Welcome pending!
Letter from the President
The year 2020 brought us many changes – public health, emergency management, healthcare facilities, education, and others faced challenges that were mostly unthought of in our lifetime. In the midst of the pandemic, even the Missouri Emergency Management Association underwent drastic changes. In February, before we knew the Pandemic had crossed to our shores, former President Chet Hunter resigned from his position with MOEMA to undertake his new role as the Region 7 Vice President for IAEM, an amazing accomplishment! With his departure, then Vice President Troy Armstrong took the helm of MOEMA, bringing me on board as the Interim Vice President. Unfortunately, Troy departed the organization in August to pursue an employment opportunity outside of Missouri. Those were rapid changes in a matter of only a few months, but other key losses on the Board of Directors happened with the resignations of Les Boatright, who oversaw the MOCEM Committee, and Bonnie Witt-Shulte, our long-standing Treasurer.
All of those changes, and the feeling of being on our 549th consecutive Monday since many of us started pandemic activities, have left the organization in a position of struggling. As the interim president for the past year, the struggles of the organization fall solely with me. The difficulties we have had with the renewal and issuance of memberships, the problems with the MOCEM process and approval, and the updating of our web presence are all issues I am aware of and am working with our Board of Directors on resolving.
I want to thank everyone; for your patience, for your expertise, and most of all for your dedication over the past 20 or so months. I promise you that I will do my best to lead MOEMA forward and get our feet back under us. I am blessed to volunteer with an amazing Board of Directors who care about the emergency managers across the state and our partners. Together, we are the voice of Emergency Management.
Christopher Blomgren
MOEMA President
