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Kevin Wickersham, MS, CEM, serves as the Response Section Manager at the Washington State Emergency Management Division in the US. Over the past 15 years he has served in EMS special operations and as an emergency manager in healthcare, higher education, public health and state government. Kevin is a qualified Type 3 All-Hazards Incident Commander and serves as a Planning Section Chief for the Incident Management Team for the US Department of Health and Human Services National Disaster Medical System. He is a graduate of the FEMA National Emergency Management Advanced and Executive Academies and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology from Boston College and a Master’s in Healthcare Emergency Management from the Boston University School of Medicine.
The Incident Command System (ICS) is widely regarded as an effective management framework to organize rapid response to and stabilization of emergencies and disasters of any kind and size. However, ICS has serious limitations when applied to lengthy responses to complex emergencies, and there is little established best practice in the use of ICS to support transition from response to long term recovery after incident stability targets are achieved. This presentation will overview Washington State’s lessons learned on the limitations of ICS followed by a discussion of our experience applying ICS organization and principles to support effective transition from response to long term management of complex emergencies including the COVID-19 pandemic, devastating wildfires, and other all-hazards emergencies.Following the presentation a panel will reflect on the application of the Icelandic SABF Incident Management system in recent large scale/long term operations. The SABF system is modelled on the ICS system.
After Kevin's presentation, a panel of experts will discuss the challenges associated with large, complex, and long-term operations. The panelists include Víðir Reynisson, Head of Iceland Civil Protection; Friðfinnur Freyr Guðmundsson, Head of ICE-SAR National Command; and Zuzana Stanton-Geddes, Disaster Risk Management Specialist from the World Bank. The discussion will be moderated by Guðbrandur Örn Arnarson, ICE-SAR Project Manager for Search and Rescue.