Pittsburgh is not some rural county where the fire chief wears multiple hats. Pittsburgh has a population of 303,000 people. The city deserves a full-time “professional” emergency manager as the director — period.
I’m sure the fire chief is a highly qualified and great fire leader — but he is not an emergency manager! And, he has other duties that will draw him away from what a full-time emergency management director should be doing.
Here’s the story: “
Pittsburgh Fire Chief Darryl Jones Named City’s New Emergency Management Coordinator.”
One of my criteria for the emergency management profession to come into its own is when decision-makers are appointing non-emergency managers into positions of responsibility for the profession. This applies to fire chiefs, police chiefs, former military personnel, public works directors and so on. Until then, even the dog catcher might be qualified.
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
