Mary Ellen Carroll is the executive director of the Department of Emergency Management. She oversees a department responsible for leading San Francisco in planning, preparedness, communications, response, and recovery for daily emergencies, large City-wide events and major disasters. Her responsibilities include the overall operations of San Francisco’s 9-1-1 center, Emergency Operations Center, and the City’s emergency public alert and warning systems.
Carroll has almost 25 years of experience in local public service with the last 15 in the City and County of San Francisco. She joined the City’s Department of Public Health in 2005, where she led planning and coordination efforts for San Francisco’s health systems. Throughout her tenure in San Francisco, she has led numerous incident command activations, managed the City’s pilot policy on drone usage, wrote the initial iteration of the continuity plan for the City’s financial system, managed the response to the 2013 Rim Fire that resulted in almost $50 million in damage to San Francisco city assets, and has deployed in a mutual assistance role to regional disasters including several wildfires. She is a certified emergency manager. She is also a surfer, backpacker, soccer player and mother.
Carroll holds a bachelor’s in International Studies from George Washington University and a master’s in Urban Studies from Virginia Tech.