Although it seems unlikely Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush share much in the way of political perspectives, they do agree on one thing—Craig Fugate is the right guy to head up the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Obama last week named Fugate, currently director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, as his pick to lead FEMA. Bush did the same in 2005 after the resignation of the Katrina-disgraced Michael Brown. Fugate turned down Bush’s nomination because "the timing wasn't right," according to a recent profile in Time.

Since then, the clock has been ticking at FEMA, which has inched toward redemption under another Florida emergency official, former Miami-Dade County Rescue Chief R. David Paulison. Paulison told the Associated Press that Fugate would have a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to jump, but when it came down to the business of FEMA, he’d be ready.

"There are few people around the world that have the type of disaster experience that Craig Fugate has," Paulison is quoted as saying.

Natural disasters aren’t the only ones Fugate is bound to face as head of the long-vilified agency—and it’s Fugate’s singular combination of far-ranging experience, bipartisan politics, and all-around-nice-guyness that has everyone from local emergency managers to former FEMA head James Lee Witt hopeful about the future.

"Craig's experience will be an asset in rebuilding the trust and relationships between the federal and state governments," Witt told the Associated Press.

Many others in the emergency management field are breathing a sigh of relief to see a seasoned practitioner fill the position.

"This is a guy who has actually worked in emergency management his whole life and at all levels of government—local, state and federal,” Russ Decker, president of the International Association of Emergency Managers, told Government Technology’s Emergency Management. “…We think he's in a unique position to understand the needs of all those different levels."

Fugate, who saw Florida through the difficult 2004 hurricane season, began his career as a volunteer firefighter and paramedic, according to a Department of Homeland Security press release. He served as a lieutenant with Alachua County Fire Rescue and spent 10 years as the Emergency Manager for Alachua County, Florida. He was appointed director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management in 2001.

Aside from crack emergency management skills and an understanding of the emergency process on multiple levels of government, Fugate will bring another useful trait to the job—an affinity for social media. Fugate maintains a blog and a Twitter stream (see our Web Resources section below), and records regular Webcasts for FloridaDisaster.org, the division’s website.