Senior Associate
Director of Arlington County Office of Emergency Management
Retired Assistant Chief Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department
Jack Brown’s 40 year public safety career includes 29 years with the Fairfax County, Virginia Fire & Rescue Department, where he retired as Assistant Fire Chief of Operations. He served in a number of operational and staff positions, including the Office of the Fire Marshal where he attained NFPA certification as a Fire Inspector II and Fire Investigator. As an investigator, he conducted post fire and post blast investigations, assisting in the prosecution of offences involving arson and illegal explosives. He served as a Planning Section Chief and Task Force Leader for the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Task Force (VA TF-1). He deployed to Nairobi, Kenya as Plans Chief in response to the 1998 embassy bombing and as Task Force Leader on a deployment to Taiwan in response to an earthquake in 1999.
Upon his retirement from Fairfax County in 2000, he became the Assistant Chief for the Loudoun County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Management, where he led a team of firefighters to the Pentagon on 9/11 and assisted the Arlington County Fire Department as the initial Planning Section Chief for the incident. Jack served as Planning Section Chief on a Northern Virginia multi-jurisdictional emergency management task force that reestablished the New Orleans Emergency Operations Center just after Hurricane Katrina. He retired from Loudoun County in 2006 to pursue a career in emergency management.
Brown retired from the Coast Guard Reserve as a Chief Warrant Officer 4, specializing in port safety and security, with 33 years of combined Army and Coast Guard Reserve service. After 9/11, he served on active duty for 47 months, including 15 months in the Middle East. He received the Bronze Star Medal for actions in Baghdad, Iraq while supporting combat operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in Fire Science Administration from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in Quality Systems Management from the National Graduate School, Falmouth, Massachusetts. He is a 1997 graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Emergency Training Center, Emmitsburg, Maryland. He has been an adjunct professor at the Northern Virginia Community College and the University of the District of Columbia in the Fire Science curriculums. He is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program in the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California.