Jones certified as Georgia Professional Emergency Manager
By SARAH FAY CAMPBELL
sarah@newnan.com
Jay Jones is now a Georgia Professional Emergency Manager.
Jones, Coweta’s emergency management director, is the first person to attain this certification since the process was revised in 2011 to create more stringent requirements, said Charlie Dawson, director of operations for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
“The certification is a very remarkable and noteworthy achievement,” Dawson said.
Requirements included 21 “very rigorous” independent study courses through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 19 courses at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth, seven field delivered courses and 150 hours of continuing education.
Emergency management directors must demonstrate that they have managed at least one full-scale emergency exercise or emergency event. They must have at least five years of service in the emergency management profession and must have made contributions to the profession through teaching, research and community involvement or published articles.
Jones has been Coweta’s EMA director for over four years and has more than 25 years in public safety.
“This county can take great pride in the level of professional preparedness and commitment Jay Jones has demonstrated,” Dawson said. “He has demonstrated the value that emergency managers bring to a community” that can be “better prepared, better able to respond, better able to recover... and better able to mitigate” hazards and risks.
Jones has also obtained grants to help pay for the county’s new public safety radio system as well as emergency weather sirens.
“Thank you for your support,” Jones told the commissioners. “I just try to do the best I can to help the citizens.”
