With more than 34 years of experience in the emergency management and disaster response field, Mr. John Mitchell is a leader at the forefront of a rapidly evolving disaster landscape. As the Senior Director of Emergency Management & Disaster Services (EMDS) at APTIM, Mr. Mitchell spearheads the team’s efforts to prepare for, mitigate against, respond to, and recover from disasters impacting communities, governments, and business across the continental US and beyond. Mr. Mitchell champions crafting resilient communities by implementing full lifecycle, whole-community services.

Throughout his career, Mr. Mitchell has worked extensively with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and currently serves as APTIM’s National Account Manager for FEMA. He served as Program Manager for the FEMA Individual Assistance Support Contract (IASC), where he developed, implemented, and sustained mass care and emergency assistance for a planned population of up to 250,000 survivors, and temporary and permanent housing services. He played a pivotal role in disaster response efforts for Hurricane Harvey in Texas and the Louisiana Floods. Mitchell served as Program Director for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) Non-Congregate Sheltering Program. In this capacity, he oversaw a team tasked with implementing a groundbreaking temporary sheltering initiative in Louisiana following Hurricane Ida to provide critical sheltering and mass care support to impacted disaster survivors. The program sheltered a population of over 15,000 survivors in 5,500 travel trailers across south central Louisiana.

In his home state of Massachusetts, he is the founding member and former director of the Town of Bridgewater’s Community Emergency Response Team, founding member and former chair of the Sachem Rock Emergency Planning Council, and former Director of Operations for the town’s Emergency Management Agency. He is trained as a Level 3 Incident Management Assistance Team member. Mr. Mitchell’s commitment to providing aid to recovering communities has brought him onsite with state and local officials to deliver disaster program support. He was also a member of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plants Emergency Planning Zone.

In addition to his emergency management experience, Mr. Mitchell is skilled in hazardous materials management and risk assessment methodologies. As a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager (CHMM), Mr. Mitchell is a leader in this discipline, having served as a member of executive leadership on the board of directors as President, VP, and Secretary of the Alliance of hazardous Materials Professionals (AHMP). He restructured the organization to be the first president in four terms to achieve a balanced budget and led the development of the first formal one to three-year strategic plan, culminating in receiving AHMP’s highest member recognition, the Pete Cook Founders Award in 2011. Mitchell is trained in Sandia National Laboratories’ Water Risk Assessment Methodology and has provided risk evaluations for Department of Transportation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense, U.S. Coast Guard and Homeland Security (Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards) as well as numerous private entities. As a technical expert, Mr. Mitchell provides threat-based vulnerability assessments, process and risk evaluations, audits, counter-measure recommendations, and security training for federal, state, and private industries.

Mr. Mitchell has served in many leadership roles over his 34-year career in emergency management and managed a diverse project portfolio for clients including FEMA, Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, Florida Department of Emergency Management, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) amongst others.

As a recipient of the Carnegie Award for Heroism from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission in 1995, Mr. Mitchell is widely respected for his dedication, expertise, and unwavering commitment to ensuring the safety and resilience of communities in the face of adversity.