Harm or help: Emergency Management Degrees?

Also a hybrid: 10 years as a medic, a BA in E-Prep, and an MBA. I think you make some valid points. Personally, I think we need to move away from the emergency response is emergency management or vice versa mindset. The history of emergency management, and still common practice, is that it is an option, as you said, for those who are ready to hang the helmet or the gun belt up but don’t quite want to retire. The problem, of course, is that you risk having an EM with a singular mindset towards emergencies instead of the larger view required of an EM. I believe we need emergency responders involvement and influence in emergency management but, like us, they should be hybrids like us, or similarly.

Also, when we talk about experience, are we talking about actual EM experience? Or are we saying experience in police, fire, EMS, or military is 100% equivalent to direct EM experience? Responding to calls as a first responder is one type of experience, but it does not equate to experience working in EM environments. EM is not response. Response is only one part of EM. In fact, most of the EM profession involves the other phases of mitigation, preparedness, and also recovery. If an EM professional with 20 years experience cannot directly go into the fire/police/EMS/Military fields and be jumped to the same point as people with 20 years as first responders, than we have to acknowledge that these are DIFFERENT fields. It can’t just go one way.

I have a couple comments: 1. I have never seen an EOC that doesn’t have people with field or “boots on the ground” experience. We have representatives from all of our services, including first responding agencies as well as engineers, public works, utilities, social services, etc., all who have the technical experience and expertise in their field. Alongside those folks, we also have leaders who are specialized in the systems and processes required to coordinate and integrate ALL stakeholders involved in the event, across all phases. This is where the EM expertise comes in. The ability to hear from, analyze, and build cooperation between all agencies, and to provide the supportive infrastructure for operational teams to be successful, is a discipline unto itself: Emergency Management! The benefit here is that the EM specialists are not more representative of one service or agency over another, and they are also charged with ensuring the tools and systems are supportive and equally inclusive of the needs, interests, and operating models employed by involved agencies.

And as someone who has been in Emergency response and management for many years, I struggle to find jobs without the schooling...so now also doing the schooling. I've found it very hard to find jobs that will hire you without the schooling, despite also wanting years of experience....so the young folks coming out of school have a hard time getting experience in order to do the job well and those of us have a hard time getting our foot in the door with experience but less schooling.

As someone who started her path in the EM journey, I found that both my experience with disaster response through years with Team Rubicon and my degree I was finally able to begin my career in the EM world doing what I love most which is logistics. But if I was a hiring director or manager I’d go with someone with the actual boots in the ground experience and guide them to get an official degree if that is what they really desire to do.