Michael Byrne’s career covers a broad spectrum-from hands-on firefighting to senior management and policy development. Highlights of his career include 20 years with Fire Department New York and 20 years in a variety of disaster response and recovery leadership positions. A sampling of these events include operation chief for the federal response to the attack on 9/11, federal coordinating officer for Hurricanes Sandy in New York, and Maria in Puerto Rico, wildfires in Colorado, California, and Oregon and support to the United States Agency for International Development for the Haiti earthquake. He has held numerous leadership roles in the creation and transformation of organizations to include the Fire Department of New York Office of Strategic Planning, the New York City Office of Emergency Management, and the Office of Homeland Security in the White House after 9/11. While there, Byrne held the position of senior director for preparedness, response, and recovery and he played a significant role in the writing of HSPD-5 (doctrine on command and control of domestic events in the U.S.) as well as all the grant programs in support of First Responders in our nation.
Byrne has also held leadership roles outside of government in both the private and non-profit sectors while working at The American Red Cross, Microsoft, and ICF. While at The American Red Cross, Byrne held the position of division disaster executive for the Pacific Region which includes Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. He recently joined Deloitte as a specialist executive where he plans to continue to support efforts to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate against the consequences of disaster events.