Senior Associate
Retired Executive Director of Public Entity Risk Institute, Fairfax, Virginia
Gerry Hoetmer is an expert in fire services, emergency management, and risk management. He served as the founding executive director of the Public Entity Risk Institute, a nonprofit organization that provided training, technical assistance, and research on risk management issues for local government and other public and quasi-public organizations. During his tenure as executive director he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Disaster Roundtable. Prior to his position as executive director at PERI, Mr. Hoetmer worked at ICMA for 19 years, most recently as the director of research and development. He has written extensively on local government emergency management, the fire service, code enforcement, and risk management issues.
Seminal works include the first report to Congress on fire master planning and the first edition of Emergency Management: Principles and Practices for Local Government. In addition to providing expert testimony before Congress and local arbitration boards on fire staffing and scheduling issues, Mr. Hoetmer represented ICMA on the NFPA 1500 Standard on Occupational Safety and Health; NFPA 1201, the Standard for Providing Emergency services to the Public; and the NFPA 1710, Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments. Mr. Hoetmer has developed and conducted training programs and seminars at FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute and the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
He holds a Bachelors from the State University of New York, New Paltz and the Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Colorado at Denver.