Globex Corporation Newsletter

Mike Brown is the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a job he took over after serving as FEMA's deputy director. One would hope that the director of the federal agency in charge of managing men and materials during a disaster would have some experience in the field. FEMA's website says that Brown worked as an "assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" for the city of Edmund Oklahoma. The White house says Brown oversaw Edmund's emergency services division.

It seems "Brownie's" bio was a bit overstated. Apparently, Brown was little more than an intern in his pervious emergency management experience. That experience for a city of 70,000 would be a great place for a college student who desired a public service career in emergency management to start off. Everyone needs to start somewhere, Edmund is as good as any place for a college student to learn the ropes of that career. The way it usually works is that if you do good in a job like that, you move up to a bigger one, then a bigger one and so on until you reach the level that fits your abilities. Mike Brown went from intern duties, to legal-counsel for FEMA to director of FEMA. Seems like there's a few steps missing there.

Maybe Mike Brown was exceptionally talented, so much so that he was actually running the huge emergency management show they had down in Edmund. You know, some kind of "Wunderkind" who was so outstanding at his job that he attracted the attention of the entire emergency management field. Brown's immediate superior, Edmund City Manager Bill Dashner had this to say about Mike Brown:

"Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

Glowing review. He wrote some speeches, he was loyal, on time and dressed nicely. The kind of review that's going to skyrocket you to the top. If those are the requirements to be FEMA director then I'd like to forward some of my performance reviews to the agency. Strike that, there isn't one mention of a startched shirt in any of them.

We were all shocked by the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, appalled by the inadequet response as people, trapped in New Orleans for days looted, many just to obtain food and water for survival. It's not so shocking the way things turned out considering that the man at the top had no experience.

BOJ