Appendix B
Biographical Information—Plenary Session Participants
Admiral Thad W. Allen (United States Coast Guard, Retired) is a Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton, and provides thought leadership and client engagement for the Justice and Homeland Security business and also contributes to other initiatives in energy, defense and international markets. He retired from the United States Coast Guard after serving as the 23rd Commandant in June 2010. Prior senior leadership assignments included Chief of Staff of the Coast Guard, Atlantic Area Commander, Commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District (Southeast US and Caribbean Region), and Coast Guard Director of Resources. In 2005, Allen was selected by President George W. Bush to lead the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as the Principal Federal Official. In 2010 he was selected by President Obama to lead the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as the National Incident Commander. In 39 years of service in the Coast Guard, Allen served in wide variety of operational assignments including commands at sea and ashore. He is a 1971 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy (BS in Management) and earned Masters Degrees at The George Washington University (Public Administration) and MIT Sloan School of Management (Management Science). Allen is a Fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves as a Director with the Coast Guard Foundation and the Partnership for Public Service. From 2010 to 2011 he served as a Senior Fellow at the RAND Corporation. A native of Tucson, Arizona, Allen now resides in Vienna, Virginia, with his wife Pam. They have three grown children: Amanda, Meghan, and Lucas.
Debra T. Ballen is the general counsel and senior vice president of public policy at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS). In this capacity, she is responsible for managing all of the organization’s legal matters and overseeing IBHS’ public policy efforts. In addition, she also serves as the organization’s corporate secretary. Prior to her work with IBHS, Ms. Ballen was
the executive vice president of public policy management for the American Insurance Association (AIA) in Washington, D.C. She developed and implemented policy for AIA’s priority federal and state public policy issues. She also has served on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) High Level Advisory Board on Financial Management of Large Scale Catastrophes, which includes a heavy emphasis on mitigation measures. Ms. Ballen graduated with a juris doctorate degree from Harvard Law School and an A.B. degree from Princeton University. She also has received the CPCU designation.
Susan Cutter chairs the National Research Council’s Committee on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters. She is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina, and director of the university’s Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute. Her primary research interests are in the area of vulnerability/resiliency science—what makes people and the places where they live vulnerable to extreme events and how vulnerability and resilience are measured, monitored, and assessed. Dr. Cutter has also led post-event field studies of the role of geographic information technologies in rescue and relief operations in the September 11th World Trade Center attack and studies of evacuation behavior from Three Mile Island (1979), Hurricane Floyd (1999), and the Graniteville, South Carolina, train derailment and chlorine spill (2005). She led a Hurricane Katrina post-event field team to coastal Mississippi (2006) and since then has been studying the community differences in long-term recovery of the Mississippi coast. She has provided expert testimony to Congress on hazards and vulnerability and was a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce that evaluated the social impacts of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System in response to Hurricane Katrina. She has authored a Trends and Outlook report for the US Army Corps of Engineers on Natural and Human-Induced Disasters and other Factors Affecting Future Emergency Response and Hazard Management. Dr. Cutter serves on many national advisory boards and committees, including those of the National Research Council, American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Science Foundation, Natural Hazards Center, and the American Geophysical Union. She is a member of the International Council for Science’s Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Scientific Committee. In 2011 she received the Lifetime Achievement award from the Association of American Geographers. Dr. Cutter holds the MunichRe Foundation Chair (2009-2012) on Social Vulnerability through the United Nations University-Institute for Environment and Human Security, in Bonn, Germany. She received her B.A. from California State University, East Bay and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
Stephen Flynn is a Professor of Political Science and the Founding Co-Director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security at Northeastern University. Before arriving at Northeastern, he served as President of the Center for National Policy and spent a decade as a senior fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Flynn was an active duty commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard for 20 years, including two tours as commanding officer at sea. He is the author of The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (Random House, 2007), and America the Vulnerable (HarperCollins 2004). He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Wharton School’s Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania and serves as a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Homeland Security Project, co-chaired by former 9/11 commissioners, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton. Flynn holds the M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He is the principal for Stephen E. Flynn Associates LLC, where he provides independent advisory services on improving enterprise resilience and critical infrastructure protection, and transportation and maritime security.
Gerald E. Galloway, Jr. (member, National Academy of Engineering) is the Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering and an affiliate professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. His 38-year career in the military included positions such as commander of the Army Corps of Engineers District in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and professor and founding head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and dean of the Academic Board at the U.S. Military Academy. He was promoted to bridadier general in 1990 and retired from active duty in 1995. A civil engineer, public administrator, and geographer, Dr. Galloway’s current research focuses on the development of U.S. national water policy in general and national floodplain management policy in particular. He is a currently a member of the National Research Council's Water Science and Technology Board and the Disasters Roundtable. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Dr. Galloway earned his M.S.E. at Princeton and his Ph.D. in geography (specializing in water resources) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Corey Gruber serves as the Assistant Administrator, National Preparedness Directorate (NPD), in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Directorate has six business units with over 400 personnel that are charged with providing guidance, programs, activities and services to prepare the Nation to prevent, protect from, respond to and recover from all hazards. The Directorate is currently charged with leading implementation of Presidential Policy Directive 8, “National Preparedness.” In 2007, he served as Acting Deputy Administrator of the newly formed Directorate and led its integration into
the Agency. He previously served as Acting Assistant Secretary of Grants and Training (G&T) in the Department’s former Preparedness Directorate. His other assignments within the Department include serving as the Executive Director, National Preparedness Task Force and Director, Office for Policy, Initiatives, and Analysis, Office of Grants and Training. Before joining the U.S. Federal government in 2001, Mr. Gruber served as Deputy Director, Emergency Management Division, Research Planning, Inc., where he supported planning, training, exercise and continuity needs for public and private sector clientele. He managed the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Domestic Preparedness Exercise Program, overseeing conduct of exercises involving response to terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction for 120 major metropolitan areas across the Nation. Mr. Gruber’s other assignments included serving as Chief of Plans in the Department of Defense’s Director of Military Support, where he was responsible for Military Support to Civil Authorities, including planning and response to more than 50 major disasters and emergencies, and management of classified continuity of operations programs. He is a retired U.S. Army officer. Mr. Gruber received his bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University, and his master’s degree from Chapman University.
Patricia Hoffman is the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability at the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability leads the Department of Energy’s (DOE) efforts to modernize the electric grid through the development and implementation of national policy pertaining to electric grid reliability and the management of research, development, and demonstration activities for “next generation” electric grid infrastructure technologies. Hoffman is responsible for developing and implementing a long-term research strategy for modernizing and improving the resiliency of the electric grid. Hoffman directs research on visualization and controls, energy storage and power electronics, high temperature superconductivity and renewable/distributed systems integration. She also oversees the business management of the office including human resources, budget development, financial execution, and performance management. Before joining the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Hoffman was the Program Director for the Federal Energy Management Program which implements efficiency measures in the federal sector and the Program Manager for the Distributed Energy Program that developed advanced natural gas power generation and combined heat and power systems. She also managed the Advanced Turbine System program resulting in a high-efficiency industrial gas turbine product. Hoffman holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Ceramic Science and Engineering from Penn State University.
Natalie Jayroe joined Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana as President and CEO in January 2006. The mission of Second Harvest is to lead the fight against hunger in south Louisiana through food distribution, advocacy, education and disaster response. Second Harvest currently distributes more than 22 million meals annually through more than 240 faith-based and nonprofit member agencies in 23 parishes across south Louisiana. Second Harvest continues to be a strong partner of local, state and federal agencies in disaster response, providing emergency food relief after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike and most recently the Gulf Oil Spill. Second Harvest also worked with five Louisiana universities to produce a “farm to fork” food system analysis of post-Katrina and Rita south Louisiana. Under Natalie’s leadership, Second Harvest has distributed more than 164 million pounds of food, or 139 million meals, to people in need. In her 18 year career in food banking, she has since held several positions of leadership within the Feeding America network and served on many national, state and local boards and committees. In 2005, Natalie became a loaned executive for Feeding America, providing expertise to food banks with challenges. Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita she was the Feeding America representative at the Joint Field Office in Baton Rouge. Currently, Natalie is the Chair of the Louisiana Food Bank Association, Co-chair of the Program Committee of the New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute and a member of Leadership Louisiana. She was named one of City Business’ Women of the Year in 2007, in 2008 was honored with MAZON’s Irving Cramer award, and in 2011 was named a role model for the Young Leadership Council in New Orleans and a CityBusiness Money Maker.
Linda Langston was elected First Vice President of the National Association of Counties (NACo) on July 17, 2012. She will be sworn in as President in July, 2013. Langston has been active in NACo since 2003 and has held many leadership positions, including chair of NACo’s Health Steering Committee, chair of the Healthy Counties Advisory Board, and chair of the Arts and Culture Commission. She is currently chair of the Finance Committee and executive committee liaison to the Large Urban County Caucus Steering Committee. She was an inaugural participant in the County Leadership Institute. Langston was first elected to the Linn County, Iowa Board of Supervisors in 2002. She serves on a variety of boards, commissions and community organizations including Chair of the East Central Iowa Council of Governments (ECICOG), the Linn County Public Health Board, Regional Workforce Development and the Arc of East Central Iowa. Prior to being elected to the Board of Supervisors, Langston was a museum director, a psychotherapist in private practice, a teacher as well as a small business owner. Born in Chicago, but raised in Iowa, Langston graduated from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois with a degree in history and is a 2007
graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for State and Local Officials.
Nicole Lurie is the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Dr. Lurie serves as the Secretary's principal advisor on matters related to bioterrorism and other public health emergencies. ASPR also coordinates interagency activities between HHS, other Federal departments, agencies, and offices, and State and local officials responsible for emergency preparedness and the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies. The mission of her office is to lead the nation in preventing, responding to and recovering from the adverse health effects of public health emergencies and disasters. Prior to that, she was Senior Natural Scientist and the Paul O’ Neill Alcoa Professor of Health Policy at the RAND Corporation. There she directed RAND’s public health and preparedness work as well as RAND’s Center for Population Health and Health Disparities. She has previously served in federal government, as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health in the US Department of Health and Human Services; in state government, as Medical Advisor to the Commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Health; and in academia, as Professor in the University of Minnesota Schools of Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Lurie has a long history in the health services research field, primarily in the areas of access to and quality of care, managed care, mental health, prevention, public health infrastructure and preparedness and health disparities. Dr. Lurie attended college and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and completed her residency and MSPH at UCLA, where she was also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar.
Miles O’Brien is a veteran, freelance broadcast and web journalist who focuses on science, technology and aerospace. He is the Science Correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, and a regular correspondent for the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE and the National Science Foundation Science Nation series. For nearly seventeen of his thirty years in the news business, he worked for CNN – as the Science and Space Correspondent and the anchor of various programs, including American Morning. While at CNN, he secured a deal with NASA to become the first journalist to fly on the space shuttle. The project ended with the loss of Columbia and her crew in 2003 – a story he told to the world in a critically acclaimed sixteen-hour marathon of live coverage. Mr. O’Brien is an accomplished aviator who often pilots his own airplane to assignments, and is frequently called upon to explain the vagaries of aviation to a mass audience. He has won numerous awards over the years, including a half-dozen Emmys, a Peabody and DuPont for his coverage of Climate Change, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the Atlanta Olympic Park Bombing, space exploration and the
airline industry. Based in Washington, DC, he owns a company that produces great video journalism as well as content for corporate clients. Mr. O’Brien received his BA in history from Georgetown University.
Richard Reed is Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. In this role he leads the development of national policy related to resilience, transborder security, and community partnerships. With an experienced team of over 30 senior professionals, Richard covers a broad and deep homeland security portfolio that includes all-hazards preparedness, individual and community partnerships and resilience, critical infrastructure protection and resilience, domestic incident management, continuity of government, national exercises, transportation security (aviation, maritime, and ground), piracy, information sharing, border security, and immigration. Prior to his return to the White House, Richard served as Vice President for Preparedness and Resilience Strategy of the American Red Cross, where he led a comprehensive organizational assessment of all American Red Cross preparedness, resilience, and recovery programs, including domestic and international programs. Richard’s prior White House tenure included service as Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Director for Continuity (2006-2009) and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Resilience Policy (2009-12). Richard is known for his adept leadership of the U.S. Government interagency through disasters and emergencies of all types, including the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, Haiti earthquake (during which he was deployed), the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency, and countless domestic natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornados, and flooding. In addition, he has been instrumental in the development of national policy on a range of matters, including continuity of government (National Security Presidential Directive-51/Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20), National Preparedness (Presidential Policy Directive-8), National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications (Executive Order 13618), and Medical Countermeasures Following a Biological Attack (Executive Order 13527). Richard has Bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University and Purdue University, and a Master’s degree in social work from Indiana University.
Ellis M. Stanley, Sr. is the Executive Vice President of Hammerman & Gainer International in New Orleans, LA. Prior to this, he was Vice President for Emergency Management Services at Dewberry LLC. Ellis also served as General Manager of the City of Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Department. Before that, he was director of the Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency. In 2008, he served as Director of Democratic National Convention planning for the City and County of Denver, Colorado. With more than 35 years of experience in the emergency management field, Ellis
has worked at four national political conventions, the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and the 1994 Papal visit and World Youth Conference in Denver. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors of Greater Los Angeles Red Cross Chapter and chairs the Response Committee. He served as Chair of the Emergency Management Accreditation Program and the Board of Directors of Operation Hope and the Disaster Recovery Institute International. Ellis is a past president of the International Association of Emergency Managers and has led delegations of emergency management professionals to China, Japan and other countries. He is currently a member of the IAEM Global Board of Directors. Ellis serves as an adjunct professor at American University teaching Senior Crisis Management and at Harvard University teaching Meta-Leadership. He is currently Chair of the National Research Council’s Disasters Roundtable. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2007 and inducted into Contingency Planning and Management Hall of Fame’s Public Servant in 2005. Ellis graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1973 with a degree in political science. He is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program for Senior Homeland Security Officials for the Post Naval Graduate School in Monterey, California and a graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. Ellis was awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree “Doctor of Public Service”, University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2009.
Kathryn D. Sullivan was appointed by President Obama on May 2, 2011 as assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction and deputy administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She is also performing the duties of NOAA’s chief scientist. She is a distinguished scientist, renowned astronaut and intrepid explorer. As assistant secretary, Dr. Sullivan plays a central role in directing Administration and NOAA priority work in the areas of weather and water services, climate science and services, integrated mapping services and Earth-observing capabilities. She provides agency-wide direction with regard to satellites, space weather, water, and ocean observations and forecasts to best serve American communities and businesses. As Deputy Administrator, she oversees the smooth operation of the agency. Dr. Sullivan’s impressive expertise spans the frontiers of space and sea. An accomplished oceanographer, she was appointed NOAA’s chief scientist in 1993, where she oversaw a research and technology portfolio that included fisheries biology, climate change, satellite instrumentation and marine biodiversity. Dr. Sullivan was the inaugural director of the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy in the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University. Prior to joining Ohio State, she served a decade as President and CEO of the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio, one of the nation's leading science
museums. Dr. Sullivan joined COSI after three years’ service as Chief Scientist. Dr. Sullivan was one of the first six women selected to join the NASA astronaut corps in 1978 and holds the distinction of being the first American woman to walk in space. She flew on three shuttle missions during her 15-year tenure, including the mission that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Sullivan has also served on the National Science Board (2004-2010) and as an oceanographer in the U.S. Navy Reserve (1988-2006). Dr. Sullivan holds a bachelor's degree in earth sciences from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a doctorate in geology from Dalhousie University in Canada.
Tom Tait was elected to serve as Mayor of Anaheim in November 2010, campaigning on a platform of bringing the core values of kindness and freedom to the culture of the city and upholding public safety and civic upkeep as the City of Anaheim's top priorities. Tait's election comes after two previous terms on the Anaheim City Council. In 1995, Tait was appointed to fill a vacancy and complete an unexpired term on the city council. He was subsequently elected by the voters in November 1996 to serve a full four-year term and was re-elected without a challenge in 2000 and served as Mayor Pro Tem from 2002-2003. Mayor Tait brings considerable experience to California's tenth largest city, having also served on the Anaheim Planning Commission and the Anaheim Budget Advisory Commission. He has also served as Anaheim's representative on board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Mayor Tait has been active in the community, serving as a board member for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Anaheim, GOALS, the Anaheim Family YMCA, the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center, and Catholic Charities. Mayor Tait is a member of the California State Bar, and is president of Tait & Associates, Inc. and Tait Environmental Services, an engineering and environmental services firm with offices throughout the western United States. Mayor Tait received his B.S. from the University of Wyoming, and his MBA and J.D. from Vanderbilt University. Tom and his wife Julie have lived in Anaheim for 25 years. They have four children.
Gene Whitney is a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters. Dr. Whitney recently retired as Energy Research Manager for the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was Assistant Director for Environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). His work at OSTP focused on the science and technology policy aspects of earth sciences, natural hazards and disasters, energy, water, land remote sensing, environment, and natural resources. He served as Co-Chair of the U.S. Group on Earth Observations and was OSTP liaison to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. He directed the Future of Land Imaging Interagency
Working Group, and served as National Science Technology Council director for the Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction and the Subcommittee on Water Availability and Quality. Dr. Whitney coordinated the Federal interagency science and technology portfolio for the United States in UNESCO. He served as a member of the Joint U.S.–Canada Task Force investigating the massive electrical blackout of August 14, 2003 in the northeastern U.S. and southern Canada, and worked with the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on national energy efficiency policy. Prior to OSTP Dr. Whitney was Chief Scientist for the USGS Energy Resources Team, where he managed the energy research and assessment group, conducting basic research on the geology, geochemistry, and geophysics of fossil fuels, conducting national and global assessments of oil, natural gas, and coal resources, and assessing availability and economics of fossil fuels. He has authored or co-authored numerous scientific papers and abstracts. He received an NRC postdoctoral fellowship at NASA/JPL and was awarded a senior postdoctoral fellowship at Ecole Normale Superieur in Paris. His international experience includes working with the governments of China, Russia, Pakistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, and Japan on energy and mineral resource issues. Dr. Whitney received his Ph.D. in geology from the University of Illinois.
