Trump's FEMA administrator appointment: The pick he got correct

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1692
• Date: 01 May 2018
• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Author: Matthew A. Malone

COMMENTARY

Trump's FEMA administrator appointment: The pick he got

correct

Matthew A. Malone

Lander University, Greenwood, South

Carolina, USA

Correspondence

Matthew A. Malone, Lander University,

Greenwood, South Carolina 29649, USA.

Email: mmalone@lander.edu

Donald Trump has made many controversial appointments since taking the office of

President of the United States of America. Many of his appointees have had little to no

experience in their substantive area. Some even argue that many of his appointees received

their jobs from patronage. One glaring exception is Brock Long's appointment as Director of

the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Long served as the Director of the

Alabama Emergency Agency, the state level equivalent of FEMA. Given that he is an

experience public servant, Long may prove to be of the better appointments made by Pres-

ident Trump.

It is no secret that many of Donald Trump's political appointees have

been met with resistance. Steven Bannon was appointed to serve as

Trump's White House Chief Strategist, a position President Trump cre-

ated within the Executive Office of the President. This allowed Bannon

to avoid a Senate approval vote that would have been very difficult

given the extreme rhetoric used in Bretibart News, an alt‐right news

outlet Bannon chaired. This, however, did not put Bannon in a role that

was foreign to him. He had no agency to manage, nor were their prece-

dents in place on what qualified one to be White House Chief Strategist.

Betsy DeVos was chosen to be the Secretary of Education despite

having no experience as an educator or even attending public school.

Yet she was confirmed by the Senate, in a 51‐50 vote, to her position.

Scott Pruitt, an outspoken denier of human involvement in climate

change, was appointed to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

Despite these, and numerous other, controversial choices, President

Trump did make an appointment that received very little resistance.

Brock Long has had a long career in public service, specifically in

emergency management. He has a Masters in Public Administration

from Appalachian State University, giving him a strong theoretical

foundation in Public Administration. Long worked at the Georgia

Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) for slightly more than

two years. From GEMA, he moved onto to the Federal Emergency

Management Agency working in Hurricane Program Management for

over four years. He briefly left public sector emergency management

to work for a private disaster recovery company, but that position

was short lived. He returned to public service a year later as the

Director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency (AEMA).

While in this position, Long was at the helm for numerous storm‐

related events and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. With an extensive

resume in public sector emergency management, Long has the

knowledge to lead FEMA. He was given that opportunity when Presi-

dent Trump tapped Long to be the Director of FEMA. He was easily

confirmed by the Senate in a 95‐4 vote.

Since its inception in 1979, FEMA has had ten full‐time directors,

including Long, and eleven acting directors. Of the full directors, three

of the ten previously served as directors of a state emergency

management agency. Interestingly, the previous two were appointed

by Democratic Presidents Clinton and Obama. Unlike Trump's other

appointments, Long as Director of FEMA does not seem to be one of

patronage. Long has the experience of leading an executive level

agency at the state level, and now, he will lead an executive agency

at the federal level in the same field. Like previous Directors Witt

and Fugate, Long is fit for the position. He has immediately been given

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma manage, so there has been no period of

rest for Long. It will be interesting to see over the next number of

months and years how effective he is at running FEMA. There is also

an interesting study to be done in the future comparing the former

state level directors who went on to be Director of FEMA to those for-

mer directors who did not have the same experiences. The field of

Public Administration can only serve to benefit from public servants

who succeed at multiple levels of government, especially when they

receive the honor of being the top level executive in a federal agency.

Brock Long is in a unique circumstance amongst other Trump appoin-

tees, and he has the ability to serve as an example of the value of

public administration experience in the success or failure of an

administration.

ORCID

Matthew A. Malone http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5322-2107

Received: 28 September 2017 Accepted: 21 November 2017

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1692

J Public Affairs. 2018;18:e1692.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1692

Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of2