Associate Experience
- Emergency Management & Homeland Security
- State and Local Government
- Senior Managers
- School Disaster Preparedness
- Administration of Homeland Security Grants
- Building Regional Coalitions
- Technology Integration
Examples of Services
- Strategic Planning
- Disaster Planning
- Mitigation Planning
- Regional Planning
- Mutual Aid Agreements
- Team Training
- Public Education Campaigns
- EOC Design and Construction
- EOC Procedures
- Media/Public Information Procedures
- Social Media Integration
- Meeting Facilitation
- Keynote speeches
Associates
Eric Holdeman and Associates has a team of professional emergency managers who have experience working in government and as consultants to all sectors of our society. These experts bring a wealth of knowledge and diversity of experiences to any project we tackle. First and foremost the associate members of EHA have technical expertise and also a commitment to customer service. Our goal is to make your project a successful one. We do that by working hand-in-hand with you and the other members of your government, company or nonprofit.
John Anthony
Jeannie Beckett
Jeff Bowers
Briguette Carstensen
Betty Lochner
Rochelle Ogershok
Jaime Quick
Annie Searle
Barbara Thurman
John has over 20 years of senior line management experience in a variety of public sector disciplines including transportation, information technology, and solid waste management. As a consultant, he has conducted strategic planning engagements in a variety of organizations, developing action plans for implementing key recommendations, and tracking results to ensure adherence to management objectives. He is well qualified in all facets of leadership including strategic planning, business alignment, organizational design and change management, process improvement, and human capital development.
While at King County’s Office of Emergency Management, John supervised the Planning and Program Management staff (responsible for regional planning, training, and Emergency Coordination Center planning and activation). John was extensively involved with Emergency Coordination Center activations including the 2006 fall and winter storms.
As the Assistant Division Director, King County, Information and Telecommunications Services Division, John served as principle liaison to the County’s Emergency Coordination Center and coordinated the division’s emergency management planning and activation activities. John was also King County’s representative in the development of the TOPOFF 2 Cyber Exercise involving representatives from the City of Seattle, King County, and Washington State information technology, business unit, and emergency management personnel.
While at Gartner, a global leader in information technology research and consulting, John was project manager or lead consultant in a wide variety of engagements typically involving strategic planning and operational reviews with public sector agencies in the United States (multiple California State agencies and King County) and Canada (multiple provincial government agencies in British Columbia).
John served in a variety of management positions in the City of Seattle including Deputy Chief Technology Officer; Information Technology Director for Seattle City Light; Resource Management Director for the Transportation Division; and Collections, Customer Service, Finance and Contract Administration Director for the Solid Waste Utility.
Jeannie Beckett has 30 years of experience in port management, rail facilities, agricultural transfer facilities and economic analysis. Ms. Beckett co-authored Washington State’s 2010- 2030 State Freight Rail Plan, is the current Marine Group Chair for the Transportation Research Board and is an on-call expert to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). Prior to taking the lead position at The Beckett Group, Ms. Beckett was Director of Operations for the Port of Tacoma. Ms. Becket has also held several other senior roles including, Sr. Director, Inland Transportation, Sr. Director, Budget and Business Planning and Director of budget and Internal Audits. Ms. Beckett earned a B.A., Economics, with a Transportation Emphasis from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.B.A., Finance Emphasis, from San Francisco State University.
Jeff draws upon 16 years of experience working in the emergency management field, including positions with federal and local levels of government as well as private sector experience. Jeff is the Principal Consultant for Confluence Disaster Preparedness Consulting, a firm which provides vertically integrated emergency management support services to government, non-profits, businesses, and households. Jeff specializes in emergency planning, disaster recovery and mitigation program analysis, and efficient procedures and process development.
Jeff previously served as Assistant Director of the King County Office of Emergency Management and as a Program Manager with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He has deployed to disasters in many areas of the U.S., including large declared events in Georgia, North Dakota, Washington and Alaska. He has also instructed classes in disaster program requirements at the Emergency Management Institute. Jeff holds a Master of City Planning degree from Georgia Tech and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Mercer University.
Briguette has over 6 years of research and analysis experience, both stemming from her undergraduate work in Political Economy, to her graduate work on Intelligence Analysis. She offers versatile skills and proficiency in research and analysis. Briguette’s strengths include data collection, strategic collection, advanced analytics, gap analyses, and large report compilation.
Briguette has worked with the Pacific North West Economic Region (PNWER) as a lead analyst conducting, and producing all source quantitative and qualitative research for the Comprehensive Community Biological Resiliency Project sponsored by DHS-HHS. During this time she worked alongside state, federal, and private stakeholders. While at PNWER Briguette also served as Homeland Security Intern and worked on topics such as border security, transportation, and renewable energy. She also served as PNWER representative at the Blue Cascades workshops held by PNWER, and the Green River Valley Dam workshop held by DHS. Her focus in this field has been on critical infrastructure, preparedness, response, recovery, and interdependencies. Currently, Briguette focuses on bio-security, regional preparedness, institutional reform, and border issues.
Briguette earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science with a concentration in Political Economics from the University of Washington. She currently holds summa cum laude status in her Master’s program in Intelligence Studies at the American Military University.
Betty Lochner is an experienced professional, speaker and trainer. She is also the author of Dancing with Strangers: Communication skills for transforming your life at work and home.
Betty has developed, administered, and improved programs, and has provided leadership and communication skills training to agencies and organizations for over 25 years. She has worked with several programs in Washington state emergency management and served as a PIO and State Liaison during state activations. She received a Governor’s award for her development of the state’s first citizen phone team. She has also served as a participant and evaluator for local and state exercises.
Betty has been the keynote speaker at state and national conferences including the National Conference of State Legislators, the National Association of State Treasurers, and the Association of Washington Cities. Her presentations are on topics related to communication effectiveness and leadership. Topics have included interpersonal communication, team building, conflict strategies, working with different generations, performance coaching, mission and vision statements and more. Betty is also sought after as a skilled facilitator and mediator for small and large groups.
Betty is President of Cornerstone Coaching & Training She earned both her Bachelor’s Degree in Speech Communication, and her Masters of Education from Western Washington University. She is a certified emergency manager from the National Institute for Emergency Managers and was selected to be a trainer at the Institute. She is a graduate of the Cascade Public Executive Program from the University of Washington and is professionally certified in Performance Coaching and the Interact Personal Strengths Profile.
From her on-the-ground reporting of natural disasters as an award-winning television news reporter to developing cutting-edge approaches to emergency and crisis communications, Rochelle Ogershok brings more than 30 years of practical major market media and public affairs expertise in planning for and responding to incidents that can damage the image and reputation of any organization.
As a government public affairs manager and emergency communications coordinator, Rochelle has developed numerous joint information and crisis communications plans, directed public information response to local, regional and national emergencies and training exercises. She has also led efforts to develop innovative communications approaches to keep the public informed during emergencies. Rochelle’s strategic planning, emergency and crisis communications expertise has included:
- Managing public affairs and crisis communications response for King County Metro Transit, one of the largest transit agencies in the U.S., King County International Airport, in addition to road and water taxi operations.
- Effectively working with local and national media covering disasters and high-profile events.
- Co-creating and managing the Regional Public Information Network, a nationally recognized website and emergency notification service.
- Developing joint information and crisis communications best management practices.
- Creating strategic communications plans utilizing multiple tactics and disciplines, including multimedia and social media tools.
- Serving as spokesperson for high-visibility emergency situations such as transit and aircraft incidents, storms and floods.
- Developing communications approaches that minimize legal risk.
Rochelle also enjoys working with students considering careers in public relations, emergency and crisis communications and has participated in academic case studies in emergency crisis communications response.
Jaime Quick has more than 10 years of overall marketing, public relations, and communications experience in startups, non-profits and government. Previously he was the Public Information Officer for King County Emergency Management, where he had overall responsibility for crisis communications, coordinating multi-agency/multi-county responses to natural disasters and other public crises. He helped cooridinate King County's emergency response and communications during the Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm of 2006 in which over 1.8 million residences and businesses without power. In 2010, Jaime produced a series of media injects for the Sound Shake 2010 earthquake exercise, and played a role in testing the region's joint informaiton center and media relations during the exercise.
Previously Jaime worked for the World Affairs Council of Seattle on international diplomacy programs and began his professional career at the technology education startup Giant Campus. He graduated Cum Laude from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon with a degree in Education and earned his Master’s of International Relations – Asian Politics from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
Annie Searle is Principal of Annie Searle & Associates LLC – also known as ASA Risk Consultants – an independent consulting and research firm, serving businesses and organizations that are part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. ASA creates roadmaps and research reports to manage risk arising from complex issues. Most of the company’s work focuses on six practice areas: global response, business practices, information technology, business continuity, corporate security and information security. More information can be found at www.anniesearle.com.
Recent conference presentations include “Community Security and Resiliency/Recovery in a Catastrophic Biological Incident” at the Interagency Biological Restoration Demonstration Capstone Summit (September 23, 2010); “Conquering Tough Challenges Through Public-Private Partnerships“ at the 2010 Fall DRJ Conference (September 20); “Security Interoperability and Cloud Computing” at the Financial Services Roundtable Shared Assessments Summit (May 18-19); and “A Seat at the Table for Operational Risk” at the 7th Annual International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (May 2-5). She is one of 50 thought leaders selected in 2007 and again in 2010 by New York University for its Global Roundtable for Public-Private Preparedness, for which she now sits on an international task force on supply chain integrity.
Searle spent ten years at Washington Mutual Bank (WaMu), most of them as Senior Vice President for Enterprise Risk Services. She served as chief technology architect for the company from 2001-2004. She was chair of WaMu’s Crisis Management Team, and the executive sponsor of the WaMu technology innovation program. As divisional head of Enterprise Risk Services, she was responsible on a company-wide level for business continuity, disaster recovery, technology risk, technology change management, and (for several years) for vendor and application information security assessments.
She is the author of a number of publications, including “Data Protection: Five Simple Mitigation Strategies to Minimize Personal Information Loss,” (Nymity PrivaWorks, 2010), “A Seat at the Table for Operational Risk” (ISCRAM 2010 Proceedings) and “U.S. Financial Sector Prepares for Pandemic Flu,” (2007), as well as “Pandemic Readiness in the U.S. Financial Services Sector: When Failure is Not an Option,” (2008) both published by the British Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning.
Barbara Thurman is an award winning public educator, author and speaker, delivering presentations and training across the United States. Barbara has worked at the state and local levels of government for 23 years providing training to emergency managers, military personnel, schools, Fire Districts, Law Enforcement, EMS, and private businesses.
Barbara has been the keynote speaker at conferences increasing awareness, effectiveness and collaboration in the area of Emergency Management, School Safety, Diversity, Harassment, Bullying and Discrimination. She has authored numerous books, pamphlets, and brochures.
Barbara’s presentations and trainings include immediately transferable, practical strategies presented in an engaging, memorable and humorous style. She is also an expert facilitator for small groups tackling a variety of difficult topics.
Barbara is President of Thurman Consulting. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree from Texas Christian University and her Juris Doctor from Seattle University School of Law.
