Episode 2 - Leadership in IAEM
Show Notes:
Guests this month:
Allison Farole, IAEM Region 5 President: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afarole/Â
Josh Morton, IAEM-USA 2nd Vice President:Â https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-morton-mpa-cem-114033163/Â
John Tommaney, IAEM Universities and Colleges Caucus Chair: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-tommaney-2547933/Â
Other items referenced:
IAEM Annual Conference 2023: https://www.iaem.org/usconf
https://guidebook.com/g/#/guides/cxa8dplpeult3dnzcl14-20230607161229Â
Justin's remarks at the Presidential Banquet: https://youtu.be/3ssbd1MOLo0Â
Safe Events Initiative: Please reach out to Carrie Speranza at USA1stVP@iaem.com if you are interested in getting involved
IAEM Happy Hour Save the Date: January the 11th at 6 p.m. Eastern, look for more info via email
Transcript:
Taylor Frizzell:
All right, welcome to this episode of the Just In Case podcast. I'm your host, Taylor Frizzell. Joining me as always is Mr. Justin Kates, IAEM USA president. It's official. This month, we are going to be talking all things IAEM leadership. Hello, Justin.
Justin Kates:
Hey, it looks like we haven't been canceled yet. So I think we're on the right track.
Taylor Frizzell:
Here's hoping. I don't know. The chipmunk voice, I think, almost got canceled.
Justin Kates:
I think people need to know why the chipmunk voice happened. So Taylor, she was recording the first episode on, what was it, the St. Mary's?
Taylor Frizzell:
No, the Queen Mary.
Justin Kates:
Queen Mary? Yeah. And and the Wi-Fi on a ship of that age just isn't where it needs to be. And so that was that was a problem where she would cut out intermittently. We had to do all kinds of editing after the fact, but unfortunately we couldn't fix the chipmunk voice.
Taylor Frizzell:
You know, that was my complaint in my Yelp review was Wi-Fi not stable enough to record a podcast. So I know it's very niche, but in case anyone ever needs to do it, I'll let them know. Um, all right. So at this point, we're going to welcome on some guests for this month. So you're not stuck with just dressed down in this time. Uh, I want to welcome Allison Farole, who is the IAEM USA region five president. Uh, Josh Morton, who is our USA second vice president officially. And Mr. John Tommaney, who's the chair of the Universities and Colleges Caucus. So welcome folks. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you guys for being here. Now we're going to turn it over to Justin here for a little bit of an update from all things IAEM USA. What's going on at IAEM?
Justin Kates:
All right. Well, so the last time we spoke was right before the conference. So you were already out in Long Beach. I was not there yet. But since the last time we spoke, we've had a great conference. This was very well attended. And I think this is one of the things as an association we always enjoy doing is coming together as a group and learning, networking, experiencing all the things related to I am there at the event. And this was a great opportunity for us to also try and find ways to figure out what we're planning for the next year. So at the IAEM conference, we have two board meetings. The board meeting that takes place before the conference is the last board meeting of the last administration, so Cathy's administration. And then the board meeting at the end of the conference is the first one for the new administration. So that was the one that I ran. And so at that meeting, we go through the process of selecting our leadership for the various committees and caucuses and approving them. And so that's all been done. So now the committees and caucuses can go and start doing their work across the association. And then we also go through the process of selecting our regional representative for the executive committee. And believe it or not, we have that person on the call today. So that's another big event that takes place during that first board meeting of the year. And then in between is all training events and activities, lots of networking, after hours events, which I think are my favorite part of the conference. So we had a great time. I don't know. What did you think, Taylor? Do you think it was a worthwhile endeavor to go all the way out to California?
Taylor Frizzell:
It was so much fun. And selfishly, California is fantastic because when I got back, it was 30 degrees at the airport in Boston. So I was more than happy to have a conference in California. It's always so good to see folks and the sessions are always fantastic. I always find myself overwhelmed because there's so much that I want to do, especially as they build in more sessions, kind of pre and post conference. And at the end of the day, So really prioritizing is a good lesson to have learned during the conference, that's for sure.
Justin Kates:
I can't wait until I'm not part of the leadership anymore and I can actually go to the sessions again and not get stuck going to every other little meeting and event that needs to take place during that time. So we'll see. But also at the conference, we have the presidential banquet. And I had the opportunity to give some remarks about sort of my vision for the next year. And I highlighted three priority areas that I think I really want to see the association work towards this year. One being mentoring, and we announced an initiative with the membership committee to put together a robust mentorship program across the entire association, beyond just the CEM mentorship program that we currently have today. We also talked about advocacy and ensuring that we're promoting and selling the value of emergency managers. And we announced a project the Advocacy and Awareness Caucus is working on, which is an EM hiring toolkit meant for HR professionals and decision makers that are hiring emergency managers. And then the third priority was representation. This one actually we've already started working on just in the last few weeks that we've been since the conference. What a lot of people don't know is that throughout the year, we get requests from various task forces and committees and commissions and other groups asking for us to send representatives to support the emergency management perspective on these groups. And historically, we'll try and find individuals who have sort of maybe an area of subject matter expertise to participate in those types of events. Maybe they're geographically located close enough so that it's easy for them to get to. But one of the things I'd like to see more of is for us to get some new and diverse faces there at the table at these events, and making sure that we're at all of the events, not just a couple that are most prominent. And so over the next couple of months, we're going to be working on coming up with some new strategies to really roll this out in a more systematic way, rather than the piecemealed approach that I've been using over the last few weeks to get people to these different meetings. Just in this last month, we've sent representatives out to an emerging tech event that's being held by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, Space Weather Advisory Group. We also made sure to publish some information out from FEMA about the BRIC program, looking for some feedback on that initiative, and you saw that probably on IAEM Connect. So we're trying to do more in that space where we get this information out to people so that we have good representation with folks that are really representing the full aspect of the emergency management profession. So definitely a lot of work to do there. And then, you know, I'll close out with one other big initiative that some may have seen an announcement for in their email, which is an effort we're looking to try and do around having safe and respectful events. I've worked with Carrie Speranza, our first vice president over the last a few weeks to come up with a strategy on how we look at the various events that take place in IAEM and ensure that they're welcoming, safe, and respectful for all. And this is something that is a concern, not just within emergency management, but Homeland Security events and conferences in general. And so what Carrie is doing is actually reaching out to our peer associations in this space to identify ways for us to collaborate and come up with strategies on how to make these events really safe and respectful events for all of us. There's more to come on that, but if you are interested in participating in this, I would highly recommend reaching out to Carrie Speranza, who is our first vice president. We'll make sure that in the show notes that her email is in there. So that's sort of the update as of right now. More to come as we work over the next year to do a lot of different stuff here in IAEM.
Taylor Frizzell:
I have to say I'm quite impressed one month in you've already accomplished quite a bit and really hit the ground running. And I commend you for that. No one is surprised I'm sure, but I'm surprised.
Justin Kates:
So I think if I'm surprised, then more people should be surprised.
Taylor Frizzell:
Oh gosh. Oh gosh. Um, all right. So we'll, we'll kind of move on to the crux of our, our conversation for this month, if you will. I really want to focus on kind of what leadership at IAEM looks like, what the path to leadership looks like, and then kind of dive into some stories from our guests this month to talk about what their experiences have been and maybe how, you know, folks can also kind of follow in those footsteps and participate in leadership a little bit more. So I want to start by turning it over to you folks. We'll start with John because he's the first person on my screen here not to to startle you, but we'll really set a baseline here and I want to talk about what made you get involved just in IAEM.
John Tommaney:
Great. Thanks, Taylor. And thanks, Justin, for the invitation to kind of participate today. You know, I've been a member of IAEM for about, I think, I'm going on my 13th or 14th year this year. And I'm involved with the University & College Caucus, which I'm the chair of this year. And the University & College Caucus, the way we go about kind of the selection of our leadership team is we hold an election for secretary each year, right? So open to all of our membership. I think we're somewhere in the vicinity of around 450 members now within our caucus. And through that process, what we try and do is then promote that person from the secretary to the vice chair and ultimately the chair. So it's kind of a three-year commitment, which for some people can be a little bit daunting. But we also think it's important because that helps to build the foundational knowledge by the time you get into the chair role of really kind of the inner workings of how our caucus operates. You know, as I mentioned, you know, for me, leadership is a lot about being certain leadership, right, in the sense of we're there to kind of support our members and what their needs are. And there's a number of different, you know, mechanisms and tools that we use to kind of gather information. But I can come back to that a little bit later, if you want to introduce the others.
Taylor Frizzell:
Yeah, fabulous. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And actually your note about kind of that progressive leadership, if you will, or the progression of leadership, I should say. I think that's a great segue into an introduction for Josh Morton here. Do you want to do an intro and kind of why you wanted to be involved in IAEM?
Josh Morton:
Oh, thanks Taylor. So for me, I, if I'm completely honest, I joined IAEM so I could go to the conference. That was why I joined the association originally. And I have been very fortunate from the time I started and I am to be around a lot of people who have been involved in leadership over the years, particularly the region for leadership. And so I was involved in the association for a couple of years, and then I got involved with the region for conference committee. And that led to, you know, some folks encouraging me to run for region for president. which I did back in 2018. And then I was the Region 4 President-Elect from 18 to 20. And then from 20 to 22, I was the Region 4 President. But, you know, deciding to step up into the national level, that was a decision that I thought about for several years, particularly during my two years on the board. And You know, for me, it's all about just giving back to this association. This association has done a lot for me professionally and personally, and I want to do everything I can to encourage the next generation of emergency managers.
Taylor Frizzell:
Excellent sentiment, and I really think it echoes John's point about servant leadership. You know, I think IAEM is very lucky to have a lot of incredible leaders who really focus on giving back to the association and the folks that that we're working with on a day to day basis. So I appreciate that sentiment immensely, Josh. And of course, last but not least, Allison, a brief introduction and kind of why you wanted to be involved in IAEM.
Allison Farole:
Sure, thanks Taylor. Hello Justin. So as the current IAEM Region 5 president, ironically I ran for VP, wasn't intended to initially be president of the region, but the president stepped down and then I was kind of pushed into that and actually asked if that was okay, which of course I can't say no. But overall I think why I joined IAEM. I've always been an overachiever in my life. for everything and always wanting to be involved for a variety of different reasons and getting my foot in the door in emergency management almost 11 years ago, I knew that this was kind of the organization to be part of to really grow my network. As far as the path of leadership, one thing I've learned about myself is that I ask a lot of questions. A lot of times I'll sit back and listen and ask questions, but I'm also very much a critical thinker. And I think I have found that that is lacking in a lot of ways where questions aren't being asked all the time. And for me to be able to really ensure that questions are being asked and making sure that things are going about the right way is to really put myself in the mix of a leadership position. I'm a firm believer that if I don't like how something's being operated, then the only way to make change is to actively be involved in that change. I'm not one to sit back on the sidelines and criticize and critique without taking action. And I think that something goes into my style of servant leadership is leading by example, that if I don't like something, then I wanna get in a position to where I can try and change it. I'm also value what the future looks like and also trying to connect those coming up behind us, behind me, to be able to find their path. My path was very unique to emergency management, and I think it continues to become more unique as we go through time and grow this profession. And I have a lot of fun and really look forward to continuing to, as a leader in this organization, to connect those coming into the field to where they can find their success as well.
Taylor Frizzell:
Excellent. And I want to go back just a second to one of the first things you had said, because it makes me chuckle. And I think it's also a little bit of a unique way of finding yourself in a regional president position. But I'd love to hear about what your role is as regional president, what it entails, and then kind of what that process of election was like. And then we'll pass it to John and then to Josh to hear what their experience was for their respective positions as well.
Allison Farole:
Sure. Um, honestly, I think I'm still trying to figure out what the role of regional president is.
Taylor Frizzell:
You're not alone for what it's worth.
Allison Farole:
We've had a lot of talks about this, about where every region is different, which is great. But I think also finding, making sure that we get provide a certain level of customer service to our members. Um, and so I honestly, over the last year, I, um, what I've found is Communication is the number one thing. The more that you really communicate to your members, the happier they are. It can be the most simple things there is, but they like to hear from you. They like to know what's going on. They like to feel that connection. And I think that's just a human trait in general, is being able to feel like they are being engaged and connected to, and just sharing information or providing opportunities for them to come to the table to discuss ideas or issues or concerns they may have. I don't actually really think members really know what the role of our regional leadership is anyways. And I think that's another area for improvements as a board that I think we're looking at and discussing is to better understand not only what our role is, but also to make sure that members understand what they can get from us, right? And, So I think that's kind of, yeah, I think it's a lot of us coming down just trial by fire. And then also just, just keep the conversations going. That's a big deal. Um, and everything that I have found over the last year, I've gotten a lot of compliments from people just from hearing from me on a monthly basis. So I was like, well, that's, I thought I wasn't doing enough. Um, and that's the very simplest thing is communication.
Taylor Frizzell:
I think that's an excellent point. And I know that. regional presidents, only speaking from personal experience can be really hard on ourselves, because we want to feel like we're giving something back to our membership. To your point, that's why we ran for for that position to be able to have that platform to give back and to help folks. And, and it's funny how just a simple like newsletter makes people feel like they're involved, and they're included, because they know what's going on, or pictures of stuff that that's been happening around the region. You know, we pride ourselves on relationship building. And to your point, I think that communication is a huge piece of of what we should be doing regionally. John, I'm going to pass it to you now to kind of give us an overview of what your role as the chair for a caucus looks like. And then I know you had touched briefly on kind of what that election process looks like. If you want to add anything additional that would be great as well.
John Tommaney:
And I love the Allison's description Taylor of, you know, you know, we all have this unique journey, I don't think I've met an emergency manager yet that's had the same journey. We all are kind of on a unique trail, we're building the bridge I guess as we're walking it in some ways. You know, for me, as I mentioned, I've been around IAEM for a while. In the role that I'm in, I've been here 15 years now, and there was a while ago, probably seven, eight years ago, I was asked to consider leadership within the University & College Caucus. At the time, I just didn't feel like it was the right position for me, and then I was approached again kind of post-COVID, and it felt like it was the right time. You know, so I think that was an important, you know, differentiator for me. The University & College Caucus, really what's our job is to kind of represent peers at work at institutions of higher education as emergency management practitioners, right? We're not researchers, we're not academic instructors, we're not students, even though some folks fall in a couple of those different buckets, but we're really kind of more akin to your local or county emergency manager in many respects. And I think that's something that maybe not a lot of folks within the association really know kind of what our group is about. And we try and really garner best practices, not recreating the wheel, learning from one another. I'm a lifelong learner. I think that's an important piece of what we do. Nobody's got it all figured out, but I also need to spin my wheels kind of trying to reinvent something that many, many other people have done already. So that's important. And as far as the communications piece that you were just discussing a minute ago, I think finding the right platform for people, the way to engage them and communicate with them, You know, I think a lot of times in today's age, people are looking for, well, what's the what's the benefit value I get out of being involved with IAEM or with our caucus or, you know, things along in those those points, you know, but you also don't want to sit there and feel like we just have to publish or perish. I think we want to kind of provide that value added enhancement, what people want to get out of being involved with whatever stakeholder group, like in our case, our caucus for higher ed practitioners is all about.
Justin Kates:
So, John, one of the things that for those that are not involved heavily in IAEM, just to make them aware, is that there are a couple dozen caucuses that are out there similar to yours where We have, you know, opportunities for people to serve in leadership to help represent their specific sector or community of practice within emergency management. But UCC, one of the unique things that they've had in place for, at least as far as I can remember, is that you had an elected leadership process. And one of the things that we did this year is we sort of expanded that model to to the other caucuses and committees as a way to have sort of self-representation, a way for them to try and provide who do they think is going to be best to run their group this year. And I think that worked out pretty well. So I'd be interested in hearing kind of from your perspective, what's the importance of having a group like yours sort of self-select its leadership and provide sort of insight on who's best to serve this year?
John Tommaney:
Well, I think it's a great question, Justin, because I think, you know, as Allison mentioned a minute ago, this whole idea of, you know, how do we find that that you know voice piece that mechanism for us to feel like we're engaged in a part of it part of that's through representation right so I think our membership having the ability to select our own leaders is a really important part of that because they know in selected in this year we had five candidates that ran for the UCC Secretary's position, you know, and as part of that we had them all kind of write up bios and provide their background, and most importantly to me is why do they want to be in that role. You know, is it just to kind of check off a box for a CEM certification, or do they really want to provide some kind of value to the organization? And we're very fortunate, by the way, they were all great candidates. The person that was selected this year, Jason Ferguson from Tulane University, has a great vision of where he sees things that we need to kind of move the ball forward on. So I think that's part of it. You know, the other one is issues such as, you know, what are the hot topics? You know, we refer to hot topics webinars all the time in our group. that are percolating in our, you know, specific field of work that we represent. So we've been trying to do a lot of focused, you know, short fuse events. When the conflict in the Mideast started up, I think three days after we held a Hot Topics webinar, we had 150 people that attended it. right, because it was something of a lot of interest to all of our institutions, because they're all grappling with the same concern. But you got to kind of have to keep your ear to the ground to know what those issues are. It's nice to say we're going to lay out a program for the next 12 months. We have no idea what those hot topics webinars are, you know, if I said to you five years ago, the, you know, pandemic planning for COVID, we probably would have been laughed out of the room, but we all kind of got engaged in that to a heavy degree. Um, you know, I think the other issues for us as a caucus is we hold regular meetings every month. You know, I know some of the caucuses may not be as formal in that process, but when we do that part of that's a business meeting, you know, the first 10, 15, 20 minutes updates from the regions and various work groups. And then we always kind of leave it as an open-ended conversation, you know, Hey, are there any new people on the call that want to introduce themselves? What's percolating out there that people are concerned with. So I think you got to maintain that connectivity with your audience.
Taylor Frizzell:
I think that's an excellent point. And it's interesting to me, it almost seems like a natural progression to have an election structure within the groups, the committees, the caucuses, because it's reflective of what we're doing at the national level. You know, you made a point about you want your leadership to be representative of the population you're serving, right? And so I think that the UCC has really kind of led the pack in what that structure and format looks like. So I really do commend University and colleges caucus you folks have really been, I think, a great role model in that regard. So, and you mentioned quite a bit about engaging kind of your membership and your constituents. And I want to come back to that conversation a little bit, because I think that that's something that's really at top of mind for myself. And I not to speak for Justin, but I think that's also something that he's thinking about the national level as well. So we're going to put a pin that and come back to that in just a few minutes here. I do want to give Josh a minute or so here to kind of talk about what your role is as second VP. And then maybe touching on kind of what that process looks like, very similar to that kind of progression of leadership, if you will.
Josh Morton:
Right. So as second VP, your primary assigned role is dealing with the committees and caucuses. So second VP is sort of the sort of takes the lead and becomes their primary point of contact outside of their board liaison that's been assigned to them. So we hold quarterly meetings with all of the committee and caucus chairs to kind of keep them updated on different things that are going on with the association and things like that. So that's the primary role, but Second VP is really just the beginning of a four-year progression that takes you from second VP, which is again the committees and caucuses, to first VP, which is primarily dealing with the regions and the regional presidents, and then to the president of the association, and then finally as immediate past president. So that's the four-year progression there. And one thing I want to right off the bat, commend our current president, Justin, on this. Having been on the board and seeing a lot of presidents come and go, Justin is one of the first ones that I think has really embraced working with the first and second VPs to start working on their initiatives right away, as opposed to waiting until you're president and trying to cram everything you want to do into one year, because a year goes by really, really, really fast. So it's neat to come in in this moment and to have some of those opportunities to do that. So that's sort of what the presidential rotation looks like in a nutshell.
Justin Kates:
So the election process for second VP is sort of extensive compared to, I think, many of the other elections at the regional level or within the committees and caucuses. There's articles that are put into the IAEM Bulletin. There are emails that are sent out. You did something interesting this year that you're actually going to be carrying on into the next year. Tell us about the happy hours you held and why you think that that was sort of Useful and figuring out what the membership wants and what they're looking for the next year. Then maybe give the announcement about what we've got coming up.
Josh Morton:
Oh, yeah, so I am, you know, backing up even before the happy hours. I decided very early on, you know, I decided while I was still region for president that I was going to run for second VP and I was going to run this year. So I took a year in between coming off the board to run. But I took a different approach that I haven't seen done previously, and that was I announced before last year's conference, which gave me almost a full year of campaigning.
Justin Kates:
Um, with little postcards too. I remember all the postcards you had.
Josh Morton:
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I've got one sitting on my desk right now. Um, but I, I did, I, I invested a little bit in it and, uh, and ran a, a true campaign. Um, it was at times a little bit overwhelming, but it really grew out of my biggest regret as a regional president. And that was, I did a lot of. I felt like I did a good job of sharing information, but I didn't feel like I created enough opportunities for dialogue with some of the members. And so what I wanted to do was to have those opportunities over the past year to actually sit down with our members and not make it just sitting giving campaign speeches, but really to hear what they had to say, give them an opportunity to ask the questions, give them an opportunity to provide feedback on how the association was doing things they would like to see out of the association. Because, you know, when you're in leadership, you recognize this is This is not your association, this is the members association and we're here to serve the members. And so part of where I ended up going with that was a series of virtual happy hours that I hosted over the summer leading up to the election and then while the election was ongoing. And one of my big campaign promises was to keep that going. And so we're actually going to be expanding that in a way and kicking this off. January 11th will be our first event. It'll be January the 11th at 6 p.m. Eastern. And it will be a virtual happy hour with the presidential team. So Justin will be on, Carrie will be on, I'll be on. And these events are very informal. Again, this is an opportunity for our members to provide us with feedback, to ask us questions. We'll do our best to answer any questions that we can and really just have an opportunity because one of my goals as I move through the presidential rotation is to make leadership within the association more accessible to the members. Every one of us is going to pick up the phone when you call. We're going to respond to the emails as best as we can. But I want to create these opportunities for just some open dialogue throughout the year. And so that's what we're doing with those virtual happy hours.
Taylor Frizzell:
Excellent. I'm happy to see that those are continuing. I think to your point, it's a great way of engaging folks. And I think that's a conversation we keep coming back to. uh, throughout today, which is, which is wonderful. I think that that's what we should be focusing on is, is getting our members engaged. And I think to that point, I'd love to hear a little bit more about how folks are engaging the constituents in your respective groups here. So I don't know who wants to tackle that one first. I know we've talked about the happy hours, so maybe we'll look to John or Allison and kind of kick us off with things that they're doing at the regional, at the caucus level, um, that folks seem really jazzed about and are engaged in.
Allison Farole:
Yeah, I'll start. To be very honest with you, I was still trying to get myself wrapped around that it's next year, so I might be adding some more things to the creative list. But one unique opportunity I tried to put together was over the summer, the National Homeland Security Conference was in Chicago, which is in Region 5. And so I found that there was always this kind of mix between folks, emergency managers that are IAEM members that attend the National Homeland Security Conference. So try to schedule a social for Region 5 members to attend if they are available, or if they lived in the area and weren't attending the National Homeland Security Conference to come. So I think one thing that's different with a lot of the regions in comparison to Region 1, Taylor, is that it's kind of a, it's a large area. So it's really hard for people to really get together in person and to really be able to network that way. So I found, tried to find unique opportunities through that. It was, it went okay, right? It was an opportunity to see how it went. But I think, you know, I definitely try and do virtual happy hours every other month. And another thing is just trying to see what hasn't occurred or it's been a while in the region. on what, like that's a virtual symposium or webinars. In all honesty, I found last year and this year during our Region 5 meeting is to really just ask, what does everyone want? I want to make it not the Allison Farole show, or, you know, just the three members that are on the Region 5 boards ideas, but ask the members like kind of what do you want to see? What makes sense for your schedule? What is entertaining or engaging to you? Um, if you don't, if you just are simple and want just, you know, constant communication and doesn't need all these, uh, additional networking opportunities, that's fine. Um, so try and also listen to the members and kind of see what they want has been something I've been trying to do a lot. And also when not necessarily over promise, um, just because we're all busy, um, how it's being emergency managers, as we know.
Taylor Frizzell:
No, and I think that's a good point. And I apologize that region one is geographically small. We do certainly have an advantage on that. I'm sorry, but it sounds like you're making the most of some of those existing events. And I really think that that's a great way to your point to kind of capitalize on some of the things already happening because we are busy. It's really hard to add additional stuff on top of that. So I think that's an incredibly intelligent kind of path forward.
Allison Farole:
Yeah, and I'll just add to the other thing I wanted to do just from being new to Region 5, I've only been in this region for four years, and obviously COVID took half of that, and I don't really, didn't really know a lot of people, so I wanted to invest some of our regional money into going to our state conferences and also getting to meet people and really engage, coming to, going to them basically, and that was another thing. Between myself, Ryan Wilkinson, and Allison Moore, who are on the Region 5 board, we've spent a lot of time trying to go to our members and have tables at their state conferences to be able to network.
Taylor Frizzell:
Yeah. And I think it also helps establish some trust, too, in that leadership. So I think that's a great model. John, did you want to?
John Tommaney:
Yeah, I was just going to build on what Allison was just talking about. And for me, part of it, I think, also starts with, and I know people hate to hear this term sometimes, strategic planning. we talk with our leadership team about what do we want to try and accomplish in the next 12 months. And you can't, I think Josh mentioned a minute ago, you can't like jump into that at the start of 12 months because you're already kind of behind the eight ball. So we've been kind of having an iterative process in strategic planning, things that we've begun in the past and moving forward. And one of them that we talked about was what Allison just hit on, which is the idea of regional efforts. You know, I kind of threw down the gauntlet to our leadership team and our regional reps, and I said, you know, not everybody can make it out to the national conference because of, you know, scheduling conflicts or costs of travel or whatever it is. Let's see if we can find ways to either partner with the regional conference that IAEM hosts or hold our own independent, you know, one-day workshop or symposium or whatever it looks like. And I'm happy to report several have already reached out about that. You know, especially if there's an ability to kind of tie some funding to help support it, even if it's just to get it advertised out there through various networks. But I think the other thing is, you know, for us, like when we're going to do this this year again, is every once in a while, it's important to survey your members. What are they looking for? Right. What do they want? What do they need? You know, one of the things that we ran this past year was our inaugural boot camp. Right. This idea of we've got a whole bunch of new practitioners that came on board with us in the last few years. they're not really sure of all the things that they need to be working on, right? They know the things that their superiors have given them that are priorities, but they don't know necessarily the breadth of it. So the idea of this program, and we had 40 students in the program, and what's nice to see at our symposium the next day was a whole group of 10 of them sitting at a table together, and they're starting to think of themselves as a cohort. So they're gonna stay connected, and they're even gonna create a book club, which I thought was a really cool, innovative idea of a way for them to stay interconnected with one another. You know, so trying to find those kinds of networking opportunities that Justin mentioned earlier, I think is a really important key to this. You know, we're hoping to kind of take that boot camp concept and keep maybe doing it every year, right? Because we know we're going to have new people cycling in, you know, that next generation of emergency managers that are coming up, they're looking for those connection points. So I think it's listening to them. I mentioned our Hot Topics webinars, you know, we've been running on average, those about every two to three months on different topics. Last year, we had our high watermark. We had 220 participants for one related to changes that the FCC has brought down around emergency notification. This has a direct correlation to emergency notification systems. There was a lot of interest. We had partners from industry that spoke to the group and kind of where that's all going. So again, it's trying to find out what are those topical points that people have an interest in and want to know more about. You know, and I was glad, by the way, Justin, I will swear to everybody on the call that I did not, you know, coordinate this with Justin ahead of time, but I was thrilled to hear when he kind of mentioned his priority areas, because there are a lot of the same things that we see. I just mentioned mentoring was one of them, right? We see a lot of new practitioners in the field. You know, folks for representation and advocacy, we partner with a lot of other higher ed colleagues that represent everything from law enforcement to business managers to risk insurance folks, and we're trying to build up that cadre of liaisons through our caucus. So I think it's also not just representing our own kind of interest as emergency managers, but who are those other partners that we're close to that we need to get their input. And we have similar relationships with a couple of the work groups and the other caucuses within IAEM, you know, that we've kind of created liaison positions. So we're there. we're cross-collaborating some of those efforts with one another. And the last one I'd mention is work groups. You know, we've spun up a couple specific work groups. One of them is around mentoring. One of them is on community colleges, which is a big segment of our audience. They have some unique needs that they are dealing with. We even had a new one that actually came out of a Hot Topic webinar. It's around family reunification and family assistance center operations. We've got a whole team that just presented actually out in Long Beach last month on all this work they've been doing toward that, right, but we had a couple folks that were brave enough to sit, you know, raise their hand and say, I'd like to lead that group and that's awesome because I love to see that kind of energy of people that are really, you know, kind of want to take the reins and run with it.
Taylor Frizzell:
I think that last statement, one, I promise was not a plan, but it really is an excellent conversation point because one of the things that I'm hoping that folks take away from this is to get involved, if not in leadership, in a working group or in their regional kind of goings on, if you will. And so the last question that I want to toss to folks, and Josh, I'll start with you, is if people are looking to get involved in leadership, either it's the role that you're in currently or a similar one, or just in leadership in general with an IAEM, what would be that piece of advice that you would give to them?
Josh Morton:
So the first thing I would say is don't decide yesterday that you want to get involved today. Start getting involved in a caucus, a committee, something that interests you. Learn about the association. I think especially if you're going to run for national office, particularly the presidential rotation, start off at the regional level. Become a regional secretary treasurer, become a regional vice president, president elect. Come up through and work through that because a lot of people don't realize just what it takes to actually run the association. It is a very big time commitment. There's a lot that goes into it. I think sometimes people think that our only job is to stand up at the conference and introduce people.
Justin Kates:
People ask me how much money I make doing it, actually. I keep telling them zero dollars.
Taylor Frizzell:
Wait, do you mean we're not getting paid for the podcast, Justin? I don't understand. Did I miss that memo?
Justin Kates:
Yes, people should send donations directly to me. Directly to me.
Josh Morton:
I'm still waiting on those endorsement deals that I hear are supposed to be coming. I'm not sure. Um, but, but it is, it's, it's a labor of love, but it is a labor. Um, and it's, it's very much a learning curve. So I would say get involved with committee caucus leadership, get involved at the regional level. Um, you know, I, I decided about six years before I ran for second VP that I was going to run for second VP at some point. And I set about to learn everything I could about the association and how it works. I'm not saying you got to take that long to learn, but definitely give yourself some time and don't be afraid to start in the smaller areas because there are no small areas, but get involved somewhere. And hey, leadership, one thing I will add here before I talk too long, but leadership, one thing I think a lot of people don't understand is leadership is very accessible in this association. Anybody can serve. All it takes is a willingness to put in the effort, put in the work. We want people to get involved, and so we try to make it easy. If you don't know how to get involved, reach out to one of us. I'm always happy to sit down and talk with people. I'm happy to share campaign strategy if you're running for office, because we need some good new people to get involved, and we're certainly looking for that. Thanks.
Allison Farole:
Taylor, if I can just add on to something. I think I'm hoping folks are listening to this and hopefully there's a lot of up and coming and younger or newer emergency managers listening to this. I think this has obviously been a discussion in some pockets that I've been part of is listening to Josh talk about getting involved is, you know, my I think, yes, we don't get paid for this. You're not, what you're getting out of this is going to not necessarily be something you may not see right away, which I think is a lot of what we do on a day-to-day basis. And it's not, you're not getting, you know, more, you're not earning money, right? But I think that's one thing we have to look at for the younger generation is we're seeing a lot less volunteerism. And I think trying to get folks to understand the importance of being involved and the reasons why you get involved is to help make things better, right? And is that if you're seeing wanting to make change in a direction that would suit you better as an IAEM member, then the best way of advocating and making that change is to get involved and to actually help to make that, to direct that. And so starting small, obviously finding your niche area of something that you're passionate about and getting involved in that caucus, because we do have a lot of them, but also really the importance of, of getting involved and having and being part of leadership is to that's your way of making change. I think that's one thing I've, I see sometimes that I get frustrated with is just the sideline commentary, rather than actually getting involved wanting to make change. And so I think that's really the importance of being engaged and being part of the association and the leadership position is to help make that happen.
Josh Morton:
And Allison, to jump back in there real quick. Yes, one of the things that I think is really interesting once you get in leadership is some of the change that you thought you wanted to see. You start figuring out that that might have been what I thought would be best. But now that I'm in leadership, I'm seeing that this one domino knocks down a whole bunch of other ones. And also it might not fall the direction that you thought it was going to fall. So I think being in leadership really opens your eyes and we're all committed to trying to do what's best for the membership as a whole.
Taylor Frizzell:
And John, I know you already had that beautiful cross-stitch quote that I'm definitely getting on a pillow about kind of you know, standing up and raising your hand to be a leader, but is there anything you would like to add?
John Tommaney:
I just, you know, again, I would echo both what Josh and Allison were just saying, which to me, you know, it's easy for people to kind of be on the outside looking in and complain about what works, what doesn't work, how to make things better. I think the way that you effectuate change is leadership is to get involved, right? And again, I agree with you, Josh, start out small. You don't have to be the chair. You don't have to be the president, but, you know, get involved with a work group. You know, we tell our members all the time, You want to get involved in our work groups, you want to be a regional rep, come talk to us. You know, again, it's not, you know, there's not a big campaign process you have to run for. A lot of times it's just raising your hand or standing up to show us that you have an interest. You know, I had a couple regional reps this past year that are fairly new in their roles, and they thought about it as a great way to get to know other people in their region. right? Hey, you know what, I'm going to be responsible to kind of connect with these people. That's a great way to expand my own network. So I think, you know, it's kind of the proverbial eat any elephant one bite at a time thing for people. Sometimes I think when you look at the breadth of all this stuff, it can get overwhelming, right? It gets a little bit like, wow, I don't want to get in the middle of that. That's going to take up all my time. we tell them, you know, most of these roles don't really require big time investments. You know, it might be an hour a month or a couple hours or something like that, some emails back and forth. You know, but before you know it, you're kind of out of the gate and you're off to the races in some respects. So I think that's the best way people can get involved and really effectuate that change that Allison was just talking about is get involved, right? Give us your opinion, your thought about how to maybe we can make it better, right? Because it's also through, I think one time, you know, in many organizations, the biggest challenge that we sometimes face is this easy sense of complacency. Well, we've always done it this way, right? Why change it? Why upset the apple cart? Well, we need to be innovative in our field, particularly as emergency managers, because things are changing around us all the time. And I think it's, it's important that we've got to have that flexibility in a way that we approach even our own bureaucracy of organizational management and leadership.
Taylor Frizzell:
I have, I feel like I could continue asking you both questions for hours and hours, but I know that you have actual like day jobs that you're supposed to be doing and families, I'm sure you would like to get back to at some point over the next couple of days. So I'll start to kind of wrap up the questions here. But I do really from the bottom of my heart. Thank you folks for being on the on the show this month. I think that If nothing else, I hope it encourages membership to get involved in whatever capacity they're able to, even if it's just shooting an email to their regional leadership or group leadership to say, Hey, here's what I'd like to see in the region. Um, and offer up some solutions to things that, that they might find gaps for. Right. Um, so I hope if nothing else, that that's what folks are taking from this. And I would encourage people to reach out to the folks here on this podcast, reach out to some of the other leadership, um, some of those movers and shakers that you might know, and really just. pick their ear, if nothing else, because there are a lot of really brilliant people in IAEM who are always more than happy to talk about what leadership looks like within the organization and within emergency management as a whole. I do want to transition us a little bit now to our Ask the President segment. So we've asked folks to write into us via Google Form some of the things that they would like to ask Justin Kates directly. We'll plug that again at the end in case you don't know where that link is. But Justin we did have a question in here. Now that you've had a little bit of time to settle into the role of president, just over a month but who's counting. Do you feel that any of the priorities that you had mentioned in your speech have shifted.
Justin Kates:
I would say this early, probably not. I think we're still trying to kick these off, honestly. I think we've made the most progress so far on the representation piece, as I mentioned. Earlier in the show, we've already started naming folks off to various groups based on requests that have come up, but we're going to be looking for some feedback, I think, from the membership on how to best do this. Some of the things that come to mind are us having almost like a registration process where folks that are interested in serving in groups We'll submit maybe their bio or resume, so that way we know who's actually interested in some of these representation roles in the association. And then also putting together sort of a module-based training for those folks, because one of the other issues that we've encountered is Sure, we can send you off to represent the association at one of these meetings, but do you know what our positions are? Do you know what some of the things that we're looking for from the respective professional emergency management? know, do you have all that stuff ready to go with an elevator pitch? And so one of the things that the Advocacy and Awareness Caucus is working towards is putting together some short modules that cover some of those topics and likely doing that in conjunction with some of the other committees and caucuses that have a role within some of this. For example, Government Affairs, knowing some of the current government policy work that is just important for us all to be aware of. And then when you show up in a meeting, you can ring off that stuff pretty quickly. So that priority definitely has made some progress over the last couple of weeks. The other two were really just starting to kick off. So I'm sure in a couple of months, you can ask me the same question and I'll probably be like, I wish I wouldn't have recommended doing any of these things. And it'll be a whole new set of priorities maybe. We'll see.
Taylor Frizzell:
I should give you sass for not having solved all of the problems in one month, but I guess I'll refrain. I'll let you ease into it, Justin, if that's what you mean. I guess that's fine. And then another question that we had, and I think we kind of talked about this at the beginning of the episode, so maybe we can throw this to our wonderful guests here, but what was your favorite part of the conference, if you were able to attend?
Justin Kates:
Uh, definitely after hours events. Those are my favorite. Uh, and, and so those who really do know me, uh, know that. Uh, I am one of the people that will close out the bar at the end of the night. And so those are the best conversations where we will really try and solve all the difficult problems and emergency management. And I did mention while we have John on, on the call. I did mention during their symposium that UCC does have the best social events at the conference. So I make sure to always go to those. But I would be interested to hear what everybody else's best part of the conference is. So maybe, Allison, you want to start?
Allison Farole:
Yeah, I will say, though, I am a firm believer that we can solve the world's problems over cupcakes and whiskey. So I'm just going to put that out there. So I'm definitely having those hard conversations after hours is a true thing. Honestly, I think this conference is always exhausting for me. And I think this year was very much that because it was in my home state and kind of close to where my family and friends are. So it was a lot for me and just on top of that. But I just like seeing all my friends. I found that I have really created this group of friends that live all over the country, and that is my time to really see everybody. And I really get to, I really enjoy the quality of time we spend. The sessions are always good. I always like having conversations about work stuff, but it's always just good to reconnect. And definitely those after hours events is probably where that all usually happens.
Justin Kates:
How about John?
John Tommaney:
Yeah, I would agree with you, Justin. I think the after-hours stuff is probably the, not that the sessions are all great, but I think you really do get to some really, really interesting conversations with a lot of different people. You know, I intentionally, like, you know, it's interesting being in a leadership role. I was joking with my family about when I came back from the conference, I felt like I was at a wedding, you know, kind of going table to table. Yeah, yeah. But having those conversations is great because you get to meet a lot of new folks. But I really do think you get to kind of digest the day, talk about maybe a topic that you all sat in on together and kind of hear a perspective from different people about that. So I think breaking bread with new friends is always a great opportunity for me.
Justin Kates:
Josh, what do you think?
Josh Morton:
You know, the sessions are great. Once you're in leadership, you unfortunately don't get to attend as many of them as you would like, but You know i think we all are in agreement that the after hour stuff really is is a lot of times where it's at because it's. It is so good to be able to connect with people. I have this whole group of all of you. I go to IEM, it's like I literally am with 2,000 plus of my closest friends because that's how I view our members. It really is just great to get to spend the time together and sit around and chat and catch up. There's just I haven't really found anything that bad at any of the conferences, except for that one time we had sweet pea ravioli, um, for, for lunch, that was pretty rough, but luckily we didn't do that this time.
Taylor Frizzell:
So, uh, The amount of times I have heard Josh talk about that sweet pea ravioli, that man is traumatized by them. And I think that I I'm hugging you from, from Boston, Josh. I'm so sorry. Where was that served at?
Josh Morton:
That was the last time we were in Long Beach and I spent my entire time on the board making sure that it would not be served this time in Long Beach. So you're welcome.
Justin Kates:
Taylor, we can't leave you out either. So what was your favorite part?
Taylor Frizzell:
Oh, gosh, my favorite part is I don't want to do the cop out and say that it's just seeing everybody, but it really is. I think it's those organic conversations. I feel like I come home refreshed, but also like I need to sleep for three weeks and drink only water for the next month and a half. But that really is the best part is seeing all of your favorite people and having those organic conversations and feeling like you're solving the world's problems, even though you very well might not be. The conversation that leads to that is exciting and interesting. I think that the conference is a lot of fun, but those are certainly my favorite pieces, just getting to see the humans and having some conversations with folks.
Justin Kates:
Sounds pretty good. Well, Taylor, I'll let you close us out.
Taylor Frizzell:
Yeah, just a huge thank you again to our wonderful guests today for joining us. We really do appreciate you taking an hour of your day to come and talk to us, and I hope folks are are really going to be able to take something away from this. I know I certainly will. So thank you all for being here. As we do wrap up this episode, I just want to remind folks to please send in your questions for Justin using the link in the description, or you can go to bit.ly /just in case podcast, and you can submit your questions there.
Justin Kates:
And we also have a website now, but I'm not even going to bother reading it off because it doesn't have like a easy-to-remember domain name. So maybe by the next show, we'll have a legit place I can send people to, but in the show notes you'll see the link to that, and that has the transcripts, it has the recordings, and then the links to Spotify and YouTube and Apple Music. So the next episode will come out on January 9th, and it'll include the transcript and everything else. And then remember, we always take the transcript, throw it into artificial intelligence, and then it prints out a summary article that we push into the IAEM bulletin. So we already saw the first episode's article in the last IAEM bulletin, and it turned out pretty good. And nobody hated it, so that's a good start. And so we'll keep doing that until people start hating it.
Taylor Frizzell:
I feel like once we retire, Justin, we'll have really figured out how this podcast thing works. And until then, everyone else is just going to have to go along on this wild ride. Um, I think that that's kind of what I'm aiming for, you know, sounds good. Uh, we'll put contact information for all of our guests today and ourselves, as well as links to the happy hour that we discussed at the beginning of this episode. into all of the descriptions of all of the platforms. You'll find it in all of the locations and of course on social media as well where applicable. So a huge thank you again. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being here and we will see you all next month.
Justin Kates:
See you next month.