With over 36 years of emergency response and management experience, Todd brings extensive urban and rural perspective to the EMSI cadre. Throughout his career, he has had comprehensive and results oriented success while working in, leading, and managing all facets of public safety and emergency management operations.

Serving as the CAL FIRE Division Chief for Sonoma County Operations in California, Todd provides daily leadership, management, planning, and policy making for the organization while overseeing six battalion chiefs, four operational battalions, one air attack base, and the unit’s Fire Prevention/Law Enforcement Bureau. CAL FIRE is an all-hazards organization, responding to urban and rural emergency responses, to include medical emergencies. Prior to his rise to Division Chief, Todd served around the state of California supervising all-hazards incidents as a company and chief officer.

Indicative of his experience and knowledge, Todd currently serves as an Incident Commander for CAL FIRE’s Incident Management Team 4. Throughout his career, he has gained critical knowledge and experience in emergency response as he responded to wildland/urban interface fires, flooding events, public health emergencies, agricultural emergencies, catastrophic disaster pre-planning, community disaster recovery and administrative details. Reflective of his extensive experience on Incident Management Teams (IMT), Todd began his IMT tutelage in 1997 when assigned to CAL FIRE’s IMT-5, where he served in the Plans Section for five years and six years as an Operation Section Chief. Rising through the IMT ranks, he additionally served as the Incident Commander and Deputy Incident Commander CAL FIRE’s IMT-3 for five years.

During his time on several IMT’s, Todd responded to a myriad of incidents ranging from extended attack urban-interface fires (Type 2 & 3) to multi-agency large scale operations (Type 1). Significant incidents include service as the Type 1 Incident Commander on sixteen major wildland/urban interface incidents, the H1N1 incident (a California state-wide health emergency), disaster recovery assignments and major flooding incidents. With over 35 Type-1 IMT deployments, Todd has recently commanded some of California’s most complex disasters, to include the over 132,000 acre Soberanes Fire near Monterey Bay in 2016 and the 2017 Detwiler Fire acre outside of Yosemite National Park that scorched over 81,000 acres destroying 45 homes. Todd and his IMT are also credited for commanding the nearly 282,000 acre Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, which destroyed over 1000 structures and killing one firefighter. The Thomas Fire is the largest in California’s history.

Functioning at a high level in these roles, Todd has contributed to the improvement of incident management by developing and presenting various courses in the fields of wildland and structural firefighting and Incident Command System (ICS). Sharing his experience and knowledge with others, he is a certified instructor for CALFIRE’s Advance All-Hazards Incident Management (AAIM) course, All-Hazards Incident Commander, All-Hazards Operations Section Chief, Command and General Staff, and CAL FIRE’s Intermediate Firing Operations. In addition to instructing, Todd has served as an Incident Commander mentor during three incidents to develop new ICs. Thought his instruction of students on a gamut of incident management topics, Todd has continued to keep abreast of the latest technologies and response ideologies that impact emergency management.

Demonstrating expertise across the wide spectrum of incident command responsibilities, Todd is certified as a Type 1 Incident Commander, a Hazardous Materials Incident Commander, a Type 1 Operations Section Chief, a Type 1 Safety Officer, a Type 1 Liaison Officer/CA Agency Representative, and a California State Peace Officer.