Dr. Jon was involved with the Red Cross beginning in 1983 (long before he became a Phud), when he was recruited for Special Olympics (as a volunteer). After a stint as the chairman of Health Services, he became involved in Disaster Services in 1985. Jon's main interest was Mass Care, although he was known to dabble with the Liaison and Training Functions every now and then. His Mass Care experiences included the Loma Prieta and Northridge earthquakes, Northern California's Seven Plagues (something about flood, fire, pestilence, smighting of firstborn, etc.), a selection of apartment building, fraternity, and brush fires, the Reno Air Races, and Breakfast with Santa. His service in the Red Cross declined in the late 1990’s when real life got in the way and his employers had other disasters for him to work on. Born and raised in Berkeley California (notice a trend here?), Jon served as a fish out of water in Long Beach California (for eight years) and Alexandria Virginia (for one LONG, lonely year), before returning to his roots in the San Francisco Bay Area. In real life, he is an epidemiologist (no, not a skin doctor) and recently retired from 23 years’ service at a very major Northern California electric and gas utility, where he dealt with every sort of disaster imaginable (and a few unimaginable), including over two years serving as the “COVID-Czar” during the pandemic, actually using his epidemiologic skills for the first time in years. He is a Master Exercise Professional, according to FEMA, a Certified (and certifiable) Business Continuity Professional according to DRI, and a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional according to THOSE people… Overqualified seems to be his watchword.
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