I've done pretty well as an Emergency Manager. I speak at conferences, participate in professional organizations, hold national offices, teach, publish - write this blog.
Occasionally, I get asked (usually by a student) how I got into Emergency Management in the first place. I'm old enough to remember Civil Defense, but I didn't get here through the military or a public response role. I got here because of one man.
Yesterday, I attended the memorial for an old friend. This friend was what Malcolm Gladwell in his book "The Tipping Point" called a 'connector' - someone with a truly extraordinary knack for making friends and acquaintances. There were dozens of people there who made up his lifetime of connections.
Gladwell suggests you make a list of the 20 or 30 people in your circle of friends and then work backwards in each relationship until you find the name that keeps coming up more than any other. The idea is that your social circle really isn't a circle. It's more like a pyramid. If you work backward, you'll find that one person ultimately responsible for setting in motion the series of connections that led to all those friendships.
This friend was one of those people. He is responsible for who I am and what I've become. I can trace everything I do now back to him.
He was the Director of the Marin County (CA) Red Cross and I was a volunteer instructor. He asked if I'd take a part time job he had open in the office. He was also the ARC representative on the county Emergency Medical Care Committee. When a small grant came in to do a bi-monthly newsletter for the EMS office, he suggested I go talk to the EMS Director. That turned into a part time job doing projects for EMS, which turned into a part time job doing projects for OES, which turned into a full time job with OES. The rest, as they say, is history.
The last time I saw Hank Waschow, he'd been dignosed with lung cancer. I drove down to the Bay Area to spend the afternoon. At one point he said, "I'm really proud of you and what you've accomplished." What can you say to that? I told him it was all his fault.
It is. It really is.
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Occasionally, I get asked (usually by a student) how I got into Emergency Management in the first place. I'm old enough to remember Civil Defense, but I didn't get here through the military or a public response role. I got here because of one man.
Yesterday, I attended the memorial for an old friend. This friend was what Malcolm Gladwell in his book "The Tipping Point" called a 'connector' - someone with a truly extraordinary knack for making friends and acquaintances. There were dozens of people there who made up his lifetime of connections.
Gladwell suggests you make a list of the 20 or 30 people in your circle of friends and then work backwards in each relationship until you find the name that keeps coming up more than any other. The idea is that your social circle really isn't a circle. It's more like a pyramid. If you work backward, you'll find that one person ultimately responsible for setting in motion the series of connections that led to all those friendships.
This friend was one of those people. He is responsible for who I am and what I've become. I can trace everything I do now back to him.
He was the Director of the Marin County (CA) Red Cross and I was a volunteer instructor. He asked if I'd take a part time job he had open in the office. He was also the ARC representative on the county Emergency Medical Care Committee. When a small grant came in to do a bi-monthly newsletter for the EMS office, he suggested I go talk to the EMS Director. That turned into a part time job doing projects for EMS, which turned into a part time job doing projects for OES, which turned into a full time job with OES. The rest, as they say, is history.
The last time I saw Hank Waschow, he'd been dignosed with lung cancer. I drove down to the Bay Area to spend the afternoon. At one point he said, "I'm really proud of you and what you've accomplished." What can you say to that? I told him it was all his fault.
It is. It really is.
