James Griffith Email & Phone Number

Merced County, California, United States

• Responsible for coordinating State-County interactions between Merced County, Mariposa County, and the State of California during disasters. Ensure smooth, clear communications between response organizations and that all unmet resource needs are met in a timely manner.• Lead for Inland Region's Improvement Planning and Access & Functional Needs teams. Member of Inland Region Accessible Documentation Project Team. Member of Cal OES Animals in Disasters Working Group (AIDWG) and Mass Evacuations Planning Workgroup. • Led Cal OES Inland Region's after-action reporting team. Developed, implemented, and oversaw processes related to post-disaster reporting. Created Inland Region after-action reports for multiple storms, TS Hilary, and the 2023 statewide storms and floods. Served as member of statewide After Action/Corrective Action Specialist Committee.• Design and conduct trainings and exercises for local emergency management employees on topics such as Emergency Management Mutual Aid, resource requesting systems, and post-disaster recovery activities.• Participated in Merced, Mariposa, and Calaveras County community recovery events as a state representative. Interfaced with local nonprofit and community-based organizations to share information with community members and between local organizations.• Participated in responses to 2023 storms and floods in Merced, Madera, Tulare, and Kings Counties as county and DWR LNO/LOFR. Was member of Tulare Lake Basin response team and served on mosquito and botulism task forces.• Participated in responses to the following major 2024 fires as county LNO/LOFR/Duty Officer: French, Pedro, SQF Complex, Corral, Bear, Fresno June 2024 Lightning Complex, Boone, Coffee Pot, Lost.

• Created a new Improvement Planning policy for Cal OES. Serve as project manager for Corrective Action and Improvement Planning processes. Led team of six Cal OES staff from different agency Directorates to continue to develop and improve response processes throughout the organization.• Developed and implemented a new Continuous Improvement Process for use at Cal OES. Created new policies, processes, and job aids.• Deputy Project Manager for COVID-19 after action report.• Mutual Aid Regional Advisory Committee liaison for Planning & Preparedness and the California Animals in Disasters Working Group.• Developed and implemented new information gathering methods for post-disaster reporting. The new methods, which included modified hotwashes, anonymized surveys, small-scale team-level interviews, and others resulted in significant increases in employee participation. • Performed research on California disasters(wildfires, COVID-19, earthquakes, floods, power issues). Collected and analyzed data from multiple sources (media, interviews, reports) and compiled data into ~50 page retrospective reports on disaster response.• Serve on the After Action Specialist Committee and the SEMS Guidelines Committee.• Design and conduct post-disaster hotwashes and team interviews.• Serve as the Cal OES SME on improvement planning and corrective action development.

Mather, California, United States

Temporary assignment during COVID-19 and 2020 fire season.• Assisted Tribes by helping them determine resource needs for COVID-19, the 2020 fire season, and PSPS events - PPE, temporary shelter, generators, etc. - and locating sources to fill their resource gaps.• Created response checklists, job aids, activity trackers, and other tools for use by current and future Office of Tribal Coordination staff.• Organized and led tribal coordination calls with California's Tribal Nations on topics including COVID-19 response, wildfires, and Public Safety Power Shutdowns.• Worked with California's public utility organizations during PSPS events to ensure that the Tribes were aware of, and prepared for, upcoming power shutdowns.• Represented Cal OES Office of Tribal Coordination on state-level task forces (COVID-19 Central Valley, COVID-19 Vaccine, 2020 Debris Removal).

Mather, California, United States

During this time I worked as an after action reporting specialist in the Cal OES Planning & Preparedness division. Highlights include:• Developed a new statewide training program on the topic of after action reporting for emergency management partners.• Created five after action report drafts for a variety of disasters that occurred in the state of California during 2019 and 2020.• Assisted in the development and implementation of a new after action reporting board in Cal OES's WebEOC platform.• Served in Cal OES's Advance Planning unit during the 2019 fire season.

Mather, California, United States

In this role I functioned as the lead on multiple projects, including administration of the Tribal and State Emergency Management Performance Grant programs. I was responsible for Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) projects initiated by California tribes and Cal OES internal teams. This position required consulting with internal teams and tribes as an SME on the most effective uses of EMPG allocations and performing programmatic monitoring and analysis for grant-funded projects. Highlights: • Identified strategies and developed tools to streamline program administration and improve program performance. Efforts included • Created a database to consolidate all EMPG-related data to increase quarterly reporting capabilities and reduce data collection timelines.• Revised grant compliance tracking SOPs to assist grant monitors in their compliance reviews• Created an automated reporting spreadsheet in Excel using VBA that would send automated emails to grant participants regarding their status on report submissions and other compliance points.• Served in the California State Operations Center for the following disasters: 2017 flooding and Oroville Spillway Incident as Deputy Logistics Chief, 2017 fire season as Logistics Food Unit Leader, 2018 Fire Season as Operations Coordinator.

San Jose, California, United States

This was a part-time role focused on research, data analysis, and publishing. Highlights:• Co-authored institute publications on the California High-Speed Rail project and on emergency management training for transportation personnel, contributing personally researched material and editing other authors’ contributions.• Researched, organized, and edited institute publications on a variety of topics such as emergencymanagement, urban planning, transportation connectivity, and earthquake warning systems.• Assisted in the training of groups of up to 25 Caltrans field workers at regional offices throughout theState on SEMS/NIMS, emergency response at the field level, and continuity planning.• Collected and analyzed data from trainee survey responses to find assist primary researchers in searching for weaknesses in training methods and materials.• Created survey response tools in MS Excel, using formulas, macros, and pivot tables to create a fully-automated presentation method for MTI researchers and leadership.

Sacramento, California, United States

During my time with the CA Department of Public Health I contributed to a variety of projects to improve efficiency.Highlights:• Examined and revised the IT division's AP processes, reducing invoice processing turnaround times from an average of 20 days to an average of 3 days.• Improved relationships between the Division’s accounts payable team, CDPH’s Accounting division, and CDPH vendors by providing contacts with regular status updates, explanations of CDPH paymentprocesses, and seeking input from internal stakeholders on potential process improvements.• Developed and conducted a Division-wide training seminar regarding State financial processes for 80 IT employees on behalf of the California Technology Office.• Created a rudimentary accounting system in MS Excel using VBA that tracked orders and spending, created budget reports, sent update emails to vendors when invoices were received and processed, and automated several steps of the invoice payment process to cut several hours off of the accounts payable workload.• Served in the Operations Section of the CDPH Emergency Preparedness Office during the 2016 fire season and Zika monitoring events.training and maintaining availability for deployment during disasters.

Folsom, California, United States

During this time I provided technical support for three organizations as a consultant.Abode Services - Redesigned faulty rent calculation spreadsheets and created a product that used VBA and extensive in-sheet formulas to automate the organization's rent calculation process. Santa Clara County Valley Transit Authority - Created a database for student surveys and survey analytics of the DO-IT student work placement program using MS Access, T-SQL, and Excel. Built data visualization features and complex pivot tables. SJSU Research Foundation - Reviewed effectiveness of SJSU’s Master of Transportation Management program. Analyzed student survey responses and grades over three years to identify program strengths and weaknesses.

Milpitas, California, United States

Abode is a housing nonprofit providing subsidized/low-income housing, case management, and support services. In this role I coordinated implementation of grant programs that provided housing subsidies to the homeless serving as liaison between 15 partner agencies and three government housing departments.Highlights:• Researched and interpreted Federal, State, and local housing laws and regulations to troubleshoot legal and programmatic issues.• Supervised an analyst and an intern in conducting data analyses to generate monthly estimates of subsidy costs and to identify trends.• Played key role in Abode’s expansion to Santa Clara County. Located housing for ~45 program participants, resolved landlord/tenant disputes to prevent evictions, performed outreach to homeless encampments to identify people with program eligibility, researched and applied for grants to fund expansion, and identified/resolved compliance breaches.• Replaced manual income calculation tools with automated Excel spreadsheets to increase accuracy.

San Jose, California, United States

At SHCS I was responsible for ensuring government program compliance and training new Case Managers on program compliance requirements.Highlights:• Performed planning and scope development for compliance reviews at six county charity centers to ensure that work was being performed within government requirements for the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing (HPRP) program.• Carried out compliance reviews of programmatic and administrative activities and documentation for eight social services agencies, reviewing over 100 program client files and two years worth of payroll and invoicing documentation within three months.• Trained new Case Managers on program compliance requirements, including timesheet and payroll requirements, client income and case management requirements, and data entry requirements for the HUD Homeless Management Information System (HMIS).

Master Of Public Administration, Emergency Management

Bachelor Of Science, Accounting