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Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices (2013)

Chapter: Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices

« Previous: Appendix A: Code of Federal Regulations Title 44: Emergency Management and Assistance, Section 65.10 Mapping of areas protected by levee systems or "44 CFR 65.10"
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices." National Research Council. 2013. Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18309.
×

Appendix B

Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices

Gerald E. Galloway, Jr. (NAE), Chair, is the Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and an affiliate professor of public policy, at the University of Maryland. Dr. Galloway is a civil engineer, geographer, and public administrator whose research and interests focus on U.S. national water policy, in general, and national floodplain management policy, in particular. Dr. Galloway had a 38-year military career that included positions of commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers District in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and professor and founding head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Dr. Galloway was promoted to brigadier general in 1990 and retired from active duty in 1995. He has served on several national and state committees that have reviewed levee and dam safety issues and concerns, including some panels supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He received his B.S. degree (civil engineering) from the U.S. Military Academy, his M.S.E. degree (civil engineering) from Princeton University, and his Ph.D. degree (geography) from the University of North Carolina.

Patrick L. Brockett is director of the Risk Management and Insurance Program and holds the Gus S. Wortham Memorial Chair in Risk Management and Insurance at the University of Texas. Dr. Brockett teaches courses and conducts research in a variety of fields including risk management and insurance; financial risk; actuarial science; decision analysis; management science/operations management and research; statistical analysis and business applications, and information theory. Dr. Brockett is the winner of the 2011 “Excellence in Teaching Award” given by the American Risk and Insurance Association. He was elected as a fellow of the Institute for Risk Management (2008), and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Statistical Association, and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. He also is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. In 2006, he received the American Risk and Insurance Association Outstanding Achievement Award for furthering the science of risk management through the promotion of education, research, and communication. He served for 9 years as editor of The Journal of Risk and Insurance, the premier academic journal in risk management and insurance. Dr. Brockett was a member of the National Research Council Board on Mathematical Sciences and their Applications from 2005 to 2008. Dr. Brockett received his B.S. degree in mathematics from the California State University in Long Beach, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from the University of California, Irvine.

Susan L. Cutter is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina where she directs the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute. Her research interests are in disaster vulnerability/ resilience science—what makes people and the places where they live vulnerable to extreme events and how vulnerability and resilience are measured, monitored, and assessed. She led a Hurricane Katrina post-event field

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices." National Research Council. 2013. Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18309.
×

team to examine the geographic extent of storm surge inundation along the Mississippi and Alabama coastline and its relationship to the social vulnerability of communities. She also provided testimony to Congress on hazards and vulnerability and was a member of the Corps of Engineers Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force team evaluating the social impacts of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System in response to Hurricane Katrina. Dr. Cutter serves on many national advisory boards and committees, including those of National Research Council, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. She was a founding member of the Executive Committee of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START, a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence focused on social and behavioral sciences). Dr. Cutter also holds the MunichRe Foundation Chair (2009-2012) on Social Vulnerability through the United Nations University-Institute for Environment and Human Security, in Bonn, Germany Dr. Cutter received her B.S. degree from the California State University and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago.

David T. Ford is president of David Ford Consulting Engineers in Sacramento, California, a firm that specializes in flood and floodplain management. He is an internationally recognized expert in hydrologic engineering, flood risk analysis, and water resources planning and management. He has 40 years of project experience, including 22 as president of David Ford Consulting Engineers, Inc., and 12 as a senior hydraulic engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Hydrologic Engineering Center. He has served as a consultant to federal, state, and local water management agencies and to engineering firms worldwide. Dr. Ford has written and/or revised, in whole or in part, much Corps of Engineers guidance, including the Engineer Manual (EM) on risk-based analysis for flood risk management studies, the EM on hydrologic engineering requirements for flood risk studies, and the EM on hydrologic analysis of interior areas. He also has prior National Research Council committee experience, most recently with the Water Science and Technology Board Committee on Hydrologic Science. Ford has served on the faculty of the University of California and California State University. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering from the University of Texas. Dr. Ford is a registered professional engineer in 15 states of the United States.

Clive Q. Goodwin is assistant vice president and manager, natural hazard peril underwriting, for FM Global Insurance Company, located in Johnston, Rhode Island. In this position, Goodwin manages worldwide underwriting of wind, flood, and collapse perils. This involves developing and maintaining strategies to capitalize on FM Global’s engineering knowledge of these hazards to benefit clients in terms of risk improvement and insurance terms and conditions. Recently, Goodwin has been the leader of FM Global’s efforts to collaborate with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other agencies to highlight the concerns regarding the aging inventory of levees while supporting their efforts to change U.S. national policy concerning the levee risk. Goodwin holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering and metallurgy from the University of Manchester, Manchester, UK, and received a certified diploma in accounting and finance. Additionally, he is a chartered engineer and a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and has served on the Industry Leaders Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Karin M. Jacoby is president of Spica Consulting, LLC, a firm she founded in 2009 focused on reducing flood risk through strategic solutions that incorporate economic, human, and environmental considerations. She has more than 25 years of experience in water resources management, much of that in planning, design, and implementation of drainage, stormwater, and flood damage reduction projects and policies. Prior to that she established the Waterways Division at the City of Kansas City, Missouri; as an assistant city engineer/division manager, she provided oversight for a $600 million waterways program. Jacoby has served as the executive director of the Missouri and Associated Rivers Coalition (MOARC) since 2001, a long-standing regional nonprofit focused on beneficial management of water and related land resources. She is an active member of the National Waterways Conference, serving on its Legislative and Policy Committee. In 2008, the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) appointed her to the congressionally authorized National Committee on Levee Safety. Jacoby received her B.S. degree in civil engineering from the University of Missouri at Rolla, her M.P.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and is a registered engineer and licensed attorney.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices." National Research Council. 2013. Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18309.
×

David I. Maurstad is a director and senior vice president with Optimal Solutions and Technologies, Inc., a provider of management consulting, integrated information technology, engineering services, and business process outsourcing in Washington, DC. Mr. Maurstad previously served as director of water policy and planning for a nationally recognized engineering firm specializing in flood mapping and floodplain management. He has more than 30 years of leadership experience with both the private insurance industry and federal, state, and local governments. Mr. Maurstad served as assistant administrator for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In June 2004, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to provide leadership for some of the nation’s leading multihazard risk reduction programs. In this role, he was the federal insurance administrator charged with the overall management of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program. He previously served as the director of FEMA Region VIII from 2001 to 2004 coordinating federal, state, tribal, and local management of emergencies through planning, preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. A native Nebraskan, he served as Mayor of Beatrice, State Senator, and Lieutenant Governor. He received his B.S. degree in business administration and his M.B.A. degree from the University of Nebraska.

Martin W. McCann is president of Jack R. Benjamin and Associates, Inc., in Menlo Park, California. Dr. McCann also serves as a consulting professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. At Stanford, he is the former chairman of the National Performance of Dams Program, which he founded and which has created a national network to report dam safety incidents and archive this information for wide use by the geotechnical and seismic engineering communities. Dr. McCann’s professional background and research have focused on probabilistic hazards analysis, including hydrologic events, risk assessment, reliability and uncertainty analysis, and systems analysis. Dr. McCann has served as a consultant to several government and private-sector groups in the United States and abroad. He currently also is serving as a member of the National Research Council Committee on Integrating Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience. Dr. McCann received his B.S. degree from Villanova University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University.

Andre D. McDonald is founder and president of Fort Bend Flood Management Association in Fort Bend County, Texas, a group of 17 flood management agencies and the consultants that service that industry. He has served as an appointed board member of Fort Bend County Levee Improvement District since 2000, and been president of that board since 2004. He has an extensive background in construction, primarily with management and operation of heavy civil construction engineering companies. His more than 30 years of experience include the day-to-day management with full profit and loss responsibilities of a heavy civil contracting company. The company was involved with direct construction and commissioning of underground utilities distribution and collection systems, earthwork, paving, and related infrastructure and other intraurban development. He has been part of the management and direct field operations of airport construction, mass earthworks, industrial plant construction, wastewater treatment plant construction, modernization of oil refineries and grassroots LNG facilities. Mr. McDonald studied engineering and business administration at Mississippi State University.

Earthea A. Nance is an assistant professor in the Department of Planning and Urban Studies at the University of New Orleans. Dr. Nance has over 18 years of experience in the areas of environmental planning and management, hazard mitigation, sustainable urban development, environmental remediation, water, wastewater, hazardous waste, and alternative energy. After Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Nance served as a Ford Foundation loaned-executive to the City of New Orleans, where she directed the city’s hazard mitigation, environmental, and alternative energy divisions and authored the city’s sustainability strategy. She is a consultant to the RAND Corporation on policy adaptation to climate change in New Orleans and advises the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board as a member of its environmental engineering committee. She also serves as a consultant to local environmental groups trying to understand the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Her research has examined the impacts of disasters on social and ecological diversity, the development of executive education in resilience and risk management, community-based environmental monitoring in Gulf Coast communities, and participatory water and sanitation systems in developing countries. Dr. Nance received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California at Davis and her Ph.D. degree in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices." National Research Council. 2013. Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18309.
×

Kenneth W. Potter is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Potter’s areas of research include estimation of hydrologic risk, especially flood risk; adaptation of hydrologic design to climate change; assessment and mitigation of human impacts on aquatic systems; and restoration of aquatic systems. Dr. Potter is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and a Woodrow Wilson fellow. He has extensive National Research Council (NRC) committee experience, as well. He is a former member of the Water Science and Technology Board, chaired the NRC Committee on American River Flood Frequencies and the NRC Committee on Integrated Observations for Hydrologic and Related Sciences, served as vice chair of the NRC Committee on Flood Control Alternatives in the American River Basin and, most recently, served on the NRC Committee on the New Orleans Regional Hurricane Protection Projects. Dr. Potter received his B.S. degree in geology from Louisiana State University and his Ph.D. degree in geography and environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

J. David Rogers holds the Karl F. Hasselmann Chair in Geological Engineering at the Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla, Missouri. Dr. Rogers has extensive experience in evaluating the stability of natural slopes, embankments, stream channels, highways, and hydraulic structures. He has served as principal investigator for research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Federal Highway Administration, Department of Defense, and several state departments of transportation. Dr. Rogers has served on numerous panels, including the Mississippi Delta Science & Engineering Special Team, the Coastal Louisiana Recovery Panel, the NSF Independent Levee Investigation Team and USGS Investigation Teams evaluating the impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the NSF team evaluating the 2008 and 2011 Mississippi River floods, and the Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure Networks team funded by NSF to make a 5-year examination of the California Bay Delta flood protection systems. Recently, he has also been working on development of computerized algorithms for regional landslide hazard mapping using geographic information systems in the United States, Africa, Asia, and the Hundu-Kush regions. Dr. Rogers received his B.S. degree in geology from Cal Poly Pomona, and his M.S. degree in civil engineering and his Ph.D. in geological and geotechnical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He served on the Berkeley faculty for 7 years prior to accepting his current position in 2001.

STAFF

Laura J. Helsabeck is a senior staff officer with the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board. Her interests include the use of scientific information to enhance water policy and management decisions pertaining to water quality and quantity. Since joining the National Research Council, she has served as the study director for a variety of studies including Sustainable Management in California’s Bay Delta, Challenges and Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences, and Global Change and Extreme Hydrology: Testing Conventional Wisdom. Dr. Helsabeck received her B.A. from Clemson University, her M.S. from Vanderbilt University, and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in environmental chemistry. Her dissertation work, Ibuprofen photolysis: Reaction kinetics, chemical mechanism, and byproduct analysis, was awarded the Ellen C. Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award by the American Chemical Society.

Michael J. Stoever is a research associate with the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board. He has worked on a number of studies including Desalination: A National Perspective, the Water Implications of Biofuels Production in the United States, and the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Program. He has also worked on NRC studies on the implementation progress of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the effect of water withdrawals on the St. Johns River, and achieving nutrient and sediment reduction goals in the Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Stoever received his B.A. in political science from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Pomona.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices." National Research Council. 2013. Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18309.
×
Page 161
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices." National Research Council. 2013. Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18309.
×
Page 162
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices." National Research Council. 2013. Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18309.
×
Page 163
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Information, Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices." National Research Council. 2013. Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18309.
×
Page 164
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA) manages the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which is a cornerstone in the U.S. strategy to assist communities to prepare for, mitigate against, and recover from flood disasters. The NFIP was established by Congress with passage of the National Flood Insurance Act in 1968, to help reduce future flood damages through NFIP community floodplain regulation that would control development in flood hazard areas, provide insurance for a premium to property owners, and reduce federal expenditures for disaster assistance. The flood insurance is available only to owners of insurable property located in communities that participate in the NFIP. Currently, the program has 5,555,915 million policies in 21,881 communities3 across the United States.

The NFIP defines the one percent annual chance flood (100-year or base flood) floodplain as a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). The SFHA is delineated on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM's) using topographic, meteorologic, hydrologic, and hydraulic information. Property owners with a federally back mortgage within the SFHAs are required to purchase and retain flood insurance, called the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement (MPR). Levees and floodwalls, hereafter referred to as levees, have been part of flood management in the United States since the late 1700's because they are relatively easy to build and a reasonable infrastructure investment. A levee is a man-made structure, usually an earthen embankment, designed and constructed in accordance with sound engineering practices to contain, control, or divert the flow of water so as to provide protection from temporary flooding. A levee system is a flood protection system which consists of a levee, or levees, and associated structures, such as closure and drainage devices, which are constructed and operated in accordance with sound engineering practices.

Recognizing the need for improving the NFIP's treatment of levees, FEMA officials approached the National Research Council's (NRC) Water Science and Technology Board (WSTB) and requested this study. The NRC responded by forming the ad hoc Committee on Levee and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices, charged to examine current FEMA treatment of levees within the NFIP and provide advice on how those levee-elated policies and activities could be improved. The study addressed four broad areas, risk analysis, flood insurance, risk reduction, and risk communication, regarding how levees are considered in the NFIP. Specific issues within these areas include current risk analysis and mapping procedures behind accredited and non-accredited levees, flood insurance pricing and the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement, mitigation options to reduce risk for communities with levees, flood risk communication efforts, and the concept of shared responsibility. The principal conclusions and recommendations are highlighted in this report.

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