August is National Emergency Management Awareness Month and Dallas County EMA Director AJ Seely outlines everything his office does for central Iowa.

Seely has been in his position for seven years and the organization is responsible for coordinating preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts for disasters and large-scale accidents in the county. To that end, he confirms that the agency was awarded $200,000 in federal grants to help replace a generator that runs critical public safety functions and has recently been working on a nearly $700,000 project with hopes to acquire newer warning sirens.

Seely indicates that even though Dallas County EMA consists of three individuals, he thanks them for acting in a strategic and holistic manner when incidents occur. He adds that the agency works in collaboration with over 1,000 leadership personnel from other organizations and is grateful to build strong relationships with those partners. Seely expresses that his favorite part of the job is the problem resolution process, as the organization determines who the stakeholders are, convene meetings, hear perspectives and design solutions to complex problems. He details that he enjoys identifying ways to continuously adapt to building capable solutions to best serve the residents of Dallas County.