Appendix C
Steering Committee, Speaker, and Moderator Biographies
SUSAN CUTTER (CHAIR) is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina where she directs the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute. Her primary research interests are in the area of 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 has authored or edited twelve books, more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Her most recent book, Hurricane Katrina and the Forgotten Coast of Mississippi was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. She has led post event field teams in examining Three Mile Island (1979), Hurricane Floyd (1999), September 11th World Trade Center attack (2001), Graniteville, SC train derailment and chlorine spill (2005), Hurricane Katrina (2005), and Superstorm Sandy (2012). She has provided expert testimony to Congress on hazards and vulnerability and was a member of the US Army Corps of Engineers IPET team evaluating the social impacts of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System in response to Hurricane Katrina. She is an elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1999). She is also past President of the Association of American Geographers (2000) and past President of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) (2008). In 2011 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of American Geographers. Dr. Cutter held the MunichRe Foundation Chair (2009-2012) on Social Vulnerability through the United Nations University-Institute for Environment and Human Security, in Bonn, Germany. In 2013, she received the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Faculty Achievement award. She received her B.A. from California State University, East Bay and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
LAURA S. CABINESS is the Public Service Director for the City of Charleston, South Carolina. Ms. Cabiness began her career working for the Department of Defense at Southern Division Naval Facilities Engineering Command. She subsequently worked for Keck and Wood, Inc., in Atlanta, GA and Florida Land Design, Inc. in Tampa FL prior to returning to Southern Division Naval Facilities Engineering Command in 1989. In 1990 she began her career with the city of Charleston, first as the City Engineer and currently as the Director of the Department of Public Service. During her employment with the City of Charleston, Ms. Cabiness and her department have managed the design and construction of more than $88 million in storm water drainage and flood relief projects. Ms. Cabiness has been an active member of the American Public Works Association for 24 years, has been a member of the Advisory Council for the Civil Engineering Department at The Citadel for 12 years, and is also an active member of the Advisory Board for the Civil Engineering Department at Clemson University. She received a degree in Civil Engineering from Clemson University and is a registered professional engineer in South Carolina.
ARRIETTA CHAKOS is a consultant in urban resilience policy. Her specialties include disaster risk assessment, disaster loss estimates, public policy development, multi-party negotiations, and municipal government operations. She recently served as director of the Acting in Time Advance Disaster Recovery project at the Harvard Kennedy School, which was involved with disaster policy research and application.
A seismic safety advocate, she was assistant city manager in Berkeley, California until 2007 and managed the city’s intergovernmental coordination and hazard mitigation initiatives. She directed California’s first municipal hazard mitigation plan aimed at sustainable risk reduction. Berkeley’s mitigation efforts are nationally recognized and use innovative tax incentives and locally funded programs to promote community resilience. Chakos worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for its report to the Congress on all hazards risk mitigation, and with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (CalEMA) on natural hazards projects and seismic safety legislation. She served as a technical advisor to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on its international seismic safety program for schools; the World Bank on disaster risk reduction and sustainable development in the metropolitan Istanbul region; and with the National Research Council’s research on community disaster resilience. She has also advised on a recent Ford Foundation study on Stafford Act implementation in the Gulf Coast region; as well as with the Association of Bay Area Governments; the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute; GeoHazards International; the Center for Biosecurity; and the Natural Hazards Center on disaster policy issues. Publications include papers on disaster risk reduction for technical conferences; the American Society of Civil Engineers; Spectra, an engineering professional publication; the Natural Hazards’ Observer; the United Nations journal, Regional Development, and as a contributor to Keeping Schools Safe in Earthquake Country (OECD, 2004) and Global Warming, Natural Hazards, and Emergency Management (2009). She received a B.A. from California State University, Humboldt and a M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School.
MIRIAM CHION’S work has focused on urban and regional planning, land use policies, community resources and international development. In her current position as Director of Planning and Research at the Association of Bay Area Governments, she is responsible for the development of regional strategies addressing social equity, economic vitality and environmental challenges. Between 2004 and 2009, she was a faculty at the Department of International Development, Community, and Environment, at Clark University, Massachusetts. Prior to this position, she worked for the San Francisco Planning Department on community, housing and economic development. She completed her doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley and her architectural degree at Universidad Ricardo Palma in Lima, Peru.
SANDI FOWLER serves the City of Cedar Rapids as the Assistant City Manager. She has held several positions in her nearly 25 years in city government, working with neighborhood groups, citizen services, internal operations, and facility rebuilding from the 2008 flood. Ms. Fowler now leads the departments of Public Works, Community Development, Building Services, as well as economic development and development plan review. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in public administration.
GERALD E. GALLOWAY, Jr. (NAE) is a 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, Member of the Mississippi River Commission, 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 retired from the Army in 1995 as a Brigadier General 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. A civil engineer, public administrator, and geographer, Dr. Galloway’s current research focuses on the development of U.S. national water policy and disaster resilience in general and national floodplain management policy in particular. Prior to joining Maryland, he was vice president, Geospatial Strategies, for the ES3 Sector of the Titan Corporation. He was a six-year member of the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board and has served as chair or member of 13 National Research Council Committees. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Public Administration.
JULIE HASSETT is Managing Partner and co-founder of Hassett Willis and Company. Hassett has helped organizations navigate complex changes for more than two decades. Because change mastery is more than just planning, Hassett brings a wide array of tools ranging from strategy development and facilitation to conflict resolution and performance measurement. As a trusted advisor to executive leadership in both Fortune 500 companies and Homeland Security agencies, she has guided them through some of their most critical challenges. Hassett is especially adept at recognizing and re-engineering complicated patterns of organizational behavior that are the keys to enhancing performance. As a result, her clients often discover new ways to achieve their missions more efficiently and effectively. Hassett is a founding member of The Government Technical Services Coalition and a member of Women in Homeland Security. Hassett is a graduate of Guilford College with a major in psychology, she holds a Master’s in Organizational Development and Behavior from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C
ROBERT KOLASKY currently serves as the Director of Strategy and Policy for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP), where he leads strategic initiatives on behalf of the Assistant Secretary to help IP achieve organizational priorities. These priorities include IP’s activities to enhance its capabilities to integrate cyber and physical risk management efforts with critical infrastructure owners and operators, and approaches to improve infrastructure resilience in the face of terrorism, climate change and other risks. Previously, he served as Director of DHS’ Integrated Task Force to implement Presidential Policy Directive 21 on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, as well as Executive Order 13636 on Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. In this role, he was responsible for leading the delivery of the Department’s requirements to the White House, including the update to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan and the growth of voluntary partnerships to support cyber security risk management and information sharing. Mr. Kolasky previously served as the Assistant Director for Risk Governance and Support in the Office of Risk Management Analysis at DHS where he was responsible for developing policies and processes to enable risk-informed strategic decisions by DHS. In addition, he led the conduct of the first ever Strategic National Risk Assessment, in partnership with FEMA, as part of the implementation of Presidential Policy Directive 8. Mr. Kolasky’s career focus is on analyzing issues related to homeland security strategy, planning, and policy. He has supported program development for the DHS Secretary’s Operational Integration Staff (I-STAFF), and the National Preparedness Task Force, and led strategic planning engagements for DHS components. In doing so, he has worked both as a government employee at DHS and the U.S. Government Accountability Office and as a management consultant at Booz Allen and Hamilton. Mr. Kolasky joined the Federal government following his graduation from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) in June of 2002. While at the Kennedy School, Mr. Kolasky concentrated on Business and Government Policy and Microeconomics. He also worked as a management consultant for several non-profit organizations. Prior to attending HKS, Mr. Kolasky was a journalist and an entrepreneur. He helped start two of the first public policy sites on the Internet and served as the Managing Editor for IntellectualCapital.com and the Director of Content for Policy.com. Mr. Kolasky graduated from Dartmouth College in 1994.
LINDA LANGSTON was elected to the Linn County (Iowa) Board of Supervisors in the fall of 2002 and began her term of office in January 2003. She was re-elected in 2006, 2008, and again in November 2012. Ms. Langston is active in the National Association of Counties (NACo), currently serving as NACo’s immediate past president; previously she was the first president of NACo. She is a member of NACo’s Health Steering Committee, the Arts and Culture Commission, Women Officials of NACo, and the Healthy Counties Initiative. Ms. Langston was an inaugural participant in the County Leadership Institute presented by NACo and New York University in 2004. She also is active in the Iowa State Association of Counties. Locally, Ms. Langston chairs the East Central Iowa Council of Governments (ECICOG) and is past chair of the Workforce Development Board, along with serving on a variety of other boards and commissions in Linn County and Cedar Rapids. She also is an active member of Downtown Rotary. Supervisor Langston is widely recognized for her roles in the successful recovery from the devastating Iowa floods of 2008 and translating the lessons learned from that experience into countywide efforts to fortify
and make resilient those Iowa communities for future events. As president of the National Association of Counties (NACo), Supervisor Langston assisted the National Research Council to communicate key messages to the local and regional set of decision makers in the area of disaster resilience. That stakeholder group is critical to the successful efforts of reducing risk and building resilience to hazards and disasters. She was recently appointed to the National Advisory Council for FEMA. Ms. Langston received her B.A. from Knox College and she is a 2007 graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for State and Local Officials.
THOMAS DE LANNOY is a policy officer in the Directorate General for Humanitarian aid and civil protection, European Commission. His responsibilities include inter alia the development and implementation of an EU framework for disaster prevention that encompasses risk assessment and management, data comparability and research, international relations (in particular the preparation of EU position on the post 2015 Hyogo framework for action), and integration of disaster prevention into EU policy and financial instruments. He joined the European Commission in 2003 and worked for seven years in the Environment Directorate General (mainly on marine pollution and international relation issues). He is a French national and studied Business administration in France and in the United Kingdom, as well as European studies and public administration.
LORI PEEK is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and co-director of the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis (CDRA) at Colorado State University (CSU). She also is an adjunct research scientist at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Since 2006, she has served as associate chair of the Social Science Research Council Task Force on Hurricane Katrina and Rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Dr. Peek studies vulnerable populations in disaster, with a special emphasis on the experiences of low-income families, racial and ethnic minorities, women, and children. She is the author of Behind the Backlash: Muslim Americans after 9/11 (Temple University Press, 2011), co-editor of Displaced: Life in the Katrina Diaspora (University of Texas Press, 2012), and co-author of Children of Katrina (University of Texas Press, 2015). Behind the Backlash received the Distinguished Book Award from the Midwest Sociological Society and the Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity. In 2009, the American Sociological Association Section on Children and Youth honored Dr. Peek with the Early Career Award for Outstanding Scholarship. She was named the 2010 Greek Life Professor of the Year and has received CSU’s Alumni Association Best Teacher Award, College of Liberal Arts Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Waterpik Excellence in Education Award. In addition, the Institute on Teaching and Learning at CSU selected her as a 2011-2012 Teaching Fellow as part of a university-wide competition. Dr. Peek earned a B.A. in Sociology from Ottawa University in 1997, a M.Ed. in Education and Human Resource Studies from Colorado State University in 1999, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2005.
RICHARD REED is Senior Vice President, Disaster Cycle Services at the American Red Cross. In this role, he leads the development and execution of programs that help Americans prevent, prepare for, and respond to disasters nationwide. He led a comprehensive organizational assessment of all American Red Cross preparedness, response, and recovery programs which resulted in revamped processes to improve service delivery in disasters small and large. Prior to taking the role at Red Cross, Mr. Reed was at the White House, serving as Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. He led the development of national policy related to resilience, transborder security, and community partnerships. With an experienced team of over 30 senior professionals, Mr. Reed covered 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. Mr. Reed’s prior White House tenure included service as Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Director for Continuity (2006-2009) and Special Assis-
tant to the President and Senior Director for Resilience Policy (2009-12). His Federal service exceeds 20 years, with positions in the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the General Services Administration. Mr. Reed 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 Preparedness; Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience; National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications; Medical Countermeasures Following a Biological Attack; Cyber Security; Border Security, and Immigration. Mr. Reed has Bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University and Purdue University, and a Master’s degree in social work from Indiana University.
JACQUELINE SNELLING serves as Senior Policy Advisor to the Director in the Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s Individual and Community Preparedness Division (ICPD) with responsibilities for national policy and guidance, research, and initiatives to support individual and community preparedness and resilience at all levels. As part of these duties, she is the Program Manager of a current project to update FEMA guidance to the public on 23 identified hazards. The project includes review and documentation of the research base for protective actions, recommendations for revisions to guidance for America’s PrepareAthon and other public guidance materials, recommendations for research priorities to support guidance, and coordination with FEMA, other federal agencies, key organizations and the academic community for consistent research-based protective action messaging to the public. Since joining DHS in 2005, Ms. Snelling’s work has included development of programs and partnerships for integrating government and nongovernment resources for preparedness, development of strategic metrics for reporting progress on preparedness, and research, analysis and reporting on the status of individual and community preparedness. Prior to joining the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Ms. Snelling worked with local emergency management by establishing a community council representing all sectors to support public education and participation in preparedness planning, prevention, mitigation, response and recovery. In this capacity, she was selected to represent the community sector on the National Capital Region Council of Government’s Homeland Security Strategic Planning group composed of regional leaders and sector representatives. Ms. Snelling’s work for DHS/FEMA builds on a 30-year public service career of senior policy and management positions at all levels of government and extensive volunteer community service. Ms. Snelling has public management experience in diverse areas serving as Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Education and as the Acting Director of the New York City Division of School Buildings. Ms. Snelling’s community-based work has included a focus on analysis and metrics for community services to support community planning in areas including capital improvement planning, public health, public safety, school achievement, and services for children, youth and families. Ms. Snelling received her undergraduate and Master’s degrees from Harvard University.
WILLIAM D. SOLECKI is professor and chair of the Department of Geography at Hunter College – CUNY and serves as the interim director of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, which seeks to create awareness and understanding of the connections between the everyday lives of urban citizens and their natural world, leading to the discovery and use of cities like New York as a learning laboratory to create a sustainable future for cities worldwide. He has served on several NRC committees including the Special Committee on Problems in the Environment (SCOPE). He currently is a member of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Megacity Study Group and the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP), Urbanization and Global Environmental Change Scientific Steering Committee. He currently serves as the co-leader of several climate impacts and land use studies in the New York metropolitan region, including the Metropolitan East Coast Assessment of Impacts of Potential Climate Variability and Change. He holds in degrees in Geography from Columbia University (B.A.) and Rutgers University (M.A., Ph.D.).
CLAY STAMP is the County Manager for Talbot County Maryland, a rural county of on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where he oversees all affairs of County government on behalf of the Talbot County Council, the elected officials who serve as the governing body of Talbot County. Mr. Stamp has a long history of serving in government and has been instrumental in many innovative planning and operational initiatives at the municipal, county, and State levels of Maryland government. Mr. Stamp began his professional career working for the Town of Ocean City, Maryland, eventually retiring as the Town’s Emergency Services Director. During his tenure with Ocean City, he was instrumental in a number of creative projects, including the creation of the Town’s comprehensive emergency management program, which assessed risk and planned for the mitigation, response and recovery of threats such as hurricanes and tropical storms, and participated in the successful implementation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hurricane Protection Project. Coming from an extensive emergency management background and subsequently migrating into a broader management role in local government, Mr. Stamp has now begun work to identify ways to improve community resiliency from a broader or more comprehensive approach than the traditional hazard mitigation planning perspective. He believes a unique opportunity exists to build and expand upon traditional planning efforts to identify key foundational pillars that support communities, which can subsequently shepherd a paradigm shift in how resiliency is viewed and embraced by community leaders.
MICHAEL SZÖNYI is a Senior Risk Engineer with Zurich Insurance Company, based in Switzerland, currently working in the role of Flood Resilience Specialist, assessing flood hazards and flood risks and advising the company and the alliance partners on risk insights and risk mitigation strategies as part of Zurich’s flood resilience program. Specifically, besides advising the community projects of the flood resilience program on technical flood aspects and supporting the alliance partners on flood resilience assessment and measurement, he is leading the post-event review function, analyzing large flood events around the world. This function is based on on-site research during and after the flood events in-country as well as third party review. Mr. Szönyi has an Advanced Master’s Degree in Natural Hazards Management from the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, ETH, and is a natural scientist with an M.Sc. degree in Geophysics, also from ETH. In addition he holds a Teaching Degree in Geography. He is a Swiss Citizen and speaks German, English, French, Italian and Spanish. He recently spent a sabbatical volunteering for the United States National Park Service, working as a Park Ranger. He is also a keen photographer and author of a book series on geoscience travel.
CHUCK WEMPLE is the Chief Operating Officer for the Houston-Galveston Area Council where he oversees all programs and services including transportation planning, community and environmental planning, public safety, and workforce development. He has extensive experience in addressing infrastructure, housing and economic recovery needs following Hurricanes Rita and Ike—including the allocation and programming of over $2 billion in HUD recovery funds; implementing small business financing programs. Additionally, he has served on several State-level disaster-recovery policy committees designed to improve the speed and efficiency of disaster recovery. The Houston-Galveston area Council covers over 12,000 square miles along the upper Texas coast, and includes 13 counties and over 100 cities and towns, with 6.6 million people.
ROY E. WRIGHT serves as FEMA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Mitigation. He is responsible for FEMA’s risk analysis and risk reduction programs. These include FEMA’s Stafford Act authorities for mitigation, the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, the National Dam Safety Program, and the National Flood Insurance Program. Mr. Wright is also responsible for FEMA Disaster Reservists within the Mitigation Cadre as well as the delivery of environmental and historic preservation technical assistance and compliance across all FEMA programs. Collectively, these programs promote a risk-conscious culture and address long‐term vulnerabilities in communities across the Nation. Mr. Wright was appointed to the Federal Senior Executive Service in 2013. He holds a Master of Public Administration from The George Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Azusa Pa-
cific University. His post‐graduate studies include the Senior Executive Fellows program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the Executive Leaders Program at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security.
