What I’ve Learned
Craig Fugate 61, Gainesville Master of Disaster in Florida and the U.S. AS TOLD TO ROSANNE DUNKELBERGER
ABOUT HIS EARLY DAYS: My dad’s family is from Alachua. He was in the Navy when he met my mom, and I was born at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. We ended up moving up and down the East Coast. I lived in Maryland, Chesapeake, Virginia, and Jacksonville. My mom passed away when I was 10. My dad was still in the Navy so me and my two sisters went back to Alachua County to live with his mom. Pretty much, I’ve lived in Alachua County ever since. ABOUT HIS START IN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: I went to both Florida State Fire College and Santa Fe College for my EMT and paramedic training. As a new lieutenant, I had to work on an administrative project. I chose one updating the county’s emergency plan. I was doing some online courses at the University of Cincinnati and one of the classes I was taking was disaster planning. So I thought I could actually use updating the county’s plan as part of my project I was working on for my classes. The two-week assignment kept extending. This was right after Hurricane Elena had occurred, and they’d been doing all these reviews of the county plans and stuff like that trying to figure out which way they were going to go. I was asked to brief a new County Commissioner and County Manager Bob Fernandez. That led to Fernandez saying I should stay on. So, I transitioned full time into emergency management.
144 | INFLUENCE SUMMER 2020