August is National Emergency Management Awareness Month—an annual campaign dedicated to amplifying the vital role emergency managers play both behind the scenes and on the front lines of disasters. For 25 years, Hagerty has helped the communities we serve plan ahead, coordinate resources under pressure, and develop lasting resilience to man-made and natural hazards of all types. This month, we are proud to join this initiative and tell the story of emergency management through the people who make our mission possible each day. Read more from Hagerty professionals, Sam Currie, Carly Gallo, Alejandro Munera, and Mikaela Shannon, about their perspectives and personal journeys with emergency management.
Sam Currie | Senior Managing Associate (SMA), Preparedness
Sam Currie has been with Hagerty for nearly nine years, during which he has supported a portfolio of preparedness projects as well as response and recovery missions. In his current role, Sam works with our Homeland Security Team, specializing in Active Threat / Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attacks (CCTA) and Transportation within the Preparedness Division. He explains that working across several divisions has given him a unique perspective as a preparedness professional because each division has a distinct cadence and role within communities. Speaking from his experience, Sam shares a recommendation for anyone in emergency management: “If you have an opportunity to take a response or recovery mission, take it. Especially if you are in the preparedness world. We plan for those events, but it gives you a different perspective once you are actually on the ground in a client’s office or an Emergency Operations Center (EOC).” Sam continues that deployments have helped him broaden his horizons and develop a more practical, comprehensive understanding of the full emergency management lifecycle.
Even with his cross-functional experience, he found his true passion lies with the Active Threat team. Often, he says, people outside of the emergency management industry only associate this field with natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. Sam wants people to know that emergency managers are doing important work to help communities prepare for and respond to man-made events as well, “It is one of the things that people do not see behind the scenes—the preparation that is going in ahead of time through exercise programs to help organizations respond to security threats in the most efficient way and minimize the damage.”
Beyond his passion for this sector, Sam’s motivation comes from seeing the impact and difference in the communities within which we work,
“It makes a big difference seeing individuals faces, engaging with them, hearing ‘this was really helpful.’ That connection piece of it is wildly rewarding.”
Reflecting on the most impactful moments in his career thus far, he recalls a comment Hagerty’s founder, Steve Hagerty, shared while they worked together on a humanitarian services mission. He said, “We typically help people on their worst day, but on this mission, we get to help people on their best day.” Sam describes how that moment has carried with him, “You could see the smile on the faces of the people we helped and the thankfulness they had for everyone’s support. So, that was probably one of the most rewarding projects that I have worked on.”
Carly Gallo | SMA, Response
Carly Gallo, a SMA on Hagerty’s Response Team, is a prime example of how there is no one path to an emergency management career. Carly spent the first ten years of her professional life working in the international development and non-profit space. Then, while earning a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Policy and doing consultancy work with Doctors Without Borders, Carly was introduced to Hagerty. She explains how prior to joining Hagerty, she only associated emergency management with federal work, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). But after working in the industry for over three years, she recognizes that emergency management is much more applicable to everyone’s day-to-day life than she had originally realized, “It is something that is going to touch us all at some point in our life,” Carly says. “At some point, we will need the resources or we will use, maybe unknowingly, mitigation or prevention measures to make sure that we are okay. It is much more transferable than people realize.”
Being a response professional, Carly notes that people may be surprised to learn “It is not always boots on the ground; it is a lot of relationship management.” She continues, “A lot of my work is not only managing staff when an emergency happens but also providing support and guidance for that staff. Having that relationship management component is key, and not always something that people might associate with emergency management.”
For Carly, at the end of the day, it all comes down to people—that is what keeps her coming back. “My whole ethos is human-centered work,” Carly states. During her time at Hagerty, one project in particular that really stuck with her involved setting up a centralized mail room for those residing in shelters during the humanitarian services response mission. Through this project, she and her team created a mailing system that enabled individuals to collect critical documents through the mail, despite not having a viable mailing address. Carly describes how providing a safe opportunity for individuals to figure out their next path forward was a uniquely interesting and incredible experience. She says, “There was nothing like it.” Even during slower periods, when disaster activity is low, Carly is kept grounded in remembering the impact our work has had on communities,
“Knowing and remembering the survivor stories, the people I have worked with, and the potential of helping somebody during their time of need—that is what motivates me.”
Alejandro Munera | Manager, Recovery
Alejandro Munera is a Recovery professional with extensive experience in government administration and has been with Hagerty for over five years. Prior to joining the firm, he worked in emergency management at the state, county, and city levels. In his experience, the biggest difference between the private and public sectors is that “In the private sector we often must pivot. We have to learn how to prioritize and adapt to the unique circumstances of each disaster and each client.” This variety in the work and projects is precisely what drew Alejandro to Hagerty.
In his current role as Manager, Alejandro’s work largely revolves around project management, financial management, and regulatory compliance, “It is not always emergency management centered,” he says. Alejandro describes recovery itself as a marathon, explaining how their work often focuses on the details, especially from a financial standpoint, “It is not as straight-forward as, an event happens, there is damage to this facility, and you are just working to rebuild that facility. There are so many more factors that come into it. And the financial piece is huge.” But according to Alejandro, these moving parts that must come together for a successful outcome are precisely what makes recovery distinct. He explains,
“A lot of our job involves taking something that initially seems overwhelming—whether it is a complicated recovery project, a difficult policy question, or an issue that has not been resolved for years—and breaking it down into something that is manageable and finding a path forward for that community.”
The inherently complex nature of recovery projects is also what makes this role so rewarding from Alejandro’s perspective. As these efforts can span five to ten years, he says it is rare for recovery professionals to see the fruit of their labor in the immediacy of an event. “We are often working behind the scenes, but the results have long-term impacts when we do things right and keep our client’s best interests in mind. It is a delayed gratification thing, but once it comes to fruition and comes full cycle, it is extremely rewarding in that aspect.”
Because of the long project life cycles, Alejandro comments that recovery professionals must have patience, understanding, and flexibility. He continues, “You are not dealing with a static system. There are fluctuations that can come in, and that can really afford you the opportunity to be a true consultant and help communities navigate changes in a way that is still beneficial to them.”
Mikaela Shannon | SMA, Mitigation
Mikaela Shannon began her professional career with Hagerty and is currently an SMA on our Mitigation Team. Her interest in emergency management piqued in college when she was introduced to mitigation through an engineering course. She describes, “I found it very interesting how mitigation is utilized to assist jurisdictions through their vulnerabilities while also improving problems with their current infrastructure.” The ability to make a community more resilient by improving existing infrastructure and systems rather than creating entirely new systems is a very intriguing aspect of the mitigation sector to Mikaela. She enjoys that mitigation and resiliency work asks what we as emergency managers can do to reduce the disruptive impacts an event has on critical assets.
Though the main thing that intrigued Mikaela about this field, she says, was getting to apply the technical knowledge from her engineering background to a variety of infrastructure projects. She states, “What was interesting to me with emergency management was that I get to broaden my education to all infrastructure, critical assets, and how to improve them. This field is dynamic and constantly evolving, requiring professionals to continuously strengthen their expertise and stay informed of emerging policies, guidance, and best practices.” This directly feeds into one of Mikaela’s other favorite aspects of this role: problem solving. Often, projects necessitate collaboration with partners, including those who operate, own, and are affected by the systems at hand, to achieve a solution. She explains,
“Effective problem-solving involves bringing the right stakeholders together to understand an issue from different perspectives, develop solutions collaboratively, and determine the best outcome to enhance community resilience.”
The collaborative relationships she builds, like many consultants, can have a significant, lasting impact on the communities they serve.
Mikaela explains how the connections she has formed with jurisdictions are a major motivating factor in her work to ease the burden of disaster on communities through strategic mitigation tactics. To Mikaela, being a part of the work that gives communities a “better chance of successfully navigating challenges and recovering from them,” makes this work even more meaningful. Reflecting on one especially impactful project, she notes that hearing the relief in her clients’ voices made all the difference. “When I see there is relief and hope from them, I cannot wait until we have the funding and can implement the construction project. For me, that is the most rewarding part.”
To learn more about Hagerty’s work empowering communities to prepare, respond, and recover with confidence and efficiency, visit Our Solutions page.