The Vermont Department of Public Safety has named a new director of emergency management — a role that has grown in prominence in recent years as the state has navigated a pandemic and catastrophic flooding.
Eric Forand, who led Vermont Emergency Management as interim director starting in June, will now hold the official position, the department announced in a press release Thursday.
Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison said in the release that she was excited by the hire and said Forand came with “extensive experience in emergency services in Vermont and can use that insight to inform decisions that will benefit local emergency responders and help the evolution of emergency response in Vermont.”
Gov. Phil Scott cited Forand’s work at the State Emergency Operations Center during this summer’s flooding, saying in the release that the new director “proved himself as a competent leader” at that time. “His guidance of the State Emergency Operations Center through the response and the continued recovery have shown his dedication to Vermont,” Scott said in the release.
Forand, a volunteer deputy chief at the Bristol Fire Department and former fire academy instructor, joined emergency management in 2017 as an exercise administrator before being named deputy director in July 2022.
He said in an interview Thursday that the emergency management team works mostly to “coordinate resources” for both disaster response and readiness. That work becomes most visible during storms, but Forand said that the rest of the year his team works “behind the scenes on making sure that towns are ready for the next event.”
“I’m a little prejudiced, but I think we’re very important,” he said. “(We’re) looking to make sure that Vermont is ready to respond to these disasters that seem to be more frequent.”
