Mr. Rob Patterson is a Senior Executive Service Officer and the Team Lead for National Incident Management Assistance Team (N-IMAT) Red, for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). NIMAT Red is based in Sacramento, California, and is the western geographically based NIMAT, primarily serving the areas of responsibility in FEMA Regions 8, 9, and 10.
Rob is responsible to build, train, and equip an expert team of 26 emergency response professionals, maintain close working relationships with regional, state, tribal, territorial, and local emergency management officials, federal partners, and the private sector, as well as plan, train, and exercise in preparation for disaster response.
Before his selection as Team Lead, Rob was the Team Lead of NIMAT White in Herndon, Virginia, serving the Central U.S. inclusive of FEMA Regions 5, 6 and 7. He led the team through its qualification run to fully mission capable status and through its deployment to Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Prior to these full-time responsibilities with FEMA, Rob had been an active member of the Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Response Program serving 12 years as the Incident Support Team (IST) Leader for the Blue IST responding to national Type 1 complexity catastrophic incidents. Rob also previously served 34 years in the fire service in a large regional agency in Southern California.
Rob has been an active participant with State and Federal Incident Management Teams in both Command and General Staff positions and has held multiple NIMS/ICS/CICCS qualifications. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science with an emphasis in public service from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and three associate degrees in Fire Administration, Chief Fire Officer, and Paramedicine. He has also been selected to attend professional programs at the Harvard Kennedy School for Executive Education and the DHS Executive Capstone Program during his tenure.