I am an emergency management 'practitioner' on a university campus. I want to say that right up front so as not to confuse this blog with the 'academic' side of higher education that Jayne Abraham will be blogging about. She'll tell you all about how to get an emergency management education; I'll tell you about practicing emergency management on campus. I think what I do is a lot more fun. (sorry, Jayne!)

Higher education campuses are a hotbed of activity these days. No longer are they just cloistered halls of academia!

The number of campus emergency managers is exploding - many of them are arriving with a "formal" education instead of years in field response. Higher education campuses are the venues that embrace new ideas and technology. This is where social networking evolved and changes almost daily. This is where students pass around the H1N1 influenza virus playing 'beer pong'.

Getting my stats out of the way: I have been in emergency management for almost 20 years with local government, a national lab and for the past four years with the University of California at Davis. Not too much field response experience, but I do have a lot of letters after my name (MS, CEM, CBCP). I have publications, training, conference workshops, offices and all that on my resume. If you are really, really, truly interested, let me know and I'll send it to you.

Meanwhile - I have lots and lots of opinions that I am more than willing to share. This should be fun. :-)