By Paula Reed Ward
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Copyright 2006 P.G. Publishing Co.
For Glenn Cannon, 35 years of public service — with local, county and state government — was enough. In July 2001, the former Allegheny County manager and head of Pittsburgh’s Public Safety Department joined the private sector, taking a job with a subsidiary of Tyco Electronics.
But when he got a call from the White House personnel office just after Thanksgiving last year, he changed his mind.
“When you have a chance to serve your president, and the country, it’s a whole different situation — it’s enormous,” Mr. Cannon said from his new office in Washington, D.C.
He was sworn in yesterday as the new director for the response division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
He started his workday at 8:30 a.m., was sworn in at 10:30 and learned about Tropical Storm Alberto approaching the Gulf of Mexico about the same time.
“They told me I would have a very full plate,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a lot of moving quickly. There’s a ton of work to do.”
Mr. Cannon, 58, will be responsible for planning and coordinating response operations during natural disasters and other emergency situations when FEMA gets called in to help.
“It’s time to make sure the first people that do go [to provide aid] have all the support they need to do the job. There should be no delay in supplies and resources and assets,” he said.
FEMA was widely criticized for its response to the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“There are already far more resources staged and ready to go than there were in Katrina,” Mr. Cannon said, noting that he expects this hurricane season to be extremely busy.
Chief Robert Full, Allegheny County’s emergency operations director, has known Mr. Cannon for more than 30 years, when his old boss started Pittsburgh’s first Emergency Medical Services Department.
The importance of FEMA in this country was demonstrated by the response to Hurricane Katrina, Chief Full said.
“The federal government needs to be more responsive and out in front of these major disasters instead of reacting,” he said. “Glenn will serve the country well.”
Chief Full noted that Mr. Cannon has experience handling major disasters on a local level. In 1987, he led a 16,000-person evacuation during a train derailment and fire under the Bloomfield Bridge. A year later, Mr. Cannon headed the response for the Ashland Oil spill, when a storage tank collapse in Jefferson sent 700,000 gallons of diesel oil into the Monongahela and Ohio rivers.
“If there are people in need, he’ll do everything he can to get his hands on it to get [help] to them,” Chief Full said.
Though he served in a variety of emergency management and administrative positions in local and state government, this is the first time Mr. Cannon, who has a master’s degree in public management and a law degree, will work at a federal level. As a presidential appointee, he will serve for the remainder of President Bush’s two-plus years in office. He does not expect to stick around after the administration changes.
Because of the relatively short duration of the post, Mr. Cannon and his wife plan to continue to call Pittsburgh’s Highland Park home. He plans to rent an efficiency apartment in Washington.
Another reason he took the job, Mr. Cannon said, was to be able to work with new FEMA Director David Paulison, who took over after Michael Brown was fired.
He’s also excited at the re-staffing happening within the agency. New people, who have real-world emergency services backgrounds, have been hired, Mr. Cannon said.
“This is going to be a very different agency than it was a year ago,” he said. “I want to have a part in making this department the best it’s ever been.”
GLENN CANNON
Age: 58
Home: Highland Park
Family: wife of 32 years, Catherine; two sons, Glenn Jr. and Grant; grandson, Jack, 9 weeks
Education: bachelor’s degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania; master’s in public management from Carnegie Mellon University; law degree from Duquesne University.