On Jan. 21, R. David Paulison, resigned as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He served at the national level for almost eight years, first as U.S. Fire Administrator then as head of FEMA's preparedness division before being sworn in as the first undersecretary for Federal Emergency Management in 2006. Since retiring, Paulison has started his own consulting business.

You were asked to become acting FEMA director after the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina — and had the monumental task of turning the agency around. How did find the right people for that task?

The good thing about being the U.S. Fire Administrator is that I knew a lot of people who I really could really trust, and I started bringing them in. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get people, despite the fact that FEMA had been brow-beaten. I think I was most surprised to hear that these people were coming to work for me, not for FEMA. And I wasn't bringing people in because of their political affiliations; I was bringing people in because they were good.

You mention your strong ties to fire, but what about including the police and law enforcement?

FEMA had inherited all these grants — law-enforcement and port-security grants — and we didn't have a relationship with law enforcement. So I created a law enforcement advisory position inside of FEMA. I brought Rick Ensey of Los Angeles, who had been police chief in Salt Lake City during the Olympics. He had a great reputation in the law-enforcement community.

I also started speaking at all the law-enforcement events developed a relationship. I got them to trust me because I had their grants and they needed to know that I wouldn't take the law-enforcement grants and turn them into fire grants. Then I brought law enforcement in to help us write the [grant] guidance, and that helped develop a greater relationship between FEMA and the law enforcement community.

How are you handling not being the FEMA director?

Not very well! Actually, what I really miss is the people. I developed some great friendships inside of FEMA. There are some great people there. They work their hearts out and get very little credit, but they are some of the most dedicated people I have met.

I will admit I did get a little antsy when the floods were backing up in North Dakota. I started thinking, "they need to be doing this" and "they need to be doing that" — and they were. Nancy Ward, who was the acting FEMA administrator, and those career people are doing a great job.

Are they in contact with you?

I have a one-year prohibition from dealing with anyone in FEMA, particularly about work. They could call me for advice about particular issues, but there hasn't been a need to, and to me that's a sign of success. When you walk away from an organization, does it survive? If it doesn't, you didn't do a very good job.

Just before you left FEMA, I saw you were using Twitter.com.

We're missing something with personal preparedness in the community. I don't care how much we push, we have not been able to convince enough people that they need to be taking care of themselves. So we wanted to try different mechanisms that get out to people.

I love to read the newspaper, but a lot of people don't do that, they go to the Web. So these young, really smart kids I've been bringing into FEMA said, "Why don't we do a Twitter?" So we did a press conference to see how it would work. We had a great conference, but it gave our internal affairs an idea that YouTube is [a better] avenue to get the message out. So now we see it happening in the federal government, but I think it started with us in FEMA with that live Twitter thing.

What are some recommendations to your successor?

Craig Fugate is the right guy for the job. He's got as much disaster experience as anybody in the country; very good manager, very straightforward and a no-nonsense type of guy. He believes in what we've done in FEMA as far as changing the culture. He knows that, but he also understands that the basics are pretty good and he's going to build on that.

I've talked to him already, and my advice is to develop a relationship with President Obama because he will be asked to come in and brief the president when there is a disaster and they need to feel comfortable with each other. Craig has to feel comfortable that the president will listen to what he has to say.

It took me a while to get comfortable with President Bush. First it was difficult getting access to the president, but he made it easy for me. He'd invite me into the Oval Office to brief him. During Hurricane Gustav, I was sitting eating a bowl of Cheerios at 6 a.m. and President Bush called. He said, "Dave, what are you doing?" "Eating a bowl of Cheerios," I replied. He said, "Put your spoon down" and he asked about what's happening with the hurricane.

President Obama advocates transparency. Can FEMA be transparent?

Government has to be transparent, it really does. Our government doesn't belong to somebody in Washington — it belongs to the American people. We worked very hard at FEMA to be as open as we could with everything we did. We were accused by some congressional members of trying to hide the formaldehyde problem [in the mobile trailers for Hurricane Katrina] and that wasn't true at all. As soon as we found out, we were out there telling people, passing out brochures and knocking on peoples' doors. The problem was there was no place to put them. I made it a goal to have everybody out of the travel trailers and we took those [trailers] out of our inventory. We tried to be as open and transparent as we could be particularly with the declaration process.

What advice do you have for FIRE CHIEF readers or manufacturers with respect FEMA moving forward?

First, fire chiefs need to tell citizens what they have to do. FEMA has so much information about preparing your home, your community, your state — and it's not being utilized as well as it could be. I can preach in Washington, but it will fall on deaf ears if the local community doesn't become proactive.

The whole country is going through some difficult financial times, so now is the time for fire chiefs and emergency managers to really step up and be the leaders in their communities and show people how to better prepare themselves.

Second, there are going to be a lot of cities that close fire stations down and lay off firefighters, police officers and emergency management people. Now is the time to develop mutual-aid compacts so they have the support. Don't just sit there and say, "Woe is me." Find a way to adapt to what the new environment is.

You've heard me say before, dinosaurs didn't die because there was a weather change; they died because they didn't adapt to the weather change. The fire service is that way. It has to adapt and make changes. We don't like to do that, and I was the same way. It's hard to make changes. We came along with the ICS and nobody wanted to do that, but now it's a way of life.

I went to a luncheon recently. The volunteer, union and the fire chiefs' organizations were there, and I heard the same message over and over. We have to have one united voice, yet I don't see them working together. I see a rift between the volunteers and the union — it's not a good thing. We have to pick those things that we can work together on. There's a lot of money going out the door for grants and everybody wants a piece of that. They need to go in one accord.

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