SEARS: [00:00:00] This is Radio Stockdale. Welcome to Radio, Stockdale. I'm your host, Michael Sears at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. I'm in conversation with GMS, Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Before assuming her current role, administrator, Criswell served as the commissioner of the New York City Emergency Management Department. She was a member of the Colorado Air National Guard. She served for 21 years as a firefighter and deputy fire chief. In 2001, she deployed to Kuwait to serve as a fire officer in crash fire rescue efforts, and in 2010, she deployed to Qatar, Afghanistan and Iraq to advise senior leadership on fire protection requirements for new and existing military bases. Madam Administrator, welcome to Radio Stockdale.

CRISWELL: [00:01:01] Thank you so much, Michael. It's a pleasure to be here.

SEARS: [00:01:03] Could we start off a little bit this morning just to talk about what FEMA is and what FEMA does?

CRISWELL: [00:01:10] I think the best way to really start that conversation is just to talk about our mission statement, which is FEMA's mission is to help people before, during and after disasters. And that comes in a variety of different ways. You know, the things that we do before disasters is help people understand what their risks are. We recently released a national risk index where individuals can go in and better understand the types of natural hazards, severe weather threats that might impact them. And then we want to work with them to help them get prepared and through our preparedness division, as well as starting to reduce the impacts from some of these risks through pre-disaster mitigation and our brick program building resilient infrastructure and communities. So, a lot of stuff that FEMA does before a disaster hits that may some people on this podcast may not know about, and it's a really important part of our mission. And then when we talk about during, that's the response phase, right? It's making sure that we are in a position where we can save lives and reduce the suffering that people are experiencing from disasters. We do this working across our federal family with all of our different partners across government, but as well as supporting our state and local partners as they're responding to an event that may have happened. And then finally, it's after disasters helping people after disasters, and we do that by helping them build back more resilient. And the other big thing that we're doing right now is trying to infuse equity in our recovery processes. You know, we've learned and we've listened that some people are having trouble accessing our programs, that they're not as equitable as they could be. And so, we've made some changes. We're continuing to look at them to make more changes. But the end goal is making sure that those that are eligible for assistance can receive that assistance after disaster and help them on that road to recovery.

SEARS: [00:03:00] You know, you make a very good point here, and I want to touch on so many of those elements. But let me take you back to what you said. Most of the listeners here would agree. Gee, FEMA does work before it's not just swooping in after the hurricane or the fire, it's a lot the prep work, which, you know, while the post work is valuable, the work is probably just as valuable, if not more.

CRISWELL: [00:03:19] I agree. I think it is equally, if not the most valuable part of what we do. It's just not the part that makes all the news sometimes right. And so it's not as apparent to the general population, but the more we can help individuals and communities be prepared for the impacts that we're seeing from climate change, the more that we can help them understand what their risks are so they can prepare appropriately or the more that we can mitigate to reduce those impacts is really going to have such an amazing impact on what we do during and after disasters.

SEARS: [00:03:50] You've got a fairly unique path in getting to the seat you're occupying right now. Can you spend a few minutes talking about how you got there?

CRISWELL: [00:03:58] Yeah, I was I was talking to a group of my employees the other day and I talked about how I went from no job to the FEMA administrator, and they commented on how that might be a good book someday. But it has been a very interesting journey, as I call it. And you know, it started in Colorado. I was a single mom and looking for money to go back to school. And so, I joined the Colorado Air National Guard and I wanted to do something non-traditional at that point. And so, I became a firefighter in the Air National Guard and went to boot camp and went to a tech school and from there decided that I really loved and was fairly good at the career of being a firefighter. And so, I came back to Colorado and applied for positions with different municipalities around the Colorado area, around the Denver region. And the story I really like to tell is when I went in to take the test in Aurora, Colorado, there was a thousand people that were in there to take the written test. And it was at a time where there weren't a lot of women in the fire service yet, and I sat down at a table with all men that were telling me how hard it was to become a firefighter and that they had been trying for years, really trying to discourage me. And I almost got up and left. But I decided to stay. It took the test; it took the physical agility test and then the oral boards and out of the thousand people I came in number 11. And so, the message I like to give a lot of people is that you can't let other people influence the direction that you want to go right, that you need to be in charge of your destiny and take that chance.

CRISWELL: [00:05:35] And if I would have left, I would have already made the decision. But that gave me opportunities and it opened up more doors. So, through that, I always continued to find ways to challenge myself and push myself outside of my comfort zone. Taking on new challenges within the fire department or within the Colorado Air National Guard, which eventually led me to applying for a job with the federal government in FEMA, and I started out as a federal coordinating officer, then in Denver, Colorado, for FEMA's Region eight office. And then that opened up more doors gave me more opportunities. They ended up moving me to Washington, D.C., to start a new program, and then I ended up leading one of the national incident management teams that FEMA has from there. I took a short break, went into the private sector, learned a different side of the emergency management field, and then that opened up a door in New York City to come be their Commissioner for Emergency Management, which was during the time of COVID 19. And I was able to lead the coordination across the city in our response to that. And it was certainly one of the hardest years that that I have ever gone through and then got a call from the president's transition team to ask me if I'd be interested in this role. And so here I am today, Michael.

SEARS: [00:06:44] Great story and I like the story of perseverance. Let me let me ask you about the service you had overseas, because I do know that you worked with the Department of Defense.

CRISWELL: [00:06:53] When I was in the Air National Guard, I did have the opportunity to to deploy a few times overseas. And so, I did serve 21 years in the Colorado Air National Guard and retired from there. And then the last mission that I had overseas was in Qatar and was able to then work and coordinate across Afghanistan and Iraq as they were building up and surging up in Afghanistan, but also drawing down in Iraq. And I was a firefighter in the Colorado Air National Guard again and went over there as an advisor and was able to move resources really kind of an emergency management role in some sense and make sure that we had appropriate resources and understood the risk that we were trying to understand and either accept or not accept at some of these bases in Afghanistan, but at the same time, making sure that we were able to maintain operations in Iraq as we were in the drawdown in Iraq. And so, it was a really amazing time over there to really continue to fine tune some of these coordination skills and collaboration skills that are an essential part of what it means to be a leader in emergency management.

SEARS: [00:08:01] We highlight to our midshipmen that there are some situations beyond the kinetic things we do that involve humanitarian assistance, clearly outside of the continental United States. But also, there are some times where we work very closely and actually under the direction if I have it right of FEMA and other folks at Homeland Security.

CRISWELL: [00:08:23] Absolutely. So, the Defense Support of Civil Authorities or the DSCA mission that the Department of Defense has is a critical piece of our ability at FEMA to be able to respond to emergencies or disasters that are affecting the American people. DOD is an amazing partner for us, and they come in and support a wide range of different activities even during my time during COVID 19 in New York City. We worked really closely with both Title 10 assets, as well as Title 32 resources to support varying missions across the COVID 19 response operation. And it's important because the one thing that has really proved to be beneficial and valuable is this dual status commander position that comes in and helps to be that central point of contact to manage the differences between what Title 10 can do and what Title 32 can do. And there were definitely some restrictions and some limitations that we found as we were trying to execute different missions in New York City. And we see that across all of our FEMA operations when we're going to natural disasters. I'm just most recently Hurricane Ida in Louisiana. You know, the state deploys their title 32 and their state National Guard assets, but we also bring in the Department of Defense to support a variety of different missions. And in this case, it was the Army Corps of Engineers that helped us with generators and the blue roof mission to really help that community get moving towards recovery.

SEARS: [00:09:55] I wonder about your thoughts on how FEMA connects with national security writ large and what I'm what I really mean by that is, you know, the stance and the position of the United States of America relative to its ability to take care of its own. My sense here is as other folks look out from other places around the world and see what you do and what your organization does that actually contributes to what the United States is all about.

CRISWELL: [00:10:23] I agree to start natural disasters. They are and can be national security challenges. One of my biggest concerns is that we have a bad actor that comes in and takes advantage of the opportunity when we are vulnerable in responding to a natural disaster. And so having that connection with our intelligence community and understanding what the potential threats are to our country so we can plan and prepare appropriately for perhaps something that might be a simultaneous type event, or sometimes we call it an incident within an incident. You know, when these disasters strike, we are extremely vulnerable and we want to make sure that we have the right communication, the right collaboration and the right partnerships with our national security community so we can coordinate effectively. I think the other thing when I think about the national security enterprise is when we talk about before disasters, right, what we do is we help facilitate planning, training, running exercises across the interagency for potential national security incidents, but also supporting our state and local partners in the execution of their plans and their exercises so they can be better prepared and build their capacity in a big way. When we do, this is through our Homeland Security grant program, which was developed after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, which has really over the last 20 years, built an incredible amount of capacity at the state and local level for potential security threats, which those types of resources and those types of plans and training while they support, you know, the consequences that might come from a national security event. They also can support the consequences from a natural disaster. And I think the last thing I would say as far as where FEMA connects into the national security conversation is we have a critical role to ensure we have a functioning government. And part of that is we lead the continuity for the federal executive branch in our national continuity programs. And so we integrate in with the other departments and their continuity programs to ensure that we can contain and sustain an operating government in the event that we lost some of the leadership

SEARS: [00:12:44] Last set of questions here. This podcast is about leadership, ethics character. You mentioned equity earlier in terms of disaster response. I mean, there are so many things that your organization does, both before and after. At the Naval Academy, the Midshipmen take a class in leadership, ethics, character and law at least once a year. Every year, they're in one building taking those classes. How does FEMA handle the ethical dilemmas that you and your team face on a daily basis?

CRISWELL: [00:13:18] I think it starts with ensuring everybody understands, believes and lives are core values, which are compassion, integrity, fairness and respect when we embody those four core values in our day-to-day work. Then it really helps drive the ethical leadership that our team needs to be able to present. I mean, Michael, we're working with people on their worst day, right? And they have to have trust that we are going to be there to help them and that we are going to do the right thing all of the time, whether somebody is watching or not. And so having those four core values be part of what we do every single day really helps build that trust in the American people that we're going to be able to come in and help them and give them the services that they need. I think the other part, though, to that is that we also have to be cognizant that during natural disasters, we have a great propensity for people to want to create fraud and they try to defraud the programs that FEMA puts in place. And so we want to have to be on the watch for that. We need to be able to identify when there's potential fraudulent activity, report it to the appropriate authorities, the IG, and make sure that we are handling that in the way that we can help prevent it in the future. But also, you know, watching out and making sure that none of our employees are seeing that opportunity as well to potentially defraud the government. So, it's really important that we have one living our core values into watching for the potential fraud that we might see from the community. And I think at the end of the day, if our leaders aren't modeling our core values, then we're not able to inspire our workforce and we're not able to establish that culture of trust that is needed for the American people to believe in the government.

SEARS: [00:15:10] FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, thank you so much for joining us on Radio Stockdale.

CRISWELL: [00:15:15] Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here today.

SEARS: [00:15:24] You've been listening to Radio Stockdale, a series of podcasts produced by the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the United States Naval Academy. You can hear more podcasts at stockdalecenter/podcasts.