# **Higher Education and Emergency Management: It's Not Just About Us**

# 

# **Jim Mullen, Director of Emergency Management** 

# **City of Seattle**

I believe that emergency management, at least in government terms, is
not a "thing" but a place or arena where many disciplines converge. We
may in fact have no place that is uniquely our own. Hierarchically, we
sit in fire departments, police departments, public works agencies,
executive offices, and even legislative offices. Wherever we sit, the
emergency manager pulls concepts, roles, duties and responsibilities
together to bring about a coordinated effort. Emergency managers
[do]{.underline} many things, but [cause]{.underline} even more things
to happen. Certain tasks that no one else should be doing, or that no
one else has the capability to take on, are the responsibilities that we
take on. We coordinate community preparedness, and community mitigation,
because no one else can. We do the coordination of response and recovery
because the governmental system to which we belong would not know how to
begin to amass the resources, and manage the differences and meet the
legal and political requirements unless someone could attend to these
relationships on a daily basis. We [do not]{.underline} inspect damaged
bridges or suppress fires or investigate crimes: there are others more
qualified to do that.

Our mission is impossible to describe outside the context of the larger
government, or larger community. And for this reason, since it is hard
to think of emergency management in isolation, it is also sometimes hard
to think of emergency management as a discipline or profession worthy of
special attention.

This may be a partial explanation for the absence of a really clear
yardstick that determines competence in our field. The CEM is no more a
guarantor of success in a job in our profession than a Master's degree
or a Ph.D is in any other field. It certainly doesn't suggest failure
either. Whatever brand of education, training or certification that one
holds, other capabilities are equally or more important. All of us are
the sum total of our respective educational, personal and professional
experiences.

It would be difficult to discern one educational pattern that is more
critical than another. In preparing this paper, I asked several staff to
describe the type of academic work that would have been most beneficial
to them, or that they would recommend to others. Not surprisingly, the
aggregate result suggests that a person should have taken extensive work
in all disciplines. Since no one (I hope) seriously believes that
emergency managers know everything, let's pose some preliminary
questions, and answers that will lead us to the core of the issue: how
can higher education help in the development of emergency managers in
the 21^st^ Century?

Q.  What [should]{.underline} students of emergency management learn?
    Why should they learn anything?

A recent article in a Seattle newspaper described a number of
educational initiatives aimed at emergency management. Among others are
community colleges, undergraduate degrees, and degrees in disciplines
with emergency management concentrations, and also some graduate
programs with similar possible outcomes. Of course, our profession has
the venerated CEM, signifying status as a Certified Emergency Manager
for professionals in the field who seek peer approbation.

All of us (I was one of them) quoted in the article said positive things
about these developments. But, I believe that there is a wider
discussion to be held.

Q. With a degree, concentration, certificate or some other credential,
what will the recipients do for an emergency management office? How can
they help us?

I am not one who believes that it is possible for one person to be
proficient at everything that occurs in a well-constructed emergency
management office.

We need to build staffs, not individuals. No one can be on top of
everything that is happening these days.

There are good arguments for a thorough understanding of basic
management principles, including the time-honored one of knowing what
you don't know. I'm not certain higher education teaches this better
than experience, but it bears mentioning.

Understanding management principles means being able to match how an
organization functions to the people inside of it. How do the finances
work? What keeps the government going in a Seattle, versus a Tulsa or an
Atlanta? For example, the relationship between a City, a county, and the
part of the nation one is working in is a critical piece of information
for anyone entering a new job.

It's important to learn that there are nuances and rhythms pertaining to
the operations of government. Students, and also state and FEMA staff,
need to be taught to recognize and appreciate the differences among
jurisdictions.

The aspiring emergency manager would also benefit from planning skills.
An urban planning or regional planning concentration is very useful.
Within urban planning degree tracks, there should be (probably are?)
disaster units on the impacts of flooding, tornadoes, wind, and my
personal favorite, earthquakes.

An office of emergency management needs to have someone with an
awareness of Geographic Information Systems, and in fact a strong
concentration in the physical sciences would be a good fit, particularly
in the Pacific Northwest. Again, we in Seattle are partial to people
with an understanding of plate tectonics, but it depends on where you
live. "One size fits all" education won't cut it in emergency
management. Success in one part of the country will not guarantee
success elsewhere.

Writing and effective communications skills are still important. We
spend a lot of our time persuading officials to do what needs to be
done. Once you figure out how the government works, and what arguments
will be most effective, it is still necessary to present the argument.
The argument has to be framed properly, and opportunities must be seized
to present information.

An awareness of media operations in your jurisdiction or region is
vital. Understanding the difference between your local TV affiliate and
your local radio talk show host is useful, and knowing the difference
between local folks and those media working on the national level is
crucial, because the wider the audience the greater the magnification of
any remarks that you make.

As of this writing, in June 2002, the domestic terrorism response is
being coordinated in an almost reckless and certainly confused manner,
and emergency managers are as likely to be bypassed as they are to be
drawn into discussions they could greatly facilitate. The ability to
create opportunities to inject emergency management concepts into such
discussions is important. It is becoming increasingly important for us
to fight our way to a seat at the table, and resist the suggestion that
"everything has changed" since that is becoming an excuse to abandon
proven planning principles.

Of course, training and refresher training is important as well. Peer
review helps us a lot, internally, but outside interactions can be
useful too. Higher Ed could invite local emergency managers over
periodically to discuss training needs, resource support, and common
areas of interest. Many of us would be very supportive of
jurisdiction-specific programs and exchanges.

Q.  Are there entry-level positions in emergency management?

I'm not sure that ours is a profession that lends itself to a first job,
and a lifetime in emergency management is equally hard to imagine. What
is not hard to grasp is that a broadly trained individual may find a
chance to work in emergency management irresistible because it involves
so many disciplines, and because its mission is so much unlike other
jobs. Broadly trained individuals provide flexibility in assignments:
narrowly trained persons, or narrowly focused personnel, provide limits
on tasks that can be accomplished.

This does not mean that there is a lot wrong with specialization. On my
staff, I have staff assigned as leads in the four traditional areas of
emergency management. I have another assigned to coordination of
information technology. Those positions benefit from the ability to
focus upon a discreet series of tasks. However, each of these staff has
an understanding of other areas within the office. There are frequent
exchanges of information, and all can (and have) fill more than one role
in a crisis. Our office models the integrated emergency management
system that we have designed for the City..

Q.  What is the appropriate calibration of experience and education for
    the aspiring emergency manager? Where can you acquire it? From whom?

As I built the staff in Seattle, and I have hired all but one of them, I
did not feel bound to hire from the traditional emergency management
pool. I was convinced that while there is great value in those that are
experienced in the rules and the procedures and the standard ways of
doing things (we do have to deal with regional, state, and federal
colleagues) I was also convinced that most of the questions require
local answers. Inside most municipal governments, and within most
communities or populous regions is enough talent and local awareness of
what is needed to solve most problems.

In Seattle, it took local people, engaging other local people, to
demonstrate that local needs required local interaction and cooperation.
We learned generic truths by reading and training: success depends upon
the translation of what we know into a local context, and a local
language. We needed people with the demonstrated skills to convey the
importance of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. We also
needed to demonstrate that technology could link the four traditional
emergency management elements. But, we did not need to satisfy our
professional peers around the country: the convincing had to be done
with colleagues in other disciplines within our own jurisdiction.

Q.  Where do emergency managers come from?

It can be said that we are starting to come from everywhere. I think
that is a very good development. But that doesn't help academicians or
those in our profession seeking a path to knowledge for our new
colleagues. Here are some ideas.

-   Higher education needs to educate people regarding the way
    governments work, or don't work. We should study cases and try to
    define not *what* happened, but *why* it happened the way it did.

-   We make our candidates for jobs think on their feet when we
    interview them. Why shouldn't we do that when we educate them?

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-   We need to make future members of our profession go beyond research
    that builds a plan, or describes a planning process, or analyzes
    whether a solution will work. We need to get to the *why* of a
    solution. What are the consequences of an action? Of no action?

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-   As noted earlier, we should avoid a cookie cutter approach, adapting
    courses and points of emphasis to various regions. Earthquakes are
    interesting and vital for me to know about- hurricanes are
    interesting but not vital. FEMA's educational offerings that I am
    familiar with do not recognize the differences between regions and
    jurisdictions. Higher Education course planning should be flexible
    in this regard.

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-   Distance learning is the current "hot" method, and will suffice for
    technical and research related information: there is no substitute
    for in-person interaction on the job. Let's teach both.

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-   We need to think carefully about whom we need to educate about
    emergency management. This discussion seems to focus largely on us,
    presently in the field, or future entrants.

But, it is never just all about us, and that is where this discussion
could miss the boat. Many emergency managers complain that they are not
understood by their own jurisdictions. They may be pointing the finger
in the wrong direction.

Some of my colleagues carry inside their hearts the desire that
emergency management should remain somewhat of a mystery, to be unlocked
only by someone with the magic key.

Think for a second: instead of taking one more throwaway course as an
elective in the first two years of college, what if our citizens, as
college students, had been exposed to a basic emergency management
course?

The implications of gradually educating many college students in
principles, history and significance of emergency management to the
larger community are profound. Just think how much more advanced a
community discussion about mitigation could become if the concept of
mitigation was already drilled into the minds of a number of our
citizens? It sure wouldn't be the least important general requirement
ever to be offered in a university setting. It might also attract
students to the department(s) offering it.

So: to the questions posed for this discussion:

### 

### Q.1: What qualifications are necessary to be an emergency manager?

Emergency managers need to be educated in the general principles of the
profession, and be able to employ those principles in the jurisdiction
that hires them. The test is whether they are able to help make their
communities safer, and its resources useful, when they are needed. When
I hire, or reject, applicants, I spend less time worshipping their
resumes, and more time finding out if they will be effective in doing
what needs to be done in a particular role.

Emergency managers will continue to be only as good as their last
emergency. We need to model the behavior that allows us to be the first
to assess our failings as well as our successes. It would be interesting
to track case studies of what happened following publication of disaster
after action reports. Did anything change?

Each of us tends to fall back on our training when challenged. I'm not
certain that we need to meet some predetermined definition of some other
profession when we attempt to establish ourselves as emergency
management professionals. Ours is a field that draws persons that are
already professional in approach, education, and training. I applaud
those on the panel that have continued their education while helping to
protect their communities, and I might suggest that those learning
experiences, formal and informal, that help us keep our respective
communities more disaster resilient are what we need to focus upon.
There is a clock ticking leading up to our next disaster. I for one
don't intend to spend a lot of time gaining peer approval when that may
not relate to my ability to fulfill my, yes, professional duties. The
tests that I must pass are those that challenge my jurisdiction.

**Q. 2: What is the role of the academic sector in educating 21^st^
Century emergency managers?**

21^st^ century's emergency managers need access and exposure to all the
tools of the higher education system. That system needs to engage not
only practitioners but needs to make the future easier by exposing a
wide variety of individuals that may never enter our field
professionally to the principles and impacts of emergency management.

To do this, higher education is going to need to draw out practical
lessons and political realities. I have examples from my tenure in
Seattle: my colleagues around the country have many more.

We can and should teach ethical decision-making, resource allocation,
planning for events, the science of emergency politics, and the politics
of science in government. We call somewhat facetiously the ongoing
conversations with our newer staff "municipal science", followed by the
more advanced "municipal arts and crafts" (including budgeting, scheming
and manipulation). One may smile at that, but there are lessons to be
imparted related to survival in a governmental environment.

Higher education will never be more important to our craft. Indeed, with
the demands on local emergency managers' time higher education can play
a pivotal role in capturing what we know and translating and conveying
what we have learned into material that students, future citizens or
future emergency managers, can use for the betterment of everyone.