Don Bryant, a leader in county, state and national emergency management efforts, announced his retirement this week as director of the Kane County Office of Emergency Management.

Bryant

Bryant was honored Tuesday (May 8, 2018) by the Kane County Board for his 23 years of service.

His accomplishments are many.

Bryant was one of the first accredited professional emergency managers, in the state of Illinois, a program that established a professional development standard that requires training and real-life experiences in the field of emergency management.

He has served as a member of several statewide and national planning teams including the Illinois-Wisconsin-Indiana Regional Catastrophic Planning Group and the 2012 NATO Summit planning group and represented Kane County as a voting member on the Illinois Terrorism Task Force.

Since he was named OEM director in 1995, Bryant coordinated the county’s response and recovery efforts to eight federally declared disasters.

In the fall of 2004, Bryant was asked to serve as a member of FEMA’s coordination team during the first ever nationwide Citizen Corps deployment in response to successive hurricanes impacting the United States.

In 2015, Bryant and his team were instrumental in the response and recovery efforts related to the Fairdale tornado disaster.

Bryant has been especially effective in building the volunteer force that is essential to emergency management efforts. Kane County volunteers are perennial winners of the President’s Volunteer Service Award.

Read More

• Kane County OEM Leads Forest Preserve Search-and-Rescue Exercise
• 17 Kane OEM Volunteers Earn President’s Service Award
• President Honors OEM’s Werrbach With Lifetime Achievement Award
• 20 County OEM Members to Receive 2014 President’s Volunteer Service Award
• OEM’s Search-and-Rescue Vehicle ‘Mission Ready’ — At No Tax Dollars
• NBC5: Kane Emergency Management Volunteer Saves Sleepwalking Girl, 8, on Side of Road
• Join the Kane County Office of Emergency Management
• Kane County Takes Emergency Volunteer Recruitment to New Level
• Storms Likely: Joint Emergency Training Gets Volunteers Ready
• Preparing for Worst-Case Scenario: 4 Kane Offices Partner in Public Health Emergency Drill
• Bryant: How Kane County Can Help Fairdale Tornado Victims — and Be Ready If Disaster Happens Here

About the Kane County Office of Emergency Management

The Kane County Office of Emergency Management  supports a regional all-hazard approach to disaster management and Homeland Security through the coordination of programs that promote community planning, increase public awareness, and develop effective mitigation, response and recovery strategie. For more information, visit the OEM web page and the Kane County Office of Emergency Management Facebook page.