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When considering our interviews for season two, Brock Long was high on my guest list. As a former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator (2017 to 2019), and current Executive Chairman at Hagerty Consulting his background and appreciation of all things geospatial would, in my opinion, bring a lot of insight to the application of GIS from an executive perspective. During his 25+ year career, he has served in very impactful roles including: leading the United States disaster response efforts as a former FEMA Administrator; leading at the state level as the Director of Alabama Emergency Management Agency (AEMA) (2008 to 2011), and as FEMA’s Hurricane Program Manager (2001 to 2006). His vision and passion for supporting communities through emergency restoration really shines through during this episode and reflects his career-long initiative toward improving response efforts. Ultimately for Brock, it’s about saving lives and helping people.
As the frequency of environmental disaster events increase, the impacts on society rise as well. From our conversation, you can see Brock has a long-standing interest in disaster response and emergency management. It isn’t difficult to understand why his career has taken the trajectory that it has. Brock is passionate about improving response capabilities at all levels- federal, state, and local. He sees the importance of continuing to grow and challenge preconceived ideas about how we mitigate and manage efforts for response and recovery from disaster events. He is intuitive with his approach and unwavering in his determination to have his messaging heard. He thinks outside of the box and does not feel hampered by the ideals of the business that have been in place for decades. In fact, he posits that some elements of what we have been doing as a country for the last several decades isn’t really working. Brock urges people to educate themselves and not rely solely on governmental aid. FEMA, State, and local governments can only do so much and he suggests that we need to be more proactive as a society.
When I worked under Brock’s direction at AEMA, he was very proactive with regard to technology and GIS. He recognized the importance and need for the geospatial approach and encouraged our information technology team to push beyond the typical mindset for how things had always been done. Brock’s ideas and penchant for pushing the envelope left lasting impressions on many who worked with him. I have so much respect for Brock. He has always had and still has amazing vision. He continues to be influential for emergency managers and will leave a lasting legacy in the field for years to come.
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