Tune In with Special Guest Therese Cremonte, Livingston County Emergency Manager

A derailment in a farm field. A 53-vehicle pileup in brutal winter weather. A hazmat tanker carrying oleum, a vaporizing form of sulfuric acid. These are the moments when a community learns whether its plans and partnerships are real. We sit down with Therese Crementi, Livingston County Emergency Manager, to talk through what emergency management actually looks like when the stakes are high and information has to move fast.
 
 Therese shares her path from the Michigan State Police into emergency management, including what it feels like to walk into a new discipline full of acronyms, new partners, and a very different kind of leadership. We get practical about the training tools that make it work: NIMS and ICS training, FEMA independent study courses, exercise design, crisis communication, and the Michigan Professional Emergency Manager (PEM) designation. Along the way, we dig into why emergency management should stand on its own, how a county maintains an Emergency Operations Plan, and how federal funding and hazard mitigation planning can determine what help is available after a disaster.
 
 We also break down the “wheel” of emergency management planning, prevention, response, recovery, mitigation and why recovery is usually the longest, hardest phase. Therese explains how and when we activate an Emergency Operations Center (EOC), including the difference between a plug-and-play physical EOC and a virtual EOC model learned during COVID. The conversation closes with grounded career advice for anyone entering public safety: live in the moment, take self-care seriously, and remember the badge exists to empower the people you serve.
 

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Therese Cremonte

Danielle 0:06

Welcome to Tune In with MPSCS. I am Danielle Stewart. I am the Business Services and Communications Unit Manager for Michigan's Public Safety Communications System, also known as MPSCS. I'm excited to welcome a very special guest today, Therese Cremonte. She's the Livingston County Emergency Manager. Thank you for being here today. It's an honor to talk with you.

Therese 0:32

Thank you for having me, Danielle. I'm actually honored to be here today.

Danielle 0:35

Wonderful. If you could talk to me a little bit about your awesome professional career that you've had.

Therese 0:43

Well, how much time do you have?

Danielle 0:45

No. I have a lot of time. Go for it.

Therese 0:48

So professionally, I got into this Michigan State Police back in 1989. There were several years of training prior to that to prepare myself for the state police. In that time, I had a lot of exciting adventures. I had some honors. I was able to promote up to the rank of assistant post commander. From there, I wound up in the emergency management field, and it's been really a lot of fun. I was the first post commander, female commander at the Lansing Post during my time there. When I got into emergency management, I was a little bit like a duck to water. And somebody felt the need to I was made the,

A Career Built In Public Service

Therese 1:40

is it awarded? I guess I was awarded the PEM of the Year in 2018.

Danielle 1:44

That's awesome.

Therese 1:46

Which was awesome. I have been the uh the Board Chair for the Region One Homeland Security Planning Board for many years, eight out of my ten years as an emergency manager. I was nominated and brought into the Women's Hall of Fame here locally in Livingston County, which was a huge honor because I had been a resident here since 1989 when I first got to the Brighton Post. So it was it's just been an interesting career with a lot of different things happening and with a lot of wonderful and interesting people met and served within this community because after all, what I came into was public service, and I've done my best to do that so.

Danielle 2:26

It definitely sounds like it, and it's always great to meet another fellow female leader who is paving the way for others.

Therese 2:35

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Danielle 2:38

Absolutely. Um, I'm just gonna look over my note cards really quick because we have your career outlined a little bit here, and I just want to make sure you didn't miss anything because it's often hard to talk about yourself from time to time.

Therese 2:50

It is.

Danielle 2:52

That is quite an impressive career. So, is there any other um impressive accomplishments or anything else you want to add about your background?

Therese 3:03

I think just getting up every day and doing the best I can is the greatest accomplishment there is. Uh, there's a lot in life that happens with careers, with family, with friends, just circumstances where the community calls upon you. And I think just being able to do that and meet those expectations to the best of your ability every day, I think that's an accomplishment, not just for me, but anybody within this profession. So I would throw that out there.

From Farm Kid To County Leader

Danielle 3:36

Absolutely. Well, before we get into specifically your role and what emergency management entails, could you tell us a little bit more about yourself personally? What community do you live in, your family, a little bit about yourself?

Therese 3:52

Okay, more about me. So I actually grew up in the southwest portion of the state. Um I was one of five children, uh, and we grew up on a farm. I would say by today's standards, we were feral. But that was the best way to grow up, and um it actually set the pace for what I became as a person in my career. Uh because you learn a lot of things when you grow up that way. The other important part of that is I come from a family of first responders and military. And so that accompanied with the way I was grow I grew up, um, made it a natural fit to be here. But I did not know anything truly about this side of the state until 1989 when I was sent here through the state police. Uh so I went from being a Notre Dame slash Bears slash Cubs fan uh to I found myself in Southeast Michigan. Um and Livingston County quickly became my home in 1989. I've lived all over this county. I would consider myself a staunch Livingston County resident. I've been here now for 37 years, a little bit beyond 37. Um I've lived in Brighton, I've lived in Howell, um, I've lived in Pinckney, I raised four children here. So this is my home. So Livingston County is what it's about here. Um I did raise four children. Uh they're mostly okay with help of psychologists. No, just kidding. Um they are wonderful uh adults now. Uh three are married, I have five grandchildren. They don't live in Livingston County, they live all over. Uh they are adulting and following their career paths. So I'm very proud of that to be a mother of four who raised their children in Livingston County successfully. This is a great county to be in. I'm so proud to be here. Um, and then to have five wonderful grandchildren now.

Danielle 6:01

That's amazing. Congratulations for that. I'm very, very happy for you. And as a Livingston County resident myself, also very happy to be a part of this community as well. I love it here. I can't say enough good things about Livingston County, just as you. Um, I I won't be leaving anytime soon.

Hobbies That Reinforce Preparedness

Danielle 6:20

This is also my home. So here to stay with you.

Therese 6:23

Yes, ma'am.

Danielle 6:25

Um, what kinds of things do you like to do for fun? What kind of hobbies do you have?

Therese 6:31

Other than work, which uh my number two Christie would say that's my main hobby. She tries to make me go away on vacation sometimes. Um, I have a lot of family time. I spend a lot of time with my family, of course, because they're growing. Uh I do gardening. Uh I have uh two sons that I'm I'm thinking are trying to kill me because they made me this gigantic seven seven-bed raised bed garden now that's fenced in so the deer can't get it, and I have to carry the water down to it, I might add. They're like trying to keep me in shape. Uh, but I like to garden. Um, I like to experiment in the kitchen. I like to cook uh and create new dishes, new baked goods. I like to try out things that I see on you know uh Instagram or these recipes. Uh Kristi loves that I do that because I will bring things in for her to try. Uh so I like to bake, I like to garden. I also uh like to paddle board. So growing up in Southwest Michigan, very much a Lake Michigan girl, uh was our farm was 10 minutes from the lake. So when we were done with hard farm labors and most of it was hard farm labor, uh we would take the occasion to go down to Lake Michigan Beach in Hager Shores, which is just kind of uh it's Coloma area.

Danielle 7:50

Yeah.

Therese 7:51

And and take advantage of our beautiful beaches. So very much a water girl, and I love to paddle board.

Danielle 7:57

And you can you can stand on that paddle board and and do that?

Therese 8:01

I can.

Danielle 8:02

Good for you. I don't have the balance or center of gravity for that. I can't do it.

Therese 8:08

You absolutely I promise you, you absolutely do. It just takes, first of all, always wear your flotation device.

Danielle 8:14

Yes, ma'am.

Therese 8:15

And tether yourself to the board. That's the other thing people don't do, which is crazy. Safety first. Safety first. So you also learned that in the State Police, right? All about the water safety. Yep. I went through during that era. So um, as did you, I do, I do believe.

Danielle 8:30

Yes.

Therese 8:30

Okay, you really have to be.

Danielle 8:31

There's a video out there somewhere of me.

Therese 8:33

I have photos of myself. So it's called the tank. Uh, because it's not fun. Pools are for fun. That was what we were told. Uh, but I've always loved the water. I really love peace. And what I love the most about the paddle board, you can start out kneeling or sitting. You're you'll you'll finally stand up. You'll fall a few times, you just have to be okay with that. Uh, but you will eventually get your center of gravity, and when you're standing and you're paddling or you're kneeling and you're paddling and it's just quiet.

Danielle 9:02

Yeah.

Therese 9:02

Um, I love to go in the early mornings when the water is quiet. Yeah. Um, it is fun to go in the middle of the day after all the boat traffic and everything stirs things up because it's a little more that just appeals

Danielle 9:13

That's a workout.

Therese 9:14

That appeals to the feral child in me. Uh, but it is it's a it's a great uh, I think, pastime for me because you're on the water, it's peaceful, it's just you time, and you get to see a lot of sights when you're silent.

Danielle 9:29

That sounds so nice.

Therese 9:31

It is

Danielle 9:32

Now I want a lake day. Those are wonderful hobbies. Um, I'll ask you this. What's your favorite vegetable that you grow in the garden? What one do you have to plant every year?

Therese 9:45

Tomatoes, of course. Yeah. Because we make everything with tomatoes. So tomatoes are a fruit. Yes. You asked me about a vegetable.

Danielle 9:52

Vegetable, I did. I did. You are correct.

Therese 9:54

So uh as far as vegetables, I like beets and I like broccoli. And both are just wonderful to grow fresh in the garden.

Danielle 10:03

Yeah, good. I like it. Very good hobbies.

Recruit School Bonds

Danielle 10:05

Um, T, what recruit school did you graduate from?

Therese 10:10

I graduated from the mighty 105, which was interesting because I saw the 150th graduated just recently.

Danielle 10:18

Just recently.

Therese 10:19

And I was like, wow. Yeah. 45 schools past mine. Yeah. Um, and I really loved being part of the 105. Uh, we started 82 candidates. Uh, we graduated 56. We started with 20 plus women, we graduated 11. Uh, we also went through, I want to say I can't read, I'm sorry, because I know you're a motor carrier in your background. Uh, if it was the sixth or the seventh motor carrier school that came through with us at the same time, and there was one uh female that made it through that motor carrier school, her last name was Gallbauddy. Okay, and she went to Monroe. So if we count her, can't really count her for the 105, but went through with 12 other females, but 11 graduated from the 105.

Danielle 11:07

Okay.

Therese 11:08

So it was a great school. We had a lot of great people. Um, when you go through a recruit school, and you've probably seen this with your own. Uh, some recruit schools have a lot of synergy, some do not. Yeah, and I always thought that the 105 had a lot of synergy. Yeah, um, I can name a couple other schools, I believe, also did, just in viewing them when they came out as new, you know, recruits. And but I'm telling you, the 105 did, and I'm very proud to be part of that school. Uh, we still talk, some of us, if we find each other, it's always good to see each other. Um, and it turned out to be a very uh small, close collection. Uh we did lose one in the line of duty, uh, that was Trooper Byron Erickson. Uh, and he was a friend of mine, and he was probably my first close friend that um died in the line of duty. Uh Brian Gelski, out of the 106, also a very close friend of mine, um, and uh we went to Ferris together and we trained for the state police together, and there was a hold up in his background. Uh when he died, that was a terrible shock, and I was a pallbearer at his funeral and was honored to do so. So um when you talk about uh state police pride and what those recruit schools mean to you and what the people that you meet during that experience, that 18 to 20 weeks, whatever your recruit school is, uh you do bond. Yeah, some people would call it trauma bonding, but you do bond with those people who make it through, and it's it's a lifetime that you will remember them.

Danielle 12:47

Oh yeah. No, that is that is such a true statement, and and everything that you said absolutely resonates with me as as well. Um, as as you said, yep, my background. I was a motor carrier officer with the state police for 10 years. I'm out of the 17th motor carrier recruit school. We started with 27. I was the only female when we started, and I was the only female that graduated, and we graduated 20. So we lost um seven throughout the recruit school, and ours was 17 and a half weeks long. And you are absolutely right. Some have great synergy and some do not. And I would say that when we finished, we definitely did. We were all very, very, very close, and um a lot of us still talk, and you know, we've all gone our separate ways throughout the state. And when we run into each other and and when we do, it is just like old times and like nothing no time has passed, I guess would be the right way to put it, right? You just pick up where you left off. Right. So um definitely a bond for life.

Therese 13:49

I would agree. And it and it's something that unless you've been through it, it's difficult to express to others. It is what that is. Yes. They're like, what? I I've tried. Um and either other even other law enforcement officers because they go through their own academies, regional academies, um, which are great, but they have a little, it's a little looser. They go home at night or they you know, and you are sent home late on a Friday because you never pass inspection the way you want to. Uh and then you wind up coming back early on Sunday. So you're gone maybe a day and a half, and that day and a half where your body and your mind are trying to recover, don't quite recover, and then you start again.

Danielle 14:35

Yes.

Therese 14:36

And uh and I I know a lot of people from my generation and prior to my generation of going through, will say that the recruit schools now are not as tough. And I would say they are. They're just different. They're they're different. And they're and they're geared to a different generation who has different skills and tools than what we brought to the table. So the recruit school is now geared still to challenge them, but on the level of their new tools and their new abilities.

Danielle 15:06

So that is a beautiful way to explain that. That the best way I've heard that explained.

Therese 15:17

I'm I'm I'm glad to help. But honestly, that it's the truth. It's the truth.

Danielle 15:24

It is.

Therese 15:24

So, and I've met some of these new troopers. Uh luckily, I'm still, you know, the Brighton Post, my my mother post, my forever home post. Uh I've met some of the young troopers. They are solid uh young men, young women that are out there doing a job that is just as thankless as it ever has been, but just as important as it ever has been. And I'm very proud of them. When I see uh blue goose to this day and I see a a trooper, I just am so proud for them and just pray for their safety because it is a world out now that is not necessarily law enforcement supportive. Uh I feel that I went through an era that it was more so, which was great. Uh, but I've seen a decline in that, especially since COVID. And the young men and women that are willing to put that uniform on today and stand tall and do that job deserve a certain type of respect because not everybody will do that, and that's seen in our recruiting.

Danielle 16:33

Yeah.

Therese 16:33

Uh it's tough to get people to even walk through the door. But the ones yeah, the ones that do, good on them because they're here. They're and every police officer I've ever met, they want to be here to protect. That is the that has always been the bottom line. Why do you want to be a police officer? And the and most of them, 90% of them say because I feel the need to protect my community.

Danielle 17:06

Yeah.

Therese 17:07

It's protection.

Danielle 17:08

Yeah, absolutely.

Therese 17:09

So law enforcement is that job. Emergency management also does that on a different level. Um, I like to say we're I'm no longer a first responder, I'm a second responder. Yes. Right? So, um, but I'm still here to protect in my way. So we're gonna let the frontline people do the frontline things, and then we're gonna make sure that those frontline people have what they need through my emergency management position.

Danielle 17:37

Absolutely. And on that note, we're gonna talk more about that in just a minute. So we're going to take a little break. When we come back, we'll chat about your work in emergency management and public safety communications in Livingston County.

Therese 17:52

Thank you.

PSA 17:56

Being prepared is a part of who you are. But it's especially important in the case of a disaster. Be informed about possible emergencies in your area. Make a plan that covers where you go in an emergency. Build a kit for the things you need to do behind. There's no one more capable of planning for your situation than you. Start your plan today. Go to ready.gov slash my plan.

Pulled Into Emergency Management

Danielle 18:24

Welcome back to Tune In with MPSCS. We are back with Therese Cremonte, Livingston County Emergency Manager. You have had an impressive career. Could you tell us what led uh led you on the path to law enforcement and emergency management?

Therese 18:41

Well, that's a long path, but I will do my best to tell you. So um, having grown up in a family of first responders and military, uh, it was a pretty natural choice. So I was the oldest of five. We lived on a farm. Uh we were very, we'll call it active. Some people might say feral. Uh, but but I had a grandfather who was a World War II veteran and not just a veteran, but spent four and a half years in the Pacific jumping off boats and hitting islands. I had a grandfather in 1929 who became a Chicago police officer and stayed until the early 60s. Um, his two brothers were also Chicago police officers. My father uh was a firefighter after having been drafted for the Vietnam uh era. He wound up in Florida, luckily for him. I had an uncle who was uh he served in Korea. Um and then I was raised by him as a firefighter in the city of Benton Harbor. So when he got out of service, he knew he wanted to be a firefighter, and Benton Harbor, Michigan was hiring. And everybody who ever lived in Chicago knows that if you're anybody, you have another property somewhere on that west coast of Michigan. So my father always wanted, and my mother also wanted to be farmers. Uh, and so these city kids went and got a plot of land, and my father became a full-time firefighter for the city of Benton Harbor, and that's how I grew up. So all of his, many of his friends were also firefighters, police officers. I had the family background. When I was 16 years old, I was in a high school class for law enforcement, and it was taught by our football coach, who was a retired Flint officer, a big, strong gentleman, and I decided at that moment that I wanted to be at 16 years old a Michigan state trooper. And so he pulled the class and he said, Who in here would like to thinks they're going to pursue a career in law enforcement? And myself and mostly other young men raised their hands, uh. And he looked at me and he goes, Really? And I said, Yes, I would like to be a state trooper. And he laughed, like belly laughed, called me Little Flower, and and said that um he was a nice man, but it was the era, right? So we're talking 1982. And uh and he was a flint, he was a retired Flint fella. And he said, Well, they're gonna stick you Negaunee and you'll be making those troopers' cookies. And I'm like, Okay, I mean, I you know, back then it is what it is. I when I graduated recruit school, I did go back and say hello to him and let him know what I had done, and he shook my hand and put his hand on his shoulder. He said, I'm proud of you. So uh that was kind of a nice that's a full circle moment, yeah. It was a full circle moment. He was a very, he was a good man. Um anyway, so uh from there, you know, came to Brighton. I never had any aspiration to be an emergency manager. It was all very accidental and almost against my will. So I think you're an emergency manager just naturally as a police officer, you know, as they say, one riot, one trooper, right? So you're always managing things, planning ahead. Uh, if I get called to this, you know, you've you already kind of have the basics to do that, you know, that preparation, that planning, the training. Um, you do do exercises, but you feel in law enforcement that it's just you and your beautiful little law enforcement bubble.

Danielle 22:34

Yes.

Therese 22:34

Okay. If you're a mother, same thing, emergency management. Motherhood is all about managing emergencies before they happen.

Danielle 22:43

Yes.

Therese 22:44

So the tools are there. Um, I I became a sergeant, I'm at Brighton. Uh a lieutenant, a brand new, well, first lieutenant, a name Tom Sands, became the post commander at Brighton. And I was his operations sergeant, I was his senior sergeant. And I'll be honest, I that post cannot fall, right? That post is not gonna fall under my watch. And when you bring a new lieutenant in, you know, they don't make necessarily know the area. And I made sure lieutenant was successful, I made sure the post was successful because that's what we do in the state police. The operation cannot fail. If it does, your troopers suffer, therefore your community suffers. So not acceptable. Anyway, I worked very well with first lieutenant sands for several years. He got double jumped to a captain's position within emergency management homeland security division, and I was very sad to see him go because I thought he was a good boss. But continued my my sergeant's trek and business with my new post commander who had come in to replace him because my world is law enforcement. I live in the Brighton area, I raised my children, life is good. And I got a phone call. And it was Captain Sands, and he said, Therese, I would love for you to come and work in the emergency management homeland security division. I need a sergeant at the training center. I think that you would be perfect. And I said, Well, no. No, I wouldn't go. Yeah, pretty much. I don't, I don't, I don't know uh how direct I was or was. I said, I I don't know that that would be a good fit for me, Cap. I said, you know, I'm pretty comfortable here. He goes, I said, besides, uh, they'd have to burn an exemption. Nobody's gonna burn an exemption for me. I'm just uh I'm just a little sergeant of Brighton doing my thing. And so he got an exemption. I think I think what I said to him, I said, Well, Cab, if you can get the exemption, I'll come. Right? Because in my world that was a safe pet. Well, he got the exemption. Nobody was more surprised than me and my current post commander. So off you go. Off I go. Um, but I'm telling you, so I I got there and they put me in the they just redid the training center. It's gorgeous. When I got there, we had a little, well, we'll call it the trailer. It was uh it was an attachment, it was a modular attached kind of to the building, and that's where the training folk were. And I was there with another sergeant, and uh we had uh a lieutenant 14 that was running the business. So you know two uniforms there when I got there. I was the third. And right away they're trying to indoctrinate me, and they're talking acronyms all over the place, you know, the AAF or the HSGP, and then you know, the EMPG and acronyms, acronyms. And I'm just like, English. Will you two please speak English to me? And so they handed me a book of acronyms, emergency management acronyms, that I was like, wow. Let me I'll get back to you, so,

Training Center Lessons And Grant Work

Danielle 26:13

You need to go make note cards.

Therese 26:15

Yes, and so I would tell you that my first experience, I was really thorough, I had 20 years in the department at the time, felt over my head. I thought, oh my gosh, I'm gonna let the captain down. I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Uh this is all very foreign to me. But when you grow where you're planted, I embrace this. I'm like, nope, I am needed here. This is what I'm being asked to do. And so I dug in. And I learned a new discipline because that's what it is. And I think probably the most interesting thing about it is emergency management is its very own discipline. Yeah, it is different than just law enforcement, different than just fire, different than EMS, different than communications, different than health, but it brings it all together. You become the glue that holds it, you become the mortar that keeps the house together. And that's what you had to learn. You had to get out of that law enforcement bubble. Like it's not all about you anymore, right? So, and then at the state level in EMHSD, not only do you have to do that, but then you have to reach out to local partners, so to county, to um locals, and bring them in because at the end of the day, when things go bad, they're gonna look to the state for resources and guidance and all of that. So the nice thing about having been in Livingston County and having been brought up in this culture here with One Piece app, um, I will say that we are always been a team. We've always been a team in this county. I grew up in my career as a trooper in this county, and so I was able to see that first of all, all of our law enforcement partners, county, the townships, the cities, we all get along with the state police. We all work together, we we we cover each other. Um, and then our other partners with FIRE and EMS also we were very close. So I understood that team concept going in, and I think that served me very well because now I have to get outside my law enforcement bubble, but I'm in a training center that is primary firefighters. And of course, that's my family because my father is a firefighter, two of my brothers are firefighters. And the beautiful thing about that is I understand firemen a little bit, and they're very clever, they're very handy, they're very hardworking, you know, and they like to poke policemen, and policemen like to poke them. I would hope in good fun most of the time, right? Uh, because honestly, at the end of the day, we need each other. And it was great working with these guys uh in the training center because they were the premier guys in their field training others in ICS or Hazmat or whatever it is that people were coming to the training center for. Um, and I could talk to them and ask them questions about trainings that I was either going to attend or send other people nationwide to attend because part of my job in that training center was getting people out to the free uh FEMA training, whether it's firefighters, uh police officers, you know, it was it was great. It was a great job. I loved it. And then after a year, and I'm feeling very comfortable, uh Captain Sands again comes to me and says, you know, uh we're gonna have a vacancy in the grant unit, and we would like you to fill that for just a moment. And I was like, boring, no, I was like, yes, I yes, Cap, whatever you need. So again, they they bring me into um the operations center, which was at the basement of Collins Road back then, and I was like, wow, okay, and now I'm back to my report writing because everyone knows that a good a good trooper will write a good report. This is all about putting the plans together, it's all about making sure that the grants are put out and taken in, and you know, you're meeting deadlines and that the descriptions are there, and that the locals who have projects send the projects in, they meet the allowability, all of those things. Now, when I I'm very excited about this because I learned it, and it's it's very important to the EMHSD workings. Yes. Usually you talk to people, their eyes glass over.

Danielle 30:54

Oh no, no, you're empty.

Therese 30:57

But yeah, that's okay. But it's like, but you learn, I I got to learn the intricacies of the grants, of the plans, um, and just kind of more of the the outreach than to the locals, right? To the counties and to those EMPG programs that are larger, so that are actually municipalities. That was an important lesson. I love training. I'm a national trainer. When I was at the state police post, I was a field training officer. I taught small squad tactics for years. I like to train. This was really out of my comfort zone because it's a whole new, again, discipline, but it's another facet of that discipline. So I did that. Um and then I was lucky enough to promote into a lieutenant's position, a lieutenant 14 position that allowed me to be a district coordinator for region one, which is 10 partners within the region. So uh 10 programs. So that's nine counties to include my own, uh, and uh the city of Lansing. So that taught me a little something about managing expectations with our local partners, um, helping them when they need help, standing by when they need me to stand by, um, and to keep those relationships strong, and that's the important part. And that again goes back to my time as a trooper at Brighton. You learn to foster those relationships, right? You learn to be a team builder and a team member, and when needed, a team leader. Yeah, sometimes that will change depending on what's happening, and you have to be okay with that. But that's how you build the best teams. And so, Region one, I was they were beautiful, they were wonderful to work with. It was a little scattered when I'd first gotten in there. They'd had um, they had been without a coordinator for a minute, and so you know, people start to act in their own silos. Um, but we were able to to talk and pull people to the table, and they worked great together as a team, as a system, and I would say to this day, Region 1 is still a very strong region. And it I was really proud because at the time uh it was Don Arbeck who was the dispatch director who was running EM out of dispatch during that time period. Uh, we're a standalone now here in Livingston. We can talk about that later. But he uh I would he was also my senior officer. When I came to Brighton, he was my first back then they called him senior officers, FTO.

Danielle 33:39

Yeah.

Therese 33:40

And I was with uh Don and he was a very strong comms guy. He worked with MSP Comms for a very long time, and uh he was part of the initial um 800 setup here in Livingston County. Uh but he was the EM here at the time, and so now I'm the district coordinator, and he's part of my region, and I'm dealing directly with him now on a completely different level. And that was that was a proud moment for me because I always really appreciated Donnie. He taught me some very good things. Uh so from there, um there was a need at the Lansing Post, and so I I did what I could at Region One, I felt I'd kind of gotten there, I'd been in EMHC for five years. I could have comfortably retired out of there, but um I was asked to go to the Lansing Post as the assistant post commander, and I was happy to do that for my final few years, and it was wonderful because again you create that team. And I had a post full of young wanting to do the right things, troopers, and they were great. Uh I had males, female, and they really worked hard. I had a great collection of sergeants. I and my boss was Joe Thomas, he was the post commander at the time, wonderful to work with, and I like to say I finished my last two years on a high note with that. But I learned things at EMHC that helped me there as well. So, and and part of that is the other the other piece from law enforcement that you always you don't always get at a post is working productively with our civilian employees, with our non-enlisted. Um they're great. They're so much smarter than most of us. You know, they are. They just um because their dedication is on a different level. They're not out there in a car. Um but they have the same dedication and the same want to serve, and they're just great people. They do.

Danielle 35:54

It just it comes from a different place. It does. You know, it it does. I agree with you completely. And um your emphasis on building those relationships is absolutely paramount. I mean, ever none of us can do our jobs, whether it's in emergency management or it's in communications or it's in law enforcement or it's in fire or EMS or dispatch. You just you you can't do it without those cohesive, yeah, two-way, multi-way relationships with each other. Absolutely.

Therese 36:29

So everything that I have done and that I've been recognized for, I would say that's not done by myself. So when they send me somewhere to build a team, or that's my goal when I get there, I cannot do that without their consent, right? I they have to be part of the want to do that. And so anything that I've done is that's been successful, it's because other people so even here in my current job, my number two is uh Kristi Wahoski. And I'll be honest, I couldn't be as successful as I am without Kristi because we're a team. And uh again, a lot of things I can attribute to everything. It actually goes back to somebody else or other people. The reason I'm successful as emergency management in Livingston County is because I'm supported by my chiefs. Law enforcement, EMS, uh, FIRE, our health department. They're a very supportive team. If if that breaks, I'm ineffective. So success is really based on on others, not only input, but buy-in. So yeah, it's very important to have that team mentality.

Danielle 37:47

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Education Paths And The PEM Designation

Danielle 37:50

It's a great conversation. Thank you for those those points there. Um, what educational path did you end up pursuing that has gotten you here?

Therese 38:01

Well, it's interesting. You can there's a lot of different things that you can do. So people, you know, will say, Oh, experience is more important than education. Education's more I would tell you that it depends on the person and it's equal. So back in the 80s, right, that's when the we're all gonna go to college for something. So here I want to be a Michigan State trooper, and um, I know that that's gonna be a tough road to get in because they don't take just anybody. And honestly, back then, you had a thousand people lining up for a civil service test. I mean, it was really uh a career that people wanted to get into. And so I'm going to go to college and I'm going to seek a law enforcement uh management degree. And who's the best college? And people would argue back then that it was either Ferris State, back then college, it became a university, I think, my last year there, Ferris State University or MSU. Now, the reason I chose Ferris State University, and my girlfriend who went through recruit school with me, uh, she she was an MSU graduate, so we go back and forth. Uh, but they had an academy. They had an actual academy that would put you through it, I would say it was a mini-version, a little a little taste, if you will, yeah, of maybe an MSP academy, but it was a police academy. Yeah. And so when you went through that academy at Ferris, you were certified. Okay. Okay, so that kind of made a difference. So there were people that graduated with me from Ferris that could step into a police role. So they were being recruited by other agencies. So for instance, Battle Creek called me every weekend. We would, isn't it hard? Don't you want to come here? No. Thank you. I appreciate you though. Um, but we could be hired right out of college, and then some of us said, no, we really want to be in the state police, and so you know, there was that additional, you didn't that the college academy was fine, but you would go through the state police academy, and that was all right. So so that was what the difference was. I if you went to MSU, you didn't come out certified. Yeah. So that's why, but you came out, you know, they have great academics. I'll never diss MSU, they're a good school, and produced a wonderful, wonderful people that went uh through recruit school, also, my one of my good friends in particular. But um yeah. So did that. Uh there were people that sought their master's degrees uh later, and that's great because those people um have that want and need for that additional um academic expansion. I had four kids and they were all gonna go to college. So it became in my world, because again, I made a good living, but that costs, right? There's costs to living and working the way that you do and having a number of children. So I focused instead on internal training for myself.

Danielle 41:05

Yeah.

Therese 41:05

Um, and and it actually benefited, and it would be training that benefited others. So for instance, going to FTO school, um, being a uh a trainer for um small squad tactics, uh, I went to DARE school. I mean, there were just different educational opportunities that I could take in-house that didn't impact my finances and didn't impact really my kids, you know. So um there are other people that that did take the master's degree and I I applaud them. I do. That's wonderful. And there are some that within our department that got their doctorate, and I think that's wonderful as well, too, because that's what worked for them. You can take any of those, or you don't have to. Right. We're getting back to the trades now uh where you just need your you need your high school education, and you should be able to write a report. Yeah. And you should be able to use good grammar and all that stuff. Apparently, ChatGTP is making the world a better place. I don't know. But yeah. So in that case, do you have experience? And the number one experience I will give you is for instance, for police officer, do you have military experience?

Danielle 42:14

Right.

Therese 42:14

Okay, because you understand discipline, you understand a ring structure. Uh they don't necessarily need a formal formal secondary uh education, right? But what I chose to do. And and there are there are those that not only do the military, but then get their secondary education. Again, there's so many paths, and none of them are wrong. Right. I will say that. None of them are wrong. All of them have value. But um, but once I got in, going to staff and command was a big deal for me. Um, I really enjoyed that. Again, that was something that kind of took it to the next level. It was it gave you um master's degree level work because you had to write a thesis and you had to present, and there were different um aspects of that that I thought were very good, very challenging. Um, and again, it did not impact me financially or the kids. Um, and that was a wonderful experience. And I still have friends that I talked to that I went to that staff and command.

Danielle 43:10

Yeah, because that does bring people together from other organizations as well.

Therese 43:14

It does and I think the most important part about that training is the networking with other officers, other communities, right? In law enforcement. So, and I know there's a staff of command for fire too. I would highly recommend that supervisors go to a staff and command if they can because it's really, I think, a beneficial training.

Danielle 43:35

Yeah.

Therese 43:36

So um so that was that, and then just the experience. Like I say, when you when you become a trainer, uh you don't want to spend all your time away training. Uh you want to have enough training that you're you're utilizing and you're bringing I always said this if you're bringing it back to the post or you're bringing it back to the work unit and you're sharing it. With others.

Danielle 44:00

Yeah.

Therese 44:01

But you don't want to be gone training all the time because then you lose touch with what's really happening. Yeah. So when you lose touch with what's really happening, it actually impacts your ability to train. Yeah. Because you're no longer relevant. A part of what's going on.

Danielle 44:18

Right. Exactly. I agree.

Therese 44:20

So there's a balance there. Because I've I've seen people that okay, um, they're away training all the time.

Speaker 3 44:26

Yeah.

Therese 44:27

But they have to come, you have to come back and and do the job too, and not only do the job, but then help others know what you know now, yeah. So that they can do the job. Yeah. So there's there's a balance there. Um, but I think that self-improvement is different for everyone, but that was what I did. Um, then I went and uh I got the PEM, our professional emergency management designation when I was in the EMHSD. Now that was a choice too. Um that took some time. Uh the PEM is great if you're going to stay in Michigan in emergency management. It goes a long way. Uh it's different than the SEM. The SEM is nationwide. The PEM is strictly for Michigan. Michigan. Um and that was developed probably, I want to say 2007, 8. Okay. The PEM board could correct me with that. And it's gradually caught fire. And I'm proud to say we have, I don't know, 15, 20 people in Livingston County that have their PEMs. They're not all in emergency management, but they're in different fields that connect to that. That makes me very proud. And the PEM is important because uh it gives you that baseline of what is expected. And it's self-driven mostly. And so that shows that you want to take the initiative to learn more about this discipline, which I will tell you is a standalone discipline. It should not be uh under the umbrella of anything uh other than emergency management. So uh the PEM has uh twenty one different classes that you have to take. Some are a couple hours, some are several days. 21. Five of those classes are in-person classes. And it's everything from the professional development at FEMA level classes, those are mostly uh independent study IS classes that you can do self-paced. And then you've got your NIMS, which is your everybody who's a a uh first responder should have this anyway. It's the ICS 100, 200, 700, 800. If you're a supervisor, you should have the ICS 300. I know you have that.

Danielle 46:38

Yes, I do. I was there.

Therese 46:40

Um again, all part of that. Uh, and then they have other things. Now, one of my favorites are the communication pieces. So, public information officer training and awareness. There's two different classes for that. So important because communications, as you know, very important in any kind of response field, whether it's emergency management or as a first responder, name the discipline. You have to be able to communicate with the public. You have to be able to give them information on safety, on expectations, on timelines, but you have to do it in a way that is not going to incense panic or cause additional duress. So that is great information to have, especially in the emergency management field. So I have been a PIO since I was in the state police. This is even before the PEM. I was made a um a public information officer. Uh Kristi, my number two, is a trained PIO. Uh, our EPC, our emergency preparedness coordinator in the health department, she is also a PIO, and all three of us have been activated for different things here in this county. So of all of the PEM classes, and I'm not saying any is more important than the other, but those two I think are some of the most valuable. They also have the HSEEP, which teaches you how to do exercise training.

Danielle 48:08

Yeah.

Therese 48:08

Very important, right? Because training and exercise is a huge part of this. And I'm sure we're gonna talk about that more later. But um that education piece, that that just keeping yourself uh relevant and trained in the discipline, no matter what your discipline is, but especially emergency management, because it's so diverse, there's so many different facets of emergency management that sometimes it's difficult to stay up on everything. Right now, AI, data centers, okay, what are the hazards to those? Uh plans that are constantly changing. Uh and I know you'll appreciate this, but when we first got when I first got here, our emergency operations plan, IT was listed under the communications annex. Those okay, so 1977 was our first EOP, right? Our emergency operations plan. I don't think IT even existed. I don't yeah. When it when it took hold, probably in the early 2000s, they just shoved it under communications. This is a type of communications. It is two very distinct, very important things. Yeah. Especially an emergency operations plan. If one fails or the other fails, it's not gonna be this, right? So in that emergency operations plan, I will tell you that at least in region one, maybe statewide, I don't want to brag. Um, but I saw that, I'm like, well, why is this here? This needs to be its own annex in this plan because they are no longer the same. Maybe they were once when it was, you know, IT was a baby, but they're not. Not now. So things like that staying current and relevant, what's relevant now? What are the hazards and things that are important now to plan for or to consider what's going to impact the community? It's ever changing.

Danielle 50:01

Yeah.

Therese 50:02

And you have to stay on top of that.

Danielle 50:04

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Making Emergency Management Standalone

Danielle 50:06

That all kind of segues perfectly into the next question, which is what really motivated you into your current role here as an emergency manager.

Therese 50:19

Well, interestingly enough, so um I was at the Lansing Post and uh I loved the Lansing Post again. One of the probably I finished I finished my career with the MSP at just the top of the mountain. They were wonderful. But it was time for me to come home. Yeah. Uh so that drive to Lansing was seven years for me in all sorts of weather, including the storms of 2013.

Danielle 50:48

No, I know it well. I was in recruiting at that time, driving the same path you were driving.

Therese 50:55

Yes. And uh anyway, maybe it was 14. It was anyway, it was heck they were heck of a storm. So it was time to come home. And this position opened. And what I found intriguing about this position is they had pulled it out of dispatch, which emergency management is interesting because again, when the law was created, Act 390 in 1976, which creates the need to have an emergency manager, um they didn't know where to put it. So, what did they do? They gave it to the cops, right? So Sheriff's Department, state level, state police, where it is today. But they gave it to the Sheriff's Department. Does it belong there?

Danielle 51:38

Not really.

Therese 51:39

Here's my opinion. This is Theresa's opinion, because we still have emergency management under all sorts of different umbrellas. Right. But in 2026, I will tell you, and has been for the last, I don't know, I'd say way before this, 2010, 11, 12, emergency management has grown to the point that it should be its own standalone, and here in Livingston County is. So they had pulled it out of, it had landed in dispatch. Uh again, we can go through the many reasons why. Um and they had pulled it out. And I knew that, and I thought, ooh, okay, right. And um when I interviewed for it, they said it you're gonna be your own department, we're gonna house you in the EMS training center here. Um we're just gonna have you answer to uh the EMS director for a short time and then you're gonna stand on your own. I it was kind of an experiment. They didn't they didn't know, right? They they went out on the limb to say we we think this should be on its own, but just in case we're gonna put you here, but it's only temporary. So at the end of 2019, I solidly, it's just me, the county administrator, and the board chair.

Danielle 52:57

Okay.

Therese 52:58

So that's that's my chain of command. Yeah. And uh it's great. And I'll say this that when um I was answering to the EMS director who was part of my hiring, wonderful. Just let me run my department, let me build my department, yeah, and do what I needed to do. Since that time, Kristi has come along. We got her started as a part-time planner, and now she's my full-time number two and can work in my with my full authority if I am not here. Yeah, which is wonderful. So here I am building a department, and that was what actually motivated me to come because I thought, okay, I love my state police. I will always be in my heart a state trooper. Yep. Um, but it was time now. I had more than my 25 in. Yeah, I had just gone into the drop program, and they called me within hours and said, We would like to hire you. Wow. And hours, I know, because we're work at the we're used to a state system.

Danielle 53:58

Yeah, there's no hours, it's it's days, it's weeks, right? Right.

Therese 54:02

So um they literally called me within four hours and said we'd like to hire you or we'd like to hire you. Great job. And I said, Yes. After the stunned silence for just a moment, I was processing. I was like, yes, I would like to accept the job. Thank you. That's awesome. And then had to um go into uh Lieutenant Thomas's office and go, I quit. No, he was we're good friends, and uh I and uh anyway, so I finished out that month. So I finished out the month of January 2016 and took this position. Uh and if I was looking for a challenge, a challenge is what I found. A challenge is what I found. So um it was something different, and I did come home, and this county has been nothing but lovely to me, I'll be honest. Um, so switching gears, trying to decompress from the state police, and then learn a new discipline, uh, it was a very interesting task, but it was something that I knew that I could build and bring forward. So I'm the fourth emergency manager that's ever been here. I'm the first female. So Dick Winsett, who I like to call the father of emergency management in Livingston County in 1977, when that legislation landed, and they said, ooh, let's give it to the Sheriff's Department. He was a young lieutenant in the Sheriff's Department at that time. And he wrapped his arms around it, and I I believe it was until 2007 that he was the emergency manager. Uh, and then it went to Don Arbic, okay, and then to Mike Kinaschuk.

Danielle 55:47

Okay.

Therese 55:48

Um, Don was retired trooper. Mike Kinaschuk retired chief from Brighton City.

Danielle 55:54

Okay.

Therese 55:54

And so, police. And so it came open, and I was like, I think I have the skills to do that. And that was the other important part, is if it hadn't been for Captain Tom Sands pulling me out of my comfort zone, me taking five years to learn a completely new discipline.

Danielle 56:18

And all the acronyms that go with it.

Therese 56:20

And all the acronyms, like drinking water out of a fire hose that first couple years, I was wondering if I'd made the right choice. And then this opportunity came up, and I said, I think I have the skills to do this. And my number one rule, just for me personally, is if you do something, if you go somewhere, make it better when you leave than when you came. And in a humble way, not in a look-at-me way. Like, if I'm going somewhere, I'm walking into this, I'm gonna find a way to make it better without making it harder for the people that are there, because we've seen that too. Um, make it better than when you came. And so I really had that opportunity here because Dick Winsett, who was a wonderful EM and had worked all those many years to make this department something through through the uh terror attacks of 9-11, uh, through the Columbine incidents, through all those things that have really helped set up emergency management for what it is today. Because it's more than just bad weather and it's more than just flooding, it's terror attacks, it's you know, yeah, mass incidents, it's all those things. He set it up beautifully, but he was not part of the commun the computer age. So um when they gave it to Don and they gave it to Mike, they were split between uh dispatch, which as you know is a very demanding job. Yeah, and so they were getting it done because they are men of action, both of them. But could it have been better? Yes. Yeah, because the discipline is hungry and growing, yeah, and so is dispatch because of technology. Yes. So the county administrator at the time had that foresight to say, okay, uh Mike is leaving, we're going to make this its own discipline because it needs to be. And then I was lucky enough to get that position. And so I had the uh responsibility and the honor to bring it to where it is today.

Rebuilding Plans And An EOC From Scratch

Therese 58:47

So when I walked in, the EOC was a classroom with two maps and a tube TV on a cart. It had a VCR though. VCR hole. Um, and I was like, okay, we need to make this better, right? Um, at least bring it up to snuff. Um, I had a giant coffin-sized tub of paperwork that I had to sort through and figure out what was in this, what needs to stay and be scanned, and what needs to be ground up. And there was a lot that needed to be ground up, and there was some stuff that needed to be saved and scanned. So that the EOP had been cut and pasted over the years. Yeah. Again, it's a time issue, right? You can only do what you can do. Especially if you're splitting your time between EM and dispatch. Other things, correct. And so that got torn apart piece by piece and rebuilt. There were things, um, so for instance, with the large accident that we had in December of 2016, 53 vehicles, uh, three fatalities, terrible weather, it was a thing. Um, I was out on scene in my truck with a radio and a and a cell phone to assist because that was my EOC. I was able to bring my EOC to the scene. Yep, because that was all you had. And because it was on either side of a river, you know, we had an East Command and a West Command, and the vehicles were so packed amongst each other that they had to pass victims through vehicles to get them over the guardrail and across an unimproved median to the eastbound lanes to remove them from the scene.

Danielle 1:00:49

Yeah.

Therese 1:00:50

Uh it was just a horrific event. But my EOC was the inside of that vehicle, and what we were able to do is call in special resources with a phone and a radio and ask the village of Fowlerville, their administrative offices, to set up a reception center for our victims and our families, which they did uh because we had to get the victims off the scene. Most people were in shock, they were not dressed appropriately for the weather, we had no place to put them. The sheriff's department, who did a stellar job, had to be able to sort through people who was in what car. I just they for them to get what they got done, and I think it took them about 13 hours, it was miraculous that they worked the way they did as quickly. But getting those people off-scene so they can be collected safely, so that the Sheriff's Department could set up a system to get their information about their vehicles, about who's in the car, who was injured, all of that. Um, the village provided pizza and they provided water, and there were bathrooms where they could be safe. It was warm, all the things. Uh we used our LETS buses, and our LETS is one of our best resources here. They are so wonderful. They're such great partners. That was the first time we used them in an event like that. They have been used since for evacuations and other emergency stuff. They are wonderful. We we can call them in and they will help us uh move people, move victims. Cannot say enough about how wonderful our LETS buses are. I I know you're Livingston County residents.

Danielle 1:02:23

I I do know, I do know they they come through for a lot of things, and you just you don't know until you ask and you loop them in as a partner.

Therese 1:02:32

Right. Yeah. And uh honestly, that was it. That was that was how we ran it. Uh so that challenge I think is kind of what drew me. Plus, it's good to be home in Livingston County. And even though I grew up in the southwest part of the state, and that will always be home to me, right? The young me.

Speaker 3 1:02:51

Yeah.

Therese 1:02:51

But this version of me, my adult version, my career version, my family version for my family, I'm a Livingston County girl. Yeah. And um, it was good to come home, and it was good to serve again the people of this community in this capacity. Yeah. So, and also my other responders, my fellow responders. Yeah.

Danielle 1:03:12

So and on that note, we're gonna talk more about that in just a minute. So we're going to take a little break. When we come back, we'll chat about your work in emergency management and public safety communications in Livingston County.

PSA 1:03:25

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The Emergency Management Wheel Explained

Danielle 1:03:57

That takes us to our next question, and it goes into the fact that you are a certified as a professional emergency manager, a PEM. Can you tell us what that means exactly and what does that training kind of entail? You touched on it a little bit, so I mean, if you just want to repeat that a little bit and maybe go into it a little bit more.

Therese 1:04:19

Sure. So the PEM is really actually an important, I think, credential. It's not a certification, it's a designation here in Michigan. Um, but it's great to have because it, especially for a new emergency manager, somebody getting into the emergency management discipline, even if you've gotten a master's degree from one of our wonderful universities, that it you can get a master's degree in emergency management, it's good to have the PEM. And the reason, and the other thing is we talked about networking earlier. You'll go through a PEM class and you will meet other people from around the state that are on that same journey, just like staff and command, right? Um you'll meet people from the state who are civilian employees or enlisted employees who are actually teaching the classes. And it's just a wonderful thing, first of all, for that networking, because the emergency management discipline and community is very small, and we pretty much know each other in this. And it's important because when we have big disasters and we have to call for help for out of county, important, right? Also important to know your state partners if you can't. So the PEM is wonderful just for the networking, but also to give you that basis. So with the 21 classes that are required to get your PEM, and they like to see you get it within two years. Okay, it's doable, it's self-paced. Um, the majority of the classes are independent study of the 21 classes. That means you can get on the computer, it might take you a day, it might take you a couple hours, but you can get through these. If you're a responder, you should already have the four main of ICS 100, 200, 700, 800. Um It's easy. It's there. And it really gives you that foundation for this discipline. The five in-person classes, they're great classes to have. But yeah, it's a great, it's something that really you should do. It's voluntary. Nobody's going to penalize you for not having it. But I would tell you that it is something that you should have if you want to continue this career. Yes. It just gives you that good and it's an accomplishment that you can feel proud of. And it costs no money unless you're traveling to take one of the in-person. Right.

Danielle 1:06:40

So absolutely. No, there's a lot of benefit in these classes. A, for the networking, and B, there's a skill set in knowing how to handle situations and how to apply them personally too. I mean, there's a benefit to all of these skills. So good stuff. Can you tell us what an emergency manager does? I mean, I think that we're we're covering this in our discussion. Maybe maybe we didn't need cue cards.

Therese 1:07:17

Well, I'll I'll give you the basics. So if you look at the wheel, right, you have planning, which is writing out the plans. We have all sorts of plans.

Danielle 1:07:26

Yep.

Therese 1:07:26

Um, we have the prevention, so that's community information. It mainly you you're getting your responders ready too, but your responders are always ready. The health department is always ready. They're already they're always planning. It's more the community, because the more the community can help themselves, the less the responders are going to have to do.

Danielle 1:07:44

Right?

Therese 1:07:45

So we want the community to be as prepared. So that in the prevention area, I look at that as being a lot of community outreach, some community or some responders being trained up on things. But you really want your community to be as prepared as possible, and that's only through good communication with them. Um and then, of course, you've got the response, right? What I like to call the big one. And what I think is interesting is the response, even though that's the most dramatic, like, oh my god, this just happened. Um the responders come, we're there to help with resources or whatever they need, public information, the partners are involved. But it's usually the shortest piece of that wheel. It's quick, it's handled, and then we go into the largest part, which is recovery. Now, recovery is going to take a minute, depending on how large and how impactful uh the circumstance is. So this is what I will say. I will also knock on wood. We've had some very exciting responses with little to no recovery because the impact was handled appropriately and quickly by our responders.

Danielle 1:08:55

Yeah.

Therese 1:08:56

Sometimes it's beyond their control. You can look nationwide. Right now, they're dealing with this big uh paper plant chemical mishap in the State of Washington. That recovery is gonna be a while. It's a little more enclosed because it's industrial and an industrial site now when it impacts a community. Okay. So probably the largest recovery in my tenure here has been COVID. We're still recovering because people are still upset and we're still seeing residual from that. People don't think about that as being part of COVID now, but it is. Things are very different since then. So recovery can take a very long time. It can take weeks, months, years. If you're lucky, it's short. It's usually the longest piece. And then mitigation, and people always ask me, well, what's the difference between mitigation and prevention? Mitigation is like, wow, that just happened. How do we keep that from happening again? If you look at 9-11 as the example, somebody stole our planes, hit our buildings. How do we keep that from happening again? And changes have been made. We lock uh cockpit doors, uh, they were checking our shoes for a while because of the the guy that was going to blow us up over Detroit over the DTW. That's mitigation. When you put things in place, when you raise houses out of the flood zone because the house got wiped out before, that's mitigation. Preventing is saying, ooh, okay, this might happen. What can we do if, you know, to prevent that from happening? Mitigation is wow, that just happened. How can we keep that from happening again? Right. It's more the afterthought, like now, how do we fix it? So that's kind of the wheel. Now, on a day-to-day, how does that look? It looks like Armageddon day-to-day, because it's little pieces of everything all at once. So we're dealing with schools, we're dealing with responders, we're dealing with uh the community, we're putting out messages on social media, uh, we're planning training, we're planning exercises. So training and exercises are huge for what we do. Um, plans. Plans have to be in place, and there's a cycle to that. We have our main emergency operations plan. That's good for four years. We just finished it, but we have to keep it updated. So, for instance, if a director that's in charge of an annex changes, we have to open up that plan. We have to make sure that director looks at it, agrees to it, says everything in there is still relevant, or adds something to track something, whatever, and then sign it again. So it's a living document. So we're constantly, constantly looking at that.

Plans Grants And School Drill Oversight

Therese 1:11:43

And then with that, Act 390 of 1976 says not only are we required to have that, but if you have a jurisdiction in your area that is over 10,000, they too need to have a support plan. Livingston County has 20 jurisdictions, nine of them have breached that 10,000. So nine additional plans, nine additional living documents that have a four-year. Now, we've done our best to keep it on a cycle so that we're not doing all nine at once, but they'll pop out, right? Anyway, again, I'll attribute that to Kristi. So uh, and then of course we have a hazard mitigation plan, which we're working on now. That has to be approved by FEMA. What it does for us is it allows us as a as a county to put in for hazard mitigation grants. So flooding mitigation, hazard mitigation, uh, the sicker, which is creating infrastructure, resilient infrastructure, that type of thing. If you don't have an approved plan, you cannot put in for those grants.

Danielle 1:12:55

Okay.

Therese 1:12:56

Once the county has one, we have to go to each individual jurisdiction, all 20, and ask them, would you like to adopt this? All you have to do is adopt it. You don't have no work involved. Okay. We just ask that you adopt it. If you adopt it, at some point, if you choose to put in for these mitigation grants, you're eligible. If you choose to not, you're not eligible. Which means if all of a sudden you want to do some flooding mitigation or there's some other issue happening and you think you could get a mitigation grant for it, if you haven't adopted this, you don't get it. You you can't apply for it. All 20 of our jurisdictions in Livingston County have adopted them in the past. So we're hoping in this next cycle that they will continue to do that because again, it benefits it's an insurance policy. It benefits them. Is there a little work to that grant for them? There is. But it's a I believe it's a 25-75 split on it, which means FEMA will pay for 75% of the project, and then the community or the jurisdiction is responsible for 25%. Sometimes that's a good deal, depending on what you need. So we have we go so there's a little salesmanship too. Uh so we have to again communicate uh with the jurisdictions. They have changes in leadership every four years or so. And we've had that here. And so the next time we do this cycle, we will be re-educating people as to why. And they will have the option then to bring it before their board. So there's a constant um education piece to this that we are just you know explaining to people how we do things, why we do things. Yep. And then finally, there are the three grants that we manage, which is the EMPG, which is the emergency management program grant, the Homeland Security Grant Program, which is very important because that one is the one where we get equipment and training uh using FEMA funding for our local responders, and then our hazard mitigation or our has hazardous materials emergency planning grant, our HMEP, which has to do a lot with our CERA Title III. Those three grants on top of everything else keep us busy too because there's a lot of steps.

Danielle 1:15:07

Yeah.

Therese 1:15:07

Anybody who's ever dealt with federal funding knows there's allowability, first of all, is the project allowable? Secondly, between the lines, there's about you know six levels of approval, and then it has to come back down, there's a way to do everything. So it's a slow process. It is. There's more education there because when we talk to our responders, what they think that, hey, can we get this? And then we're just gonna write them a check and go, good luck. Um, and it's not, it's a process. Um, and again, we occasionally have to re-educate somebody who's new to the position, like how this works, but we're always happy to do that. Yeah. Because again, so at the end of the day, that's emergency management in a nutshell, and then there's the schools. Because again, there's legislation, right, that they're required ten drills. They have to give their schedule for their 10 drills to the emergency manager by September 15th of every school year. Okay. We have five school districts in this county. Each school district has a number of school buildings. Yes, it's 10 drills per school building. Five fire, three lockdown shelter in place, two tornadoes. There's different ways they have to do them. Different times of the anyhow, they send them directly to me and I review them. Now, our our school res our school liaison officers are wonderful, our school resource officers, because they assist, right? If I'm missing some drills. There's a couple other schools that we deal with that are um, they've got some top-notch people working on those, and they send them to me direct, and I can go direct with them. Don't worry about the SROs. But at the end of the day, the end of the year, and we're at the end of the year, there's a push at the beginning, and there's a push at the end, and there's a push around. And I I open and look at each one of them. I want to see what their what their issues are, if they've addressed them, I want to see if it went smoothly. I want to make sure it's the right drill. I want it, and at the end of the year, each school building has a file.

Danielle 1:17:13

Yeah.

Therese 1:17:13

And they better have 10 drills because that's what the legislation says. If there's a change in the drill, if you're gonna have it on Tuesday and they've changed it to the next Monday, they have to let me know. So then I have to throw that adjustment into the file. So schools are then their emergency operations plan, because schools are required to have an emergency operations plan. And so they will reach out. Our um religious um organizations now, too, have asked, gosh, how do we do an emergency operations plan? So I took the school template and I massaged it for a religious organization, and now they have a template if they wish, and I've had several of those uh organizations ask for those because everyone wants to know put together emergency operations plan. We answer questions about uh Coop and COG, which is continuing operations for let's say county government, maybe the court system, or um continuation of businesses, right? If there's an emergency or disaster, they want to know how to put together those plans. So Kristi and I become a resource for quite a few things. So if we're ever bored, I don't think that's a problem. We're never bored.

Danielle 1:18:30

I don't think there's enough of you between you and Kristi.

Therese 1:18:33

I could do two more people comfortably.

Danielle 1:18:35

I'm sure that you could. I am very sure that you could.

When To Open The EOC

Danielle 1:18:39

Can you tell us the process of opening an EOC?

Therese 1:18:43

Well, that's interesting because that's another responsibility of an emergency manager, is you have to have and maintain an emergency operations center. And as I described earlier, we had an operations center that wasn't really operable, especially for today's day and age in 2016. Uh so we created one uh here in the upper level of the EMS building, which is what we call a plug and play, because if you're going to use a bricks and mortar building, this building has many different uses, and it is a it's the headquarters and the training center for the EMS for our emergency medical uh so we took two rooms, we cord the floors, we put up the the clocks, and we have monitors. And in that event that we need to open a bricks and mortar EOC, we can stand it up in about an hour, and we have on several occasions. So we've done it for a protest that we wanted to make sure wasn't gonna get out of hand, we've done it for President Biden visiting, we did it for uh uh former president at that time candidate Trump when he came uh just a couple years ago. So we've opened it on several different occasions when we believe things could escalate. The key to an EOC is knowing how to open it. So we began by monitoring. So if we have an event, we'll monitor the event. If we sink, especially for weather, we can monitor it. Like, oh, this looks like it might be bad. We'll monitor it. Um, if something hits, we'll go out and we'll do an assessment, what we call a windshield assessment, and our windshield survey, and we'll see how bad it is. We'll be checking in with our responders who will be calling us, we'll hear them on the radio, uh, we'll get calls about DTE like turn it on, turn it on, no, turn it off, turn it off, it's on fire. So it's back and forth, all of those things. That actually how it escalates and how big it becomes is that'll determine whether or not we're going to open the EOC now. I say bricks and mortar because we learned something from COVID. And in COVID, we learned that we can have an EOC virtually. Yeah. And we did so for six weeks. We had an open EOC virtually, and we'd have our meetings virtually, and we decide how to distribute PPE through logistics virtually. We had all of the positions filled. So the EOC and how we decide a response is basically how big is it? Now the important part is, and this is what our responders need to know, and I've learned from Kristi and I we'll make the decision whether or not we're going to open the EOC because sometimes we don't need to do a full opening to get them what they need. Sometimes they're doing okay and we don't need to open it at all. We'll just go ahead and stand back and continue to monitor. The important part that they know is that whether it's open or not, we're not going to get in their way. They are the first responders. We are here if you need us, and she and I will start to set things up just in case. We'll make the phone calls, we'll find the resources. If it looks like this could escalate, we're gonna forecast what they may need, and we're gonna try to have it in the background so that they say when we need it, so that the wells are reprimed. I think the biggest challenge again is always communication. And the one things I say to them, and again, this is directly with dispatch, and they've uh they do their best to try to keep us you know up. But if there's some a situation that happens, the sooner we know. Okay, because if it escalates and now they need resources, it's very difficult to get them a resource right now. Right. So when we know something big's coming or they think there might be a need, we would like to get that phone call so that we can start putting things in place. Yeah. But that's it in a nutshell.

Danielle 1:22:38

Absolutely.

Local Disasters That Shaped The Playbook

Danielle 1:22:39

Um, would you like to talk about some of the significant incidences and emergencies that we've had in Livingston County? I know that we talked about the incident on um I-96 with the 53-car accident in December, um, because I have my list in front of me. Uh I know that you've touched on a couple other ones. We've had some significant um tornadoes come through. I don't know if you want to talk about those ones. Um, I've been here for those. Any any ones that stick out to you that you would like to mention and talk about the response that and the role that you played as an emergency manager.

Therese 1:23:24

Well, that's that's interesting because we've had a lot of varied things over the last 10 years, a lot of stuff. And again, it's we've had some very exciting things, the impacts, luckily, and I thank our responders for this because they're prepared, they're trained, they're they're exercised in what to do. So the first thing I'll mention is when I got here, so I started mid-February of 2016. And March, I hadn't even been here a full month. It was a Sunday morning, and I get a phone call and a text from one of my hell fire chiefs. We got a derailed train. They sent me a picture. It was a mess. It was, I was like, oh boy, right? I'm like, what is on that train? That was my number one question. What is on that train? And where is it? The good news was this very exciting, big mess. Empty grain cars, farmers field, low population area, no roadways were blocked, nobody was injured, and it did not appear to be sabotage.

Danielle 1:24:30

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Right, of all the blessings in disguise that that could be it really was.

Therese 1:24:38

Yes. So again, less than a month, and I'm thinking, what did I just get into?

Danielle 1:24:42

Right.

Therese 1:24:43

You know, it was early Sunday morning. So that's March. December, we have the giant three-car fatality out on I-96. The weather was terrible, three fatalities. Uh, we tried to, when I say we, the responders uh did their best to save one of the um victims. Uh we had other people that were victims in the vehicle or in the vehicle crashes, uh, but were still on scene. We had to find something to do with them. Uh partnership from Fowlerville, all of those things made it so much better. But I saw our responders do some absolutely heroic things that day. And I don't say that lightly, having come from that world, um, but wow, the conditions were unbelievable and did a great job. Now, fast forward, 2020 was a horrific year. Now we had stuff all the way leading up to that stuff, stuff, stuff. Uh 20, COVID. Okay, end of February. Just game on. Here we go. So COVID happened, and then we had protests throughout the entire state. Um we had one here in Livingston County after they had had some very uh violent ones break out not only in Grand Rapids but in Lansing. And we thought, oh no. And of course, we utilized the Michigan State Police MIOC to assist, you know, to watch all of that. And they're getting a lot of violent chatter, if you will. Okay. Uh just we should do this, we should do that, blah, blah, blah. And then we're like, oh no. And we did open the EOC and we did um, we had drones in the air, and we were making sure the crowd was okay. Now, how PD handled that and they did a great job. Uh, we did all the right things to make sure that the protesters are safe and that anybody coming, the cat we didn't have any counter-protesters. Yeah, thankfully. Um, the bottom line is protesting is fine as long as it remains a protest. And I'll die on the hill that you have the absolute right to protest as long as it stays peaceful and nothing's broken and nobody is hurt. Feelings don't count. Um, but you know what I'm saying. So they did. They came in and they said, This is what we're gonna do, and at five o'clock, we're gonna take a knee and it'll be over. Great. And then we had veterans that came in because the veterans just wanted to make sure that their veterans memorial and everybody was safe. They were very well behaved and very gentlemanly throughout the whole thing, and it was actually, I would call it, a peaceful, successful event during a very tumultuous tumultuous and tense time. Correct. And uh I gotta tell you, that was another moment where I was very proud of not only we were, you know, everybody was safe, and the community itself was safe, right? Um so that was that was an interesting uh event, and we were ready just in case something broke loose, but it didn't. Everybody did the right thing. It was and I thought it was a very nice event. Well done. How about that? Well, well done event. Ben uh we assisted with Midland when their dam broke that May. So uh that was a thing up there. Um that wasn't here. Yes. We sent our incident management team up to assist, and then I went out myself uh to assist that emergency manager uh for a couple days, um, made sure the declaration was in place for them and all of that. Came back home here in Livingston County, continued you know the work that we're doing here. It was just a year. Yeah, you know, COVID didn't stop, uh constantly putting out PPE, bringing PPE in, trying to find locations to store it, working with all of our partners locally. And then there was the whole, again, people are upset, right? There's a lot of community angst, and so not just in Livingston, statewide, yeah, nationwide. Uh, and we're still seeing some of that. Anyway, that was very interesting. Then moving forward, we have three storms three years consecutively in the same week in August. So it started in 21. We had a really nasty storm, but it was a nasty storm last week in August. In 22, another nasty storm, same week in August. And this time, trees are coming down everywhere. In fact, it was at five o'clock right at rush hour. I'm trying to get home. I got three trees to come down in front of me. And I'm now I'm out helping firemen. Then I get to my house, there's no power. I'm using my laptop as a battery for my phones because now I'm calling in for responders. I'm calling, you know, I'm calling DTE. I'm working off of two cell phones and a computer that's just now a battery, um, and my power is out, right? Um, I can't get back to the office because firemen are still cutting trees out of the roadways. Uh, it was it was an interesting time. The following year, 2023, is when the really big one comes in and really tore up the county, and that came from the northwest part of the county and tore itself all the way down diagonally through the county to the southeast part of the county. Um, we got hit hard. We had some homes that were very badly damaged. Uh it was a thing. Now, did we open the EOC fully then? No. The reason we didn't is it didn't make sense to our responders were all so busy that we would not have been able to fill all of the seats within that EOC responsibility. It was partially opened, and myself and Kristi did the resource requests and that what was needed. There wasn't as much needed. There was a lot of damage, not a lot of resource requests needed. There was a lot of power out, and we called in some, you know, DTE and they set up a water station and and things like that. But the responders themselves were handling their business. Were they taxed? They were. At the end of the day, uh the state, we made a declaration locally. Our board chair at the time said absolutely we should have a declaration. We send it into the state, the state lumps us in, we wind up with a federal declaration declaration, and seven months later, FEMA comes in with individual assistance. Very strange. I've never seen that before. Usually it's public assistance, which means we're gonna we're gonna help the budgets of your responders that were involved in this or your communities if you know the DPW was enacted, all of that. We had over time, we had those types of costs, but it didn't reach the level of PA.

Danielle 1:31:49

Okay.

Therese 1:31:49

And we did have um personal damage, right, throughout the county. Yeah. But generally, and I'm just gonna speak generally, um, when you see individual assistance, in fact, when they told me when the D the current DC from the state police came and told me you guys are going to get individual assistance, I said you mean public assistance. I corrected him about three times because it wasn't sinking in. Because individual assistance you usually see like the California wildfires, you see after Katrina. It's usually those really big catastrophic effects. Yeah, right. It's not that it couldn't happen. Right. But if we didn't reach the level of PA, it was very strange. Who am I to question? That it reached the level of individual assistance. But somebody said it did, and our county residents benefited by $700,000. So we set up shops so they could come in and report it, and we had a news release and all of that thing. We it was kind of a big deal.

Danielle 1:32:54

Yeah.

Therese 1:32:54

So the storm happened August of 2023, and then the FEMA assistants came seven months later. It was, I think, like March of 2024. Yeah. So again, I'm just a mere local emergency manager. And then, you know, the exciting stuff never stops. Then within three weeks, we had the oleum tanker that flipped over just into Tyrone Township.

Danielle 1:33:22

Oh, yeah.

Therese 1:33:23

That was um vaporizing sulfuric acid called oleum. Okay, now there's a motor carrier, you understand. Ideal. And it was I will tell you this: it was a motor carrier from the Brighton Post that was the champion along with one of our Corrigan's special response people who is a retired Brighton City officer. Those two, unbidden, well, the Corrigan guy was bitten, but the motor carrier took it upon himself to go and check it out, and they're looking at these shipping papers like, oh, get away.

Danielle 1:33:55

Yeah, yeah.

Therese 1:33:56

It's like we need to call, we need to call Theresa and Jamel immediately because Jamel's our PASMAP lead. And it had already been upside down for a while. And nobody they'd taken the um the driver away, he'd fallen asleep. And honestly, if a if a tanker's gonna flip over like that, flipped over on soft sand, yeah, they didn't know if the seals held or not. Nobody knew. We were all state police, Livingston County Sheriffs, Tyrone Township Supervisor at the time, uh the fire departments, everybody jumped in. We cleared houses, we evacuated nine houses because before we flipped that thing over, we had to get a radius, a safety radius. Um, because it's basically what that stuff is, is basically it's self it's vaporizing sulfuric acid. It's a human melting agent. It is not good stuff. Um, it it if it traveled and got into a residential area, yeah. Anyway, we cleared the highway, we cleared the secondary roads until we could flip this thing over. And luckily, there wasn't wind either. That was the other thing. National Weather Service, when they saw we made a MiSIMS report on it, and MiSIMs is a whole different thing. Um, but we did a MiSIMS on it, and Weather Service monitors that and they looked at that and they called us. We didn't even have to call them. So kudos again to our partners at the National Weather Service for heads up. But they said, listen, it's completely still. We don't know what's going on out there, but it's still right now. We thought, oof, that's good, right? Anyway, we flipped it over Kristi, myself, and then our um Lindsay Gestro, who is our our health department EPC. We were all doing our PIO stuff, getting information out to the media. We did a um, we actually did a media release on the at the uh staging area. It was a thing. Nothing was leaking. Again, thank you, right? Thank you. Very exciting. Grateful that there was no long-term impacts because that probably would have been a case study.

Danielle 1:36:04

Yeah.

Therese 1:36:05

That was once that's it's hard to contain that stuff once it out, once it's out.

Danielle 1:36:09

Yeah.

Therese 1:36:09

And uh anyway, it was on its way to Midland. And uh those things are on our expressways, as you know. They are they're on our railways, as you know. Yep. Um, and again, that's one of those things that live in the back of our minds.

Danielle 1:36:25

It it is. Certain placards will freak you out, and then the shipping papers will really get you. And then you go, oh, happy you take care of your equipment.

Therese 1:36:36

Exactly. And probably the last very exciting thing that we had was uh November of 2024. Uh we had an explosion at a pumping station right next to the GM Proving Grounds off of Kensington Road in Brighton Township. And that had nothing to do with the proving grounds, it was just they were renting the land. Um, and it again it was just an anomaly where vapor collected in a water tank and something sparked it and kaboom, and it hit a couple houses. There was the the concussion from the explosion, which by the way went through some trees and across the roadway, actually did damage to houses. Some debris was thrown, nobody injured, nobody killed, minor property damage. Uh so that was exciting.

Danielle 1:37:24

That one was, I know quite a bit about that one. Several firefighters that I know were working that one, and that one was active for quite a while too.

Therese 1:37:33

It was, and they had to keep the other tanks cooled.

Danielle 1:37:35

Yep.

Therese 1:37:36

And uh we had non-PFOS foam that emergency management had purchased several years prior, along with the foam trailer out of HSGP funds that were utilized for this because it was a petroleum product. Yeah, and again, we looked at each other and said, non-PFOS, we had this equipment on hand, this was the appropriate use. And, you know, again, it's that full team concept of we got a piece of equipment, we were trained, we were prepared, and uh Brighton Area Fire handled that one. And I'm so blessed to be in a county with such high-performing fire service. Yep.

Danielle 1:38:15

So a lot of highly trained people we are very lucky to have.

Self Care Family And Service Ethics

Danielle 1:38:21

Well, T, this takes us kind of to the end of our time today. One of the things that we want to do here at the end is kind of talk about any advice that you would give. Um, you can either tailor this towards um students or individuals looking to get into a career in law enforcement or emergency management or just career advice in this general sector in in any way.

Therese 1:38:52

Well, some of the some of the best advice I ever got was um live in the moment. So the things that have happened in the past will help prepare you for whatever is happening right now, and there's it will lead you to things in the future, but you can't ruminate on that. You need to live in the moment to be the most effective, whether it's with your community and your job, with your family, you have to live in that moment and you have to be flexible and know things that are not perfect. The other thing is self-care. Because when you are a hard charger, and I'm telling you, every responder I know is type A. And in emergency management, if you're not type A, you're probably type A minus, right? Because you're still a doer. This is these are all disciplines that are doers. And and you have a family that also depends on you generally, right? Somehow, some way. Um that self-care is so important that you have to take that moment every once in a while to decompress. To remember that you are a human and be kind to your human. Your spirit, your essence, has been put in a body, and that body is not infallible. Okay? And be kind to your human. You have responsibilities with your family, please put them first. Okay? You love your community, and that's why you're serving, that's why you're protecting, that's why we do the job and discipline that we do. But your family needs you too. And those are both heavy responsibilities, not in a bad way, but in a very responsible way. And if you don't take care of you, and if you don't take care of your family, can you take care of the community to the level they deserve? Because if you've got that stuff working in the back of your head, or you're just that exhausted and you're that burnt out, what are you actually providing to your community? So take that time. Don't feel bad about it. Take your vacation time. If you're not feeling well, get yourself well. Take that time. It's okay. So people need to understand that this generation's getting better at it. So as somebody who worked shift work at the state police post and had a husband who was also in the state police, both of us type A's, and we are raising children, a couple of them, four, okay, I didn't sleep for about 18 years. I figured that out. So you have to. You have to. Because if you don't, your human will suffer. And when you suffer, so will your job, and so will the people you're you're trying to help or protect within your your career. And of course your family will suffer. And I have to tell you this: those are the people that at the end of the day, when your career is over, those are the ones that are still be standing by you, I hope. Right? Don't lose them. So uh I guess that would probably be it. That, and if you're going to go into police work, understand this. Police work is two things it's people work and it's paperwork. Okay? The two P's. You have to understand people. You have to understand that not everybody you meet is a bad guy. Sometimes they don't know any better. Sometimes they're just in a funny spot. They don't want to be there either. And so learning to treat people with respect and dignity, not looking down on them because, you know, you're the police officer, right? Or you're the emergency manager, you should have known better. You have to understand people sometimes are complex and how to deal with everybody as best you can. And the other thing is you need to be able to put two sentences together. Because if you get to court, if it's not in the paperwork, it didn't happen. Okay? So I see shortcuts sometimes. I'll say this as a sergeant. My sergeant is kicking in. Uh don't shortcut it. Put what I know it's not as exciting as getting out there, right? But I always say for every two minutes of really exciting police work you have, you've got about a day worth of paperwork. Okay. You just have to accept that, embrace it. Uh and remember, if you're gonna be in the police officer, whether you're a police officer, firefighter, DNR, it doesn't matter, that badge, it enables you to help others. It's not there to it's not there to empower you. So if you're gonna be a police officer, that badge does not empower you. It empowers everybody you touch, not you. It's not a license to do whatever you want, it's not a license to say whatever you want. It is the empowerment for the people that you contact that need your help, that need your support, that need your protection.

Danielle 1:44:15

Yeah.

Therese 1:44:16

So I guess that's it.

Danielle 1:44:18

That's all I have. That is wonderful advice. Thank you so much for sharing those words of wisdom. Thank you so much for being here with us today and on the podcast. Um, it was great chatting with you and having you as an inspiration. Thank you for fitting us into your busy schedule. Um, that is all that we have today. We would like to thank Therese Cremonte, Livingston County Emergency Manager, for spending time with us.

Where To Follow And Subscribe

Danielle 1:44:50

We hope you all enjoyed the show and hope to see you back again soon.

Therese 1:44:54

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Speaker 1:44:58

You have been listening to TuneIn with MPSCS. Be sure to look us up at www.michigan.gov slash mpscs, YouTube, SoundCloud, LinkedIn, and on Twitter at MPSCS. You can also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes so you never miss an episode. We will see you next time.