What do they do?

Plan and direct disaster response or crisis management activities, provide disaster preparedness training, and prepare emergency plans and procedures for natural (e.g., hurricanes, floods, earthquakes), wartime, or technological (e.g., nuclear power plant emergencies or hazardous materials spills) disasters or hostage situations.

Also known as:

911 Communications Manager, Emergency Management Coordinator, Emergency Management Director, Emergency Management System Director (EMS Director), Emergency Manager, Emergency Planner, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator, Emergency Preparedness Manager, Emergency Services Director, Emergency Services Program Coordinator, Public Safety Director

Typical Wages

Projected Growth Rate

Employment of Emergency Management Directors is projected to show little or no change from 2022 to 2032.

Projected Employment in OH

No Data Available
  • 0%

    Change

    Ranks #50 in job growth rate
    20

    Job Openings

    Ranks #23 in net job growth

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Education Level

Percent of workers in this field with these degrees:

  • Bachelor's degree  (38%)
  • Master's degree  (26%)
  • Some college, no degree  (15%)
  • Associate's degree  (10%)
  • High school diploma equivalent  (7%)
  • Doctorate or Professional Degree  (2%)
  • Less than high school diploma  (2%)

Typical College Majors

Most Popular Majors that prepare Emergency Management Directors

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People in this career often have these skills:

  • Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
  • Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
  • Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
  • Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
  • Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
  • Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
  • Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
  • Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
  • Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
  • Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
  • Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
  • Learning Strategies - Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
  • Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
  • Instructing - Teaching others how to do something.
  • Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.
  • Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
  • Systems Analysis - Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
  • Systems Evaluation - Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
  • Management of Personnel Resources - Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
  • Negotiation - Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.

People in this career often know a lot about:

  • Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
  • Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
  • Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
  • Communications and Media - Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
  • English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
  • Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
  • Telecommunications - Knowledge of transmission, broadcasting, switching, control, and operation of telecommunications systems.
  • Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
  • Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
  • Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
  • Transportation - Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.

People in this career often have talent in:

  • Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

People in this career often do these activities:

  • Communicate with government agencies.
  • Coordinate operational activities with external stakeholders.
  • Establish interpersonal business relationships to facilitate work activities.
  • Coordinate special events or programs.
  • Prepare reports related to compliance matters.
  • Maintain operational records.
  • Develop emergency response plans or procedures.
  • Evaluate program effectiveness.
  • Confer with organizational members to accomplish work activities.
  • Develop training materials.
  • Maintain knowledge of current developments in area of expertise.
  • Inspect condition or functioning of facilities or equipment.
  • Determine operational compliance with regulations or standards.
  • Conduct opinion surveys or needs assessments.
  • Recommend organizational process or policy changes.
  • Present information to the public.
  • Prepare proposals or grant applications to obtain project funding.
  • Prepare operational progress or status reports.
  • Teach safety standards or environmental compliance methods.
  • Advise others on legal or regulatory compliance matters.
  • Implement organizational process or policy changes.
  • Develop safety standards, policies, or procedures.
  • Communicate organizational policies and procedures.
  • Manage inventories of products or organizational resources.

This page includes data from:

O*NET OnLine Career data: O*NET 28.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (“USDOL/ETA”). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Logo Occupation statistics: USDOL U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics

careeronestop logo Videos: CareerOneStop, USDOL/ETA and the Minnesota Department of Employment & Economic Development

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