I retired after 25+ years in Fire/Rescue/EMS/Haz-Mat which included serving as an Firefighter-EMT, EMS Chief, Heavy Rescue-Extrication Technician and Co-founder/Co-Commander of a county Haz-Mat Unit. I also served 4 years as a Deputy County Emergency Manager. Following those years I served as CEO (Chief Executive) of several large hospitals, retiring in mid-2002.   I have extensive experience at the local, state, regional and national level in disaster emergency management, Haz-Mat and WMD activities, including being a Subject Matter Expert in Hospital Decon operations, developing a national program for hospital decon training and serving as Team Leader of a Federal Decon Team at the 2002 Winter Olympics. I then served 4 yeas with the state of Florida, Division of Emergency Management. In 2006 I transferred over to the Florida Department of Health, Emergency Medical Services Operations, Trauma Program where I work in developing training activities including a 2 M EMS video game project, DVD training aids, budgeting, financial grant management of 8+ M annually, trauma budget of 2M annually and was integally involved in hospital disaster and terrorism response planning.  

Educationally, I hold a BA degree in Biology from the Virginia Military Institute, a Master's Degree in Education from the University of Georgia and a Master's Degree in Healthcare Administration from the George Washington University. I am a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.  I have been involved in many types of emergency service organizations and have extensive "street" experience in most types of emergencies and disasters.

I have directly worked over 11 hurricanes, numerous tornadoes and floods, haz-mat incidents and served as Coordinator of an EOC during a major activation.  Additionally, I have numerous local, state and national awards.  But, I most enjoy mentoring career, volunteer and new persons considering the fields of emergency administration/management or emergency services. Giving back to them what many along the way took time and interest to share with me. Following retirement from Fire-Rescue and then retirement from healthcare administration, I spent  initially as Asstistant Brach Chief and then  3 years as th Human Services Branch Chief at the State Emergency Operations Center for the state of Florida. My areas of coordination were ESF -6 (Mass Care), ESF-11 (food/water/ice), ESF 15 - (Volunteers & Donations), ESF 17 - (Animal Services) plus coordination with the Departments of Education, Children & Families and Elder Affairs during disaster.  Additionally,  the Florida CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and Florida Citizen Corps Programs were in my area of responsibility in none emergency periods..

I was fortunate enough to be recognized by the Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference as the Emergency Manager of the year in 2004. The next year, 2005, I was recognized by the Florida Tax Watch with a prestigious Davis Productivity - Individual Award.  Following that, for 8 years I was active with the Florida Department of Health, Trauma Center Program assisting 25 trauma centers in the state from a business funding  point of view, to insure provision of life-saving care in life-threathening trauma cases. Also,  I was involved in emergency preparedness & terrorism grant programs for trauma centers plus training programs for trauma physicians and nurses. I served as Project Manager for 3 major trauma training projects including development of a major Bombs/Burns/ Blast response web based training program,  which won a national award for its development. The trauma centers in the state treat approximately 42,000 trauma cases a year. I just recently retired.   .