George Havens
Captain George Havens is the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) representative in the Interagency Coordination (IC) Directorate of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. The IC Directorate facilitates integration and synchronization of interagency activities to ensure mutual understanding and unity of effort for homeland defense and defense support of civil authority missions.
Before arriving at NORAD in May 2009, Havens served the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in Washington, D.C., as team leader for international response coordination and policy. In this position, he was responsible for coordination and development of HHS programs focused on international emergency response, pandemic influenza international containment response, and reconstruction and stabilization operations.
Havens has been involved in domestic emergency medical response as a part of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) from 2005 to 2008, deploying to numerous incidents. He was the lead for medical operations at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport for Hurricane Katrina and the chief of field operations for Texas in response to Hurricane Rita. As Executive Officer for NDMS, Havens was instrumental in the coordination of the transfer of NDMS from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to HHS in 2006/2007, as directed under the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act.
A commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service since 1987, Havens has a Bachelor of Science Pharmacy degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago.