BES WELCOMES FORMER FEMA ADMINISTRATOR DEANNE CRISWELL AS EXECUTIVE CONSULTANT
Two former FEMA Administrators now support BES clients on readiness, activation, and recovery.
Alexandria, Va., September 12. Bent Ear Solutions (BES) is proud to announce that Deanne Criswell, the 12th Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has joined the growing company as an Executive Consultant for Emergency Management. Criswell brings more than three decades of experience across municipal, state, federal, and military emergency management to a team built on a simple premise: the people advising clients should have deep experience with the problems those clients face.
“Deanne has led emergency management at the state and national level, and she has done it in the hardest environments there are. Having her and Craig together means our clients are advised by two of the most recent FEMA leaders. That is not a credential we take lightly, and it underscores our commitment to our clients’ mission.”
Criswell joins Craig Fugate, FEMA Administrator from 2009 to 2017; Jim Featherstone, former Chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department and former Managing Director of the city's Emergency Management Department; and Chris Vaughan, FEMA's first Geospatial Information Officer and Founder and CEO of Balor Analytics, in the BES emergency management practice. Between them, the group has led the federal response to more than 500 presidentially declared disasters, run the emergency programs of two of the largest cities in the country, and built the geospatial enterprise FEMA relies on today.
BES established its Executive Consulting Team in 2023 when Fugate joined the team. The model has stayed the same since: clients get direct access to practitioners who have stood in their shoes, solved their problems, and understand their position better than anyone.
“I have spent my career on the operational side of emergency management, from a city EOC to the federal level. What I saw at every level was the same gap: agencies had the tools and data they needed, but lacked the connective tissue to make them work together under pressure. That is the problem BES solves for emergency managers, and it is why I wanted to be part of this team.”
Criswell was sworn in as FEMA's first female Administrator on April 26, 2021. During her tenure, she focused on making disaster response more equitable, addressing climate-driven risk, and strengthening coordination with state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, the same partners BES serves every day.
Before FEMA, she served as Commissioner of the New York City Emergency Management Department, where she directed the city's response to large-scale incidents in one of the world's most complex urban environments, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier in her career, she was the Emergency Manager for the City of Aurora, Colorado, leading the city's preparedness, response, and recovery programs. She also served for more than two decades in the Colorado Air National Guard.
Most recently, Criswell was a Senior Fellow at Yale University, where she taught a graduate course on crisis leadership, emergency management, and national resilience.
Driving Results Through Experience
Criswell will work directly with BES clients as they build and test readiness, pressure-test their plans against the incidents they are most likely to face, and make decisions under the conditions an activation creates. The agencies BES serves are asked to do more every year with the staff and budgets they already have, and her experience at every level of government gives those agencies a sounding board who has sat in their chair.
Contact us to discuss how the BES emergency management team can support your agency.
