Michael was the first Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness & Response after the creation of DHS while simultaneously serving as the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency He also served on the White House Transition team for DHS. While at Homeland Security he was the U.S. Representative to the NATO Civil Emergency Planning Committee and a member of the U.S.-Great Britain Working Group. He chaired delegations to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and negotiated a ten-year cooperative agreement between the U.S. and Russia.

He was originally appointed General Counsel at FEMA. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks the Senate confirmed him as FEMA Deputy Director. During his DHS/FEMA tenure, he was involved in 160 disasters ranging from the 9/11 attacks, Western U.S. wildfires, 2004 Florida hurricanes and, Hurricane Katrina.

Michael practiced law in Colorado and Oklahoma and served as a special prosecutor in police disciplinary matters, negotiated manufacturing contracts in Brazil, Argentina and Peru and worked in the Oklahoma legislature on state fiscal issues. He co-founded and served as Chairman of the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority. He has served in numerous nonprofit associations and was the first Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.

Michael recently co-founded a start-up, and currently consults and speaks on crisis management at universities and organizations throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. He is a frequent speaker on issues of homeland security, disaster preparedness and crisis communications.

He is on the board of Homeland Security Television, Next of Kin Registry, and is a national security blogger at National Journal. He has written for publications such as Homeland Defense Journal and Crisis Response Journal. He is currently writing a book, Deadly Indifference, and blogs on issues of politics and homeland security at www.michaelbrowntoday.com. Michael hosts a weekly talk show on News Radio
850-KOA. His television appearances range from Countdown with Keith Olbermann to Neil Cavuto’s Fox Business Report, and he has appeared with Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert.

Follow Michael: Twitter @mikebrowntoday
Email him at michael at michaelbrowntoday dot com
Join him on Facebook at michael.d.brown

Blog Entries by Michael D. Brown

USOC Belongs in Colorado, Not Mississippi

1 Comments | Posted November 9, 2009 | 05:06 PM (EST)


Flying under the statewide news radar over the past several months (unless you live in Colorado Springs and regularly read the Colorado Springs Gazette) has been the surprising story of the United States Olympic Committee and the City of Colorado Springs arguing about money, facilities and threats to leave the...

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The Audacity of Hindsight Could Help FEMA

Posted November 9, 2009 | 04:05 PM (EST)


Last Thursday while we were still engulfed in the attack at Fort Hood, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved legislation removing the Federal Emergency Management Agency from the Department of Homeland Security, returning it to independent, Cabinet-level status if approved. See H.R.1174. Ironic that a few days after...

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Imagine Coors Field Today -- Time to Change Baseball Season

2 Comments | Posted October 29, 2009 | 07:52 PM (EST)


I love the Colorado Rockies.

When I moved temporarily from Boulder to Washington, DC to work in the Bush Administration, the hardest part was giving up my season tickets at Coors Field. My radio show on 850KOA is often preempted for Rockies' games, which is certainly understandable. After...

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The Ugly Underbelly of Facebook and Twitter

6 Comments | Posted October 29, 2009 | 01:14 PM (EST)


I don't recall when I joined Facebook and Twitter.

The reasons for joining were the obvious: the ability to reconnect with old friends and make new ones, the chance to explore a new social media that was being talked about everywhere, and the opportunity to peer into...

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Longmont Elections Show Need for Transparency

1 Comments | Posted October 23, 2009 | 11:02 AM (EST)


The most innocuous and unobjectionable language can obfuscate the obvious:

The people of the city of Longmont find and declare that large campaign contributions to political candidates allow wealthy contributors and special interest groups to exercise a disproportionate level of influence over the political process; that large campaign contributions create...
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Eight Years of War. Take Care of Them. They Are Us.

8 Comments | Posted October 7, 2009 | 01:21 PM (EST)


All-American faces, the plumber, schoolteacher, mechanic, accountant, they are all there. Small talk, the smells of barbeque for dinner, an occasional laugh all fill the basketball court/dining room. Some sit in chairs in neatly aligned rows for a ceremony. Others sit in the partially deployed bleachers, head in hands, or...

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Blame it on Rio; Don't Blame it on Obama

142 Comments | Posted October 2, 2009 | 05:53 PM (EST)


I want my conservative and libertarian friends to put aside their dislike (and hatred) of President Obama for at least a minute or two. Forget momentarily the monumental waste of fuel, manpower and dollars sending First Lady Michelle Obama on a State Department 757 airplane only to have the President...

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Sen. Mark Udall and VA Secretary Shinseki Finger Pointing on Tim Masters Case

Posted September 27, 2009 | 10:41 PM (EST)


Imagine being tried and convicted in 1999 for a murder you did not commit. Now imagine those nine years, five months and twelve days you spend in a Colorado state penitentiary for that murder. It happened in Colorado and while the subject of this post is not about the murders,...

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Sarkozy the Realist; Obama the Dreamer

Posted September 25, 2009 | 06:14 PM (EST)


In George Bernard Shaw's Back to Methusela, the Serpent says "I hear you say 'why?' Always "Why?' You see things; and you say 'Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?'" While Shaw may have thought the answer to the world's problems is to live...

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Talk Radio Inciting Violence? What Happened to Listener Discernment?

4 Comments | Posted September 21, 2009 | 08:50 PM (EST)


Today's email digest of talk radio news has an article saying talkers may be inciting listeners to violence. According to the article, right-wing talkers are said to send subliminal messages. The author, talk-radio consultant Holland Cooke, invokes Chris Matthews' reference to the "dog whistle" and claims that "fringe...

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