Introduction Tom Fargione joined FEMA in 2009 and served as Team Leader (SES) for the National Incident Management Assistance Team Blue from 2017 until his retirement in April of 2023. Tom was responsible for ensuring the team had the capability and capacity to respond immediately and effectively to the worst disasters likely to befall the country. In this role, he regularly engaged with the FEMA response organization to develop and promulgate doctrine, policy, and procedures to support the Agency’s mission to reduce suffering for all disaster survivors. Additionally, he is responsible for creating and maintaining a dialog with similar teams at the state and local level, and to participate in programs to continuously improve the Incident Management Team system at FEMA and elsewhere in the country as requested. Tom was previously the team’s Operations Section Chief, charged with ensuring a synchronized, integrated, strategic, and tactical approach to federal response in support of survivor needs. Similar to this previous position, as Team Leader, Tom worked with other federal agencies and regional partners to assure operational integration and coordination through planning, training and exercise. Experienced in responding to incidents and threats throughout diverse geographic, cultural, and demographic areas – from NYC to the Pacific and Caribbean U.S. territories and commonwealths – Tom has worked several benchmark disasters while, including the 9/11 World Trade Center response, Hurricane Sandy, and the historic 2004 and 2017 hurricane seasons. During the 2017 Hurricane season, Tom managed the response for assigned states and territories during the 2017 hurricane season and served as the Operations Section Chief for Hurricane Sandy in New York. Mr. Fargione has supported FEMA disaster response in numerous key leadership positions including: Federal Coordinating Officer; Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO) for Response; Assistant FCO charged with overseeing and directing the Operations and Planning functions; Operations Section Chief; and Assistant Operations Chief for Planning (Planning Ops). Tom also spent six months as the Acting Regional Administrator for FEMA Region II (NY, NJ, PR, USVI) during the height of the COVID epidemic, and was the FCO for all 4 states. Tom has commanded significant numbers of responders (20,00+) utilizing the concepts of Unified Command and Unified Effort across a wide range of incidents including: wildfires; large vessel capsize; missing person searches; human and animal disease identification/control; landslides; dam failure; severe flooding; snow emergencies; bridge failure; hurricane relief; mass fatality incidents, and major police tactical operations. Before joining the National IMAT, Tom was the FEMA Region II IMAT Team Leader, where he was responsible for overseeing the development and maintenance of IMAT capability and capacity for the Region, including the development of deployment strategies that balanced response needs against the requirements for running the Regional Response Coordination Center. Tom has also participated as a subject matter expert on working groups charged with developing doctrinal manuals for the FEMA Qualification System, Incident Response and Incident Action Plans. In addition to his federal service, Tom has worked in various capacities as an emergency manager and first responder at both the state and local levels. Tom joined FEMA after serving as Deputy Director for Response for the New York State Office of Emergency Management and Incident Commander for New York State's Type 2 (All-hazard) Incident Management Team. Prior to his state and federal emergency management career, Tom served as a Police Officer for 31 years, spending 18 years in Special Investigations and 10 years in Critical Incident Management. Contact Information https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-fargione-40a3a01b/