Paul F. Ford is currently serving in the role of Deputy Regional Administrator for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Region 1, consisting of the six New England states.
Mr. Ford joined FEMA in 1992. Prior to joining FEMA, Mr. Ford taught High School Mathematics in a vocational school for eleven years. He began his FEMA career as a Natural Hazards Program Specialist in the Mitigation Division. He later coordinated the Project Impact Program and its successor the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program. Mr. Ford also served as the National Flood Insurance Program Regional Insurance Liaison and the Floodplain Management Coordinator for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the State of Connecticut. As the Insurance Liaison, he met with the State Insurance Commissioners, Banking Commissioners and the Federal Lending Instrumentalities to discuss the National Flood Insurance Program Reform Act of 1994.
In 2006, Mr. Ford became the Regional Emergency Analyst, working on special projects and Regional reporting requirements; he worked directly for the Regional Administrator until taking the Deputy Regional Administrator position in 2007. He also served as the FEMA Region 2 Acting Deputy Regional Administrator, in New York City, concurrently with his position in Region 1.
Mr. Ford has also deployed on many disaster assignments in his tenure at FEMA, including Hurricane Andrew, the 1993 Midwest Floods and numerous events in New England.
He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology from Worcester State College and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Anna Maria College.
Mr. Ford served as the Acting Regional Administrator in Region 1 from January 2009 until July 2010 and again from September 2012 to June 2019. Mr. Ford was recently selected as a Department of Homeland Security, Senior Executive Service (SES) employee in the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Region 1.