June 26, 2024 • 19 mins
Ever wondered how coordinated disaster response efforts come together in the face of devastating wildfires? Join us on this week's Leading in a Crisis as we sit down with Michael, who has firsthand experience on the ground during the Lahaina wildfires in Hawaii. Discover the intricate role the US Army Corps of Engineers played in uniting federal, state, and local agencies, and how crucial it was to integrate local knowledge and resources. Michael elaborates on the EPA's missions, including hazardous material removal and essential water operations, while also highlighting the importance of involving local contractors and cultural monitors. You'll gain a deep understanding of the cultural significance of daily pule gatherings, which provided much-needed spiritual support and unity for the response teams.
Michael brings forth invaluable lessons from crisis management, emphasizing humility, teamwork, and the courage to speak truth to power – essential insights for younger responders navigating overwhelming situations.
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tom Mueller (00:07):
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
I'm Tom Mueller.
Thanks for joining us.
On today's podcast, we continueour conversation with Michael
Brogan.
Michael is a public informationofficer for the US
Environmental Protection Agencyand worked the response to the
Lahaina, H hawaii, wildfireslast year that resulted in 100
(00:33):
people being killed and just ahorrific decimation of a local
community there.
It was a very emotional kind ofresponse to be part of.
Michael shares some of hisstories with us, working as part
of a unified command there onthe ground.
Let's rejoin that conversationnow with my colleague, mark
(00:54):
Mullen.
Marc Mullen (00:56):
So, structurally speaking, which agency served as
the head of unified command?
As the head of Unified Command,was that EPA by your federal
role, or was what agency servedin that role?
Michael Brogan (01:08):
No.
So the US Army Corps ofEngineers is really the lead
agency.
You know they've got the.
They're the lead.
According to the NationalCommand structure.
Us Army Corps of Engineers hasthe big pool of money.
Actually they're paying, likewhen I was there deployed, it
(01:29):
wasn't EPA that was paying mytab, it was US Army Corps of
Engineers.
They're the big guns and theyreally call the shot and they've
got the big picture.
Everybody lines underneath themand so ultimately, that's who
(01:50):
we and everybody else answers to.
I will say superb organization.
And they operated with a clearstructure and they were very
(02:10):
much aware of, you know, thechallenges that I've been
speaking of, and so they had avery firm grip on the
overarching operation, but itwasn't a tight grip, if that
makes sense.
Marc Mullen (02:29):
Guided grip.
Guided grip yeah, I thinkthat's a good way of putting it.
Yeah, so did the state maintaina voice in the response
structure then, or were they asoverwhelmed as the county was?
Michael Brogan (02:42):
The state and the county did a lot of
coordination, you know.
And then the state also did alot of coordination with the
federal agencies pardon me, alot of the federal agencies as
well.
Yeah, there was just a lot ofcoordination.
But really, if I had to say,okay, who did we do most of our
(03:03):
coordination with, it would bewith US Army Corps of Engineers.
Marc Mullen (03:11):
I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out.
What do you do when you knowthe local population and the
local responders are completelyoverwhelmed?
How do you find relief for them?
And to do that you need to knowwhat structure is there and
where else you can draw from.
Michael Brogan (03:26):
I can only really speak to the EPA mission,
right, but like we deployed atone point, I think, in terms of
actual EPA personnel, because,though, like our hazardous
(03:49):
material removal teams, theywere made up of maybe one EPA
person on that team, along withone or two locals, contractors,
along with a cultural monitor oneach one of those teams,
because, you know, we haddivided Lahaina into parcels and
(04:12):
so you know, as you wouldimagine, grids, right, and you
had to go grid by grid by grid,and this went on for months and
months and months and months, um, and that that overarching
mission lasted, you know, three,four months for that, and then
we shifted to that missionwrapped up, and now we're still,
(04:35):
we're still in Lahaina, butwe're doing a water mission, you
know, and that and that'sgetting set to wrap up, but
that's, that's a differentmission, but it's still under U
S army core of engineers, youknow.
Tom Mueller (04:51):
Right, right.
Yeah, you know, it's aninteresting point and we've seen
this in other responses.
Now, where the response teamsneed to bring in additional
resources, as much as we can,we'll bring in people from our
company, our agency focused onhiring locals, as you mentioned.
(05:18):
Can you talk to us just alittle bit more about that?
Was that a directed activity?
Did that just happen to comeabout, and how important was it
to use those local people?
Michael Brogan (05:30):
Oh, it was well, it was critically important.
I can't speak to whether it wasdirected or my sense is it was
not directed.
It was something that we knewwe wanted to do because the
locals have all the knowledge.
You know, we were meetingregularly with the elders.
(05:54):
You know, the elders are thekeepers of all knowledge in
Hawaiian culture and so, youknow, by meeting with the elders
, we know what the localcommunity needs, and one of the
needs was employment.
Well, we needed folks to help usconduct our hazardous material
(06:16):
recovery missions, and they hada whole slew of contractors that
were out of work.
So it's like, okay, you know,this is a perfect fit.
And then we also needed folksthat guide those recovery teams,
the hazardous material recoveryteams, to inform their work so
(06:37):
that it's being carried out in aculturally sensitive and
appropriate manner.
So that takes more people,local people, you know.
So I mean, I'm not a huge fanof the term, but that's a
win-win situation, you know.
And so, and then also, what wasinteresting is that those teams
(07:01):
they didn't have to, but thoseteams, our EPA teams, would
attend a morning and evening,what's called a pule.
It's a Hawaiian tradition andit's a gathering, gathering of
people that you know you canthink of it as a blessing.
They just they gather beforethe start of the day and they
(07:26):
come together and join in spiritand just, you know, I mean,
like in the military, we'd thinkof it as a kind of a roll call,
safety briefing or whatever.
The first sergeant, but it'snot.
That's the DOD version, butit's more spiritual than that
and then you go out and you dothe work for the day and then
you come back at the end of theday and you do that gathering
(07:48):
again and then you break and yougo off and do your thing and
then the next work day you do itagain, and the next workday you
do it again.
Well, that became so popularthat even EPA members who
weren't on the hazardousmaterial recovery teams we were
taking part in it.
I went out and took part in it.
It was that sense of being onewith the locals, just unifying,
(08:12):
just letting them know that,yeah, we're not locals, but
we're here with you in spirit,we're here to do the mission and
we're here with you in spirit.
And that really did a lot inestablishing that commonality.
A public information officer ithelped a lot in building that
(08:37):
level of trust so that theinformation that I was trying,
that I was trying and our teamwas trying to communicate to the
local population was, you know,it set the groundwork, it set
the environment that it was morereceptive and, at the end of
the day, that's the name of thegame from my perspective.
Marc Mullen (09:00):
Well, I think you've started to answer my next
question, which was,classically, when you show up in
the JIC, you determine who arethe affected stakeholders, what
are their concerns, and then howdo you best deliver information
to those stakeholders.
So it's sounding like thatevent was one of your core
methods of making sure you werein touch with your stakeholders,
(09:21):
but how did you reach all thelocals when they're scattered
far and wide?
Michael Brogan (09:26):
Yeah, yeah, great question, you know.
So, of course there's thetraditional media, right, the
radio and TV.
That's always in print.
That's, you know, print wasonly reaching a relatively small
segment of the local line ofpopulation for various reasons
(10:35):
by hiring locals.
And we also had brought a bunchof locals onto my team, because
my team not only was a, youknow, not only did I have public
information people, but I alsohad what the EPA calls.
We have community engagementspecialists who actually go out
and they're trained to go outinto the community and engage.
You know, like, they had set upaid distribution stations in
different parts of the greaterLahaina community and we sent
teams out there with flyers indifferent languages and stuff
just to educate the public onthe different programs and what
we're doing.
And and so we had hired localsto be part of our community
engagement team.
(10:55):
Well, they were, they were, youknow, and we were meeting in the
morning and in the evening andthey were bringing, letting me
know that, you know, there's a,there's a lot of information out
there, bad information, andthey were telling me this.
And that's how I knew thatthere was this information
vacuum and I was finding outthat, like, a lot of people were
(11:18):
getting their information from,like these local social media
influencers on Instagram orTwitter or Facebook that you
know a lot of, like traditionalpublic information officers
don't really think about in thetraditional communication
(11:39):
package.
And so we started thinking, ok,well, we've got to start
leveraging this, and so we did.
We did some interviews withlocal social media influencers
and it proved to be very helpfulin terms of tamping down
misinformation, and we alsostarted printing out flyers in
(12:04):
like the six major languagesthat local natives spoke that
local natives spoke, you know,and we were printing out flyers
that were addressing questionsthat these people were asking us
, that were asking our communityengagement folks when they were
going out to these, you know,aid distribution areas.
(12:25):
So it was real-time intelligencegathering, incorporating that
intelligence and adjusting thecommunication that we were, you
know, that we were thendistributing.
So it was, it was a very shortinformation loop that was
adjusting and it just it.
It really yielded amazingresults, you know, and, like I
(12:47):
said, the traditionalcommunication was still part of
it, but it was not.
We did not rely on that solely,and I think that that was a
very smart way to do it, and Iwell, I know for a fact, because
I had.
I had so many folks that wouldcome up and say hey, I read
(13:09):
about you on Instagram and like,anytime I got that comment, I
was like winning yeah.
Tom Mueller (13:21):
And you mentioned traditional radio.
How impactful was radio as adistribution channel in that
environment?
Because you know, I'm thinkingelectricity was probably a
challenge in many places withinfrastructure burned out.
How'd that look?
Michael Brogan (13:37):
Yeah, so, yeah, so, um.
So with radio, it wasn't radionews that, uh, we found to be
effective for us If we did adbuys on um and and and.
Lucky for us if we did ad buyson um and and, lucky for us.
And it.
It says something about theradio landscape, but like one
(13:58):
company owns like nine radiostations on the island.
So, like you could do one adbuy and I, like I'd write one
script and then it would just beblanketed on all the radio
stations and all all the.
They provide you all theanalytics.
So I know, and I, I, I coulddrive anywhere on the island and
(14:18):
, you know, scan the stations,I'd be hearing the ad.
Um, so that was effective interms of because a certain
percentage of folks who arelistening to radio, you know,
the population of Lahaina whatended up happening was a certain
percentage relocated locallyand those were the workers of
(14:41):
the hotels, because the hotels,actually, because they needed
them, so they put them up intheir hotels, you know, and that
, by the way, that washeartbreaking to see a family of
five or six living out of ahotel room.
You can imagine.
Then another certain percentageof Lahaina residents relocated
(15:02):
across the island to otherfamily members.
So we were hitting those withthe radio ads as well.
So we were hitting the folksthat had relocated to the hotels
they worked at, the other folkswho had relocated around the
island.
We were also getting them withthe radio ads.
And then another percentage ofthe population had either
relocated to the other islandsor back to the mainland right,
(15:26):
so we weren't really reachingthem.
We were more focused on gettingthe folks that were still on
Maui proper.
But you know, so that was theradio piece and then TV.
We didn't do any ad productionor ad buys at all.
That was more just news, thetraditional, you know, response
(15:46):
to media inquiry and stuff ofthe news inquiry and stuff of
the news.
Tom Mueller (15:55):
Michael, as we wrap this up now, if you had to sort
of capture the top two or threelessons learned from your
experiences there, that you knowmaybe younger responders coming
up the ranks who may have todeal with an overwhelming
situation like that at somepoint, what are those top couple
of lessons that you'd sharewith those folks?
Michael Brogan (16:12):
at some point.
What are those top couple oflessons that you'd share with
those folks?
First, check your ego at thedoor.
You know and I say that as aman well into my middle age- but
(16:34):
ego has no place in a chick,yeah, yeah.
Tom Mueller (16:35):
So, number one, check your ego.
And it is so hard to workaround an ego in that space and
it makes everything awkward.
Michael Brogan (16:40):
It does.
It's your worst enemy and it'sit's a a functioning jicks worst
enemy.
So yeah, check your ego at thedoor.
Uh, two, be a good team playerand bring your a game, because
everybody else is going to bebringing their A game.
So be a good team player.
And then three, I think mostimportantly and this gets back
(17:02):
to understanding your role as aPIO or a PAO, whatever
terminology you want to use andthat is, you know, don't be
afraid to speak truth to power.
That's what you're there for,that's what you get paid to do.
You know whoever that, that,that unified commander is, or
(17:23):
that incident commander is.
You're there to provide yourbest advice in the communication
space, and it may not always bethe popular advice, but by gosh
, you've got to speak it, youknow.
And if it gets you in hot water, so be it, but that's what
(17:45):
you're getting paid for.
So, yeah, be a good team player, check your ego and speak your
truth.
That would be my advice.
Tom Mueller (17:55):
Michael, thank you so much for taking some time to
visit with us on.
You know what's clearly anemotional.
This was for the people whowere impacted by it and for the
responders who participated inthere.
(18:18):
I certainly felt that and Iwant to just thank you for
sharing that and those lessonslearned with us on the podcast
today.
Michael Brogan (18:26):
Well, Tom and Mark, it's been a pleasure and I
really appreciate theopportunity to share a little
bit of my story.
Marc Mullen (18:35):
Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Just one quick note if anybodylistening is interested in
knowing more about the ongoingresponse, there's a website
called civilbeat.
org.
If you go to that and thenclick on Maui wildfires, they're
just a great resource ofinformation about how much
remains to be done.
Tom Mueller (18:55):
That's going to do it for this episode of the
Leading in a Crisis podcast.
Thanks for joining us today andif you like what you're hearing
, then please like and subscribeto the podcast and please tell
your friends and colleaguesabout us as well.
But we'll see you again soon onanother episode of the Leading
in a Crisis podcast.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
I'm Tom Mueller.
Thanks for joining us.
On today's podcast, we continueour conversation with Michael
Brogan.
Michael is a public informationofficer for the US
Environmental Protection Agencyand worked the response to the
Lahaina, H hawaii, wildfireslast year that resulted in 100
(00:33):
people being killed and just ahorrific decimation of a local
community there.
It was a very emotional kind ofresponse to be part of.
Michael shares some of hisstories with us, working as part
of a unified command there onthe ground.
Let's rejoin that conversationnow with my colleague, mark
(00:54):
Mullen.
Marc Mullen (00:56):
So, structurally speaking, which agency served as
the head of unified command?
As the head of Unified Command,was that EPA by your federal
role, or was what agency servedin that role?
Michael Brogan (01:08):
No.
So the US Army Corps ofEngineers is really the lead
agency.
You know they've got the.
They're the lead.
According to the NationalCommand structure.
Us Army Corps of Engineers hasthe big pool of money.
Actually they're paying, likewhen I was there deployed, it
(01:29):
wasn't EPA that was paying mytab, it was US Army Corps of
Engineers.
They're the big guns and theyreally call the shot and they've
got the big picture.
Everybody lines underneath themand so ultimately, that's who
(01:50):
we and everybody else answers to.
I will say superb organization.
And they operated with a clearstructure and they were very
(02:10):
much aware of, you know, thechallenges that I've been
speaking of, and so they had avery firm grip on the
overarching operation, but itwasn't a tight grip, if that
makes sense.
Marc Mullen (02:29):
Guided grip.
Guided grip yeah, I thinkthat's a good way of putting it.
Yeah, so did the state maintaina voice in the response
structure then, or were they asoverwhelmed as the county was?
Michael Brogan (02:42):
The state and the county did a lot of
coordination, you know.
And then the state also did alot of coordination with the
federal agencies pardon me, alot of the federal agencies as
well.
Yeah, there was just a lot ofcoordination.
But really, if I had to say,okay, who did we do most of our
(03:03):
coordination with, it would bewith US Army Corps of Engineers.
Marc Mullen (03:11):
I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out.
What do you do when you knowthe local population and the
local responders are completelyoverwhelmed?
How do you find relief for them?
And to do that you need to knowwhat structure is there and
where else you can draw from.
Michael Brogan (03:26):
I can only really speak to the EPA mission,
right, but like we deployed atone point, I think, in terms of
actual EPA personnel, because,though, like our hazardous
(03:49):
material removal teams, theywere made up of maybe one EPA
person on that team, along withone or two locals, contractors,
along with a cultural monitor oneach one of those teams,
because, you know, we haddivided Lahaina into parcels and
(04:12):
so you know, as you wouldimagine, grids, right, and you
had to go grid by grid by grid,and this went on for months and
months and months and months, um, and that that overarching
mission lasted, you know, three,four months for that, and then
we shifted to that missionwrapped up, and now we're still,
(04:35):
we're still in Lahaina, butwe're doing a water mission, you
know, and that and that'sgetting set to wrap up, but
that's, that's a differentmission, but it's still under U
S army core of engineers, youknow.
Tom Mueller (04:51):
Right, right.
Yeah, you know, it's aninteresting point and we've seen
this in other responses.
Now, where the response teamsneed to bring in additional
resources, as much as we can,we'll bring in people from our
company, our agency focused onhiring locals, as you mentioned.
(05:18):
Can you talk to us just alittle bit more about that?
Was that a directed activity?
Did that just happen to comeabout, and how important was it
to use those local people?
Michael Brogan (05:30):
Oh, it was well, it was critically important.
I can't speak to whether it wasdirected or my sense is it was
not directed.
It was something that we knewwe wanted to do because the
locals have all the knowledge.
You know, we were meetingregularly with the elders.
(05:54):
You know, the elders are thekeepers of all knowledge in
Hawaiian culture and so, youknow, by meeting with the elders
, we know what the localcommunity needs, and one of the
needs was employment.
Well, we needed folks to help usconduct our hazardous material
(06:16):
recovery missions, and they hada whole slew of contractors that
were out of work.
So it's like, okay, you know,this is a perfect fit.
And then we also needed folksthat guide those recovery teams,
the hazardous material recoveryteams, to inform their work so
(06:37):
that it's being carried out in aculturally sensitive and
appropriate manner.
So that takes more people,local people, you know.
So I mean, I'm not a huge fanof the term, but that's a
win-win situation, you know.
And so, and then also, what wasinteresting is that those teams
(07:01):
they didn't have to, but thoseteams, our EPA teams, would
attend a morning and evening,what's called a pule.
It's a Hawaiian tradition andit's a gathering, gathering of
people that you know you canthink of it as a blessing.
They just they gather beforethe start of the day and they
(07:26):
come together and join in spiritand just, you know, I mean,
like in the military, we'd thinkof it as a kind of a roll call,
safety briefing or whatever.
The first sergeant, but it'snot.
That's the DOD version, butit's more spiritual than that
and then you go out and you dothe work for the day and then
you come back at the end of theday and you do that gathering
(07:48):
again and then you break and yougo off and do your thing and
then the next work day you do itagain, and the next workday you
do it again.
Well, that became so popularthat even EPA members who
weren't on the hazardousmaterial recovery teams we were
taking part in it.
I went out and took part in it.
It was that sense of being onewith the locals, just unifying,
(08:12):
just letting them know that,yeah, we're not locals, but
we're here with you in spirit,we're here to do the mission and
we're here with you in spirit.
And that really did a lot inestablishing that commonality.
A public information officer ithelped a lot in building that
(08:37):
level of trust so that theinformation that I was trying,
that I was trying and our teamwas trying to communicate to the
local population was, you know,it set the groundwork, it set
the environment that it was morereceptive and, at the end of
the day, that's the name of thegame from my perspective.
Marc Mullen (09:00):
Well, I think you've started to answer my next
question, which was,classically, when you show up in
the JIC, you determine who arethe affected stakeholders, what
are their concerns, and then howdo you best deliver information
to those stakeholders.
So it's sounding like thatevent was one of your core
methods of making sure you werein touch with your stakeholders,
(09:21):
but how did you reach all thelocals when they're scattered
far and wide?
Michael Brogan (09:26):
Yeah, yeah, great question, you know.
So, of course there's thetraditional media, right, the
radio and TV.
That's always in print.
That's, you know, print wasonly reaching a relatively small
segment of the local line ofpopulation for various reasons
(10:35):
by hiring locals.
And we also had brought a bunchof locals onto my team, because
my team not only was a, youknow, not only did I have public
information people, but I alsohad what the EPA calls.
We have community engagementspecialists who actually go out
and they're trained to go outinto the community and engage.
You know, like, they had set upaid distribution stations in
different parts of the greaterLahaina community and we sent
teams out there with flyers indifferent languages and stuff
just to educate the public onthe different programs and what
we're doing.
And and so we had hired localsto be part of our community
engagement team.
(10:55):
Well, they were, they were, youknow, and we were meeting in the
morning and in the evening andthey were bringing, letting me
know that, you know, there's a,there's a lot of information out
there, bad information, andthey were telling me this.
And that's how I knew thatthere was this information
vacuum and I was finding outthat, like, a lot of people were
(11:18):
getting their information from,like these local social media
influencers on Instagram orTwitter or Facebook that you
know a lot of, like traditionalpublic information officers
don't really think about in thetraditional communication
(11:39):
package.
And so we started thinking, ok,well, we've got to start
leveraging this, and so we did.
We did some interviews withlocal social media influencers
and it proved to be very helpfulin terms of tamping down
misinformation, and we alsostarted printing out flyers in
(12:04):
like the six major languagesthat local natives spoke that
local natives spoke, you know,and we were printing out flyers
that were addressing questionsthat these people were asking us
, that were asking our communityengagement folks when they were
going out to these, you know,aid distribution areas.
(12:25):
So it was real-time intelligencegathering, incorporating that
intelligence and adjusting thecommunication that we were, you
know, that we were thendistributing.
So it was, it was a very shortinformation loop that was
adjusting and it just it.
It really yielded amazingresults, you know, and, like I
(12:47):
said, the traditionalcommunication was still part of
it, but it was not.
We did not rely on that solely,and I think that that was a
very smart way to do it, and Iwell, I know for a fact, because
I had.
I had so many folks that wouldcome up and say hey, I read
(13:09):
about you on Instagram and like,anytime I got that comment, I
was like winning yeah.
Tom Mueller (13:21):
And you mentioned traditional radio.
How impactful was radio as adistribution channel in that
environment?
Because you know, I'm thinkingelectricity was probably a
challenge in many places withinfrastructure burned out.
How'd that look?
Michael Brogan (13:37):
Yeah, so, yeah, so, um.
So with radio, it wasn't radionews that, uh, we found to be
effective for us If we did adbuys on um and and and.
Lucky for us if we did ad buyson um and and, lucky for us.
And it.
It says something about theradio landscape, but like one
(13:58):
company owns like nine radiostations on the island.
So, like you could do one adbuy and I, like I'd write one
script and then it would just beblanketed on all the radio
stations and all all the.
They provide you all theanalytics.
So I know, and I, I, I coulddrive anywhere on the island and
(14:18):
, you know, scan the stations,I'd be hearing the ad.
Um, so that was effective interms of because a certain
percentage of folks who arelistening to radio, you know,
the population of Lahaina whatended up happening was a certain
percentage relocated locallyand those were the workers of
(14:41):
the hotels, because the hotels,actually, because they needed
them, so they put them up intheir hotels, you know, and that
, by the way, that washeartbreaking to see a family of
five or six living out of ahotel room.
You can imagine.
Then another certain percentageof Lahaina residents relocated
(15:02):
across the island to otherfamily members.
So we were hitting those withthe radio ads as well.
So we were hitting the folksthat had relocated to the hotels
they worked at, the other folkswho had relocated around the
island.
We were also getting them withthe radio ads.
And then another percentage ofthe population had either
relocated to the other islandsor back to the mainland right,
(15:26):
so we weren't really reachingthem.
We were more focused on gettingthe folks that were still on
Maui proper.
But you know, so that was theradio piece and then TV.
We didn't do any ad productionor ad buys at all.
That was more just news, thetraditional, you know, response
(15:46):
to media inquiry and stuff ofthe news inquiry and stuff of
the news.
Tom Mueller (15:55):
Michael, as we wrap this up now, if you had to sort
of capture the top two or threelessons learned from your
experiences there, that you knowmaybe younger responders coming
up the ranks who may have todeal with an overwhelming
situation like that at somepoint, what are those top couple
of lessons that you'd sharewith those folks?
Michael Brogan (16:12):
at some point.
What are those top couple oflessons that you'd share with
those folks?
First, check your ego at thedoor.
You know and I say that as aman well into my middle age- but
(16:34):
ego has no place in a chick,yeah, yeah.
Tom Mueller (16:35):
So, number one, check your ego.
And it is so hard to workaround an ego in that space and
it makes everything awkward.
Michael Brogan (16:40):
It does.
It's your worst enemy and it'sit's a a functioning jicks worst
enemy.
So yeah, check your ego at thedoor.
Uh, two, be a good team playerand bring your a game, because
everybody else is going to bebringing their A game.
So be a good team player.
And then three, I think mostimportantly and this gets back
(17:02):
to understanding your role as aPIO or a PAO, whatever
terminology you want to use andthat is, you know, don't be
afraid to speak truth to power.
That's what you're there for,that's what you get paid to do.
You know whoever that, that,that unified commander is, or
(17:23):
that incident commander is.
You're there to provide yourbest advice in the communication
space, and it may not always bethe popular advice, but by gosh
, you've got to speak it, youknow.
And if it gets you in hot water, so be it, but that's what
(17:45):
you're getting paid for.
So, yeah, be a good team player, check your ego and speak your
truth.
That would be my advice.
Tom Mueller (17:55):
Michael, thank you so much for taking some time to
visit with us on.
You know what's clearly anemotional.
This was for the people whowere impacted by it and for the
responders who participated inthere.
(18:18):
I certainly felt that and Iwant to just thank you for
sharing that and those lessonslearned with us on the podcast
today.
Michael Brogan (18:26):
Well, Tom and Mark, it's been a pleasure and I
really appreciate theopportunity to share a little
bit of my story.
Marc Mullen (18:35):
Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Just one quick note if anybodylistening is interested in
knowing more about the ongoingresponse, there's a website
called civilbeat.
org.
If you go to that and thenclick on Maui wildfires, they're
just a great resource ofinformation about how much
remains to be done.
Tom Mueller (18:55):
That's going to do it for this episode of the
Leading in a Crisis podcast.
Thanks for joining us today andif you like what you're hearing
, then please like and subscribeto the podcast and please tell
your friends and colleaguesabout us as well.
But we'll see you again soon onanother episode of the Leading
in a Crisis podcast.
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