

Guest: Asher Morris (13m 10s):

Yeah. So I think number one, and I would be hard pressed to find an emergency manager who disagrees, people's relationships, our job, everything we do, whether it's specifically preparedness or whether it's consequence management, no matter what it is, we need resources. We need to work with people and we really have to understand that it does take off in a village. It's a whole community approach. So building those relationships are that that's number one, that's that's by far the top tip proactivity, start early and make things happen. Build these relationships early, start planning early, knowing your, your stakeholders, knowing what their capabilities are, I think is extremely important and trying to understand what others can bring to the table. You know, we don't want to have a response where everybody says, hey, I'm in, but nobody knows what to do. So starting early with the coordination piece, hey, you're going to be responsible for X. You're going to be responsible for Y, you're going to be responsible for Z. I'm big on thinking with innovation, right? So last year I might have done something one way and it could have worked perfectly, but what can we do differently this year? What can we do better this year you know, to enhance our engagement with our community, to enhance our engagement with our stakeholders, whether it's the community or the internal stakeholders. You know, to me that, that that's extremely important, right?

We want to continue to grow, continue to evolve, continue to just do better. Be creative, have fun with it. You know, a lot of people look at what we do and say, okay, so we follow plans, we do this, we do that, whatever. We've got a plan, we've got a playbook, we've got a framework. It might be right, but have fun with it. You know, our plans should be living documents. Let's do something different. Let's break the glass ceiling if you will, let's do something. So innovation is another big one when I say productivity. Yeah so be proactive. I mean, those are really the top three. I don't know if I can come up with two more proactivity, start early, build these relationships and really keep thinking creatively, be innovative and, and just try to do better everyday should be better than the neck, the previous one every year, every season, whatever it might be.

Host: John Scardena (15m 26s):

Yes. I fought this tooth and now until I did one, one agency did a really well, hey, I like innovation. I'm going to go in there and we're going to kind of blow this whole thing up and see what we can do. Another agency fought me tooth and nail. I still got what I wanted, which was, I was lucky enough to work with a really good boss, but it was mind boggling. The concept of, well it's worked before. So why change it well in emergency management? What worked before was great for before, you're not preparing for the future, you're not addressing the needs of the future and or the capabilities that are coming out. You know, the big one with me was my big claim to fame is that I introduced drones to FEMA. We're not talking about the high altitude drones because we manage the high altitude drones, we manage the satellites. The Cessna is, which are worthless, sorry, Cessna pilots. But like these tactical little drones that most people think are toys when they're at 200 feet up in the air and you're getting situational ground truth and you're doing damage assessments, when you're doing debris pile estimations in a fraction of the time. When you go to Congress and they say, how did you determine your debris pile? You've got $5 million of debris. Well, this is the actual calculation that we got from the drone that, you know, it takes, it takes an account of the donut shape of the debris pile and helps out a lot in a lot faster.

I can't even tell you how hard it was to be able to convince people. Basically, we had to trick, the system. We were at a disaster, it was actually in Georgia. We were in Georgia and it was for a Warner Robbins for a tornado and we heard of another federal agency having drones and say, hey, can you just show us what you do with those drones? So they came out, they showed us what it was like and then you fast forward to hurricane Harvey and you have 700,000 homes literally impacted. So like what are you going to do? And the FEMA administrator at the time, Brock Long said to everyone at FEMA, be innovative, get the job done, be innovative.

So I went over to legal and I said, the head of the agencies said be innovative. Can I get a drone? And they said, sure, great. I mean, it was not as a longer process of that, but I got the drone, we showcased it, we went out to one fi wildfire with it, and I did myself in one other spotter did. We found 33 more homes than a 30 person PDA team and a third amount of time at almost no cost. So innovation works. So to the audience out there, that's innovation and an action. So to your point, yeah, good call outs.

Guest: Asher Morris (18m 16s):

No, a lot of people stay. We can't and we don't want to recreate the wheel. I'm a huge proponent of that, we shouldn't recreate the wheel. If a plan exists, let's not recreate a plan. But taking that plan at, or taking that wheel, if you will, adding an additional spoke, enhancing it, shining the tire now, whatever it is, make it better. Because like you said, what happened last year isn't the same as what happens this year, you know. Plans again, they're black and white, but we have to be able to pivot. We have to be able to really just see something might be different. So let's think outside the box, let's be innovative and creative. So I'm big on that.

Host: John Scardena (18m 51s):

Yeah. Switching out for snow tires, right? Yeah. So you talked about living documents, I'm a big fan of living documents. It's one of my biggest problems and maybe you can even address this. I'm now a contractor. I kind of hate this, it kind of makes me like die inside a little bit like, oh, contractor, consultant as I'm an emergency manager first. I only work with people who've been in the field, but as soon as you go to an agency, they're like, oh, consultant, you know, like how much money do you want? You're like, okay, well I do need to get paid for the work I do, but I like create living documents. There’s this problem right now with consultants is they're so focused on like the FEMA checklist. I've looked at a document where like half of it was definition.

So I was actually, this is a really, I've shared this one before in the podcast. They had a definition for a volcano for a plan for Philadelphia. I was like, why is this in here? Right. So how do you create living documents? Maybe, can you dress that other concern of how do you work with outside sources? If you're talking about collaboration, we can do everything yourself. Where's the middle ground of making sure you have high expectations, as well as allowing that to have some wiggle room.

Guest: Asher Morris (20m 7s):

Yeah. So, I mean, first of all, technology is great. So having living documents is easy at this point because you can just put it online, put it on a one drive or something to that effect, whatever platform you use and work through that, share it with different people, have different people look through it as far as the collaboration piece and how you do that and do it effectively. You know, I think, again, it's important when I'm working through, let's say a special event, for example, I'm not always going to be the subject matter expert on, you know, what this department will do, what, I'm not a police officer. So I can't tell the police what to do. We're not a firefighter, so I can't tell the fire department what to do. I don't work in public work, so I can't tell them what to do. So for me, collaboration really, and keeping these documents alive is saying, hey, you're the subject matter expert on this. I'll review it and make sure that the principles make sense. We'll review it together as a group and maybe we'll put together, you know, an executive committee, if you will, to look through this and we'll all have an input, but I'm not the expert. I'm just good at writing these plans or I'm good at reviewing these plans and making sure, you know, that's what my training is. So really understanding and helping others understand like, hey, I'm not the boss of you, I'm just the guy here who's going to help you get this on paper and, and help it work with the other documents that we're going to see.

Then really, it's just making sure everybody's kind of on the same page in that sense, hey, office A is going to be doing this, office B you're going to be doing this. How is that going to affect? Or how is your actions going to affect the other actions? And then how's that going to affect the entire system? So it's a lot of talking to people, a lot of working with people, you know, I enjoy the face-to-face conversations. We've learned a lot in the last year and a half about zoom and teams and all the other online platforms, but really it's FaceTime. It's those relationships building that and building that trust so that they understand like, hey, you're not trying to take my plan. We're trying to build a collaborative plan.

I think that's really important that trust and the relationship that you have. And again, I guess it goes back to what I was saying before we have to build relationships. That's really what we need to do. You know, when I talk to people about what it is that emergency managers do, I say, look, building relationships. Here's an example, if I'm walking on the street and somebody says, hey man, can I have a dollar? I'm going to look at them now, I often don't carry cash on me. So I'll probably say, sorry, I don't have cash. But if it's somebody I know, and they're saying, hey, I really need this dollar to, you know, get out of the parking lot or buy something, buy a drink. If I know them, and we've built that relationship, I'm more inclined to say you got it. As opposed to the person who I've never met before, never seen before. That might take a little bit more effort for me to be like, you know what, hold on. Let me walk to the ATM and get you this. So that's kind of the example I use when I explain to people why it's so important to build that relationship. We're so much more tend to be, as people and this is not just me, but everybody we're so much more giving often when it's the people that we know that are close to us. So as emergency managers, as people who work in preparedness, we have to build those relationships because at some point I'm going to need a chainsaw, you know, and I have to know the person I'm going to ask for it. Otherwise we'll be like, actually, the other guy asked for it already. Sorry, man. So yeah, it's all about relationship building.

Host: John Scardena (23m 39s):

I'm looking at the time here, you just had like 15 different areas that I like a hundred percent I agree with. So just like kind of rapid fire. Haven't used that term in a while in the show, but we used to do this, like rapid-fire thing where like, you're going to ask like four or five really quick questions, get their answers really fast. Always turned into like a 45 minute conversation. That had to die. But yeah. So two weeks ago on the show, I talked about unselfishly, just helping other people. If they don't return the favor, then you did something good in the world and you can be proud for the work you did, but more likely than not, hey, like building that relationship on selfishly, helping other people.

That's like a big thing of building relationships. Another big one for me is like, what? You're just calling out. Like the big secret of our field is whoever came up with the term emergency manager was ingenious because we don't really have any authority to tell all these other people what to do, but they hear emergency manager so they, hey DOT can you make me that one road with clear? Oh yeah. The emergency manager told me to get that done. We're like, cool.

Guest: Asher Morris (24m 50s):

We are the managers of relationships.

Host: John Scardena (24m 53s):

Managers of relationships. I like that. I really think we should be called emergency coordinators because like the best emergency manager is a current coordinator, but managing relationships is totally true. And like, when you can manage and you understand a relationship, I felt, you know, one of my best friends, he's been on the show a few times, his name is Patrick McGuinn and he's with salvation army. We used to be on the national strike team together when he asked for something for the company or just for me like, hey, can you volunteer some of your time to help? But you know, he, we did an active shooter class for his, for his headquarters. Happy to do it volunteer the time because a friend asked, you know, at the same time we just had a client calls up and say, hey, we're out of water.

Our company doesn't do water. We can tell them where to go. But I called Patrick up and I said, hey, Salvation Srmy can do water. Right, and he goes, yeah, happy to help. So like, just knowing what they can do, it saves a lot of time when you get into a meeting and somebody goes now what? That's when it's like, oh this is going to be a really tough meeting. But when you get in a response and everybody's walking in the room and you see already people talking to each other and they sit on the table and they start going through a who does what? A response or preparing a fair, whatever, you know, just understanding that and having that relationship is so huge. Right?

Guest: Asher Morris (26m 17s):

So it helps you understand their capacity, their capability, right. If you don't know them to start with, then you have to start the meeting from square one and say, all right. So tell me what you guys can.

Host: John Scardena (26m 25s):

And then it's like half and half the meanings introductions. And you're like, oh man, what a huge waste of time. Could this have been an email? Right. Okay. All right. I have a real question, something that I get asked a lot something, I have to like dive into quite a bit emergency managers here, it's all about collaboration working with your stakeholders. Not all parties get along, some parties are definitely top down some parties that have no relationship whatsoever. As, as you, as a guy who is, seems pretty expert in building those relationships, what advice would you be for emergency managers of how to start building relationships? Like what does square one of doing that?

Guest: Asher Morris (27m 8s):

Introductions. You know, hey, I'm so and so, this is what I can bring to the table. I think, you know, I'm really lucky in every environment that I've worked in, especially over the last couple of years, I've not run into that power struggle. It's really, everybody is interested in working together. That's one of the things that I really enjoy about working here at the city. It's we know that we have a job to do, and we know that we have to get that job done. We know that we have to work together to do it. But realistically it's finding that common ground, you know, you might be opposing entities, you might be competitors. If we were looking at a larger scale event, let's say, or even a disaster, you might be working with your competitor.

At the end of the day, we have to put egos aside. We have to realize that our purpose in collaborating, it's not for us. It's not for me, it's not for my name, it's not for my office, it's really for the people we serve. It's the people who have been affected by this disaster. So I like to try to say, even something like that, if I'm working with a group, who's having a hard time getting, you know, getting along, we have to find our common ground and recognize that we have one mission. Our mission is to help people and if we can't put our differences aside, really to help people, you know, to me, Ill personally speak to myself. If I ever get to a place where I can't put myself aside to help somebody else, I'm going to say, I might need to take a break or I meant to step out.

But we're talking about hopefully a group of professionals who got into this field because we enjoy one helping people, but also, you know, I have different reasons for why I got in here as well. I like seeing something that's chaotic and turning it into something a little bit less chaotic, more organized if you will. If we can't put that aside and say, look, I might not like you, our families might be mortal enemies, but we're here for the same thing and that's to make sure that what we have to do gets done so that this person, or this group of people, or this community, or the city, this county, this state, whatever it might be, can really get back off their feet or onto their feet and off the ground. I think normally I try to use phraseology like that and just say, look, common mission, one mission or one team. We have to do this.

Host: John Scardena (29m 24s):

Mic drop moment. That's the microphone of the show and it did perfectly because I swear you must have looked at our disaster top, all the audience taking this out right now, our Instagram page, because quote, that was literally shared today, emergency management puts people first and management helps people, a job where humanitarians. I think 90% of the field that we got into it cause we like helping people. I also really liked. So this better be a quote on our, this is a call out for our show too, for what you just said, emergency managers like seeing chaos and seeing if we can organize it. That challenge is really fun and I think that's a great call-out for somebody who does preparedness, you better start doing some response because you are really good at the response stuff. What you just said also, if you already know all the key stakeholders, you better start getting a response cause they could use somebody like you so big call-out to Asher for just having high skill there. Yeah. Thanks again for coming on the show. I just want to call out one more time that our grateful that you came on that the talk about the city of Atlanta a little bit and really providing great guidance to emergency managers on directing them towards future actions. This month is all about helping out the public figure out. Oh, we got these four ideas that we want to talk about. No. What really is important is to look at the future events, adjust where necessary. That's what you said, build those relationships. Now, understanding capability, just introduce yourself and seeing what you can do. All those are really great call-outs and so I appreciate you coming on the show and I hope we have you back on the show soon, actually. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Okay. Everybody, this is the call-out so lame. I got to do it every week though. But if you like this show, you got to give us a five star rating and subscribe. And like I said, it's lame, but it helps us out a lot. It helps us track, hey, for were successful or not. We really liked this episode, obviously we just called out Asher for those good comments that he made on the show. So make sure that you send us a message, let us know on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever. Let us know what you thought about this episode. If you agree to, if you disagreed, if you disagreed, you're probably wrong because I thought it was a great episode and I'm his second witness for sure. So let's do this. Get on there, let us know if you want to work with Doberman emergency management or you had an idea about what Asher city had a question that we can forward him. Please send it to us at info@dobermanemg.com and we'll see you next week.

#73 EM National Preparedness - Interview with FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor

September kicks of National Preparedness Month so we brought on one of the most popular FEMA Administrators, Pete Gaynor, to talk about, “The Year of Repeat,” and how emergency managers can prepare for the future, as they are helping others become Disaster Tough. Additionally Pete shares his thoughts on the Afghan Exit. We fully support and agree with his thoughts.

This is the Year of Repeat- with Hurricane Ida slamming into Louisianna on the aniversiy of Hurricane Katrina, Wildfires forcing thousands of evacuations in CA, a catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, and now the rise of the terrorist group, the Taliban, in Afghanistan. This, "Year of Repeat," causes us to wonder how emergency managers should be preparing for future actions. Former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator, and Former Acting Head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Pete Gaynor, comes on to share his insights with the emergency management community.

We also asked Pete about the Afghan Military Exit to shine some insight and perspective to emergency managers.

This Podcast has moved to the Readiness Lab.

Host: John Scardena (0s):

You've just entered the Disaster Tough Podcast, the place for emergency managers, first responders and humanitarians who want to get the job done. Stories, lessons and tips are provided by field experts. This show is owned and operated by professional emergency managers at Doberman Emergency Management. We apply disaster tough logic by protecting life, property, and business continuity through planning, mitigation, and training. Check us out at dobermanemg.com or click on the show notes.

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Host: John Scardena (1m 41s):

Welcome back to the show, everybody, it's your host, John Scardena. I am so excited for this episode, we're kicking off national preparedness month with the man, the myth, the legend, Pete Gaynor. If you recall, he's been on the show before he led FEMA who is also acting head of DHS during the transition between presidencies. So he has a whole wealth of knowledge. He's being hit by Ida right now, up there in the Northeast. Hopefully he's going to be okay, Pete, welcome to the show.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (2m 7s):

Hey John good to be back, thank you.

Host: John Scardena (2m 10s):

Hey it's always a good time talking to you. You know, you have a wealth of knowledge and experience and national preparedness month, our spin is taking it from preparing emergency managers. You know, we always talk about external facing, preparing the public. I think that's kind of the traditional sense, but we as emergency managers talking to emergency managers, I think we have the great opportunity to talk about that this month. BBut I want to back up real quick because I'm calling 2021 now, the year of repeat, because we've had so many incidents and we talked about hurricane Ida itself, hitting on the anniversary of hurricane Katrina, we're seeing the rise of ISIS and the Taliban, which is a whole other scenario that we have to deal with. Now we can choose to get into that or not get into that, or you feel we had, you know, catastrophic wildfires that are happening right now that are still record breakers. It's like, COVID is still happening. It's the year of repeat. It's really frustrating as an emergency manager. What is your take on just the year of repeat idea? If you had similar thoughts.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (3m 20s):

Well, I was hoping for a year of common peacefulness in 2021, as we say good bye to COVID-19 and we will get there. You know, it's one of these things that we have to continually be aware of and defend against and encourage people to get vaccines, right. It's, you know look, and it just has to look at the stats. The majority of people that are in hospitals with Delta are people that aren't vaccinated. So get the vaccine, protect yourself and your family and then it's everything else that's happened, right. I think you hit the nail on the head about, what do emergency managers have to worry about or have to prepare for?

It's all the natural, it's all the natural disasters. So, hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, right. We've got to still do all that. You have to do all the human caused disasters like hazmat incidents, oil spills, and contaminated drinking water, and then technological disasters like bridge collapses, dam failures, and train crashes, right? All those things are kind of in the wheelhouse for emergency managers. Then you look at 2020 and 2021, it’s pandemics and supply shortages, right? Medical supplies, shortages, civil unrest.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (4m 45s):

You know, when you're talking about FEMA, unemployment insurance, we thought FEMA would be an unemployment insurance business, immigration border crisis, and you mentioned it most recently, Afghan resettlement, right? So it's never any gift is, you know, how do we get ourselves out of this while you call your emergency manager and they're going to help you coordinate and integrate and guide you to the end right? So no longer is it just the human caused, it is then man-made and, and technological, it's all the other things. I think that is really what the future holds for emergency managers. It's going to be much more than the traditional post civil defense kind of world that we all kind of grew up in. It's going to, it is now changing to something different.

Host: John Scardena (5m 33s):

Yeah, I agree. I think that the field is rapidly changing for basically two different reasons. One, the frequency of disasters and how it impacts systems. Two, well I think there's a third reason there too, but you know, outside of frequency, you have a general public who's much more aware of the role of emergency management and seeing how public health really wasn't the mechanism of that, of doing a response specifically. Then I guess the third one is education. You know, this idea that you retire and then you get this cushion job is, you know, you focus on evacuations if you're fire. If you're a police, you focus on physical security. I think that that world is kind of dead and so between education and the general public's perspective and what they think that we do versus what we do, I think, you know, I'm one of those people who actually thinks we should cater to what they think we should do because you want to build their confidence in what we say. There's this idea that we shouldn't be in response, I think is just absurd to me, but, you know, that's just my perspective, but yeah, you're right. It's changing dramatically for sure.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (6m 49s):

You know, you'll never get out of response and it's not necessarily emergency management that responds in a tactical way. In some cases you may, depending on where, how you set up in your jurisdiction. You know, FEMA has tactical assets, like USR and generate teams that will respond out there and many more things. But it’s responses short and the hard thing is recovery. So let's just go back down to the Gulf coast, Ida, and Louisiana now that responses is still happening, right.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (7m 31s):

So clearing roads, we're getting power back on, or trying to keep people in their homes. All those things are happening, but it soon is, and it is right now, it is recovery, right. That is the long pole in the tent. I may have said this in our last chat, is that as a profession, we have to become much better at recovery because that's where it counts right. That's I think ultimately, you know, you get scored on response. But as a nation, we’re great responders, you know, police, fire, public works, public health, the response in the moment, we're really good at it, in the moment throughout the nation. When it comes to recovery, we really have to up our game on it.

I think if you want to have an emergency management program, that is first-class right, you have to do all those things, but you really have to do recovery well. So again, I think the dynamic is changing a little bit, it’s still the response, but I think we're ultimately going to get graded on how well recovery went and how did we prepare for recovery, right? You just don't walk in recovery without a plan, right. You have to have all those things. So we had to make a better investment as a community, and as a profession when it comes to recovery.

Host: John Scardena (8m 55s):

As a professional planner, especially an emergency planner, there has been a lot of instances lately that have seemingly happened without a plan. That has been really tough to watch and to observe and to say I know we can do this better, like we have the capability, we have the intelligence, we have the situational awareness. We have all these things in place to be able to make better decisions. So, you know, a great call-out for emergency managers this month, especially as we get better at planning for the plan, planning for the recovery, for sure.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (9m 35s):

Yeah. A couple of years ago, I got to hear Rudy Giuliani, who was the mayor of New York city during 9/11, just talk about the opening hours of 9/11. I may not have all my facts straight, but generally they had just done an exercise in the past couple of weeks, a big exercise in hospitals and tested all their plans when planes went into buildings. So we headed into the 20th anniversaries, took when planes, one of the buildings, and he looked at his staff and he said do we have a plan for this? The answer was, no, we don't have a plan for planes going on in a building. We have a plan for lots of things. Well, we don't have a plan for a plane going into a building. Then he said it took a little bit, you know, a few minutes where he said well like I'm screwed.

I don't have a plan for a plane in the building. Therefore, how am I going to respond? Then he realized, right. You know, he says, he took a deep breath and looked at his staff and says, well we have all the other bits and pieces that we can use, right. Not necessarily planning to a billion, but bits and pieces that we can use to get ourselves out of that. That's essentially right. As you know I love planning, and I'm a believer in the thing that you plan for today is not the thing that's gonna happen tomorrow, right. So you're going to have to be ready for the thing that you haven't planned for it exactly. I think that's the beauty of emergency management. We are problem solvers. If we don't have the full, robust plan, we're going to cherry pick from the things that we have done in the past, to good plans, procedures, and tactics and all those kinds of things to get ourselves out of it. That is the beauty of an emergency, that they can do those kinds of things when it counts.

Host: John Scardena (11m 14s):

So this happened with you last time, it's a problem for me because we always try to find like a quote from the show. As soon as you say, emergency managers are problem solvers, it's like dry drop the mic, walk out of the room. I's true, like, you try to explain to people what emergency management is, and you say, protecting life, property, and continuity of operations, but no one really knows what it is, but like problem solving. That's the job you have, this chaotic situation happened and hopefully you know who your stakeholders are, you know who you know, what the resources are, you know who to call in the time of that crisis. All of a sudden, you start putting the pieces together. He walked through a response, he started to walk through a recovery. My big thing, right, is mitigation, mitigate before the disaster disaster, it's just still going to happen. That's just the nature of the world we live in. How do you apply great mitigation techniques to the recovery process? You know, as a former FEMA guy, you can see my side of the background.

You're a former FEMA guy, I really didn't think that we did recovery that well because we had to build back to what it was most in most cases, but in my mind, that's just as vulnerable as it was before the event happened. So how do we apply better building codes? Here's a great example, coffee park, so I went up to the Dixie fire like two weeks ago, I responded to the Napa fires in 2017 and I saw basically the new cabin. That's what I call cause it was just field of Ash. When I went into coffee park, they, they had chosen not to put commercial sprinklers on the roof that has code in Arizona for wildfires. I'm like, your entire neighborhood just burned down, you already have vegetation just down the road again and they chose not to do it. I'm like, man, that's stupid, you know, as a single pipe to the top of your roof could have saved an entire neighborhood. If it happens again, what is your take on that? Is that an extreme view? Is that a not extreme view? What is your take?

Guest: Pete Gaynor (13m 18s):

Well you know, out there, there is some organizations that their plan is, my plan is to wait till FEMA arrives and they're going to help me out on my problem. But that's like part of the plan. I don't, I boo boo that all day long, right? I think you have a moral obligation as an emergency manager, whether you're a local tribe, territory, state, county, federal, right? You have a moral obligation to do all those things, to keep your community safe, right. But to have a plan that says, oh, we'll just go for the feds to get here because they can do it all is a bad plan because we've learned that again.

Take the pandemic, the federal government cannot do it all. It's virtually impossible, you have a true natural disaster, you know, emergency in every state, a hurricane in every state major disaster overnight that the federal government doesn't have the resources to it. So the only way that we're successful was that the whole entire community works together. So local, state, federal all work together. If you own it, you own it. So I've had the opportunity to work for two mayors, a governor, and a president. I told my mayors, hey, we own what we own, right? We're not gonna wait for the state to come rescue us, or we're not gonna defer to the state. we're not going to defer the feds. There may be a time and place where we run out of resources and that's how it's worked, right. You go to get resources. So, you know, we have to take responsibility for the things that we own. So next big disaster, it's going to be this common don't worry, right? It's going to be something that we haven't planned for, or we planned for but we all kind of say that will never happen. Right. That's too crazy. So we had to do a better job and we have to hold ourselves accountable right. In doing so, and just don't paint over, you know, it's like hey, we're gonna put a fresh coat of paint on this and we're going to say, oh we're all fresh.

Really have to get down and dirty about how we plan and prepare and what we think, the apps, the results of that may be when we're faced with a challenge. I think the opportunity is now, especially based out at COVID and everything else is emergency managers across the country, really have to have a heart-to-heart talk with their elected leaders about what's going to happen next and who owns what? Right. Just don't wait for the federal government show up, because that is a plan that will fail.

Host: John Scardena (15m 56s):

Okay, so I usually stay away from this topic because it's like the nail in the coffin type of topic politics. But I mean, you have a ton of experience. You just mentioned it to mayor's, governor, president, you talked about accountability. I feel like right now with a lot of different disasters, there's not a lot of accountability. It's like, well this will blow over, you know? Well the obvious one that probably nobody wants to talk about and we can skip it if you want, but there was a terrorist attack at the airport we're trying to evacuate people. What was the response to that?

It was like, oh we're going to find the planner and blow up one building and move on. I'm like, but there's still people in danger, you know? So my frustration is at an all time high and I'm not a veteran, you know, I come from a family of veterans, thankfully you're a veteran, thank you for your service. But it's just so frustrating to think about that. Now when I talk to clients, where I talk to friends in the field, or I talked to other friends who are actually responding to Ida right now, so big shout out to them. I'm like, when I talked to them pretty much, everyone's the same thing. Well, I guess it's time to brush off the counter-terrorism plans. You know, what do we do in a terrorist attack? It's like, man, it's so frustrating. Can you provide some wisdom or insight to the audience who might be filling this?

Guest: Pete Gaynor (17m 21s):

I'll try to keep my composure. So, you know, I'm a retired Marine, spent 20 years with the Marine Corps. So what happened last week really pisses me off, right it's totally unnecessary. We could have done it another way and we're not done in Afghanistan, right just because we're not there. If people think we've done that wrong and I think part of the problem, and I think this is like the American laziness, right? When it comes to politics, it's not real, there are some in government, right, congress, governors, but you know, we're talking about congress, senators, and Congress men and women, that are not there for the long term, for the long haul, they're there for the short-term gain right?

What can I get out of this? This sounds really bad, right? About how politics works in America, but it's true. What's my short-term gain out of this and not really think about how can I improve it in the longterm. Part of my displeasure with being in DC and having, and I'm not fabricated, i's number of hundreds of conversations with elected leaders, mostly congressmen and senators about what FEMA has done, what FEMA is doing, what FEMA did. No one ever called me to say, hey, good job FEMA right now. No one, maybe one, maybe that was like, they had a bad day, but everyone's calling you by how bad you did. If they had long term view of FEMA, we do much greater things, much better things than we get credit for. We do screw some things up, it's just the nature of the business. But in all those conversations, it's a short term, it's a nine second blurb about what FEMA did, how bad they are, and we're going to hold you accountable and then it’s all over.

Then no one wants to talk about, hey, you made a mistake, but let me help. How can I help you make FEMA better? Not just in the short term, in the, and the 24, 48 hour news cycle, but in years to come. How can we make a better FEMA? This just not applies to FEMA, it probably applies to every federal organization out there, but how can we make you better to get better results, better efficiencies, all those kinds of things that as taxpayers we expect. So yeah, the politicians are in for the short term gain. It’s maddening sometimes. And again, we think about what happened in Afghanistan. It is completely unnecessary, could have done a totally different way. We lost lots there for absolutely no reason, right? No reason.

Host: John Scardena (20m 28s):

Yeah. Since senseless death, you know, it's a lot. So I also lived in DC, I worked for different ABC agencies, I don't get into too much on the show. But one of the reasons why I actually liked going out to FEMA, even though FEMA does do the man-made stuff, and the nationals team does prepare for large-scale catastrophic terrorist activities and I've been to many of those trainings or whatever, but a majority of the responses, I think Joe, Della Mura said it best, FEMA’s basically a hurricane agency, right. So like it was kind of, it makes more sense to my brain that if somebody chose to stay in a hurricane and unfortunately they died, like I could reconcile that a little bit better than a terrorist attack, a lot better, right, especially when something's preventable. I was just talking to a friend about this yesterday, it's like, we're not talking about 25 different countries that also have major humanitarian issues, we're talking about the US actions and US laziness. I actually liked that a lot, way to say that of just things that we could have done, that we can do, that we chose not to do. I said this to a couple politicians who maybe, probably I shouldn't have, but it's like one of those things, oh, you thought you could do better, sit in the seat because every single time a politician sits in the seat, it screwed up. Who knew like somebody who does this for a living who's focusing on this all day, every day, probably will do it better. Yeah.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (22m 0s):

Yeah. I've had many of those moments being yelled at by elected leaders and I never said it to them, but it's okay. I'll be happy to trade seats with you and you go, you come do it. So I have people, you know, rock throwers and naysayers, it never really bothered it, never, I don't think it really bothered me before, but after my tour at FEMA, I have disdained for those that just throw words around for whatever purpose without a purpose, right. Without a purpose, just to get a rise or to get a quote or to get a reaction, right. I have distain for those people that do that because what I really want you to do, right. If I screwed up, tell me I screwed up, I'm a big boy and that helped me get to where I need to be, right. Just don't throw stones and walk away and say, yeah, we'll see where it all goes.

Host: John Scardena (23m 8s):

Here's my last comment on all of that. It's like when people say do more than thoughts and prayers, and I have to remind people that, hey, did you know faith equals, you know, hope plus action. And so if you are praying with faith, that means you are intending to do something. So anytime I hear a politician say like, I'm praying for it. I'm like, well then where's your action. So that's really what it comes down to, religious or not religious, do something, you know. I like Rodney Milicic, my old boss would say, he also now works at Doberman and we're lucky to have him. He would say doing something is always better than doing nothing You know, because especially in emergency response and so in that vein, pulling it back over to us, I'm glad you feel the same way because you have all that experience. You're definitely a leader, a lot of people are go listen to that and agree with that. I think for our end, for our action, again, not trying to become a political show, but holding elected leaders accountable, choosing to do something, obviously legally, you know, polls and voting and all that. So calling them up for rating them saying, hey, this isn't going to help you out. Long-term I think that's kind of what's needed. I'm not really an activist kind of guy, but man, they just don't listen. So like, talk to me about that forever. So national preparedness, yeah.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (24m 36s):

It's a good trip, I think a good transition from do something, right. So national preparedness month is about doing something and start today runs through the end of end of September. There's four themes throughout the month. You know, we've all seen these make a plan, build a kit, low cost, no cost preparedness and teach about preparedness. But so let me just give you like my, one of the things I try to do at FEMA and I think I got a little sidetrack with COVID and other things I had. So I have a theme, there's a resilience branch who owns preparedness and ready.gov and all those kinds of things, but all the things that we do year round and you know, so it's good that we bring awareness, preparedness in September, but preparedness needs to be a year round thing, just not one month out of the year.

I know we have programs through the year at FEMA and I'm sure it's like this across the country, you know, local, state of emergency management that have a theme or have a focus throughout the year. But one of the things I challenged the staff with is, hey, we haven't, and this isn’t just FEMA, and I think nationally, right. You know, emergency managers as a whole, we really haven't found that solution that promotes preparedness, that changes the culture, like a marketing strategy and something that sticks with people. We haven't figured that out and I relayed to the staff is like, hey, how come we can't get a preparedness campaign, like the seatbelts, right.

If you remember way back, and you're probably too young, like Ralph Nader wrote a book unsafe at any speed, right. Click it, or ticket kind of changed the culture. When’s the last time you were in a car with somebody that refused to wear a seatbelt, I can't even remember like driving with somebody that I don't wear a seatbelt it's against my religion or it's against, you know, whatever, it doesn't exist. Quitting smoking, you know, has a great series of great ones, but you know, tips from smokers, the one you see on TV, smoking has taken a dive, right. Wildfires, we all grew up with smokey the bear only you can prevent fire’s, right. Then, you know, Nike, Nike just do it, right. It's these things, we need, we need a campaign, a marketing strategy that people like connect with right. But when it comes to preparedness, we haven't figured it out yet. So again, I challenged the crew to do that, you know, made some strides. But I think as a nation, a platform for emergency managers, we really need to have the, you know, click it or ticket kind of campaign, only you can prevent wildfire campaign that makes people prepare year round. We haven't done it yet. We have to figure it out because we won't change the culture if we don't do it.

Host: John Scardena (27m 44s):

Okay. I can provide two perspectives on that real fast. FEMA will never be popular in my beloved OHIO state, because it's freaking blue and yellow. You want to do any kind of branding with FEMA. I told this too, when I was at Georgetown on my masters, you know, somebody came up for an external affairs and said hey, nobody wants to even put up the FEMA, like preparedness anything in their stores because it's blue and yellow. It's just not going to happen. So like, just even thinking about your own branding, I understand it's a federal agency or whatever, but hey, screw Michigan, like Michigan sucks. So that's what I'm saying, lke, you can't have that. You can't have like, Satan's colors, like in my storefront, but going on that religious thing. But you know, the other thing is, I'm pretty sure we did find the slogan by the way, become disaster tough. It should be, it's a star. Right. You know what they'll like, that's what I've been. That's what I've been thinking about. Like, that's interesting. You talk about marketing.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (28m 49s):

I thought it's all about marketing. It's nothing more than that. Just think about all the successful campaign, like commercial campaigns, all the Wendy's, where's the meat, right? I mean, all these things that like we take for granted, now we need a kind of Wendy's, which is the meat thing that gets people to say, oh, I have to do that. I have to put my seatbelt on. I have to prepare. Did you see those people in Louisiana? Well, you know, were they prepared for that? Do I want to be Dwight? Do I want to be without power for 60 days? So yeah, we need to hire some really great wall street marketing, get people, spend a bunch of money and come up with a campaign that everyone understands and can get behind.

Host: John Scardena (29m 37s):

I agree. FEMA you're welcome to hire me at any time to help you out with that. You're bringing up so many different topics. COVID 19 response has been a marketing nightmare. Talk about marketing. I agree with you. Most of it, turning something into common sense. Oh, this one's going to ask you about, do you have about saying can put blank. Do you have a marketing for your LinkedIn posts? Do you, do you team up with somebody at LiRo to do that?

Guest: Pete Gaynor (30m 12s):

Yeah I have a marketing person that helps me, but I generally do all the work, you know, themes and stuff and they check my spelling and grammar and make it pretty and do the graphs. I kind of pick what I want to talk about based on what's going on.

Host: John Scardena (30m 30s):

I thought you actually had a brilliant marketing concept is like using sarcasm. You're basically like, hey don't have a plan, it's hurricane season. You said that at the beginning. I swear, like I saw it, a lot of my friends saw people were texting me about Pete Gaynor. He's like, you know tell people not to have a plan. That's hilarious. It caught people's attention. Hey, listen, preparedness is a waste of time. Right. So I love sarcasm and I think I took some pleasure in writing that, but yeah you know, totally unprepared right now. I think somebody had that as a catchphrase, somewhere in the country. But it's like, I don't want to be prepared, you know, why would I want to do that? I wonder how many people would have like an emergency kit if SNL did a skit about being totally unprepared and just like walking to every situation like, oh no, I definitely don't want insurance get a car accident. Or, you know who cares about preparing my house for a hurricane, you know?

Guest: Pete Gaynor (31m 37s):

Yeah it's a tough problem and I think if we had a good answer, we would have had it I guess already. But one of the things I told the staff, one of the more famous advertising companies in the country is J Walter Thompson, their two longest clients are Ford motor company and the US Marine Corps, right. That J Walter has kept and they others, but like I think for the Ford motor company has been a client of them for like a hundred and some odd years. But as an example, that investment in J Walter Thompson has kept the Ford brand consistent through time, the same with them, consistent through time. It’s deviated a little bit, but never lost their core. Like again, could you get a home grown inside of US government idea about preparedness? You could, but we don't spend enough money on preparedness. So let's invest in a big brand name, a company, and let's have them help us with this, right. Because now's the time look, what better example than all the things that have happened in 2021, right? The year that just keeps going, 21. It's like, why not just take advantage of all that? Right. We have peoples attention.

Host: John Scardena (33m 15s):

Yeah, that's right. There's a lot of money there to, like there's money there. There's a tension there and everything's coming together. I think branding is a big thing. Speaking of branding and things that are happening on your end, we just mentioned Libra, a little bit. Yup, let's round this out, this topic out, to talk about the Natural National Disaster Emergency Management conference coming up in November. One of the podcasts that is associated with Doberman emergency management on the readiness lab is EM weekly. They're doing a live show at that conference and you are headlining there. You're going to be one of the major speakers there. So we also know that LiRo doing a booth there just want to let you know, our audience know, that as of today, Libra is not a sponsor. We're just happy to promote this for Pete. We think it's a pretty exciting. So can you tell us a little about what Leroy has been doing, what you guys are gonna be doing, and then we're going to be talking about at endemic.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (34m 8s):

So this is the first time that I've been to the expo in New York. I think it's, I'm not sure it's history, but I think it started out as something different and it's morphed into a commercial manager, disaster management. So I'm going to be on stage with Craig Fugate. So two, four, administrators, we're going to talk about, I think all things preparedness. We're probably gonna talk about a little bit about COVID response. Maybe the state of play when it comes to where we are as a country and preparedness and where we want to be. I think there's going to be a Q and a that that's there. So I'm looking forward to get out of my house, go to New York city, meet real people, see real people again, and then obviously see Craig and try to share some of our experiences with the profession.

So I think it's going to be exciting, you're right. We're going to have a booth LiRo, they are a New York company been around for 30 some odd years, mostly a company that specializes in architecture, design, project management, construction management, we don't build things, but we manage things right on the construction thing. We're part of a bigger company called GISI global infrastructure solutions Inc with 13 other brother, sister companies, mostly construction, but LiRo has been in the disaster response game for a while, mostly regional.

So Sandy, we've done some stuff in Louisiana. I think we did some stuff in USBI in Puerto Rico. Part of the reasons I joined is to help them expand their brand across the country. So if you're in New York city and I think it's November 17th, 18th, check those dates, I'm doing it from memory, come see us. I’d be glad to talk to you about anything to include what LiRo can do for you. So I appreciate the, the shout out John, on my new company.

Host: John Scardena (36m 12s):

You know what, I think it's exciting that to see where he landed and see what you can bring to LiRo now. Now that we're associated EM weekly and to see all those dots connected, I think it's great. We've already had you on the show twice. We're probably gonna have you on the show again, just because you're a cool guy, but like, I honestly think what if people have the opportunity to see you in person to be able to talk to you and to hear your perspective, especially you and Craig. Craig's been on the show as well, I think that will be good for everyone. In fact, I know it would be good for everyone. So that's why I'm happy to promote it because this show's all about promoting best practice. Now you're bringing on two heavy hitters who have had a ton of practice.

We talked about the election, you know, emergency managers work with elected officials all the time. So you're able to talk confidently to that. You're able to talk about competently, to all phases of emergency management and response recovery mitigation. So just be able to hear that in person is great. Then to be able to switch over to the project management side with LiRo too, I think it's as good things and I'm happy to promote it with you guys and move forward.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (37m 23s):

Yeah and it has to be exciting. I've never done anything with Craig, so I'm looking forward to that. I think that he and I have the same outlook on, hey, we'll tell you what we did well, and we'll tell you what we did bad. So no lessons learned, just not positive lessons learned things that we screwed up. I think we're both pretty upfront about things that we could do better, whether we were the administrators or what FEMA could do better, or, you know in more global what emergency management needs to do better to meet the needs of the new world we see around us. Right. I think that really for me is the key. How do we change the culture of emergency management, because we are a young generally immature profession, right. We need to, we're going to grow. We continue to grow, we've grown a lot in 2021, right? So the time is right to point those things out and encourage others to take risks and make those changes for the better. So I'm excited by that.

Host: John Scardena (38m 29s):

That's awesome. Your last thoughts, emergency managers who are trying to learn a better preparedness for getting ready for the next big one, as you noted your final thoughts.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (38m 39s):

This is one of my sticks when I went to FEMA as the administrator is if you're from a jurisdiction that hasn't had a disaster that that can get generally comfortable, right? Because you haven't been challenged yet, I encourage emergency managers from across the country, so whether you're a director of emergency management or you're in the world of emergency management, you're a mitigator, you're a planner. Develop a relationship with, you know, some of the more disaster prone locales, right, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, California, right, North Carolina. Develop a relationship and see if you can get like a 90 day tour, like exchange tour, hey, I'm going to go to North Carolina for 90 days and I'm going to see how they do it.

Maybe you'll actually be part of a disaster response. Well, maybe you've been part of recovery, but you know, I think some, one of our challenges in emergency management is you don't get any experience until it happens. Right. That is not the way to operate. You should, you should try to gain, expose staff to real events where you can. Sometimes that's a risk because you're going to send people away for a period of time. But when you get them back, you will be much stronger for it. You'll be smarter, they'll be smarter. They'll be more confident. They'll bring, you know, new lessons learned and practices back to you.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (40m 11s):

So, you know, go call one of your friends, or maybe an acquaintance that you've met at a conference and ask them hey, can I not to interfere with what you're doing, but can I come down and just spend a week with you? Maybe I can help, right. Maybe I can help take some load off because I'm a professional emergency manager, but I just want to see how it works. I think if we did more of that across the nation, right. I think we'd be a stronger profession. It can be, you know, if I'm in a disaster, do I want somebody around my neck bothering me, not necessarily, but there's a way to do it, right. There's a way to do it and I think it's better for everyone. If we figured they figured that out, so if you're thinking about what can I do next to make my community stronger, go visit a disaster.

Host: John Scardena (41m 1s):

Okay. I a hundred percent support that I just learned that big lesson this year with going to USR training, everybody heard about that last week on the show about the outcomes that go into that USR training and be able to help out somebody else that I never interact with with USR. Now we're in close collaboration, be able to help out tactical and strategic, a huge call out. Also big call out for individual appointments. Sometimes FEMA's, Ford's sometimes humans against it. Screw everybody's against it. You just said you're for it, I'm for it. Get people out the door, get your team out the door possible, but get yourself out the door.

Guest: Pete Gaynor (41m 37s):

Yeah, I think John, I think he was for you. The national qualification thing has a ways to go. But the goodness in that is you get qualified, right? You get nationally qualified. Then if you can, you can deploy. So when I was a state director, you know, when people want to go to disaster, if they weren't qualified, I'm not sending you. Right. Because I'm not going to be a burden to that, although the director, but if you qualify, you have all the checks in the box. Then you're, you're an asset. So national qualification system, I think, is important. It has a ways to go, but it is getting to this thing where we can all help each other when it counts, because there's not enough of us.

Host: John Scardena (42m 18s):

Yeah, man. You're coming back on the show, we're going to be talking about that because I have lots of thoughts on that. You're a good man. Pete, thank you so much for coming back on the show. You're obviously a value added. Yeah. We'll talk to you soon.

Everybody, if you liked this episode, you should have give us that five star review and subscribe. We're going to put in our show notes for when the endem conference is, so make sure you go out to that. I think Pete, said it right, I think it’s the 17th and 18th of November. So if you're in New York city, you want to go out to New York city, learn from the man himself. Good to do it. All right, we'll see you next week.