Michael D. Brown

s DHS's undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response, Brown heads an organization that moved pretty much intact into its new parent department. The Federal Emergency Management Agency retained both its name and its mission, although it has gained responsibilities. Brown has described the new agency as "FEMA on steroids."

The department's Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate, with 2,600 full-time employees, is largely made up of former FEMA employees, although it also includes offices moved from the Energy, Justice, and Health and Human Services departments. Brown, FEMA's former deputy director, moved up to the Homeland Security undersecretary post after FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh left in March 2003.

Brown, 49, has advocated an "all-hazards" approach to disaster preparation and response. Whatever the cause of an incident-natural or man-made-many of the same strategies and tactics are effective, he says. On September 11, 2001, "it didn't make any difference . . . whether those planes went into the towers because of a failure of the air traffic control system or whether the towers came down because of a catastrophic earthquake in Lower Manhattan," he told an advisory council in June 2003. "The response under the federal response plan would have been the same."

The directorate's disaster-coordination responsibilities include implementing the Federal Response Plan, the playbook for the response and recovery operations of 26 federal agencies and the American Red Cross. The directorate oversees the National Flood Insurance Program, the U.S. Fire Administration, the Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies and equipment, the National Disaster Medical System, and the Nuclear Incident Response Team.

Brown joined FEMA in early 2001 as general counsel. In the aftermath of 9/11, he worked with the White House to coordinate policy for the federal domestic response to the attacks and to develop response plans for the future.

A native of Guymon, Okla., Brown graduated from Central State University in Edmond, Okla., and earned his law degree at Oklahoma City University.