About the Author
Steve Craig is presently working with the Coast Guard as a civilian in Honolulu involved with port recovery contingency planning. His previoius experience includes employment as the Homeland Security Exercise and Trainer Coordinator for the Washington State Department of Emergency Management, Emergency Coordinator at Columbia County, Oregon in St. Helens and Emergency Planning Coordinator at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. He continues to work as a Commander with the Coast Guard Reserve assigned as the Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer for the west coast.
With the State of Washington he was heavily involved with planning and participation of the NLE 02-08 exercise as well as state liaison for the upcoming 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. At Columbia County, Oregon he served as the Emergency Operations Center manager during the 2007 TOPOFF 4 exercise as well as emergency coordinator for the 50,000 population based remote Oregon county. While at Evergreen College he coordinated the Incident Command System and the Emergency Operations Center as well as emergency plan review and updating for the 5,000 student college. He writes a monthly home preparedness article for the local newspaper and has been a speaker at various disaster conferences including IDER in Rome, Italy and IAEM in Orlando, FL. Steve has over 20 years contingency planning experience along with extensive Continuity of Operations Planning.
His certifications included the Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) through the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), Contingency Planner with the U.S. Coast Guard, certified FEMA Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) instructor, and Incident Command System (ICS) instructor for The Evergreen State College (TESC) and Columbia County. He has completed the Professional Development Series (PDS) through the Emergency Management Institute (EMI).
It was with Hurricane Katrina that Steve gained his most valued experience. Volunteering with the Coast Guard, he went to the Gulf Coast area five times after the storm in a nine month period, Steve spent extensive time afterhours interviewing local residents as well as visiting the various sections of the damaged Gulf Coast area. Writing routine e-mails in his off duty hours to friends and relatives, Steve relayed his observations based on personal visits or local media information. Starting with just a few e-mail addresses on relatives wanting information, this later expanded to well over a hundred e-mail addresses of folks throughout the country who wanted a third party reporting of the devastation in Louisiana, in particular New Orleans. These e-mails in turn were forwarded to hundreds more.
In September 2008 he recently returned from Texas working with Hurricane Ike recovery issues.
Steve retired in 2005 as Postmaster in Oakville, WA with over 27 years U.S. Postal Service.
Steve resides in Honolulu with his wife Rachel and dachshund 'Bud'.
SCraig7002@gmail.com 