September is National Preparedness Month (NPM)—an annual observance sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Ready Campaign that promotes the importance of preparing for disasters year-round. In recognition of this initiative, we spoke with four of Hagerty’s infrastructure preparedness professionals about how emergency managers can use the Community Lifelines framework to maintain essential functions during crises. We also explored how their sector-specific expertise helps clients navigate complex challenges and strengthen the resilience of the systems communities rely on daily.
Justin Bukartek | Senior Managing Associate (SMA), Energy Sector
Justin Bukartek is an emergency management and energy infrastructure expert with over 15 years of experience across the public and private sectors. Before joining Hagerty, he served as the Director of Emergency Management for a large investor-owned utility, gaining a deep understanding of the operational and systemic challenges facing energy providers.
That experience gave him what he calls a “bird’s-eye or 50,000-foot view” of the relationships and dependencies that define our power grid and fuel systems. This systems-level perspective is critical when applying FEMA’s Community Lifelines construct. As Justin explains:
“There is a domino effect, and I put energy at the very left, or upstream, part of the list of lifelines. Think about transportation, communications, and water infrastructure: if you do not have power, if the grid is impacted, or you do not have fuel—even if you have back-up redundancy—everything else can stop in its tracks.”
Reflecting on broader energy trends, Justin points to society’s growing dependence on electricity—from everyday uses like electric cars and smart phones to the massive demands required by data centers supporting Artificial Intelligence (AI). This rising demand places “an increased strain on an already fragile and unstable grid.” As he explains, “the playing field is getting more and more complex than it was before because of our dependencies.”
At the same time, Justin emphasizes that cross-sector collaboration creates opportunities to strengthen grid reliability in communities. “At its core, emergency management is all about bringing partners and disciplines together, and I view that as no different in the energy sector,” he says. Yet, he notes, it can be difficult for utilities and non-energy organizations to “speak the same language.”
This is where Hagerty bridges the gap—working with clients to translate technical energy challenges into practical solutions.
“Being able to articulate complex concepts and put them through a filter— condensing them down to what is actually important and what sort of ramifications partners outside of the industry would need to know— is an area where we as a firm definitely provide value.”
Mallory Buys-Brown | SMA, Water Utility Sector
Mallory Buys-Brown is an accomplished emergency management professional with nearly a decade of experience advancing resilience across critical infrastructure sectors. She brings deep expertise in water utilities, including previously leading the emergency management program for a large public utility. Drawing on this expertise, Mallory emphasizes the growing recognition of water as a vital component of FEMA’s Community Lifelines construct, formally added in August 2023.
“I think water is neglected a little bit,” she explains. “You turn your faucet on, and you get water—that’s all you need to know. But there are so many ways that water can be disrupted. We are seeing it through droughts in the West, through wildfire burn scars impacting water quality, and even in areas like New Jersey, where wildfires are impacting water supplies.”
Mallory highlights how the interconnected nature of infrastructure can amplify risks. “You can’t have water without energy, you can’t have energy without water—it’s all interconnected,” she says. Even small power outages can impact entire water systems, and supply-chain disruptions can limit a utility’s treatment capabilities, creating what Mallory describes as a “giant, interconnected circle.”
She also notes that water considerations are often overlooked in local emergency planning. “From my experience, Hagerty has—and can continue to—fill gaps by bringing up critical infrastructure during trainings, exercises, and planning. Things like continuity planning—asking the city we are working with, ‘Have you considered your water system or power utility?’” These conversations often get missed, and utilities do not have the bandwidth to fill in those gaps on their own.
She notes that Hagerty’s work extends to developing plans and exercises that help agencies and organizations prioritize critical services during incidents.
“We have seen an increase in power outages from storms and Public Safety Power Shutoffs, and then the question becomes, who gets priority for restoration or back-up generation? That’s where Hagerty can help by developing plans and exercises, and by outlining how those priorities get set.”
Alongside Hagerty’s Preparedness team, Mallory helps clients navigate complex regulatory requirements and build comprehensive continuity plans that account for these dependencies.
Jim McIntosh | SMA, Transportation Sector
Jim McIntosh is a seasoned emergency management professional with extensive experience in the transportation sector. He began his career as a first responder in the fire service and spent more than a decade in fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) before transitioning to emergency management. He first served at the county level and later with a metropolitan public transit authority. Reflecting on that shift, he explains:
“Transportation is one of those things that, when I was a first responder, I probably took for granted. It was not until I got into emergency management that I fully realized just how critical it is. Everything grinds to a halt if it is not functioning.”
Transportation is both broad and complex, encompassing critical infrastructure and multiple modes of movement. At Hagerty, we help rail, air, maritime port, and transit system clients strengthen their emergency preparedness—each playing a pivotal role in every phase of emergency management. “Transportation is like the unsung hero of emergency management,” Jim says. Communities rely on these systems not only for daily mobility, but also for the movement of first responders, goods, services, and recovery resources after a disaster.
When working with transportation clients, Jim emphasizes the need for comprehensive emergency preparedness planning and points to continuity planning to highlight dependencies and risks that agencies may not have previously considered. “What I really enjoy is getting with our transportation clients and helping them look at their key interests and concerns,” he explains. “For them, what really matters is the need to stay operational while also maintaining safety and security… in that process, it is revealing to see how much their communities rely on them.”
Jim also sees transportation as a key opportunity to strengthen cross-sector partnerships. Because these systems intersect with nearly every part of a community, they naturally create opportunities for collaboration that might not arise otherwise.
“Transportation agencies cross many jurisdictions… If they put on training and exercise events, they have a unique opportunity to bring so many different partners to the table because they have all those individual touchpoints.”
Whether the focus is preparedness, safety, security, or resilience, transportation entities connect government and private stakeholders, enabling coordinated preparedness across regions. Through his work at Hagerty, Jim helps clients build robust emergency preparedness and business continuity plans while fostering collaboration, ensuring transportation systems can keep communities moving when it matters most.
Joseph “Kenny” Sobek | SMA, Security Sector
Kenny Sobek is a security infrastructure expert with extensive experience in risk assessment, intelligence analysis, and critical infrastructure protection. Before joining Hagerty, he held multiple roles in the private sector and federal government, where he conducted national-level, strategic risk analysis of US critical infrastructure while focusing on emerging threats and strengthening public-private information sharing. Across these roles, Kenny emphasized a guiding philosophy:
“If we are really going to secure our critical infrastructure sectors against all threats, we need to ensure that the folks who actually maintain and own that infrastructure have the information they need to secure their systems and to improve our economic and national security.”
This emphasis on timely, actionable information sharing is central to the Community Lifelines construct. As Kenny explains, “information sharing is something that needs to be conducted at pretty much every stage—before, during, and after. Ensuring that we have continuity for those critical systems will go a long way in stabilizing all the other Community Lifelines as well.”
Information sharing not only supports stable communication during emergencies but also helps organizations build resilience. By exchanging information across sectors during the planning phase, organizations can establish critical partnerships before an incident occurs. Kenny notes;
“You need to be exchanging business cards and have communications established before an incident happens. The last thing you want is for a cyberattack or a major tornado to occur, and you do not know who to reach out to. Having those communications intact—and the safety and security lifeline facilitating that exchange—builds stronger, more resilient communities.”
Leveraging his expertise, Kenny helps clients understand how they fit within the Community Lifelines framework and how they can engage other sectors in planning and preparedness. By supporting safety and security stakeholders in building these networks, emergency managers can strengthen resilience and better mitigate potential security breakdowns.
Learn how our Preparedness team delivers transformative solutions that safeguard communities and ensure continuous response capabilities on our Prepare page.