Rosie the Riveter By Nancy Aird The iconic face of Rosie promoted the female defense workers during World War II, but the name of the worker was unknown. The first poster image was titled “We Can Do It!”.  J. Howard Miller created the iconic women in a red bandana with her flexed bent arm in a rolled-up shirt sleeve in 1942 as part of the Westinghouse Electric Corp. wartime production campaign. Norman Rockwell created a cover on The Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943.   The women had a blue jumpsuit, red bandana in her hair, and was eating a sandwich.   “Rosie” was ..read more

A Salute to “Rosies” Past and Present Emergency Management Once Removed May 3, 2024 By Jim Mullen It never hurts to look back on our history, if for no other reason than to avoid repeating it! The Center of Excellence for Resilience Management acknowledgement of  “women in leadership” recalled my encounter in 1974-75  with an authentic “Rosie the Riveter” – the name applied to the 6 million women who stepped up to do heavy duty factory jobs while men went off to fight in WW II. Without disparaging the selfless contributions of soldiers, for a long time the nation seemed to forget the ..read more

Women in Leadership Profile: Assistant Chief Martin By Deb Moller Assistant Chief Martin of the Washington State Patrol has a strong memory of being five years old, seeing a police car, and knowing that when she grew up, she would work in law enforcement. For AC Martin, this wasn’t the typical quickly passing whimsy of a five-year-old. Seeing that police car was a life-changing event. In her Sudbury, Massachusetts high school, when her sense of humor and class clown antics amused her friends, none of them took her law enforcement talk seriously. She was just too far from the tough, athletic, T ..read more

Not Nearly Enough Emergency Management Once Removed April 19, 2024 By Jim Mullen Even predictable natural disasters frequently catch elected officials by surprise. A discouraging number of elected  officials and senior staff act as if  foreseeing and managing potential disaster impacts is a job for “another budget cycle.” So what are they doing in the meantime? Not nearly enough”. As director of Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management, just one of the three mayors I served under, Paul Schell, asked what resources would improve our readiness.  To the annoyance of city budget man ..read more

After the Wildfire – Recovery and Reclamation of Land Tips By Nancy Aird As the population builds out into rural areas, the chances of wildfire impacting your life increases with damage possible away from the direct wildfire. The severity of the fire impacts not only the vegetation we see, but the soil structure and microbial community beneath. Slopes damaged by wildfire are prone to accelerated soil erosion, floods, and landslides (debris flow) from damaged vegetation and roots that protected the soil. Evaluation of burn conditions on the land after a fire often uses 3 definitions to describe ..read more

ARE YOU WILDFIRE READY? Mitigate, Prepare and Prevent By Nancy Aird The wildland urban interface (WUI) is the area where homes are built near or among lands prone to wildland fire. Homeowners value their privacy, natural beauty, recreational opportunities and affordable living created by buying in neighborhoods built in these areas. As a result, rural fire districts more often have to fight fire and protect homes and property within these wildland urban interface areas. Mitigation accepts we cannot prevent everything from happening.  Wildfires and other disasters cannot be elimi ..read more

What Goes Around… Emergency Management Once Removed March 22, 2024 By Jim Mullen The Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) program has long been the life’s blood of state and local government’s ability to prepare, mitigate, respond, and recover from disasters. A recent joint letter from NEMA, IAEM and the Big Cities  emergency management associations to the Biden Administration urged that the most  significant increase in a decade be made to EMPG in the 2025 budget. The letter cites FY22 statistics: beyond COVID-related declarations, there were just 52 disasters resulting in ..read more

Goldilocks Zone Resilience against Climate Change By Nancy Aird Not too Hot, not too Cold, and not too Extreme climates are becoming points when choosing location for homes and businesses. Weather specifically happens over a period of hours or days, while climate influences show over years. Earths’ climate is showing increasing heat swings worldwide i.e., graphs convey the entire top 15 of 16 warmest years on record occurred since 2000. Climate related heat swings project more common, more severe, longer lasting days of heat influencing more deaths, illness, droughts, extreme environmental pat ..read more

Why We Need More Women in Leadership Roles! By Kellie Hale I would not be where I am today without Linda Crerar, Director of the Center of Excellence – Homeland Security Emergency Management (HSEM). I met Linda 12- years ago as a young and naïve student at Pierce College looking for an internship position. With the help of my instructors (all women) and Julie Cargill, they pointed me in the right direction. Linda is the kind of mentor I wish everyone could have in their education and career journey. Linda was willing to take me under her wing and guide me. As I became more immersed in the Cent ..read more

In 2019, the Jamye Wisecup Memorial Scholarship Fund was established to honor Jamye’s memory. For those who did not have an opportunity to work with her during the years she was an emergency manager in Clallam County, she was the heart and soul of emergency management in her community and made an impact on many people’s lives. Jamye was a Board Member with our Center for many years and her dedication to promote emergency preparedness and her genuine caring for everyone made her exceptional. Peninsula College and the Center Advisory Board have worked together for the past five years to get con ..read more