Quinten retired in 2006 as a Federal Security Director with the Transportation Security Administration. His career with the US Government spanned over thirty years, nearly all involving transportation safety or security.

During graduate studies at OSU, Quinten was the DRC’s project manager of the Hazardous Materials Planning and Response Project.

Following OSU, Quinten was selected as a Presidential Management Intern sponsored by the US Coast Guard. During that time, he was also a staff investigator on the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island.

Following the internship, he joined the National Transportation Safety Board first as a hazardous materials accident investigator, and later as a member of the executive staff.

Prior to joining the Transportation Security Administration, QuintenQuinten Johnon 1979.jpg held several security positions with the Federal Aviation Administration including Director of its Office of Policy and Planning, Manager of the Civil Aviation Security Division, Manager of the foreign airport assessment program, and Manager of the Research and Development requirements program. Primarily, he was responsible for all security regulations imposed on US carriers, foreign carriers operating in the US, as well as all commercial airports in the US.

Throughout his career in the federal government and as a consultant, Quinten has traveled to over 50 countries, been interviewed by ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN and several print media including the Washington Post, and testified before Congress. He has also been an expert witness in several cases involving aviation security.

Quinten is married and resides near the Gulf Coast in southern Alabama. He is an avid fisherman and boater. He is eternally grateful to his mentors at the DRC and OSU.

Joshua L. Kelly, CEM, is a Planning Supervisor, the Long-term Recovery Program Manager, a CFR107 certified drone pilot, and an EMAC A-Team Member for the Delaware Emergency Management Agency (DEMA). He currently supervises a staff of four in the Natural Hazards Section of DEMA, which is responsible for coordinating recovery planning activities, the administration of the State’s Public Assistance program, the Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) grant program, the Flood Management Assistance (FMA) grant program, and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). In addition to his role as a supervisor, he is also a Certified Emergency Manager from the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and serves as the Planning Section Chief during State Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activations. Mr. Kelly has worked on six federally declared major disasters, including mutual aid deployments to Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria and Florida following Hurricane Irma and the State of Delaware’s response to the global COVID-19 incident.

Previously, at DEMA, he oversaw the administration of the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP), Non-profit Security Grant Program (NSGP), DEMA’s Continuity of Operations Plan, the State Threat Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA), and was the State Public Assistance Officer. Prior to his time with the State of Delaware, Joshua worked as a Senior Emergency Management Specialist for the City of Garland, Texas, and a Research Assistant at both the Disaster Research Center and the University of North Texas. As a Research Assistant, he worked on four National Science Foundation funded projects and was a co-author on seven disaster-related publications – including a book chapter and several academic journal and magazine articles. He received a B.A. from the University of Delaware where he majored in Sociology and Criminal Justice and his M.P.A., with a concentration in Emergency Management, from the University of North Texas.​

Gary Kreps is a retired Vice Provost and Professor of Sociology at the College of William and Mary. Following completion of his PhD in Sociology (1971) at the Ohio State University, he began his career as a faculty member (1972-to retirement) and administrator (1994-to retirement) at William and Mary. During his long career Kreps had long-standing research interests in organizational and role theories as both relate to structural analyses of community, regional, and societal responses to natural, technological, and willful hazards and disasters. Following work as a staff office and consultant at the National Research Council during the late 1970s, for over twenty years Kreps' archival studies of disaster events were supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. Over the course of these two decades, Kreps and his colleagues and students developed taxonomies and theories of organizing and role enactment during the emergency periods of disasters. Major findings from Kreps' research program were reported in two books and articles in Sociological Theory, Annual Review of Sociology, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, and many other basic and applied publications. Kreps also collaborated with Thomas Drabek on resolving venerable issues in the definition of disasters as physical and sociological events. His 2001 entry in the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Disaster, Sociology of) emphasized the need to reconcile functionalist and constructivist conceptions of disasters as acute systemic events. In 2008, Kreps received the E.L. Quarantelli award for contributions to social science disaster theory.

Jennifer Lazo is an Emergency Management Coordinator with the City of Los Angeles Emergency Management Department. She manages the City’s emergency alert and warning program, GIS program, and is the Area H Disaster Management Area Coordinator (DMAC). She started her time with Los Angeles facilitating neighborhood preparedness workshops as part of the “Ready Your LA Neighborhood” program. As a responder in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) she has staffed a variety of positions during disasters including the Saddleridge Fire, Getty Fire, COVID-19 pandemic, and the Protests for Racial Justice in May/June 2020. She previously spent five years as an Emergency Services Coordinator with the City of Berkeley, where she created BEACON, a network for organizations that serve people with disabilities. She also created the Community Resilience Center program and was responsible for emergency management planning and preparedness in the City, focusing on people with disabilities and seniors.

She is a Certified Emergency Manager with IAEM, and is the vice-chair of the IAEM Emerging Technology Committee. In 2013 she received her MS in Disaster Science and Management at the University of Delaware. Jennifer’s Master’s thesis was titled “Framing Disaster Planning for People with Disabilities.”

Chunjing Liu (M.S. ’14) is the Chief of Staff for the Department of Marine Forecastand Disaster Mitigation in China’s State Oceanic Administration. Her responsibilities include formulating effective policy, planning and maintaining technical standards for marine disaster mitigation, guiding and coordinating emergency response to coastal natural hazards at the national and local level, managing and organizing marine disaster risk assessment and investigation programs, enhancing public awareness of marine disaster mitigation and prevention, and participating in international programs for marine disaster mitigation.

Chunjing was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Delaware. The knowledge and skills around disaster management she honed in her study in the M.S. program and working in the Disaster Research Center (DRC) have provided strong support to both her work and career development. Before she joined SOA China, she had worked as marketing and strategic product manager in Advantech and Siemens companies for six years. Her bachelor’s degree in Automation was from the Wuhan University of Technology in 2010.​