Ken Blackwood

Commissioner Blackwood is a Customer Service Supervisor for the United States Postal Services. He is an elected Southern California Association of Governments Regional Council member for District 39; Vice-Chair of the South

Bay Cities Council of Governments; Vice-President of the Los Angeles County Division, League of California Cities; has been a Council Member for the City of Lomita since 1997; and presently serving as Mayor of the City of Lomita.

Michael Grossman

Michael Grossman is a 33 year veteran with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He is currently a Division Commander in the Department’s Office of Homeland Security. He was previously assigned as the Captain of the Department's Emergency Operations Bureau, where he was responsible for overseeing the Terrorism Early Warning (TEW) Group and the Department’s Emergency Management and Disaster Response for the County of Los Angeles.

Mike previously held a two-year assignment with the National Institute of Justice in Washington D.C. where he served as the Director of the Technology Assistance Division in the Office of Science and Technology. His duties included guiding the NIJ's nationwide program to support research and development of new technologies for police and corrections.

While assigned to the LASD’s Advanced Training Bureau, he created and managed the Department’s Use of Force and Tactics Training Program for over 8,000 sworn officers. He is a court-recognized expert in use of force, and has an extensive background in field operations, custody, court services and administration.

Mike recently received his Master’s Degree in Homeland Security and Defense, from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Upon graduation, he was awarded the Curtis H. “Butch” Straub award for exemplary academic achievement and leadership. He also holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice from California State University Los Angeles. He was a member of the Cerritos Community College faculty for 17 years.

Mike is the Chair of the County’s Terrorism Working Group (TWG). He is also the chair of the Logistics Section of the Central California Area Maritime Security Committee (AMSC), and a member of the executive committees for the Airport Security Advisory Committee (ASAC/LAX) and the Los Angeles/FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). He is also on the Advisory Committee for the Institute for Non-Lethal Defense Technologies (INDLT) at Penn State University. In January 2006, was appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors as a commissioner on the County Emergency Planning Commission.

Commander Grossman has traveled widely to expand his knowledge on terrorism. He has visited Israel, Pakistan and recently returned from Jordan. He had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Sharon, President Musharraf and His Majesty King Abdullah II.

During his career Commander Grossman has received four LASD Distinguished Service awards and one Exemplary Service award. He has also received a Distinguished Service Award from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

DEPUTY CHIEF MARK LEAP Commanding Officer

COUNTER TERRORISM AND CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE BUREAU

Deputy Chief Mark Leap joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1968 and is currently assigned as the Commanding Officer, Counter Terrorism and Criminal
Intelligence Bureau. He was born in Los Angeles and raised in the San Fernando Valley. As a junior in college, he served as a student worker in the LAPD, underscoring hislife-long commitment to law enforcement and the LAPD.

Throughout his career, Deputy Chief Leap has completed a numerous assignments, equipping him with a broad range of law enforcement experience. After five years as a police officer, he promoted to the rank of detective where he worked undercover narcotics investigations. Following his experience as a detective, he held the positions of sergeant and lieutenant working in various patrol, investigative, and administrative assignments throughout the City. As a sergeant, he worked internal affairs, training division, vice investigations and assisted in the planning and security for the 1984 Olympics. As lieutenant, he worked as a Watch Commander at 77th Street Patrol Division and then served as Assistant Commanding Officer, Personnel Division.

He promoted to the rank of Captain in 1992. As a Captain, his assignments included Jail Division, West Traffic Division, Commanding Officer of West Los Angeles Area and Commanding Officer of Rampart Area.

Upon his promotion to Commander in July 1998, he served as the Assistant Commanding Officer-Operations South Bureau. In 1999, he became Commanding Officer of Uniformed Services Group, overseeing Emergency Preparedness, Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), Air Support Division (ASD), canine unit and the mounted unit. He was the officer in charge of planning and implementing the Department’s tactical strategy for the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

These experiences equipped him to play a role in the emergency and law enforcement response to the events of September 11. Under the leadership of Chief Bratton, Deputy Chief Leap designed the original Counter-Terrorism Bureau. From its inception, he has
served as the assistant Commanding Officer of the Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau.

In this assignment, Deputy Chief Leap is the Director of Emergency Operations for LAPD during major unusual occurrences. Additionally, as part of his responsibilities, he assists in coordination of the Emergency Services Division, including the Bomb Squad and the Hazardous Materials Unit and the Major Crimes Division, including Anti-Terrorist Section, Special Investigations Squad, Criminal Investigations Section, and Criminal Conspiracy Section. Deputy Chief Leap oversees the LAPD Homeland Security Grant Program, working closely with other emergency response agencies and the Mayor’s Office.

Deputy Chief Leap completed his Bachelors of Science in Criminal Justice. He has served on the California Attorney General’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Special Weapons and Tactics. He is a recognized Use of Force expert. He currently serves as the Chair of the Los Angeles County Emergency Preparedness Commission. He has lectured on police community relationships and counter-terrorism at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences. He is also a consultant on Counter-Terrorism for the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Major Cities Chief’s Association.

Deputy Chief Leap is married to UCLA Professor Jorja Leap. They have a daughter, Shannon. He lives with his family in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles.

Commissioner Manning is a 27-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department and is currently assigned to the position Commander, Special Operations Division.  He is responsible for the management and oversight of the Air Operations Section, Disaster Preparedness Section, Homeland Security Intelligence Section, and the Arson/Counter-Terrorism Section.

Commissioner Manning serves as a Primary Task Force Leader of the Urban Search and Rescue Team, California Task Force One where, along with his team was deployed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Commissioner Manning’s Fire Department career began in 1977.  He worked primarily in the Hollywood, Downtown, and South Central areas of the City.  In 1985, he was promoted to Captain and assigned to the Planning Section where he responded as the Disaster Preparedness Officer.  In 1990, Commissioner Manning was promoted to Battalion Chief and was the initial incident commander during the 1992 Civil Disturbance.  Following this event, he assisted in the development of the Department’s Tactical Alert procedures and instructed civil disturbance preparedness to fire and law enforcement agencies nationally.  In 1995, Commissioner Manning was assigned to direct the Arson Investigation Section where he received two of the Mayor’s Productivity Awards for the development of the House of Worship Arson Task Force and the High Impact Team which coordinated local, state, and federal resources for combating arson in Los Angeles.

In 2000, Commissioner Manning was promoted to Assistant Chief and assigned to the Downtown area.  Amongst numerous emergency incidents, Commissioner Manning was the Incident Commander of the tragic Palomar Hotel Fire that occurred in 2001 in Hollywood.

Commissioner Manning resides in La Canada with his two daughters.

Michael Miller

Commissioner Miller is the Environmental Services & Planning Director and a Council Member for the City of West Covina. He previously was Director of Planning & Urban Development for the

City of Garden Grove. He has a total of 33 years of local government experience.

He is the city representative in the following organizations: San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, Southern California Association of Governments, Los Angeles Division of the League of California Cities, Chamber of Commerce of West Covina. Commissioner Miller is also a member of the following committees: Environmental Quality Policy Committee, League of California Cities; Public Safety Policy Committee, League of California Cities; alternate, San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership; alternate, Los Angeles County Waste Management Task Force; and City & Schools Subcommittee, West Covina City Council. In addition, he is a member of several professional and community organizations.

Commissioner Miller has an AA Degree in Forestry from Fullerton Community College; a BA Degree in Geography from California State University, Fullerton; and a Master of Science Degree in Public Administration from California State University, Los Angeles.

Gary Milliman - SECRETARY

A native of Los Angeles, Commissioner Milliman has served as Director of the Southern California office of the League of California Cities since February 2000. He

brings to the League over 27 years of experience in public affairs and city management, having served as a City Manager in two California cities, Fort Bragg and Cotati, and as Deputy City Manager for the City of Bell Gardens. His service to local government has included serving on the City Council in Maywood, and on numerous intergovernmental boards and commissions.

Appointed by Governor Pete Wilson to represent the state’s 476 cities on the California Emergency Council, Commissioner Milliman has served as a local emergency services director and coordinator, and as a reservist with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for 15 years.

Commissioner Milliman has long advocated for excellence and integrity in local government. He is a recipient of the Management Innovation Award from the International City Management Association and author of a program that received the Helen Putnam Award for Excellence from the League of California Cities.

Commissioner Milliman left local government in 1997 to form a corporation and purchase the California Western Railroad in northern California, where he served as President, CEO and Marketing Director until joining the League staff. He also served as legislative representative for the California Shortline Railroad Association.

Before entering public service, Commissioner Milliman worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in Los Angeles County. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from California State College at Los Angeles, and was the first-ever recipient of the Certificate in Disaster Preparedness Administration in 1976. Commissioner Milliman and his wife of 31 years have two daughters and one granddaughter.

DEPUTY CHIEF DARYL OSBY

Chief Daryl Osby has been a member of the Los Angeles County Fire Department since May 1, 1984. He currently is the Deputy Chief overseeing the East Regional Operations Bureau. The geographical area of his assigned region encompasses 33 cities and several unincorporated communities. He is responsible for the daily operations and emergency response via 76 fire stations.

During his career, he served as Fire Fighter/Fire Fighter Paramedic from May 1984 to October 1988; Fire Fighter Specialist/Inspector from November 1988 to August 1991; Captain/Paramedic Coordinator from September 1991 to July 1996; Battalion Chief from August 1996 to November 2000; Assistant Fire Chief overseeing the Planning and Community Services Division from December 2000 to November 2001; Deputy Chief assigned to the Special Operations Bureau which consisted of the Air and Wildland, Lifeguards, and Technical Services Divisions from December 2001 through June 2002.

He has served in several first responder and emergency management positions throughout is career. Chief Osby has been assigned to an incident management team in the position of incident commander for over four years. A few of his significant assignments includes a train derailment, the management of several major brush fires including two incidents during the 2003 California fire siege. He also served an 18-day deployment to Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina as a team leader of an Incident Management team. The team assignment(s) included assisting the City of New Orleans in developing a plan for continuity of city government and eventually managing the body recovery efforts.

Throughout his career, he has taken numerous management and emergency management courses. Chief Osby has conducted numerous courses and presentations related to emergency management. He is currently enrolled in an “Emergency Services Administration” Master of Science Program at Cal State University Long Beach. Chief Osby has been a member of the Los Angeles County Emergency Preparedness Commission since 2001 and currently serves as the chairperson.

Yolanda Pahua

Yolanda Pahua is a thirty-three year veteran of County service, the last nine in the Office of Emergency Management (OEM). She has been the Emergency

Preparedness Commission’s Executive Director for the last seven-years. In addition, she is the County’s coordinator for Federal/State Assistance Programs, Community Mitigation Programs, and County Policies. She translates the Emergency Survival Programs tips monthly on the County’s Spanish-speaking Hotline and has made several media presentations.

Prior to her assignment in OEM, Ms Pahua represented the Department of Public Social Services at community events, worked at an American Red Cross Shelter for two-weeks following the Whittier Earthquake, and has worked in several Disaster Assistance Centers explaining available County programs.

Ms. Pahua received an Associate of Arts Degree from Harbor College in 1987, and received her Professional Development Series Certification from the California Specialized Training Institute in 2002.

Michael J. Brooks

Mike Brooks has approximately 27 years of public service with over 25 of those years being in law enforcement with three separate agencies. He is currently employed as the Acting Administrator for the Los Angeles County, Office of Emergency Management, where he provides managerial oversight on emergency planning, response and recovery issues.

He has been involved either as a first responder, planner or in a management role for many disasters and major events within Los Angeles County.  Some of which were:

• 1984 Olympic Games
• Papal visit
• 1992 Civil Unrest
• 1994 Northridge Quake
• 2000 DNC

In addition he has responded to many floods, fires and natural disasters.  Most recently he traveled to New Orleans as a member of an advance team of County emergency service providers, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to provide assistance with the Continuity of Government.

Mike Holds a Bachelors degree in Business Management, and a Master’s degree in Behavioral Science.

Ellis M. Stanley, Sr., CEM

Ellis M. Stanley, Sr. is the General Manager of the City of Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Department. He began his City career in September 1997. Prior to that he was the Director of the Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency since 1987. He has been the director of an emergency management program for almost 30 years, beginning in 1975 in Brunswick County, North Carolina and in Durham-Durham County, North Carolina in 1982.  Ellis has also served as a County Fire Marshal, Fire and Rescue Commissioner and County Safety Officer.

While in Atlanta he was active in the community, serving as a Vice-Chairman of the American Red Cross’ Board of Directors, member of Leadership Atlanta, (He is also a graduate of Leadership Los Angeles), Georgia’s Local Emergency Planning Committee and many others. He has an international reputation having chaired the International Development Committee for the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and establishing Global Partnership Programs on Preparedness in several countries.

Ellis is active in the emergency management profession having been President of (IAEM), the American Society of Professional Emergency Planners (ASPEP), the National Defense Transportation Association (NDTA), and the Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA) and Vice-Chair of the Association of Contingency Planners (ACP). He was the inaugural chair of the Certified Emergency Managers Certification Commission.

He is Vice-President for Public Sector of the Business & Industry Council on Emergency Preparedness and Planning (BICEPP) and is on the Emergency Services Committee of the American Red Cross Los Angeles Chapter. The Mayor of Los Angeles has also appointed him to the Emergency Preparedness Commission for the County and Cities of Los Angeles, of which he became the Chair of the Commission, and he is a member of the City’s Emergency Operations Board. Ellis was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Urban Search and Rescue (NIUSR). a Board Member of the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII) and a Regional Board Member of Operation Hope, Inc.

Other professional affiliations include NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise Applications Strategy Program Planning & Analysis Panel, the Association of Contingency Planning (ACP), and the Southern California Emergency Services Association (SCESA). Additionally Ellis chairs the following: IAEM Government Affairs committee, the Emergency Management Metro Forum, the Cal (IT) 2 California Institute for Science and Innovation Advisory Board and Member of Board of Advisors to the Homeland Security Leadership Alliance and the Advisory Board of the Los Angeles Transportation Foundation. In 2001 Stanley was awarded a Los Angeles area EMMY for producing the public service announcement “Emergency Preparedness Patrol”. Stanley was also inducted into Contingency Planning and Management (CPM) Hall of Fame’s PUBLIC SERVANT CATEGORY for 2005. CPM recognizes individuals from the public sector who have made significant contributions to emergency response and crisis management, enabling businesses and their workers to resume operations after disasters or major disruptions

National committees include the National Science Foundation’s appointment to the National Research Council’s Board on Natural Disaster (BOND) as well as the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources Planning for Catastrophe: A blueprint for Improving Geospatial Data, Tools, and Infrastructure committee, and the U. S. Congress’ appointment to the National Weather Services Modernization Transition Committee. He is an adjunct instructor at the National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, MD and has served as a member of the Board of Visitors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Management Institute and an adjunct at St. Petersburg College Terrorism School. Stanley also chairs the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP). EMAP is a voluntary accreditation process for state and local emergency management programs. He is also a member of the Board of the California Forensic Science Institute. Stanley was recently appointed to the Advisory Board of the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis and Terrorism Events (CREATE) at University of Southern California.

He is a member of the Southwestern Regional Board of Directors for Operation Hope and Hope Coalition America. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Oklahoma State University Fire Protection Publications and on the Advisory Board of the Community Preparedness and Disaster Management Program at UNC-CH School of Public Health.

He was recently appointed by the National Research Council to the Natural Disasters Roundtable. The Roundtable's mission is to facilitate and enhance communication and the exchange of ideas among scientists, practitioners, and policymakers in order to identify urgent and important issues related to the understanding and mitigation of natural disasters.

As a trainer he has served as the discipline expert for many major events, i.e., The 1984 and 1996 Summer Olympics, and as Atlanta’s Emergency Manager for the1996 Centennial Games he was responsible for training as well as managing the Emergency Operations Center for the public health aspects of the games, to include developing and rolling out the first operational MMST (Metropolitan Medical Strike Team) in the country for the games.

Other major events included the Papal and World Youth Conference in Denver in 1994, the 1995 Special Olympics in the City of New Haven, New Orleans for the 1988 Republication Convention as well as Atlanta for the 1988 Democratic Convention and Chicago as they prepared for the 1996 Democratic Convention. As the nine host cities of the World Cup Games for 1994 planned for their games, Stanley was called to provide Integrated Emergency Management System (IEMS) training and Emergency Operations Center training for the cities. He has also provided training as cities prepared for such events as Super Bowls, World Series, NBA Championships, etc.

Stanley has an international reputation having led delegations of Emergency Management professionals to China and Japan for a month long professional exchange program as well as having conducted seminars on emergency management in Trinidad and Tobago and as chair of the International Development Committee conducted with the United Kingdom that has led to a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. He is the City of Los Angeles’ representative to participate in the Cluster Cities Project of the Earthquake Mega-cities Initiative (EMI). The Cluster Cities Project fosters the sharing of knowledge, experience, expertise and technology in an effort to further advance the reduction of earthquake risk to large metropolises that are under the threat of earthquakes and other major disasters.

Currently Ellis serves as an advisor to the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER), engineering solutions for earthquake loss reduction. MCEER research aims to improve seismic assessment and performance of buildings, highways and other infrastructure, as well as emergency response and recovery systems. He also serves as a member of the center's Industry Advisory Board, chairs the Metro Emergency Managers Forum of IAEM and is a member of the Government Advisory Council for the Institute for Innovation in Government Technology. He was also selected for the 2006 John F. Kennedy School of Government’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. Stanley was a student of the Center for Creative Leadership.

Stanley’s civic activity include memberships in the Winnabee #786 Masonic Lodge, Wilmington Consistory #63 and the Habib Shrine Temple #169.

Ellis is a 1973 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in political Science. He is married to Iris and they have two sons, Ellis, Jr. and Chris.