How to become Emergency Management Director in 2024

Emergency Management Director Plan and direct disaster response or crisis management activities, provide disaster preparedness training, and prepare emergency plans and procedures for natural (e.g., hurricanes, floods, earthquakes), wartime, or technological (e.g., nuclear power plant emergencies or hazardous materials spills) disasters or hostage situations.

Emergency Management Director is Also Know as

In different settings, Emergency Management Director is titled as

  • 911 Communications Manager
  • Emergency Management Coordinator
  • Emergency Management Director
  • Emergency Management System Director (EMS Director)
  • Emergency Manager
  • Emergency Planner
  • Emergency Preparedness Manager
  • Emergency Services Director
  • Emergency Services Program Coordinator
  • Public Safety Director

Education and Training of Emergency Management Director

Emergency Management Director is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Emergency Management Director

A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.

Education Required for Emergency Management Director

Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Degrees Related to Emergency Management Director

Training Required for Emergency Management Director

Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Emergency Management Director in different industries are

What Do Emergency Management Director do?

  • Keep informed of activities or changes that could affect the likelihood of an emergency, response efforts, or plan implementation.
  • Prepare plans that outline operating procedures to be used in response to disasters or emergencies, such as hurricanes, nuclear accidents, and terrorist attacks, and in recovery from these events.
  • Propose alteration of emergency response procedures, based on regulatory changes, technological changes, or knowledge gained from outcomes of previous emergency situations.
  • Maintain and update all resource materials associated with emergency preparedness plans.
  • Coordinate disaster response or crisis management activities, such as ordering evacuations, opening public shelters, and implementing special needs plans and programs.
  • Develop and maintain liaisons with municipalities, county departments, and similar entities to facilitate plan development, response effort coordination, and exchanges of personnel and equipment.
  • Keep informed of federal, state, and local regulations affecting emergency plans, and ensure that plans adhere to those regulations.
  • Prepare emergency situation status reports that describe response and recovery efforts, needs, and preliminary damage assessments.
  • Design and administer emergency or disaster preparedness training courses that teach people how to effectively respond to major emergencies and disasters.
  • Inspect facilities and equipment, such as emergency management centers and communications equipment, to determine their operational and functional capabilities in emergency situations.
  • Consult with officials of local and area governments, schools, hospitals, and other institutions to determine their needs and capabilities in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency.
  • Develop and perform tests and evaluations of emergency management plans in accordance with state and federal regulations.
  • Attend meetings, conferences, and workshops related to emergency management to learn new information and to develop working relationships with other emergency management specialists.
  • Collaborate with other officials to prepare and analyze damage assessments following disasters or emergencies.
  • Develop instructional materials for the public and make presentations to citizens' groups to provide information on emergency plans and their implementation processes.
  • Train local groups in the preparation of long-term plans that are compatible with federal and state plans.
  • Review emergency plans of individual organizations, such as medical facilities, to ensure their adequacy.
  • Conduct surveys to determine the types of emergency-related needs to be addressed in disaster planning, or provide technical support to others conducting such surveys.
  • Study emergency plans used elsewhere to gather information for plan development.
  • Apply for federal funding for emergency-management-related needs, and administer and report on the progress of such grants.
  • Develop and implement training procedures and strategies for radiological protection, detection, and decontamination.
  • Inventory and distribute nuclear, biological, and chemical detection and contamination equipment, providing instruction in its maintenance and use.
  • Provide communities with assistance in applying for federal funding for emergency management facilities, radiological instrumentation, and related items.

Qualities of Good Emergency Management Director

  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.

Tools Used by Emergency Management Director

  • Chemical protective boots
  • Chemical protective clothing
  • Desktop computers
  • Emergency alert notification systems
  • Hard hats
  • Laptop computers
  • Personal computers
  • Protective hoods
  • Radiation detectors
  • Safety gloves
  • Self-contained breathing apparatus
  • Two way radios

Technology Skills required for Emergency Management Director

  • Alert Technologies OpsCenter
  • Desktop publishing software
  • Digital Engineering Corporation E-MAPS
  • Emergency Managers Weather Information Network EMWIN
  • Emergency Services Integrators ESi WebEOC
  • ESRI ArcGIS software
  • Federal Emergency Management Information System FEMIS
  • Geographic information system GIS software
  • Graphics software
  • IBM Lotus Notes
  • MapInfo Professional
  • McAfee
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Microsoft Word
  • National Center for Crisis and Continuity Coordination NC4 E Team
  • Relational database software
  • SoftRisk Technologies SoftRisk SQL
  • Statistical software
  • Sungard Assurance
  • Web browser software