The New Emergency Management Professional
“Over the years I’ve found that many people stumble upon the emergency management profession with the notion it’s interesting, one that’s focused on helping people and is exciting as portrayed in the movies and on television.
“First, let’s dispel the television and movie spin that is put on emergency management as a job. There was a made-for-TV disaster movie that lowered the FEMA director into a deep hole in order to set off an atomic bomb to prevent a series of earthquakes. Although there might have been times when some of us would have liked to lower the then-FEMA director into just such a hole, that’s just fantasy.
“The reality is that the daily existence for an emergency manager is a seemingly endless series of meetings, an inbox full of e-mails and no time to “get work done.” Like most jobs, emergency management is about planning and coordinating. You deal much more with people than you do numbers or widgets…”
See The New Emergency Management Professional by Eric E. Holdeman.
