On Thursday, January 25th the Rotary Club of Hickory welcomed William “Brock” Long as our featured speaker. William B. “Brock” Long was confirmed by the United States Senate and began his service as the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in June, 2017. Mr. Long has more than sixteen years of experience assisting and supporting local, state, and federal governments with building robust emergency management and public health preparedness programs.
Since 2011, he has worked as Executive Vice President at Hagerty Consulting, where he provided strategic direction and leadership to the firm’s full complement of emergency management programs and professionals. Mr. Long has served as Project Executive for more than fifty projects in all parts of the United States, ranging from complex attack scenario exercises to designing multi-jurisdictional, all-hazard evacuation plans for major Urban Area Security Initiative- designated jurisdictions.
From 2008-2011, Mr. Long served as director of Alabama’s Emergency Management Agency (AEMA) under Governor Bob Riley. As director, he served as the State Coordinating Officer for fourteen disasters, including eight presidentially-declared events. Mr. Long also served as an on-scene State Incident Commander for the Alabama Unified Command during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Prior to his position as Director at AEMA, Mr. Long was a FEMA Regional Hurricane Program Manager, FEMA Hurricane and Evacuation Liaison Team Leader, and statewide school safety coordinator for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. His areas of expertise include strategic emergency operations planning, exercise, evacuation, school safety, recovery management, and response logistics.
Mr. Long also served as the private sector chairman for the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) and as a board member of the Central United States Earthquake Consortium.
He is a graduate of the prestigious Executive Leadership Program offered by the United States Naval Postgraduate School/Center for Homeland Defense and Security, as well as Appalachian State University for undergraduate and graduate school.
