AHC Emergency Management Consulting

A New Collaboration Community FEMA has created a new "Collaboration Community" where stakeholders can come to a forum-type website and view, contribute and comment on conversations about emergency preparedness, disaster response and recovery, and other emergency management topics. They are calling this the " FEMA Think Tank ". The FEMA web page giving background information on the Think Tank is at www.fema.gov/thinktank . The site has gotten off to a great start since being announced at the IAEM conference last week. As of today, the usage statistics show that 72 ideas have been posted with 199 comments and 613 votes from 389 users.  The ideas are very interesting, some are a bit off topic, some are venting, and some are a bit redundant. However, I am sure that FEMA is getting a lot of good ideas from the stream of consciousness presented on the site already. How does it work? The site is built to run on user ideas and votes. Users submit their ideas,

I found this little bit of history interesting... Good work "back in the day" by my good friend and business partner  Rick LaValla was the basis of the new FEMA doctrine for recovery. Rick did not get any credit for this groundbreaking work but the story below helps set the record straight. ------------------------------------------------------------ Reviewing the Origins of the National Disaster Recovery Framework The basis for the newly released National Disaster Recovery Framework is the concept of "Recovery Support Functions” (RSFs). The original idea and concepts of RSFs was born in Cape Coral, Florida in 2001-2002. This pioneering work was the result of Rick LaValla, President of ERI International and Co-Founder and Vice President of All Hands Consulting , done under on contract with the City of Cape Coral . Mr. LaValla conducted recovery workshops and focus groups with Cape Coral Fire Chief and Emergency Manager William “Bill” Van Helden in