Jamie received his certificate from Katie Fox, Acting Deputy Administrator, Protection and National Preparedness, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security at the graduation ceremony Dec. 7, 2017.

DHEC‘s Jamie Blair graduated from the Federal Emergency Management Agency‘s National Emergency Management Executive Academy at the Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg, MD, after he completed the full curriculum that supports the advancement of the emergency management profession at strategic policy and executive leadership levels.

Collaboration and training

Jamie completed the four resident courses in the Executive Academy to include: E0680 Systems Thinking and Research Methods for Executives; E0682 Executive Emergency Management Leader Core Competencies I; E0684 Executive Emergency Management Leader Core Competencies II; E0686 Executive Emergency Management Leader Core Competencies III; and a collaborative capstone project. The Executive Academy instills emergency management leaders with a deeper understanding of contemporary and emerging emergency management issues, debates, and public policy.  It provides insights, theories, tools and resources that enable decision-makers to think and act more strategically and to build capacity to protect against, prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all types of disasters.

The Executive Academy provides the opportunity to work collaboratively, share smart practices, and participate in exercises with other senior leaders facing similar challenges.  FEMA’s National Emergency Management Executive Academy is for senior executives at the pinnacle of their careers. It’s the final phase of FEMA’s Emergency Management Professional Program (EMPP).

Three separate training programs

The EMPP curriculum is designed to provide a lifetime of learning for emergency managers and includes three separate, but closely related, training programs. Those training programs include the National Emergency Management Basic Academy, a specialized and technical training program to develop specific skill sets; the National Emergency Management Advanced Academy, a program to develop the next generation of emergency management leaders who are trained in advanced concepts and issues, advanced leadership and management,  critical thinking, and problem solving; and, the National Emergency Management Executive Academy, a program designed to challenge and enhance the talents of emergency management senior executives through critical thinking, visionary strategic planning, negotiation, and conflict resolution applied to complex real-world problems.

For more information on FEMA’s training classes through the Basic, Advanced, and Executive Academies, or other emergency management courses, go to training.fema.gov/empp.