Real Talk with Jerica Shackelford

I stumbled into emergency management quite unexpectedly. On September 11, 2001, I was in my 11th-grade physics class, clueless about this profession. It wasn’t even a defined career path then. It was in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States that certain laws and grants paved the way for emergency management jobs to [deal with] these tragedies. While in college, I worked for a company that FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] supported, and my exposure grew. I studied broadcast journalism in college, and feel that good communication skills are at the heart of emergency management. Each day is different. One day, I could focus on administrative work. Another day, I’m out in the field.