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Job: Emergency Management Specialist (Mitigation), Washington State

Mitigation is the name of the game!

I have written previously about how emergency managers have been able to be generalists, doing all phases of emergency management. For local emergency management offices, that is getting harder and harder to do because of the knowledge and experience requirements for some aspects of the job. I'll use mitigation as one example.

If you are going to apply for Building Resilient Infrastructure Communities (BRIC) grant funds, you have to have your ducks in a row and know what you are doing. This is why specialization within emergency management is growing, and you can make a full-time career out of being an expert in mitigation. Likely you will have to work at a large city or county, and in most cases a state or for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). If you like that type of work you can be in high demand.

Here is one such position where you can get your foot in the door and your feet wet in that aspect of the profession: FEMA Mitigation Specialist, FEMA Region 10.
Eric Holdeman is a nationally known emergency manager. He has worked in emergency management at the federal, state and local government levels. Today he serves as the Director, Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (CRDR), which is part of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER). The focus for his work there is engaging the public and private sectors to work collaboratively on issues of common interest, regionally and cross jurisdictionally.