Col. Bill Stevenson employs decades of emergency management experience at JTF-CS

For most in disaster response work, opportunities to experience preparedness efforts through service in multiple agencies are rare. Maryland National Guard U.S. Army Col. Bill Stevenson is getting that chance while working at Joint Task Force Civil Support.

Stevenson, who has 35 years of experience in emergency management and response, works as the operations officer of a national Incident Management Assistance Team for the Federal Emergency Management Agency when not under National Guard duties.

For the past month, Stevenson has served in uniform at JTF-CS, where he worked in the Operations, Training and Readiness directorate. Prior to starting his duties here, the 56-year-old Lewes native briefed JTF-CS and other federal and local disaster response and planning leaders on the role FEMA’s incident management team plays in domestic disaster response operations.

JTF-CS is the nations’ only standing CBRN joint task force that anticipates, plans and integrates chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear response operations. JTF-CS commands a 5,200-person domestic response force composed of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. On order, these forces provide urban search and rescue, patient decontamination, casualty/ground/air evacuation and general logistics support.

“JTF-CS is one of the most readily available forces in CONUS,” Stevenson said. “I’m gratified how closely aligned both forces are so we understand what each force is doing and how the pieces fit together.”

After he briefed the command in February, Stevenson remained at JTF-CS, but swapped his blue FEMA polo for his Army combat uniform. Stevenson spent eight weeks coordinating with JTF-CS’ community of partners - the various federal, state and local military and civilian government agencies tasked to provide disaster response services. He also assisted JTF-CS in streamlining its prescripted mission assignments used during the initial hours of a federal-level response in support of a state government following a catastrophic CBRN event.

“We wanted to come down to link up with you guys so we can understand your mission and you can understand our mission and how we’re going to work together,” Stevenson said. “We will be working together if there is an incident.”

Stevenson is at JTF-CS as a nonofficial liaison from FEMA to shorten loops in the decision-making process.

“The more we know about JTF-CS and the capabilities, the quicker we can ask for you and that equals more life saving,” Stevenson said. “The first thing we will ask for is your expertise.”

Stevenson has an extensive interest and personal investment in emergency response operations. He spent almost all of his youth at a local Delaware fire house because his father was a volunteer firefighter. The fire house was very much a part of the social fabric in the Delaware town and made him want to become a firefighter when he grew up.

“It’s the instant gratification that you get from the job,” said Stevenson. “You help someone; the job is done, and then you’re moving on to the next mission.”

Then, as now, he expanded his field of skills in this arena to become a county chief paramedic, then an emergency medical services director for the state of Delaware and later the health preparedness director for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

A fellow firefighter who was also a National Guard member recommended military service to Stevenson. Stevenson recognized the opportunity as another chance to serve. By 1982, he was commissioned as an infantry officer and later completed the Special Forces Officer Qualification Course. The majority of his military career was spent in special operations units such as civil support teams, which assess domestic weapons of mass destruction attacks, advise civilian responders on appropriate actions through on-site testing and expert consultation, and can facilitate the arrival of additional state and federal military forces.

Stevenson became an operations section chief with FEMA’s national incident management team in 2009. According to FEMA, these teams are rapidly deployable and are designed to provide a forward federal presence to better manage and coordinate the national response for catastrophic events.

“We will be the people out there coordinating the response,” Stevenson said. “JTF-CS is the first tool picked out of the toolbox for a CBRN event.”

Stevenson’s IMAT has deployed with FEMA to numerous domestic and international disasters, ranging from Hurricane Irene and the Haiti earthquake to the Joplin, Mo., tornado and Operation Tomodachi in Japan.

“We are continually evolving,” Stevenson said. “We take the lessons learned and immediately plug them into new policy and direction.”

Stevenson will retire from the military June 1, 2012, but continue to serve his country at FEMA. He believes there is still plenty of work to be done.

“I’m not done yet,” he said. “There are still things I want to do and more that I want to contribute.”

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