Here in the Pacific Northwest the governor of Oregon recently appointed a state resilience officer, Mike Harryman. With the awarding of Rockefeller grants to both Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of these appointments in the region.
The purpose of this blog posting is to share a new call for a chief resilience officer for Santa Monica, Calif. But here is the twist, the position is not a policy-level type of position with no operational responsibilities, but actually an Office of Emergency Management (OEM) director's responsibilities. There is nothing wrong with doing this, but it is the first time I've seen that title associated with OEM-specific duties. This could be the beginning of a trend.
If you don't have a CRO, then the responsibilities normally associated with those policy level issues default to the OEM director, or I suppose to their parent organization's director, e.g., the sheriff. It is unlikely that the higher-level position will have the time and inclination to devote much effort to those duties since everyday administrative and operational issues dominate their lives.
If you are interested in applying for the Santa Monica position, their Human Resources page is linked here with specific application instructions.
