Deborah Mills
Deborah Mills is Dewberry’s Hazard Mitigation Client Manager focusing on the company’s national Hazard Mitigation Practice. She represents ASFPM on a variety of efforts, including co-chairing the Mitigation Committee and supporting development of FEMA’s National Mitigation Framework. She supports federal, state and local hazard mitigation programs nationwide such as HMTAP, TARC and state and local mitigation planning. She retired after 30 years with the Commonwealth of Virginia, most recently as the State Hazard Mitigation Officer. She was the Director of the Recovery and Mitigation Division of the Department of Emergency Management where she managed a staff of recovery project and planning specialists that manage Commonwealth disaster recovery operations.
Her degree is in Forest Resource Management and Forest Engineering from West Virginia University. She served 10 years for the Virginia Department of Forestry, 13 years in water pollution management at DCR and the past six years in floodplain management and disaster recovery programs. She assisted the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Mitigation Program for a month in Biloxi following Hurricane Katrina. Mills is active in her downtown Richmond neighborhood, gardens, and builds disaster resistant Lego structures with her god children.
