WBCM Spotlight: Lisa Blake

Lisa Blake is Deputy Director, Planning in the New York City Emergency Management Department, a recipient of the DRI Foundation’s 2020 Women in BCM Scholarship, and as a result, is on track to becoming a certified CBCP with DRI International. 

What is your professional background? How did you get there?
My professional background is environmental sustainability. Since college, I have been interested in making the built form and natural environment more compatible. Following Hurricane Sandy, I worked at FEMA and got a crash course in emergency management. I learned the emergency management field allowed me to blend all my interests together and to make a difference. The rest is history!

What does DRI certification mean to you?
I have been fortunate to learn a lot about emergency management in the public sector. However, I have increasingly wanted to learn more about business continuity; the DRI certification is a great way to learn more about this in a structured manner.

What made you interested in business continuity?
The private sector is such a big piece of the emergency management puzzle. To really understand the whole picture, you have to understand how the public, non-profit, and private sectors work together during an emergency.

Do you have any life experience that makes this field especially compelling?
Living in NYC during Hurricane Sandy made me appreciate the importance of emergency management. I was able to see all four stages of the emergency management cycle: preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation.