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For other people of the same name, see Michael Brown (disambiguation).

Michael Brown

Michael DeWayne Brown (born November 8, 1954) was Undersecretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response (EP&R), a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a position generally referred to as the director or administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He was appointed in January 2003 by President George W. Bush and resigned in September 2005 following public outcry over his handling of the preparation and aftermath of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, which was widely regarded as incompetent.

Early life

Brown was born in Guymon, Oklahoma, on November 8, 1954. In 1978, he received a B.A. in public administration/political science from Central State University (now the University of Central Oklahoma), where he started the school's first College Republicans group. He received his J.D. from Oklahoma City University's School of Law in 1981.

Brown worked for three years in the late 1970s handling "labor and budget matters" as an administrative assistant to the city manager of Edmond, Oklahoma (1980 population 58,123). His White House biography stated that he had emergency services oversight in this position. However, the head of public relations for the city denied in 2005 that Brown had had oversight over anyone and said that "the assistant is more like an intern." The quoted city official later claimed on a local KWTV news broadcast that the "more like an intern" remark was taken out of context. Brown disputed this characterization of his position, and told the Associated Press that he worked on plans for natural and man-made disasters.

Brown's office , and

While attending law school, Brown was appointed by the Chairman of the Oklahoma Legislature's Senate Finance Committee to be the committee's Staff Director, a role in which he oversaw state fiscal issues from 1980-1982. In 1981, he was elected to the Edmond's city council, but resigned to work in private practice.

Law career

In the 1980s, Brown lived in Enid, Oklahoma and practiced law there. According to Stephen Jones, a prominent Oklahoma lawyer and Brown's boss for two and a half years, Brown did "mainly transactional work, not litigation" and was felt to be "not serious and somewhat shallow." Brown was one of two staffers let go when Jones' firm was split up.

From 1982-1988, he was the chairman of the board of the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority. Several power plants were built during his tenure. One hydroelectric plant located at Kaw Reservoir was completed in 1989 and named the Michael D. Brown Hydroelectric Power Plant and Dam in his honor.

He ran for Congress in 1988 against Democratic incumbent Glenn English, who had not been challenged in the previous election. English's well-financed campaign soundly defeated Brown with 122,763 votes against 45,199. After losing, Brown promised to try again in 1990, saying, "I have an excellent chance of prevailing. It's a Democratic state, but a very Republican district." However, Brown did not run in 1990, and English beat his Republican opponent, Robert Burns, 110,100 votes to 27,540.

Personal life

Brown and his wife, Tamarra have two children.

IAHA tenure

Before joining the DHS/FEMA, Brown was the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, (IAHA), from 1989-2001. After numerous lawsuits were filed against the organization over disciplinary actions, Brown was forced to resign.

A March 2000 two-part report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, chronicling one of the disciplinary actions, lauded Brown for pursuing an investigation against David Boggs, "the kingpin of the Arabian horse world", despite internal pressure to end the inquiry. The Brown-led investigation found Boggs performed medically unnecessary surgery on horses to enhance their visual appeal. An ethics board suspended Boggs for five years. Boggs protested through multiple lawsuits against both the organization and Brown, alleging slander and defamation. Brown and the IAHA prevailed, but the lawsuits nonetheless took a toll on morale. Some members interviewed felt Brown showed an imperious attitude, and nicknamed him "The Czar."

Brown started his own legal defense fund before resigning, a move he said was necessary to protect his family's assets. However, some IAHA insiders claimed that this was what really led to his ouster. He raised money from breeders for the fund as well as IAHA, creating a conflict of interest. Also, his contract stipulated that IAHA was to pay all his personal legal expenses, on top of his $100,000 annual salary. IAHA became financially depleted, and had to be merged with the Arabian Horse Registry of America.

Bush administration service

After Bush entered office in January 2001, Brown joined FEMA as General Counsel. He was the first person hired by his long-time friend, then-FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, who also ran Bush's election campaign in 2000. Allbaugh later named Brown his acting deputy director in September 2001. Bush formally nominated him as deputy director on March 22, 2002, and the Senate confirmed him many months later. Soon thereafter Allbaugh left government and Bush nominated Brown again in January 2003 for the directorship. Brown was sworn in to his position on April 15, 2003.

Before that, shortly after the September 11 attacks, Brown served on the Consequence Management Principals' Committee, which acted as the White House's policy coordination group for the federal domestic response to the attacks. Later, Bush asked him to head the Consequence Management Working Group to identify and resolve key issues regarding the federal response plan. In August 2002, Bush appointed him to the Transition Planning Office for the new Department of Homeland Security, serving as the transition leader for the EP&R Division. As undersecretary, Brown also directed the National Incident Management System (NIMS) Integration Center, the National Disaster Medical System and the Nuclear Incident Response Team.

On August 31, 2005, following Hurricane Katrina being named an "Incident of National Significance", Brown was named the Principal Federal Official and placed in charge of the federal government's response by Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff. On September 7, 2005, then Coast Guard Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Thad Allen was named Brown's deputy and given operational control of search and rescue and recovery efforts.

On September 9, 2005, Chertoff relieved Brown of all on-site relief duties along the Gulf Coast, officially replacing him with then Vice Admiral Allen. Brown remained Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response. Brown told the Associated Press that "the press" was making him a scapegoat for the allegedly slow federal response to the hurricane.

On September 12, 2005, Brown announced his resignation as director of FEMA. He commented that the negative publicity surrounding him was distracting attention from the relief effort.

Chertoff granted Brown two 30-day contract extensions in order not to "sacrifice the real ability to get a full picture of Mike's experiences." Brown continued to receive his $148,000 annual salary until November 2, 2005, when he left in the middle of the second 30-day extension.

Resignation from FEMA

On September 12, 2005, in the wake of what was widely believed to be incompetent handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and facing allegations that he had falsified portions of his résumé, Brown resigned, saying that it was "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president.". His credibility with the public was further shaken when it emerged that he had had no emergency management experience before joining FEMA. The Boston Herald revealed that Brown had previously spent 11 years overseeing horse trial judges and stewards for the Arabian Horse Association, and that the Association had asked him to resign.

By the time he resigned from FEMA, Brown had already been discharged from his functions as coordinator of the federal efforts in New Orleans and Gulf Coast by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and was sent back to Washington to continue FEMA's central operations. Bush, who had appointed Brown in 2003, praised Brown shortly after the storm hit, saying "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," but later deflected questions about the resignation, except to deny having discussed the resignation with him.

At least one reliable source, The Economist, recognized the likelihood that Brown was "pushed" out by the administration rather than having resigned voluntarily, although internal e-mails from Brown indicated that he was already planning to leave FEMA at the time Katrina hit. The same suggestion was made by at least one member of Congress during a hearing on what went wrong during Katrina. Brown concentrated his testimony at that hearing on alleging that Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin bore most, if not all, of the blame for the failures in the response to Katrina, and that his only fault had been not to realize sooner their inability to perform their respective duties.

After his September 12 resignation, Brown continued working for FEMA as a contractor to help the agency assess what went wrong in the response to the hurricane.

On November 2, 2005, Brown ended his contract early (it had been extended to mid-November by Chertoff) and left the federal government.

On January 18, 2006, Brown stated that certainly things could have been handled differently, such as calling in the military. As one of the largest natural disasters to ever strike the US, he stated, "It was beyond the capacity of the state and local governments, and it was beyond the capacity of FEMA." On February 10, 2006, Brown again testified before Congress, this time placing blame on the Department of Homeland Security for the poor handling of the disaster, asserting that the anti-terrorism focus of the Department had caused it to deny resources needed to FEMA. In his February 2006 testimony, Brown also contradicted earlier claims that the White House was unaware of levees having been breached, stating: "For them to claim that we didn’t have awareness of it is just baloney."

On March 1, 2006, AP re-released a recording of Brown and Bush in a video conference in which the vulnerability of the levee system was raised with a great deal of concern over potential loss of life. Bush denied any awareness of the possibility of a levee-related catastrophe in a live interview.

Work for InferX Company

Brown began as an adviser to a publicly traded company, InferX which claims its technology is the answer to the U.S.A's security concerns, as well as the credibility problems of the DHS and FEMA. Brown has been on the media circuit talking about technology that claims to screen for terror suspects, track threats in shipping containers and cargo hauling, and gather data for law enforcement tracking. In December 2007, Brown was named CEO of InferX and then appointed to the board of directors in April 2008. As of May 9, 2008 he was removed from the company's board of directors and his employment as president and CEO was terminated.

Work for Cotton Companies

As of 2007, Brown worked for Cotton Companies, a private firm specializing in disaster recovery. Throughout 2007 and early 2008 Brown made appearances to the press on behalf of Cotton companies. In these appearances, he referred to the lessons that he had learned from his experiences as the head of FEMA during Hurricane Katrina.

Work for Cold Creek Solutions

On August 28, 2009, it was announced via numerous emails "Former FEMA Director Michael Brown Joins Cold Creek Solutions, Offers Consulting Practice for Disaster Recovery" that Brown had joined Cold Creek Solutions as VP, Disaster Recovery Practice.

FEMA controversies and criticism

Hurricane Frances

In 2004, FEMA disbursed $30 million in disaster relief funds for Hurricane Frances to residents of Miami, Florida, a city which was not affected by the hurricane. Brown admitted to $12 million in overpayments, but denied any serious mistakes, blaming a computer glitch. After investigating, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel wrote that Brown was responsible and called for him to be fired.

In January 2005, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) publicly urged Bush to fire Brown, citing the Sun-Sentinel 's report. Wexler repeated his call in April to Chertoff, citing new reports that FEMA sent inspectors with criminal records of robbery and embezzlement to do damage assessments.

Hurricane Katrina

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many Democratic politicians called for Brown to be fired immediately, including California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, New York Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer, Colorado Senator Ken Salazar, Michigan Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and Senator Debbie Stabenow, Louisiana State Rep. Peter Sullivan, Nevada Senator Harry Reid, and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.

Post Katrina, many New Orleanians added graffiti to their trashed appliances set on curbs to be hauled away. Here a refrigerator inscription satirizes Bush's "Heck of a job" praise for Brown.

Republican politicians such as Senator Trent Lott have also criticized Brown's leadership of FEMA. Brown's performance was defended, however, by Republicans such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and former Presidential speechwriter Pat Buchanan. At the Mobile (Alabama) Regional Airport on September 2, 2005, President Bush publicly praised Brown's handling of the disaster, saying "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." "Heck of a job" soon became sarcastic slang for things done very poorly.

Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees in the Superdome.

Bush appeared on the tape sitting at a table in a small room at his Crawford, Texas ranch. He did not ask any questions. He told state officials that the federal government was prepared to handle the storm and its aftermath.

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm", he said.

On August 29, 2005, five hours after the hurricane hit land, Brown made his first request for Homeland Security rescue workers to be deployed to the disaster area only after two days of training. He also told fire and rescue departments outside affected areas to refrain from providing trucks or emergency workers without a direct appeal from state or local governments in order to avoid coordination problems and the accusation of overstepping federal authority.

On September 1, 2005, Brown told Soledad O'Brien of CNN that he was unaware that New Orleans' officials had housed thousands of evacuees, who quickly ran out of food and water, in the Convention Center — even though major news outlets had been reporting on the evacuees' plight for at least a day. He also criticized those that were stuck in New Orleans as those "who chose not to evacuate, who chose not to leave the city" (disobeying a mandatory evacuation order).

On September 2, 2005, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley stated that he pledged firefighters, police officers, health department workers, and other resources on behalf of the city, but was only asked to send one tank truck.

Controversy arose in November 2005 as a House committee investigating the response to Katrina released about 1,000 e-mail messages between Brown, staff and acquaintances. On the day Katrina struck, Brown wrote "Can I quit now? Can I go home?" He later quipped to a friend on September 2 that he could not meet her because he was "trapped [as FEMA head] ... please rescue me." In another e-mail, Brown's press secretary, Sharon Worthy, advised him to roll up his sleeves "to look more hard-working... Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow." An e-mail offering critical medical equipment went unanswered for four days.

On Thanksgiving week in 2005, Brown was No. 1 on CNN's "Political Turkey of the Year" list for his handling of Katrina.

On August 28, 2007, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards proposed what he called "Brownie's Law" requiring that "qualified people, not political hacks", lead key federal agencies.

Media commentary

Calls for dismissal or resignation

Columnist Charles Krauthammer described Brown as "late, slow and in way over his head" in response to Hurricane Katrina.

On September 12, 2005, Brown announced his resignation as director.

Accusations of false claims in Brown's credentials

TIME reported on September 9 2005, that it had discovered serious inaccuracies and false claims within Brown's biography posted on FEMA's web site (FEMA) and on FindLaw, a legal directory with information provided directly by attorneys and their offices (FindLaw). A FEMA representative replied that "Mike Brown states there are many inaccuracies in the article."

Brown claimed previous emergency experience as "assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" for the city of Edmond, Oklahoma. According to interviews and records obtained by TIME, Brown was a college intern in the city manager's office, without hiring, firing, or other management responsibilities. Brown claims to have won the "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University" award; according to the University Relations office, Brown had been a student, not a faculty member. In the "Professional Associations and Memberships" section of his FindLaw biography, Brown claims to be a Director of the Oklahoma Christian Home from 1983 to the present. But according to an administrator with the Home, Brown is "not a person that anyone here is familiar with."

Several New Orleans Mardi Gras krewes satirized Michael Brown in their 2006 parades. The Krewe du Vieux sarcastically proclaimed him a grand marshall with a float with an empty chair with an "Out to Dinner" sign.