Emergency Management Coordinator

Key Responsibilities:

The Regional Emergency Management Coordinator is accountable for resources and programs to achieve the following outcomes. These accountabilities are representative and may be adapted according to evolution of the position and the related services or expectations of the Communities, including:

Plan Development:

• Ability to write and review municipal and regional emergency plans to comply with the Alberta Emergency Management Act and Regulation and the Alberta Incident Management System (AIMS).
• Work directly with other municipal and regional emergency services and intergovernmental emergency management representatives to ensure plans and procedures are interoperable and comprehensive.
• Review major event plans to ensure they align with best practices for contingency planning and incident command coordination.
• Create hazard specific response plans for the region.

Program Coordination:

• Train and develop municipal staff in Incident Command System management, prepare and deliver regular training exercises that will develop and maintain the Regional Emergency Management Plan response capabilities.
• Represents the Communities when working with local groups, organizations and businesses, as appropriate, to identify and enhance emergency management coordination opportunities across the region.
• Understands and considers the jurisdictional complexities in the region in all emergency management activities.
• Develops, re-designs and analyzes programming that:
• Mitigates probably incident impacts from regional hazards and risks. This includes distinguishing differences and commonalities between the Communities.
• Increases the region’s resilience to future disasters or incidents.
• Increases response capability or effectiveness during incidents, specifically in Emergency Coordination Center facilities.

Incident Response:

• Have the skills and knowledge to respond to a complex incident in an emergency coordination center or as assigned within an incident management team.
• Flexible to unexpected changes to work schedule to participate within an incident management team or facility to support incident response.

Collaboration and Leadership:

• Confident planning, presentation or facilitation skills in a variety of settings that include:
• Leading joint planning sessions or emergency management exercise with external partner agencies or organizations.
• Writing and presenting plans, procedures, hazard-based research, recommendations, reports, etc.
• Foster respectful and productive relationships with regional partner agency representatives like AEMA Field Officers, emergency services and industry responders and utility providers.
• Communication skills that enable coordination and implementation of the emergency management program
• Lead and coordinate public-facing events or training.
• Represent the Communities as an agency representative in other emergency coordination or operations centers, or at mutual aid partner meetings.

Administrative functions:

• Exceptional technical writing skills:
• Absorbing large quantities of hazard information and expert materials and expressing results in plain language.
• Can effectively and efficiently review existing plans and write new plans to adhere to federal and provincial emergency management legislation for required content and timelines. Plans include the Regional Emergency Management Plan (REMP).
• Blending a variety of reporting methods – textual and visual – to reflect plans, situational reports and recommendations for program development.
• E-mail and voice-mail messages are professional, concise and receive a timely response.

Employee Programs and Policies:

• The position will be administered through the Municipal District of Willow Creek No. 26 and subject to the M.D.’s employee program eligibility requirements and employment policies.

Personal Characteristics:

The following qualities are inherent in the Regional Emergency Management Coordinator:

• Confident – you have the experience and willingness to lead activities within the context of emergency planning and response. The successful candidate will have a demonstrated a calm and resourceful response to stressful and time-sensitive activities in an emergency coordination center during an emergency response event.
• Multi-tasking Project Manager – Emergency Management can present concurrent challenges and requires the ability to make balanced decisions with available information.
• Communicator – Emergency management requires calm, balanced decision making in a fast paced and often pressure filled situation.
• Adaptable – Emergency management is rarely linear and smooth and being able to adapt to changes in focus or priority is essential. Ability to work when the work needs to be done outside of traditional “business hours” will be critical in this role.
• Collaborator – Emergency Management requires the development of a municipal team through training exercises and ongoing mentoring. Building a team with multiple perspectives results in a productive and efficient incident command post that leads to success.