Strategy institute: UCLA and emergency management

June 7, 2010 by Dave Haynes

“If you don’t have good policy and design, don’t even get started,” says David Burns, whos run the emergency management program at UCLA.

A former paramedic, he runs a multi-headed communications beast across the giant campus – from sms, email, and sirens to indoor LED boards. He doesn’t do many flat panels because the cost is crippling and his budget does not allow. To REALLY do the campus well and get screens in the faces of everyone he wants to reach, he would need several thousand screens. But his current budget is $50,000.

He is fully trained in emergency management and says it is the emergency management office that needs to, and is really required, to put together and run a system. Campus police, IT and media relations are NOT the people to do it, for a variety of reasons.