Emergency Management Institute 60th Anniversary
Preserve Our Past
- The Emergency Management Institute (EMI) in Emmitsburg, Maryland is commemorating 60 years of civil defense and emergency training and education in 2011.
- EMI traces its heritage from the former National Civil Defense Staff College (CDSC) that was developed and conducted in response to the cold war. To facilitate meeting this national threat, the federal government opened the training facility and rescue school in Olney, Maryland in 1951. April 1, 1951 marked the stand up of the Staff College. The first course was titled – Civil Defense Administration.
- Civil defense training, under CDSC, was transferred to Battle Creek, MI in 1954 and remained there for 30 years. On March 10, 1967, Mr. Oliver C. Webb, Civil Defense Director of Rock County, Minnesota, graduated, as the 50,000th resident student.
- In 1980, the Emergency Management Institute (EMI) was established in Emmitsburg MD to reflect a broader responsibility to train and educate emergency managers for all types of disasters and emergencies.
- 2011 also represents another milestone of emergency training as this year marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of emergency training at EMI.
- The first course held at EMI was January 12-16 in 1981, with 25 students who attended the Radiological Emergency Planning course. This was the first of many thousands of nationally recognized emergency training courses at the Emergency Management Institute.
Sustain Our Success
- Emergency management training by the numbers:
- Since 1951, EMI recognizes more than 22 million course completions
- Since 1981, nearly 73,000 classroom course completions
- More than 16 million Independent Study online course completions from our distance learning program
- FY 10 training numbers and cost figures
- More than 2 million course completions
- 22,566 classroom course completions
- 550 courses available
- More than 1200 classroom courses were conducted
- FY 10 training costs
- $2200 cost per student / 40 hour classroom completion
- $2.44 cost per web-based student course completion
Strategize Our Future
- EMI will continue to meet the training needs of emergency management and response personnel by supporting Department of Homeland Security and FEMA’s goals of improving the competencies of the U.S. officials at all levels of government to:
- prepare for
- protect against
- respond to
- recover from
- mitigate the potential effects of all types of disasters and emergencies on the American people
- EMI remains committed to:
- Improving the capability of State, Local and Tribal officials
- Improving the capability of other federal partners
- Improving the capability of disaster workforce employees
- Enhancing the preparedness and building resiliency of individuals, families, and whole of communities
- Enhancing partnerships with institutions of higher education to advance the professionalism of emergency management
- Supporting an interconnected/global/international emergency management community
- Sustaining partnerships with the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), National Emergency Management Association, Association of State Floodplain Managers, National Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters, National Congress of American Indians and others
