Colonel Frank Ford
G3/Senior Operations Manager for the Army Corps of Engineers
U.S. Army

Colonel Frank Ford, in conversation with Ozlem Ergun, associate professor, Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and co-director of the Health and Humanitarian Logistics Center at Georgia Tech, to discuss the Army Corp of Engineer's role in providing support during emergencies and disasters. The Army Corp of Engineers mission is to provide vital public engineering services in peace and war to strengthen security issues, energize the economy, and reduce risks from disasters. On disasters, the Corp works in concert with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) on the domestic side and USAID (United States Agendy for International Development) on the international side. They provide technical skills in engineering such as urban search and rescue, delayering of destroyed buildings and recovery, structural assessments, public works (water, power) and infrastructure (roofing and housing, public roads, ports, airfields, and bridges), as well as debris management. On the logistics, they provide commodity distribution and technology.

Colonel Ford works with 36 thousand Corp engineering personnel putting together response teams, making sure the teams are trained and equipped, as well as collaborating in the planning stages with the various organizations. He has worked on the floods in Fargo, ice storms in Kentucky, hurricanes along the Gulf coast, ice jams and floods in Alaska, and the recent international earthquakes. Currently he is working operations in Haiti, with a presence in Africa working on a long term water and infrastructure resilience program, along with Southeast Europe.

This interview took place on March 5, 2010 during the 2010 Health and Humanitarian Logistics Conference.