Angela R. Gladwell serves as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Director of the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Claims Office in the Recovery Directorate. Throughout her more than twenty years of experience in emergency management and environmental policy and over twelve years leading federal programs, Gladwell has worked to inform public decision-making and improve inter-governmental collaboration, partnership, and transparency in reducing the nation’s risk to natural disasters. Gladwell was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in 2016.
Previously, Gladwell served as the Director of the Hazard Mitigation Assistance Division, reducing disaster suffering by delivering grant programs that reduce disaster losses. She directed FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance Programs, including the new Building Resilient Infrastructure in Communities (BRIC) Program, the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, and the Flood Mitigation Assistance Program, ensuring the Federal Government is a leader in prioritizing federal investments for mitigation and resilience and catalyzing community partnerships to promote sustained and equitable investments in risk reduction.
Gladwell co-chaired the inter-agency Mitigation Framework Leadership Group (MitFLG) that coordinates mitigation and resilience efforts across the Federal Government in consultation with state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments as well as the private sector. Under her leadership, the MitFLG developed and began implementing the National Mitigation Investment Strategy to increase the effectiveness of investments in reducing disaster losses and increasing resilience, and to provide strategic planning considerations for the federal government, as well for SLTT entities and the private sector in making resource allocation decisions.
Before joining the Mitigation Directorate in 2020, Gladwell served as the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Risk Management Directorate for four years and spent the previous decade as the Director of FEMA’s Office of Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation. During this time, she led the maturation of the agency’s environmental compliance function to meet the rapidly evolving nature of emergency management programs and operations as a result of major disaster events including 9/11, and Hurricanes Katrina, Ike and Sandy, and subsequent legislative change.
Gladwell holds a Master of Arts in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from University of Delaware, and a Bachelor of Arts in Historic Preservation from Mary Washington College (now the University of Mary Washington).