Ken Topping
Kenneth C. Topping is a lecturer with the California Polytechnic State University City and Regional Planning Department, 2010 California State Hazard Mitigation Plan project director (prepared by CalPoly for Calif. Emergency Management Agency), president of Topping Associates International, and a San Luis Obispo County planning commissioner. He is the former planning director for the City of Los Angeles, a position he held from 1986 to 1990. He has advised on disaster prevention and recovery in the United States, Australia, the Philippines, and Japan, where he was born.
Topping was visiting professor at Kyoto University’s Disaster Prevention Research Institute in Japan from 2002 to 2004. He is co-author with Rob Olshansky and Laurie Johnson of Opportunity in Chaos: Rebuilding After the 1994 Northridge and 1995 Kobe Earthquakes, and co-author with Jim Schwab and others of Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning and Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction.
Topping’s observations on hazard mitigation are covered in the 2010 article “Using National Financial Incentives to Build Local Resiliency: The U.S. Disaster Mitigation Act” published in the Journal of Disaster Research. His thoughts on Stafford Act reform are summarized in an invited comment, “Toward a National Disaster Recovery Act of 2009,” which appeared in the January 2009 issue of the Natural Hazards Observer.
Related Resources from Ken Topping
Using National Financial Incentives to Build Local Resiliency: The U.S. Disaster Mitigation Act
Journal of Disaster Research, 2010
