Board of Directors

Richard Warner is the Director of Emergency Management for Muskegon County.  Richard has been involved in Public Safety since 1998. He has 29 years’ experience in the fire service and 6 years in Emergency Management. His career in Emergency Management started in 2012 as a Regional Planner with Shiawassee County. In 2014 he was promoted to Emergency Management Coordinator where he served until 2017. In June of 2017 Rich Move to Muskegon to be the Director of Emergency Management for Muskegon County.

Richard is a graduate from The Michigan State Police Homeland Security Division Professional Emergency Management Program (PEM) and a graduate of Emergency Management Institute of the National Emergency Management Basic Academy. Richard Holds a Bachelor’s degree of Applied Science in Public Safety Studies from Sienna Heights University.

Frank Post is new to the MEMA Board, being elected in 2017 to the position of 3^rd Vice President.   Prior to that, Frank chaired the Region 7 Homeland Security Planning Board for 2 years prior to his election.  

Frank is presently the Benzie County Emergency Management Coordinator and has been is this position since 2013.  Prior to that Frank had a 39 year career in law enforcement and Public Safety mostly in Southwest Lower Michigan with 20+ years of that career as a Police Chief and Public Safety Director in Plainwell and Emmett Township.   In 2017 Frank was selected as MEMA’s “Local Emergency Management Coordinator of the Year <60,000 Population”.

Frank has a Bachelor of Science Degree from Grand Valley State University in Criminal Justice and holds many certifications which include the Professional Emergency Management Certification (PEM) from the State of Michigan.  Frank is also a recent graduate of the National Emergency Management Advanced Academy at the Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg MD.

Frank also has extensive grant writing experience that includes a 2017 AFG Regional Grant for nearly $700,000 for Fire and EMS transition to an 800MHz Communications Platform and Flood Mitigation Grant in 2016 for approximately $125,000.

Contact

3vp@memaonline.org

1-800-924-4541 x504

McCoy managed numerous emergency events including three major disasters in Montcalm County - the 1986 flood, the 1998 derecho, and the 2006 ice storm - the first two which resulted in Presidential Declarations and the latter in a Governor’s declaration.  He has received more individual MEMA awards than anyone in the history of the Association and was awarded the Professional Emergency Manager of the Year award in 2007.  He was appointed to serve on several state-wide committees on emergency management issues and served as the State RACES Director in 1982.

McCoy was elected Secretary of the Association in 2002, and was elected Treasurer in 2008.  He resides in Gowen (about 35 miles northeast of Grand Rapids) and enjoys woodworking, family, great food, reading, road trips, and quality time with great friends.

Therese Cremonte is the Livingston County Emergency Manager. She was hired by Livingston County in 2016 upon her retirement from the Michigan State Police (MSP).   While with the MSP, Therese work five of her twenty-seven years with the Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division (EMHSD) in the Training & Exercise Unit, Grants Unit, and as the Coordinator for Region One.

While with MSP EMHSD, Therese assisted the Seventh District with damage assessment after the March 2012 snow storm, and assisted the Third District in the spring of 2012 with federal damage assessment after severe flooding in Genesee County.  In 2013, she assisted in the Sixth District with federal damage assessment after a flooding disaster declaration that encompassed sixteen Michigan counties. 

In her current tenure as the Livingston County Emergency Manager, Therese has utilized her emergency management skills to assist with a 53 car / 3 fatality accident that closed I-96 for more than 12 hours in December of 2016.  She has also worked with the Red Cross during a weeklong power outage in March of 2017 to get citizens with access and functional needs overnight sheltering and utilized other partnerships to set up warming centers throughout the county. Therese also set up Livingston County’s first ever public alerting system to include IPAWS capability.

Therese is the Region One Homeland Security Board Chairperson.  She has a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Ferris State University, is a graduate of the Michigan State Police 105^th Trooper Recruit School – 1989, has been a P.E.M. since 2013, is a graduate of the Michigan State University, School of Staff and Command – 10^th Class, and was voted class Secretary of the 10^th Class.

Therese is married, has four children, and one grandchild.  She enjoys spending time with her family, trying new recipes, and spending time outside enjoying all of Michigan’s seasons.

He began working in the Macomb County Office of Emergency Management and Communications in February 2002 and has been involved with such initiatives as the creation of the county’s Continuity of Operations Plan, our Community Emergency Preparedness Workbook and the Macomb County Hazard Mitigation Plan.   He has since been awarded the Preparedness of the Year Award for 2010 and the Mitigation of the Year Award for 2011 by the Michigan Emergency Management Association.

Peter has been married to his wife Linda for over 41 years. They have two children, five grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

Contact
district2n@memaonline.org

1-800-924-4541 x 511

Jim Yarger has served as the Emergency Management Coordinator for Barry County since 2004. Jim currentlyserves as the Chairperson for the 5th District Homeland Security Planning Board, which encompasses the ten emergency management programs in Southwest Michigan. Jim currently holds many emergency management and fire service certifications which include the Michigan Professional Emergency Management Certification (PEM).

Jim is the project chair for the Michigan Technical Rescue Team Region 5. The MI-TRT-5 is made possible through the collaboration of 26 fire departments in the 5^th District.

Jim started serving on the Freeport Area Volunteer Fire Department in 1979 and has held the position of Fire Chief there since 1999.

Jim is a Michigan Fire Fighters Training Council Certified Instructor 1 and teaches regularly at the Barry County Fire Academy. Jim is also a Volunteer Fireman’s Insurance Services (VFIS) certified Emergency Vehicle Driver Training and ATV/UTV Driver Training instructor. Jim recently became a School Active Shooter/Intruder Response Instructor for Strategoes International.

Abby Watkins has been elected to serve as the Michigan Emergency Management Association (MEMA) Liaison to District 6 for 2017 - 2018.

Abby Watkins has fourteen years of experience in Emergency Management within the State of Michigan. She has served as the Newaygo County Emergency Services Director since 2007 and has coordinated 1 Presidential Disaster Declaration for Flooding, 1 Governor’s Disaster Declaration for Severe Storms and Flooding, and numerous local emergency disaster declarations. She is a certified Professional Emergency Manager and a Community Emergency Response Team Instructor through the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division. Abby is also a certified Incident Command Instructor through Center for Domestic Preparedness, a certified, a certified Master Exercise Practitioner through the Emergency Management Institute, and a licensed Medical First Responder. Abby holds an associate’s degree in Business Management.

In February 2018 Abby received a Wildfire Mitigation Award for her innovation and leadership displayed in her wildfire mitigation efforts. The Wildfire Mitigation Awards are sponsored by the National Association of State Foresters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Fire Protection Association, and the USDA Forest Service. In addition, Abby was recognized in 2008, 2009, and 2015 for her work in Emergency Management by the Michigan Emergency Management Association and was awarded Coordinator of the Year for under 60,000 population. In 2012, she was nominated for Professional Emergency Manager of the Year by the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division.   

Abby is married and has a 9 year old daughter and a 5 year old son.

Contact
district6@memaonline.org

1-800-924-4541 x 514

Teresa Schwalbach is the Emergency Management Coordinator for the County of Marquette, Michigan. She has worked in the public sector her entire career and in emergency management for the past 25 years. She coordinated the team of local, state, and federal agencies participating in the emergency response activities during the Silver Lake Dam flood event in May 2003. As a result, she was asked to write an article for Hydro Review magazine in 2004 and International Dam Safety magazine 2008 on the flooding event and the value of planning for emergencies and testing emergency plans. She has presented at various conferences including the Dam Association Conference in San Francisco in 2004 and the Canadian Dam Association Conference in Calgary, Canada in 2005. She was invited back to Canada to present as a guest speaker at the 2014 Canadian Dam Association Conference in Banff, Alberta, Canada on the past and present look at the Silver Lake Dam event.

She is a member of the Michigan Emergency Management Association and serves as the District Liaison for the Upper Peninsula. She is also a member of the State of Michigan Citizen Corp Focus Group and is the Citizen Corp Coordinator for Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) in the U.P. She is Chair of the U.P. Regional Homeland Security Board representing Marquette County and serves on other various committees throughout the county.

Working with local law enforcement, she trains school staff, businesses and industry personnel on active intruder response.

She received her Professional Emergency Management certification in 2005 and was awarded by the Michigan State Police/Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division as Professional Emergency Manager of the Year in 2012. She was also selected as the Local Emergency Management Coordinator of the Year with a population greater than 60,000 in 2016 by MEMA.

1-800-924-4541 x 516

Annamaria Herrera has served as the Michigan Emergency Management Association (MEMA) Executive Director since May 2016.

Anna is an Emergency Preparedness Specialist with Priority Health, responsible for all phases of emergency preparedness and business continuity. She served as an Emergency Management Coordinator with Osceola County, MI until August 2016 and as a Human Resources Specialist in the Army Reserve until June 2015.

Anna received her BS in Business Administration, Leadership and Project Management from Ferris State University. She is a Michigan Professional Emergency Manager (PEM), Project Management Institute Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM), FEMA Professional Continuity Practitioner, and Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) Assessor.

Contact
admin@memaonline.org

1-800-924-4541 x 517