On April 4th, 2025, FEMA issued a press release stating that they were ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program, BRIC for short, and canceling all applications from fiscal years 2020 to 2023. If grant funds had not been distributed, they were immediately returned to either the Disaster Relief Fund or the U.S. Treasury. The press release also referred to BRIC as wasteful and politicized. In this episode, Bear Afkhami joins the show to discuss the immediate and long-term repercussions of losing this funding, what could possibly be so political about flood and fire prevention, the importance of pre-disaster mitigation, and what the future may look like without grants like BRIC.

Bear Afkhami is an emergency manager at MPACT Strategic Consulting with 13+ years of experience in prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery. He is also a professor of uncrewed and autonomous technology. He has an MS in Analytics, a BA in Intelligence, and is a graduate of the FEMA National Emergency Management Academy. Bear has numerous credentials, including the FEMA Professional Continuity Practitioner, FEMA Infrastructure Protection, EMT and ACCO Climate Change Professional. He has written articles for public safety publications and regularly presents at emergency management conferences on the topics of mitigation, resiliency, and technology. In 2022, 23 and 24, he presented on drones, artificial intelligence, mitigation, climate change, water and the BRIC program at major conferences such as the National Hurricane Conference, National Resilience Summit, the CyberMaryland Conference, the Texas Emergency Management Conference, as well as the Virginia and Maryland Emergency Management Symposiums. Today, we say goodbye to BRIC (for now) and look to the future of disaster mitigation.

If you're a paid subscriber through stateofdisaster.com, you're listening without ads, either on the site with video and enhanced show notes or on your own private podcast subscription. A percentage of the revenue is going directly to disaster relief. And you get about 10 extra minutes of content this time around, where I asked Bear to put his private sector hat on and approach disaster mitigation as a startup founder. Because in addition to all of his emergency management experience, he's actually written a book called The Startup King. Take 50% off a year-long membership by clicking this link: https://stateofdisaster.substack.com/6fbac94a

• (00:00:00) - Introduction to Emergency Management and BRIC
• (00:07:08) - The Importance of BRIC and Recent Changes
• (00:10:45) - Bipartisan Support and Controversies Surrounding BRIC
• (00:14:49) - Mitigation Strategies and Their Impact
• (00:22:11) - Innovation through BRIC
• (00:27:42) - The Role of Partnerships in Emergency Management
• (00:33:09) - The Asymmetry of Perception
• (00:38:42) - The Cost of Disasters: Beyond Immediate Impact
• (00:39:35) - Bipartisan Communication in Emergency Management
• (00:44:47) - Utilizing 406 Mitigation for Future Preparedness
• (00:46:41) - Integrating Mitigation and Recovery Efforts
• (00:54:20) - Learning from States with Muscle Memory
• (00:57:33) - Self-Reliance of Emergency Managers

"The launch of the U.S. Emergency & Disaster Management Congress, is directly in response to the federal government’s abdication of its role leading national policy and guidance per its Executive Order: Achieving Efficiency Through State and Local Preparedness."

Arthur J. Simental is a Homeland Security and Emergency Management Professor Researcher, Consultant, and Emergency Management Historian. Mr. Simental is the Founder and CEO of Simental Industries, LTD, and Disaster Gaming, an Emergency Management Consulting Firm and Disaster Research Collaborative.

Mr. Simental is also a research associate for Sam Houston State University's Institute for Homeland Security and a former public health advisor for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Simental has over 16 years of service in government, homeland security and emergency management and emergency services across all levels of government and the private and nonprofit sectors in homeland security, emergency management, healthcare, public health, space and defense, security, education, and critical infrastructure. Wow. Mr. Simental is a published author, disaster war gaming creator, and certified emergency manager with the Colorado Emergency Management Association and International Association of Emergency Managers.

In this episode, we talk about Arthur's new concept of a United States Emergency & Disaster Management Congress to advance the professionalization of emergency management through a unified national standard and shared governance.

To learn more about the Congress, you can visit the website or fill out this interest form.

You can get 50% off your subscription to State of Disaster and watch the video of this episode + read the enhanced show notes with everything we talked about in this episode by clicking this link by June 1st 2025: https://stateofdisaster.substack.com/congress. A percentage of all subscription revenue is donated directly to disaster relief. The episode's full transcript is also hosted at stateofdisaster.com. If for any reason you have difficulty accessing it, please email matt@stateofdisaster.com

When it comes to emergency and disaster management, experience is everything - or is it? In this episode, Doctors Sarah K. Miller, Darcy Leutzinger, and I dive into the often-debated value of higher education in the emergency and disaster management field(s). With more colleges and universities offering “emergency management” and “homeland security” degrees, how do you know which programs are worth your time and money?

We talk about how diverse emergency management has become, how once reliable federal trainings and the science that empowered them are disappearing, and why it’s more important than ever to strive for industry professionalization. In this context, we explore what makes a high-quality program, what to look for in your professors, and whether the fruit of higher knowledge is worth the squeeze of your wallet. I have an MPA in Emergency & Disaster Management, and I’ve been an emergency management professor for many years. That said, I’ll be the first to agree that your mileage may vary depending on the program you choose, the stage of your career, and your desired results.

Whether you’re a student, a skeptic, or somewhere in between, this episode is for you.

This episode is unabridged and ad-free for paying subscribers at StateofDisaster.com! You’ll hear why and how my guests pursued their PhDs in emergency management, and much more that you won’t see or hear anywhere else. You can receive your 30-day free trial with a .edu email here: https://stateofdisaster.substack.com/4ca84ae3