Marissa serves as Los Angeles’ first Chief Resilience Officer where she leads city-wide resiliency efforts, including those found in the Mayor’s Resilience By Design report, Sustainable City pLAn, and Resilient Los Angeles strategy which was released March 2018 as part of the 100 Resilient Cities program pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Marissa has more than 15 years of policy, planning, project management, and community engagement experience in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors where she worked with interdisciplinary teams to find creative solutions to complex problems. Prior to joining the Mayor’s Office, Marissa held senior positions at two Los Angeles planning and land use consulting firms. She has a BA in Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government/Political Science from American University and a Master of Planning from the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy. She is an active member of the American Planning Association serving as the American Institute of Certified Planners Commissioner for Region IV. She is an advisor to the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society. Marissa is also an adjunct instructor at the USC Price School of Public Policy, where she teaches a graduate urban planning studio on resilience.

With more than 30 years of management, audit, accounting, and consulting experience, Frank is dedicated to providing mission-oriented business solutions for federal and state governments. Frank is a recognized leader for promoting government accountability and efficiency and his work includes performing examinations to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent and the intended results achieved as well as implementing enterprise risk assessments to identify potential areas of vulnerability for fraud, waste and abuse. He has assisted governmental entities such as the State of New Jersey, Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Office of Historical Trust Accounting with their accounting and compliance projects, and he has served as a Project Manager for CohnReznick’s disaster recovery engagements with the State of Texas, State of Mississippi, and State of Louisiana. Frank has also led Inspector General support projects for the State Department, Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General and Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.​

Jainey leads the City’s OneNYC resiliency program, preparing the city for the impacts of climate change and other 21st century threats.
Jainey most recently served as the Associate Director for Climate Preparedness at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In this role, she led the implementation of the climate preparedness pillar of the President's Climate Action Plan. In the final year of the Obama Administration, she was responsible for embedding and institutionalizing climate resilience considerations across Federal programs and policies; advancing climate equity to address the disproportionate impacts of climate change on low-income and other vulnerable communities; and developing innovative approaches to climate adaptation finance.
Prior to this, Jainey served as the Executive Director of R3ADY Asia-Pacific based in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she was responsible for initiating, expanding and managing the start-up public-private partnership, which focused on enhancing disaster risk reduction and resilience in the Asia-Pacific region. Jainey has a Master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bachelor’s degree in public policy and cultural anthropology from Duke University.

As DC’s first Chief Resilience Officer, Bush leads citywide efforts to build resilience to shocks and stresses and oversee the development and implementation of a comprehensive Resilience Strategy. Bush has extensive experience building coalitions to design and execute award-winning resilience initiatives, including: Rebuild by Design, the National Disaster Resilience Competition, and the Multifamily Better Buildings Challenge. He previously led efforts at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to plan for the impact of climate change. Bush also served on President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He has also been both a Presidential Management Fellow and City of Chicago Mayoral Fellow. Bush is a widely recognized expert in urban resilience, climate change mitigation and adaptation, disaster recovery, affordable housing, and infrastructure. Bush holds a Masters of Urban Planning from the University of Michigan and a Bachelors of Arts in Business from Michigan State University.

Colin Foard is a senior associate with the Fiscal Federalism Initiative at the Pew Charitable Trusts. The project examines fiscal and policy relationships between the federal government and the states. Colin helps lead the team’s work on natural disaster spending and has co-authored several publications on the federal-state relationship in disaster assistance, including Pew’s 2018 report “What We Don’t Know About State Spending on Natural Disasters Could Cost Us.”
Before joining Pew, Colin spent five years as a staff member for a senior member of the U.S. House Appropriations and Budget Committees, handling committee work as well as a broad policy portfolio including homeland security, transportation, housing, and immigration issues. He also served as a congressional constituent caseworker and field representative in Oakland, California. Before his work for the House, he worked as a legal assistant in a criminal defense law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Colin has a master’s degree in Latin American Studies with a focus on immigration issues from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies, History, and Spanish from Union College in Schenectady, New York.

EMS Chief Brian Goff joined the Sun Prairie EMS team in January 2018. He is experienced in both private and public-sector emergency services, and spent more than a decade working at the Reedy Creek Fire Department in central Florida. Chief Goff has a wide array of leadership experience in operational and administrative roles, program development, budgeting and strategic planning. A member of multiple State and National associations, Chief Goff has served on local and regional planning groups where he contributed to resilience planning through technology utilization and development of collaborative partnerships, and is also a current board member of the Dane County EMS Association. Chief Goff graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Florida, where he earned his Bachelor's Degree in Fire and Emergency Services, he holds an Associate’s Degree in Emergency Medical Services, and is nationally credentialed in multiple fire and emergency medical service disciplines.

Kevin retired from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office after 23 years of service and served as the Flagler County Emergency Management Director for three years. Kevin came to Pasco County in 2016 as the Emergency Management Director and additionally took on the role of 911 Emergency Communications Center Director. He was promoted to the Public Safety Assistant County Administrator position in 2017 during an active wildfire season and right before the Land O Lakes sinkhole opened. Since his promotion, Kevin served as the Acting Chief of Staff for the Florida Division of Emergency Management during Hurricanes Irma, Nate, and Maria in 2017. Kevin resides in Land O Lakes, Florida.

Bertha Henry was named County Administrator in October 2008 after previously serving as Interim Administrator.
As County Administrator, she serves as Chief Executive Officer of Broward County and directs the functions of County Government under the auspices of the Board of County Commissioners. Henry oversees a county with 1.9 million residents, and operations for nearly 60 agencies with more than 6,200 employees, including the airport, seaport and Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. Broward County's budget for fiscal year 2016 is more than $4.18 billion.
A native of Miami, Florida, Henry has a distinguished career in public service with more than 30 years of experience in public administration, including service in Montgomery County (Dayton), Ohio, and the City of Miami. She first came to Broward County in 1996 and served as Assistant to the County Administrator until 1998, when she accepted a position as Assistant City Manager of Finance and Administration for the City of Miami, assisting with the city’s financial recovery. Henry returned to Broward County in July 2000, serving as Broward County's Deputy County Administrator.

Linda Langston is the Director of Strategic Relations for the National Association of Counties (NACo) in Washington DC. Linda Langston previously served as an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors from 2003-2016. While an elected official she also served as Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments and the Linn County Board of Health, along with other boards and commissions.
Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties. Her presidential initiative was Resilient Counties, which focused on building communities’ capacity to be ready, resilient, agile and adaptive in the face of natural, manmade and economic disasters. Her home county was devastated by flooding in 2008. As a NACo member, she served as chair of the Finance Committee, Health Steering Committee, the Resilient Counties Advisory Board, and the Arts and Culture Commission. Her outstanding leadership in arts and culture earned her the 2009 Americans for the Arts’ Public Official of the Year Award. She was also named Iowa Public Health Official of the Year and to the Hall of Fame for International Women in Emergency Management.
Langston is a co-chair of the Resilient America Roundtable for the National Academy of Sciences and serves on the National Advisory Council for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Langston is a frequent speaker on the issue of resilience, disaster preparedness and the perspective and engagement of elected officials.

From January of 2002 until September of 2007 Bill served as Chief of Staff to Governors Warner and Kaine of Virginia.
As Chief of Staff, Bill essentially served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Commonwealth. In 2005 and again in 2007, Governing Magazine named Virginia the “Best Managed State in the Nation” and in 2007, Governing Magazine named Bill one of the nine “Public Officials of the Year” nationally. For seven years, Bill was the Director of the Virginia Retirement System, where led the agency to three consecutive US Senate Productivity Awards.
Upon retirement Bill joined DecideSmart LLC consulting. In April of 2008, he served as Senior Advisor to the Scottish Executive advising the government on how to design and implement Scotland Performs, a national performance management system. In July of 2008 Bill conducted a performance review of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, a $52 billion pension system. In 2011, at the request of the National Governors Association, Bill led a 5-person delegation to Nigeria to conduct a “new governors” seminar for the newly elected governors of Nigeria. In 2014 Bill completed a manual for the National Governors Association on how to transition in to power.
In August of 2012 Bill was appointed “Professor of Practice” by Virginia Tech and teaches strategic planning and administrative behavior in the MPA program in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. In 2016 Bill was asked to Co-chair the transition committee for the newly elected mayor of the City of Richmond.

Linda is a passionate, extensively experienced and goal-oriented Industry Consultant and former Payroll Director with over twenty years’ experience in both the private and public sector. Linda is a Certified Payroll Professional, Certified Public Manager and Certified Change Manager. She leads a team of subject matter expert in state and local government, K-12 and Higher Education. Linda is also responsible for the management of our contracts and procurement, as well as, managing our lobbyists.
Linda has proven expertise in driving efficiency and productivity through the evaluation of Payroll, Human Resources and Workforce Management solutions. She is an effective change agent with a proven track record of facilitating change management initiatives both small and large scale.
Linda comes to Kronos after previously working at the City and County of Denver where she served as the Director of Citywide Payroll Operations and Administration. She successfully transitioned the City and County of Denver from a completely manual, paper based time management system to a state-of-art Kronos solution for all 13,000 city employees.
Linda is a member of the American Payroll Association. Linda also serves on the volunteer board for the Association of Change Management Professionals, is a member of the Diversity Council and serves as a volunteer for several other organizations.

David W. Purkey holds a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Tennessee. He has held an Emergency Medical Technician certification for over 37 years, has served as a 911 Dispatcher, Morristown-Hamblen County Emergency Management Director, Tennessee State Trooper, TBI Special Agent, and Police Accreditation Manager for Morristown, TN.
He served as an officer in the Tennessee Army National Guard and US Army Reserves for eight years.
Purkey was Mayor of Hamblen County for 16 years.
He was named Governor’s Homeland Security Advisor & Assistant Commissioner for the Department of Safety and Homeland Security in 2011 and was appointed by the Governor to a dual role as Director of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) for two years.
Purkey was appointed Commissioner of the Department of Safety & Homeland Security on September 1, 2016, where he serves with some 1,800 employees statewide.
In March, Governor Haslam appointed him to chair his School Safety Working Group with orders to review school safety in Tennessee and provide recommendations to enhance the security of school children.

Carrie Reyes is employed as the Director of Emergency Management for the City of Plano, Texas. In this role she provides oversight to initiatives related to mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery within the community. She routinely interacts with various city departments, volunteer organizations, faith based groups, health care providers and community partners.
Prior to her employment with the City of Plano, Mrs. Reyes worked for other Dallas-Fort Worth communities in a variety of emergency management capacities. In her over 20 years of emergency management service, Mrs. Reyes has responded to a variety of crisis, emergency, and disaster events. Most recently she was deployed to south Texas to provide expertise as part of the Texas Emergency Management Assistance Team following Hurricane Harvey landfall.
She holds a B.S. and M.P.A from the University of North Texas.

Mr. Sahakian was appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti as General Manager of the Emergency Management Department (EMD) in 2016. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Sahakian led the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s (LADOT) Special Traffic Operations and Emergency Response Division, where he managed emergency response and major special events for over two decades.
Mr. Sahakian has served as Incident Commander for dozens of major incidents in a Unified Command structure alongside the LAPD and the LAFD, including the 2013 LAX Shooting, 2008 Marek and Sesnon wildfires, and 1994 Northridge Earthquake. He has also worked in close coordination with other city, state and federal agencies for U.S. Presidential motorcades, political conventions and gatherings, annual awards shows and sporting events, the transportation of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, the 2015 Special Olympics, the 405 Freeway Closure (Carmageddon).
Mr. Sahakian has studied executive level leadership at the Harvard Business and Kennedy Schools, emergency management training at the California Specialized Training Institute, the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) and the Emergency Management Institute at the National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Electrical Engineering and holds a Professional License in Transportation Engineering.

Jack Schnirman was elected Nassau County Comptroller in November 2017. In seven months as Comptroller, Jack has increased transparency, initiated smart audits and is working to modernize the county’s financial systems. His Report It, Reform It program has already been recognized by NACO with a Achievement Award in Civic Education and Public Information.
Prior to serving as Comptroller, Jack was the City Manager for the City of Long Beach, an oceanfront community on Long Island, NY. After inheriting a $14 million deficit, Long Beach’s bond rating was upgraded twice and received nine consecutive credit positive reviews. Jack helped implement smart reforms—overhauling the city’s purchasing process to ensure all expenses are justified, instituting a new performance management program, and creating a 3-1-1-style smartphone application.
Jack did all this in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. Following storm’s devastation, Long Beach was rebuilt stronger, smarter, and safer with a focus on resiliency. Long Beach’s iconic Boardwalk was destroyed by Sandy, but under Jack’s leadership the Boardwalk was rebuilt—on-time and under budget.

As the Asymmetric Solutions Architect for Verizon, supporting the global product and service portfolio, Mr. Schweitzer works one-on-one with senior executives, business leaders and technical experts to develop highly integrated end-to-end solutions that enable business transformation. His current focus on Public Sector strategy centers on solving complex problems in less conventional manners while using a combination of existing and emerging capabilities.
Through collaboration with strategic customers, partners and key alliances, as well as the innovation arms throughout the Verizon organization, Mr. Schweitzer works to anticipate the future needs of the global marketplace. This open, thought provoking and creativity inspiring approach to partnership ensures Verizon continues to increase its ability to provide tangible customer value with smarter solutions, fast and precise delivery, combined with world class service and support.
Specialties: Software Defined Perimeter (SDP); Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS); Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Response; Common Operating Picture; Cognitive Fingerprinting (CF); NEIBOTs; NextGen Integrated Solution Concepts and Frameworks Development; 'Art of the Possible' Thought Leadership; Software Defined Perimeter (SDP); Quantum HyperNet; SaaS; Unified Communications; Contact Center; Mobility; IPv6; Cloud Computing; Security; Cyber and Terrorism Threat Detection and Response; Surveillance, Analytics & Forensics; Policy & Governance; Enterprise Architecture; Business Transformation Consulting and Professional Services, Microsoft SharePoint.

Jeff Stern was reappointed by Governor Ralph Northam in 2018 to lead the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, the Commonwealth’s disaster preparedness and response agency. First appointed by Governor McAuliffe in 2014, Jeff has led VDEM through a modernization program that decentralized staffing, doubled rural staff, trained all personnel to support disaster operations, and streamlined finances, planning, response, training and exercise programs. During 2017, he deployed Virginia responders to California, Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
His career spans three decades of operational and policymaking roles in local, state, and federal government, and in the private sector, including presidential appointments as a White House Fellow and as Executive Director of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Jeff earned a PhD in Public Administration from Virginia Tech, an MPA from the American University, and a BA from the College of William & Mary. He serves on FEMA’s National Advisory Council, FirstNet’s Public Safety Advisory Committee, the National Capital Region Homeland Security Executive Committee, DHS Science and Technology First Responders Resource Group, the National Emergency Management Association’s Board of Directors, as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and chairman of Virginia’s 911 Board.

Ryan was named to his position in October 2011. He administers, directs, manages and coordinates the activities and operations of the City’s Emergency Management and Safety Division and spearheads issues of homeland security.
Ryan has worked in the emergency management field for the Lake Mead Fire Management, National Park Service, American Red Cross and University Medical Center of Southern Nevada.
Ryan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Emergency Services Management, graduating Magna Cum Laude and an Associate of Applied Science degree in Fire Science Technology – Urban Fire Fighting, graduating with High Honors. He obtained his Certified Emergency Managers designation from the International Association of Emergency Managers and graduated from Harvard University’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. Ryan currently serves as President of the Nevada Emergency Preparedness Association.