Vern T. Miyagi was appointed as Administrator for the Hawai'i Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) on September 11, 2015. Prior to his appointment, Vern served as the Executive Officer at Hawai'i EMA. The Administrator is responsible for the day-to-day operations of HI-EMA and assumes the role of the Director in his absence. Vern Miyagi is a retired United States Army Major General with over 37 years of service and has extensive experience in domestic and international humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) operations and exercises. During the 1992 Hurricane lniki operation, he served as the operations officer for the deployed Hawai'i National Guard joint task force on the island of Kaua'i. At U. S. Pacific Command (PACOM), he served as the senior adviser for military support to civil authorities operations and for Reserve and National Guard affairs. During his PACOM assignment, he participated in a variety of disaster relief operations and exercises, including the 2004 Asian Tsunami, United Nations Peacekeeping/HADR exercises in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Mongolia, and trilateral disaster exercises involving the U. S., Korea, and Japan. During the period from 2014 to 2016, Miyagi served as the State Coordinating Officer (SCO) for three Presidentially Declared disasters (Tropical Storm lselle, Puna Lava Flow, and lac Valley Flood). Mr. Miyagi has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Accounting and a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Hawai'i, Manca. He was a Certified Public Accountant with Alexander Grant and Company for 11 years prior to his full-time service in the military.As an audit manager, his clients included a variety of private and public organizations. He is a graduate ofthe United States Marine Corps Command and General Staff College in Quantico, Virginia. He completed a United States Army War College Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh's Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Secur ity Studies. He has published two articles, one on military support operations during Hurricane lniki and one on NATO equipment. |
