Randy is a retired USCG Chief Petty Officer. He is currently the director of operations for a small tactical training company located in CT; using the skills and training he gained from over 20 years Coast Guard operational experience. While on Active Duty, Randy worked on ships, small boats and responded all over the world. Working on events ranging from the Exxon Valdez to the Ricin Response in DC, including numerous train derailments, vessel groundings, chemical releases and National Security Events. He is an original member of both the International Maritime Law Enforcement Team (IMLET) and the International Training Division (ITD), and he was the first CBRNE Chief the Coast Guard had for their Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT). Randy’s job was to develop teams, train, and as a well seasoned EMT quite often he filled the role of not only team leader but also team medic. Randy traveled to numerous countries teaching and developing Coast Guard units to the host nations. He developed courses in Security, SAR, HAZMAT, Oil Spill Response, Medical and Law Enforcement. Randy holds qualifications as a Type I Safety Officer, Type II Operations and Planning Section Chief and has taught Incident Command for over fifteen years. Randy not only teaches ICS, but he is a responder and uses it. Many times during his Coast Guard career Randy was sent in after an incident to help set up ICS and establish a planning process, making the response mitigation efforts operate smoother. Fluent in Spanish and an avid photographer, who loves to travel, Randy stays busy. He is also a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) through the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and a Certified Environmental Safety and Health Trainer (CET) with specialties in Emergency Response, and Occupational Safety and Health, through National Environmental Safety and Health Trainers Association (NESHTA). While at home he is his town’s Emergency Management Director and still involved with the Coast Guard through their Auxiliary element.

Margaret Dimmick has a background in local emergency management, and ICS experience in public works, hazmat, structural and wildland fire, and law enforcement incidents. Most recently, she participated in assessing the lessons learned in the response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill from the Unified Area Command in New Orleans. She was a member of the Bureau of Land Management’s ICS transition training team, and was the first chair of the Oregon Regional ICS Steering Committee’s Training Committee, responsible for developing and delivering ICS training to local and state law enforcement, structural fire, and public works personnel. Margaret also served as the Planning Section Chief for public safety at the Nike World Masters Games, under a unified command including the Oregon State Police and the FBI. Margaret was also a member of the Oregon Governor’s Blue Ribbon Committee on ICS, and a member of the NFPA 1600 Technical Committee for Emergency Management. She also contributed the ICS commentary for Part 3, “NFPA 1561 Standard on Fire Department Incident Management Systems and Commentary” in the NFPA Occupational Health and Safety Standards Handbook. Margaret has developed ICS-based plans, training, and exercises as an emergency manager at the city, county and state level, and served as the contract provider for the USDA NIMS training program, developing ICS content for web and classroom-delivered training, and as a subcontractor assisting in the development of ICS and NIMS training for the Emergency Management Institute, the National Fire Academy and the NIMS Integration Center. Margaret is also an elected official, serving as a Commissioner for North Ada County Fire and Rescue.

Greg retired in January of 2005 as the Deputy Director of Fire and Aviation Management for the Northern Region of the Forest Service. Greg currently works as an Incident Command System Trainer and Emergency Management Consultant for a wide variety of agencies and organizations.

Greg had a 34 year career with the USDA Forest Service in Fire & Aviation Management. During this time he served as a both a Type 1 and Type 2 Planning Section Chief and Operations Section Chief. From 1995 – 2000 Greg also served as one of the National Type 1 Incident Commanders and from 2000 – 2005 was qualified and served as a National Area Commander.

Greg began working within the Incident Command System in the mid-1970s while stationed in Southern California. He has had response experience on large complex incident management operations on wildfires, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, agricultural disease suppression, pollution response and a number of planned events.

Since leaving the Forest Service Greg has served as an instructor, lead instructor and course coordinator for ICS training presented for the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Fire Administration, National Fire Academy, FEMA Emergency Management Institute, U.S. Dept. of Energy, USDA Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service, U.S. Army – Ft. Bragg, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Homeland Security, State of Utah Emergency Management and various local agencies. Greg has also served as a field instructor for the Illinois Fire Service Institute, University of Illinois and the State of Hawaii, Department of Public Health.

Greg serves as a coach, mentor and trainer for the National Fire Academy’s All Hazard Incident Management Team Training and has participated in presenting emergency exercises to the U.S. Coast Guard, National Capitol Region Incident Management Team and the U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Emergency Support Teams.

During 2010 Greg participated in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response as an ICS advisor to the Unified Area Command located in Robert, Louisiana.

Prior to leaving the Forest Service Greg was an instructor for Planning Section Chief and Incident Commander training as well as Command and General Staff Training at the ICS-300 and 400 levels.

Greg served as a Director and then President of the Southern California Association of Forester’s and Fire Wardens and served as the chair of the National Interagency Joint Firefighter Apprenticeship Committee. He currently resides in Thayne, Wyoming with his wife Shirley.

Tom retired in 2006 from Fire and Aviation Management with the US Forest Service. Tom brings over 35 years of experience in fire service, including working within ICS for over 25 years. He last held the position of Assistant Director (AD) of Fire and Aviation for the Pacific Southwest Region. As AD for the Pacific Southwest Region he was the administrator for the federal programs for Northern California Geographic Area (North Ops) and had the responsibility for inter-agency coordination of emergency resources. In addition, he provided oversight for the Forests Fire programs and the North Ops Federal Incident Management Teams. Tom was also the federal representative for the North Ops Multi-agency Coordination Group, and member of the Firescope Operations Team , where he was elected as deputy chairperson in 2005. In addition to the AD position, Tom held several suppression positions, Battalion Chief, Division Chief, Assistant Forest Fire Management Officer and Forest Fire Management Officer during his career.

Throughout his career Tom has responded as a team member to many disaster situations. The majority of these were wildfires throughout the United States, as well as responding to Northridge earthquake, floods, hurricanes Katrina and Ike, and Deepwater Horizon MC252 Oil Spill. He was an Operations Section Chief on a Type I Incident Command Team from 1997 through 2002. Tom was deployed as a Federal representative for Area Coordination for San Diego County during the 2003 fire siege. After the siege he performed as an operations expert in the development of the safety review for the San Diego County fires. During the oil spill, Tom worked as an ICS Advisor for the IMTs in Mobile, Houma, and in New Orleans. Tom worked closely with command as well as command staff and general staff positions.

Tom has instructed numerous Incident Command and related courses throughout his career in California and the pacific islands. Since January 2006, he has instructed in over 40 states, Puerto Rico and Canada. These courses have been for government agencies including local, county, state, and federal agencies, as well as private companies and branches of the military. Sponsors for the courses have been Emergency Management Institute, National Fire Academy, FEMA, US Coast Guard, US Army, National Capital Region, and private companies.
Tom possesses a Bachelor’s degree in Recreation Administration from California State University Hayward, Associate degree in Natural Resources, and a Technical Fire Management Certificate from Washington Institute/ Colorado State University.

Buck is a Senior Instructor for Emergency Management Services International. He is nationally recognized as an accredited All Hazard Incident Management Team instructor and as a position specific instructor for several incident management positions. Buck instructs position specific training including Advanced Incident Commander, Operations and Planning Section Chief. He instructs intermediate and advanced Incident Management Team and Area Command Team training. He also teaches ICS-300/400 and taught the statewide train-the-trainer courses for 8 states, USDA, and the Department of Energy. Buck has served as an Incident Command System “Coach” and “Evaluator” for several National level exercises for the Coast Guard, USDA, and the Department of Energy. He served as an ICS advisor to the Coast Guard and British Petroleum during the Deepwater Horizon Incident in the Gulf of Mexico. His numerous senior leadership assignments to significant disasters include experiences in several major wildland and urban fires, floods, the 2004/2005 hurricanes, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and most recently, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

Prior to working for EMSI, Buck spent thirty-five years with the United States Forest Service, advancing from a fire fighter to National Assistant Director for Fire and Aviation Management. As a member of Incident Management Teams, he has performed as Incident Commander, Planning Section Chief, or Operations Section Chief on over 40 Type I/II major incident responses throughout the U.S. He has also served on National Area Command teams as a Area Command Planning Chief and as Acting Area Commander on 10 major deployments coordinating the activities on over 41 separate major incidents.

Buck has extensive international experience in fire management and incident response. He served as the team leader to develop a systematic fire protection program for Botswana, and was requested by the US State Department to lead an expert team to Portugal in 2002 to help Portugal evaluate their national response to their worst fire disaster in history. Buck represented the Forest Service at the 2003 Global Wildland Fire Summit in Sydney, Australia, and as a member of the International Fire Liaison Committee co-authored a successful proposal to designate the Incident Command System as an international standard.

Buck lives near Wilmington, North Carolina and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry and Fire Management from the University of Montana. Go Grizzlies!

Doug served in the US Coast Guard for over 22 years. He was Marine Safety Professional and his experience and expertise has been in major incident and event management. He was a charter member on the Coast Guard’s Incident Management Assist Team and served for 15 years on this special force. Doug also served a tour as the Chemical response Chief on the Coast Guard’s National Strike force. As a member of these teams he was part of wide array of response and event management opportunities. He has led responses to numerous natural disasters, major maritime incidents, oil spills, and chemical releases. He also planned for and implemented response protection efforts for Super Bowl 39, the G8 summit and the various other events of national significance.

Doug is ICS qualified/certified as; Incident Commander type 3, Operations Section Chief type 1, Planning Section Chief type 1, Resource Unit Leader type 1, Situation Unit Leader type 1, Safety Officer type 1, Div / Group Supervisor type 1. Doug was the senior ICS trainer in the Coast Guard. Doug also holds a Master Exercise Practitioner qualification. He has developed and executed numerous federally mandated exercises and drills, working with both industry and federal partners.

Jeff retired from the United States Forest Service in January 2008 after nearly 40 years of service. He retired as an Assistant Director for Fire, Aviation and Air Management in Missoula, MT with specific regional responsibilities for Training, Workforce Development, Safety, Emergency Medical Support and Claims/Litigations. His response experience began early in his career in Operations leading up to Type II Operations Section Chief qualifications. After a tour in Alaska he re-directed his career to the planning function and served 5 years as a Type II Planning Section Chief and 19 years as a Type I Planning Section Chief. Along the way he became a Technical Specialist in Safety and Safety Officer. With his Type I Team, he has made numerous responses to large fires, hurricanes, tornados, floods, and a variety of small local incidents.

Jeff began his work with EMSI after retirement from the Forest Service and is a Senior Instructor and Course Coordinator teaching 11 individual classes in Advanced ICS, Operations, Planning and Safety. He began his instruction activities in fire and all- hazard management in the late 70’s and has taught all of the Planning, Operations and Safety classes throughout the United States. He became an instructor at NARTC/NAFRI in 1993 as the subject matter specialist and evaluator for the Planning Function at the ICS-520/620 IMT training. He served a long-term detail to the Washington Office in 1994 to help incorporate ICS with FEMA and other Federal Agencies participating in National Disaster Management. He served as a Planning Specialist for FEMA during the North Dakota floods in 1996, and was the Safety Coordinator for wildland fire resources during hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In 2010, he spent a total of 7 weeks coaching and mentoring IMT’s during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. He was assigned to St Petersburg and Miami Florida and Saint Bernard Parish in Louisiana.

He was the Fire Service Northern Regions Representative to the National Fire Operations Risk Management Council and served as co-chair; was the Forest Service Management Representative to the Emergency Medical Standards Group of the Safety and Health Working Team; and was a member of the Regional Safety and Health Leadership Team.

Jeff graduated with a degree in Forestry from Northern Arizona University in January of 1969 and spent the bulk of his career in Forest Management and Leadership.

Jim served 25 years with the Fairfax County (VA) Fire and Rescue Department and retired at the rank of Deputy Chief after serving in operations, Emergency Medical Services, administration, and communications. During his career, he was active in the development of the department’s Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Team as well as FEMA’s ESF-9 National Urban Search and Rescue Response System and the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance’s (OFDA) International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG). He served as the Program Manager for the Fire Department’s US&R team for many years. He has been a member of the FEMA ESF-9 Incident Support Team (IST) since its inception in 1992 and served as the Blue IST Team Leader from 2000 to 2007. He remains involved in national and international search and rescue programs and responses.

As part of his emergency response experience, he has responded to many national and international disasters including numerous hurricanes, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake, and the Deep Horizon oil spill among others.

In his non-emergency work, Jim provides numerous consulting services in a variety of emergency and disaster management fields. These include ICS instruction to Federal, State, and local responders through EMSI; developing the National Mutual Aid and Resource Management System and the National Credentialing System initiatives of the National Incident Management System (NIMS); assisting in numerous community tabletop and full-scale emergency preparedness exercises across the country; and providing technical writing, meeting design and facilitation, program and training development. Jim has additionally provided support to the National Disaster Medical System on training and program development.

Mr. Strickland has B.S. Degrees from the University of Tennessee in Business Administration and in Fire Administration from George Mason University.

Rich is the retired Director of the National Advanced Fire and Resource Institute with 35 years of experience with the USDA Forest Service serving in the Pacific Southwest Region, Pacific Northwest Region, Southwest Region and the Washington Office. He served in a variety of Fire Management Positions throughout his career prior to becoming Director of the Institute. Rich joined the Forest Service immediately following his honorable discharge from the US Navy.

Rich served in a several emergency incident management positions and was a National Type I Incident Commander, leading a Pacific Northwest Team for eight years. He was also qualified as an Area Commander and served in that capacity on several complex assignments. Major incidents included wildland fires, hurricanes, flood recovery, pest eradications, special events and preparedness exercises for earthquakes, volcano eruptions, severe weather and oil spills.

Rich has maintained his position certifications and qualifications by continuing to respond to major incidents involving wildland fires, hurricanes, oil spills and special event preparations. He responded to Hurricanes Katrina/Rita and Wilma, and was deployed to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill at the Houma Incident Command Post and New Orleans Area Command Post.

Over the last several years he has developed and instructor courses for the US Coast Guard, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture, FEMA, EPA and the National Fire Academy. He is a certified instructor the US Coast Guard, Emergency Management Institute and National Fire Academy. Rich has presented multiple All Hazard ICS Courses to several states, counties and local agencies for fire, law enforcement and emergency management. He has also worked with private industry and presented courses to BP, Shell Oil, Citgo and Hovensa. Rich has worked as an ICS Advisor on incidents and during exercises for Spills of National Significance.