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A Federal Coordinating Officer is the person
that is appointed by the president,
through the Secretary of Homeland Security,
through the FEMA Administrator to take the
lead for federal response to disasters.
So it’s the Federal Coordinating Officer that
will partner with the State Coordinating
Officer, move on from there, develop
objectives and provide response recovery
and mitigation efforts for those impacted by
disaster. Our primary responsibility is to get
disaster aid into the hands of the victims or
reimburse municipalities as quickly as
possible. Depending on the disaster, if I’m
not the person appointed to take the lead, I
might be the Deputy FCO, I might be the uh,
the Operations Sections Chief, The Deputy
FCO for Operations. The job is usually
challenging, particularly if you are working
in a large complicated disaster. There’s a lot
of moving pieces, you might be bringing in
commodities, literally thousands of truck
loads a day of a variety of commodities.
I think this is one of the few jobs in the
Federal government where the decisions you
make today, literally affect someone
tomorrow and uh, that’s what I like.
You may make a decision and it might mean
disaster aid for municipalities or for disaster
survivors, those impacted by disasters
immediately. And that’s the most rewarding
part of this job for me. FEMA is a great
opportunity, it gives you an ability to work,
to help folks, and to feel good about doing
it. Not a lot of places do that.