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.]

We welcome Ashley Lauria-Golden back to the show to discuss current happenings at Doberman EMG and life as a newly minted “emergency momager.” She shares her perspective on local emergency planning, and provides insight for those in the plan update process. From her time as a paramedic to serving in both local and state level emergency management roles, Ashley has experience working in the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of emergency management.

9/11 Ground Zero Reflections

We welcome USAR expert Joe Hernandez back to the Disaster_Tough_Podcast for a special episode in honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. In the wake of the attacks, Joe and his USAR team were deployed to Ground Zero. Episode airs on all major podcast platforms.

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 week provides an update on emergency management actions in Doberman, from the perspective of networking and disaster response coordination. If you want examples of who to network in emergency management, this is the show for you! We also want to thank all of those emergency managers who collaborate with us to help others in crisis. Emergency managers who coordinate and collaborate get the job done!

The Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) created the National Strike Team - 3 sets of emergency managers staged across the US to act in times of catastrophe. FEMA took on these teams and called them the National Incident Management Assistance Team (N-IMAT). Tim Britt is the Operations Section Chief on the Red team (formally known as N-IMAT West). Host John Scardena served with Tim on this team, they catch up and talk about future steps of the N-IMAT Program.

Hosted by Franzi Economy, the EM Student podcast works to bring interviews of industry and academic leaders by discussing trends, topics, and issues that affect emergency managers, first responders, military, higher education, public safety, communications, disaster volunteer organizations, public health, humanitarian groups, NGOs, professionals, students, and researchers.

The EM Student podcast is a part of The Readiness Lab, a network of podcasts owned and operated by Doberman Emergency Management.

Disaster Zone is hosted by Eric Holdeman, an emergency manager with over 30 years of experience at the federal, state and local levels of government. Disaster Zone is a podcast that focuses on all facets of disasters; the before, during and after of events that are increasingly impacting communities around the world.

The National Capitol Region is an interlocking complex web of jurisdictional boundaries and priorities. Success comes when emergency managers are able to identify who they role players are in their regional perspective of disaster management. Andy John is an expert practitioner at identifying and working with regional partners to find success through the Disaster Lifecycle. On this episode we discuss his role and responsibility in the emergency response of the January 6th riot attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Andy John has served in numerous emergency management capacities, including the National Strike Team. Since leaving FEMA, Andy has taken his skillset to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to lead regional efforts to create Disaster Tough communities.

Expert emergency manager, Patrick McGinn serves as the Regional Disaster Services Director at The Salvation Army for all of Northern California and Nevada. He talks about his response experiences and shares lessons learned on emergency training exercises. Patrick also served the elite National Incident Management Assistance Team (N-IMAT West) for FEMA with our host, John Scardena.

Patrick is truly a well rounded emergency manager with both planning and operational experience. With his current role with The Salvation Army, he has developed axioms that push emergency managers to have a one-team, one-fight mentality.