Appendix A
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
David T. Ford, chair, is president of David Ford Consulting Engineers in Sacramento, California. Dr. Ford is an internationally recognized expert in hydrologic, hydraulic, and water resources engineering, and flood and floodplain management. He has more than 35 years of project management experience, including 23 as owner and president of David Ford Consulting Engineers, Inc., and 12 as a senior hydraulic engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE’s) Hydrologic Engineering Center. He has served as a consultant to the USACE, the National Weather Service, U.S. Agency for International Development, state government agencies, the United Nations, the World Bank, and engineering firms worldwide. He has prior NRC committee experience, most recently with the Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program. He has served on the faculty of the University of California and California State University. Dr. Ford received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering from the University of Texas. He is a registered professional engineer in 12 states.
Ross B. Corotis is the Denver Business Challenge Professor of Engineering at the University of Colorado, and former dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science. With a background in structural mechanics, Dr. Corotis’ primary research interests are in the application of probabilistic concepts to civil engineering problems, where he has expanded traditional studies of structural reliability into risk and decision modeling for the built environment. He has expanded reliability approaches to estimate seismic risk loss and prioritize mitigation, developed generalized methods of uncertainty to evaluate risk and reliability, and created regional decision models based on disaster data. Recent completed projects include a comparison of the differing damages in Haiti, Chile, and New Zealand after similar earthquakes; risk communication for seismic retrofit; and the development of a risk-based decision methodology for transportation facility design. Dr. Corotis is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D., all in civil engineering, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is a registered professional engineer and structural engineer.
Wei Du is principal scientist and chief hydrologist at CoreLogic Spatial Solutions, where he has led research on flood risk and hazards and development of methods and analytic tools. He has more than 25 years of experience in hydrologic engineering, hazard risk assessment, and geospatial technology. During the past decade, he led a consulting team to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on many flood hazard-related projects (including FEMA Map Modernization and RiskMap) and on the production of Flood Insurance Rate Maps. He has developed analytical tools on classifying hazard risk and conducted research on flood risk associated with riverine flooding, coastal storm surge, flash flooding, and basement and sewer backup flooding. Under his leadership, CoreLogic has created the most detailed national hydrologic datasets available, including the national multiple direction flow accumulation dataset, the national catchment slope
dataset, and the national flood elevation surface dataset. Working closely with Swiss Re, Dr. Du has provided catastrophic flood loss analyses for many insurance clients. He has a B.S. in hydrologic engineering, an M.S. in hydrologic and environmental science, and a Ph.D. in geography from Clark University.
Clive Q. Goodwin is assistant vice president and manager for natural hazard peril underwriting at FM Global Insurance Company. In this position, he manages worldwide underwriting of wind, flood, and collapse perils. The work capitalizes on FM Global’s engineering knowledge of these hazards to improve clients’ knowledge of risk and their insurance terms and conditions. Recently, Mr. Goodwin represented FM Global in a collaboration with the USACE, FEMA, and other agencies to highlight concerns about the aging inventory of levees and the importance of changing U.S. policy on levee risk. He is a chartered engineer, a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and a former member of the Industry Leaders Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Mr. Goodwin holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering and metallurgy from the University of Manchester, U.K., and a Certified Diploma in accounting and finance.
Larry Larson is director emeritus and senior policy advisor for the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM), where he coordinates national flood and water resources policy development with state and federal agencies, the Administration, and other policy groups and organizations. His 50+ year career has been devoted to flood hazard and water resources management. He is the codeveloper of ASFPM’s No Adverse Impact approach to community development and has authored numerous white papers and articles. For decades, Mr. Larson has been a leader in developing national policy on the wise and sustainable use of floodplains. Prior to joining ASFPM, he spent 30 years with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources managing flood loss reduction, dam safety, wetlands, and other programs, and 5 years with the California Department of Water Resources on the design and construction of large dams, aqueducts, and other water projects. Mr. Larson holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin and is a registered professional engineer in Wisconsin and California.
Howard Leikin is retired after decades with the Federal Insurance Administration and FEMA. He served as chief actuary at FEMA beginning in 1994. In 1999, he was appointed deputy federal insurance administrator, providing executive leadership and direction for the insurance and floodplain management aspects of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). He also coordinated insurance marketing, communication, and outreach strategies to reduce losses from flooding and other perils. In 2003, Mr. Leikin transferred to the Department of the Treasury, where he served as the deputy director for the newly enacted Terrorism Risk Insurance Program. His responsibilities included establishing a framework for the program, developing policies and procedures for administering claims and for sharing losses among the federal and private sectors, and developing program regulations. He was detailed back to FEMA for 5 months in 2005 to assist with policy and implementation of the NFIP in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Leikin holds a B.S. in applied mathematics from SUNY Stony Brook, and an M.S. in operations research from George Washington University, and he was designated an associate in risk management by the Insurance Institute of America.
Martin W. McCann is president of Jack R. Benjamin and Associates, Inc., and is also a consulting professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. At Stanford, he is a former chair of the National Performance of Dams Program, which created a national network to report dam safety incidents and to archive this information for 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. He has been a consultant to several government and private sector groups in the United States and abroad, and he has served on three NRC committees, including the Committee on Integrating Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience. Dr. McCann received a B.S. from Villanova University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Laura A. McLay is an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison. Her research interests are in the field of operations research, with a particular focus on discrete optimization with application to homeland security and emergency response problems. She has authored or coauthored more than 40 publications in archival journals and refereed proceedings. Her research has been awarded several honors, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a Young Investigator Award from the Army Research Office, and four best paper awards. Dr. McLay has recently served as president of Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences, a forum of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and president of the INFORMS Section on Public Sector Operations Research. She is a department editor for IIE Transactions, and an associate editor for Risk Analysis and InternationalTransactions on Operational Research. She received a B.S. and M.S. in general engineering, and a Ph.D. in industrial engineering, all from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Erwann Michel-Kerjan is the executive director of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on natural and manmade catastrophe risk management and disaster financing to strengthen resilience through business and policy innovation. Dr. Michel-Kerjan has published more than 100 journal articles on these topics and has (co)authored several books, including Treatise on New Risks (Gallimard), Seeds of Disaster, Roots of Response: How Private Action Can Reduce Public Vulnerability (Cambridge University Press), The Irrational Economist: Making Decisions in a Dangerous World (Public Affairs), Leadership Dispatches (Stanford University Press), and At War with the Weather (MIT Press), which received the prestigious Kulp-Wright award for the most influential book on risk management. He advises several heads of state and government agencies, businesses, and international organizations on risk management and has testified on several occasions before the U.S. Congress. He also serves on the board of the World Economic Forum initiative, which publishes the Global Risks Report every year, and chairs the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Secretary-General Board on Financial Management of Catastrophes, which advises the 34 member countries on these issues. Dr. Michel-Kerjan studied mathematics, physics and finance at Ecole Polytechnique (France), McGill (Canada), and Harvard.
Lindene Patton is Global Head of Hazard Product Development at CoreLogic. Previously, she was chief climate product officer for Zurich Insurance Group, where she was responsible for policy and risk management related to climate change. Her research focuses on how risk management systems are affected by natural catastrophes, and on alternative financing models that reflect actual exposure as well as future climate change. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on Measuring Sustainability and Advisory Board on Sustainability and Competitiveness. Ms. Patton serves on numerous government and nongovernmental advisory boards, including the Executive Secretariat of the U.S. National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee. She recently coauthored the book Climate Change and Insurance (2012). She is an attorney licensed in California and the District of Columbia and an American Board of Industrial Hygiene Certified Industrial Hygienist. She holds a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of California, Davis, a master’s of public health from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law.
Patricia Templeton-Jones is chief operating officer of Wright National Flood Insurance Company, the largest provider of flood insurance in Florida and the United States. She is the current president of the Flood Insurance Servicing Companies Association of America and a member of the Write Your Own (WYO) Coalition. The Write Your Own Program of the NFIP allows participating property and casualty insurance companies to write and service the standard flood insurance policy in their own names. Ms. Templeton-Jones recently served as NFIP flood coordinator for Wright Flood, and chaired the Institute for Business and Home Safety and The WYO Marketing Committee. With more than 25 years of experience in the insurance industry, she is an outspoken advocate of the flood insurance program and of education about flood insurance.
Susan E. Voss is vice president/general counsel for American Enterprise Group, Inc. an insurance com-
pany specializing in health care insurance products and services. Prior to beginning her work at American Enterprise Group in November 2013, she was a consultant in the areas of life insurance and annuity regulation. From 2005 to 2013, she was the Iowa Insurance Commissioner, where she led efforts to coordinate work with state and federal emergency management teams to assist Iowans with flood-related property issues, including mitigation of homeowner damage and flood insurance issues. An integral member of the Iowa Insurance Division, she assisted on an “after action plan” committee formed by Governor Branstadin in 1993, which made recommendations on risk mitigation, insurance education and outreach, and state emergency management plans. She provided similar leadership services following the Iowa floods of 2008. She was a representative of the state of Iowa as well as president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Ms. Voss has also represented the United States and Iowa in meetings with foreign regulators and officials regarding insurance operations in China, South Korea, Chile, Ecuador, and Germany. She received her B.A. from Simpson College and her J.D. from the Gonzaga University School of Law.
