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Subject Matter Expert

William Lokey has more than 35 years’ experience in emergency management at all levels of government. From 1977 until 1986, he worked for the Washington State Department of Emergency Management, and from 1986 to 1997, he was the Director of Emergency Management for Pierce County, Washington. He was the sponsoring chief of the Washington State Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Task Force (WA-TF-1), and he responded as a Task Force Leader to the Northridge (CA) Earthquake and to the Oklahoma City Bombing. He was a member of the national Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Advisory Committee for the National US&R Response System. From October 1997 until April of 1999, he was Assistant Chief for Special Operations, Fire and Rescue Branch of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. In 1999, he was appointed as a Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO) for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he served as FCO for 24 disasters including Hurricane Katrina. He also worked on a variety of special assignments for FEMA, including two weeks at Ground Zero in New York following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. From April 2005 through May 2006, he was the Operations Branch Chief of the Response Division at FEMA Headquarters in Washington, DC. In 2007, he joined Witt O’Brien’s as a Senior Program Manager. His projects have included development of plans, training and exercises for private sector, local and state government clients as well as assisting them with disaster response and recovery operations. Mr. Lokey is also certified in the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP). In 2013, he retired from Witt O’Brien’s.