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Mark Cross
Emergency Preparedness Planner
(TSA N)
Office: 979-595-2800 x 2078
cell: 979-224-5213
Email
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Mark Cross, recently hired as the new Emergency Preparedness Planner of the Heart of Texas Regional Advisory Council (HOTRAC) disaster preparedness function in TSA-N, will be supporting the Brazos Valley Regional Advisory Council (BVRAC).
In the past, his job has included being sent as a first-responder to Austin when a Labor Day wildfire outbreak began consuming the State, including the Bastrop County Complex fire, which burned a total of 34,068 acres and destroyed 1,645 homes.
Cross replaces Roger Sheridan, DoD exercise design and delivery expert, who led the program management of HSEEP Preparedness Cycle for exercises including Regional Hurricane Evacuation & Sheltering and Communications Interoperability and Continuity of Government. Sheridan accepted a position with the Brazos Valley Council of Governments.
Cross had been a volunteer wildland firefighter in his college years at the University of North Texas, a disaster reservist with FEMA Region VI Planning, and a Bioterrorism Intern with Collin County Homeland Security.
A graduate of Kennedale High School, Tarrant County College, and University of North Texas, Cross is currently working on Program Management certification at Project Management Institute.
He has a long list of emergency-management certifications from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Preparedness, and other organizations, for training in such things as incident command, planning, and mass prophylaxis.
His résumé shows he responded to the Labor Day wildfires in Texas in September 2011, as a Situation Unit Leader with Incident Management Assistance Team A, a specially-trained FEMA Region VI emergency team. He was also an operations liaison to the State Operations Center with the agency when they responded to Hurricane Gustav in August 2008.
Cross has numerous citations and awards for his work, including a meritorious certificate from a Federal Coordinating Officer during the Mississippi River flooding of 2011. |