PEOPLE.
PERSPECTIVES.
A MORE PREPARED
TOMORROW.

Dr. Rick White is a retired U.S. Air Force officer, educator, and homeland security author with extensive experience in technology, infrastructure security, and exercise development. During his 20-year Air Force career, he served in roles spanning programming, network and software engineering, communications leadership, and military education, including assignments supporting Operation Provide Comfort, Cheyenne Mountain, and the U.S. Air Force Academy. Dr. White earned his PhD in Engineering Security and conducted infrastructure risk research for the Department of Homeland Security while teaching computer science at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. He has authored five books and more than 20 professional articles on homeland security and spent three years developing homeland security exercises for USNORTHCOM.

Todd Manns is an emergency management professional, instructor, and entrepreneur with experience spanning the military, law enforcement, incident management, and consequence management. He began his career in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve before serving as a police officer, SWAT team member, law enforcement sniper, interim Chief of Police, surveillance operative, and emergency manager for a fire protection district. Manns is formally qualified as a Type III Planning Section Chief and has participated in more than 30 all-hazards deployments supporting Incident Command Posts and Emergency Operations Centers. In 2009, he founded The Blue Cell, LLC, which provides training, exercises, and consulting across the United States and internationally. In 2025, The Blue Cell partnered with Simental Industries to release the Emergency Operations Center: Complex Coordinated Attack 8 Disaster Wargame.

Dr. Mark Borland is an emergency management professional, educator, and lifelong tabletop gamer who brings together operational experience, storytelling, and game design. His emergency and disaster services career began in 2004 with work in wildland and structural firefighting, search and rescue, and law enforcement support before expanding into emergency management at the local, state, and federal levels. Over more than 20 years, he has supported responses associated with more than 40 major federal disaster declarations nationwide. Borland’s interest in gaming began with tabletop games and role-playing systems and developed into expertise in narrative design, world-building, and strategic gaming. He now combines these disciplines to create learning experiences that strengthen leadership, communication, decision-making, and adaptability under pressure.

Victoria Kluge is an emergency management consultant and game creator specializing in preparedness training, resilience, and exercise design. Drawing on experience in crisis coordination and policy implementation, she develops immersive tabletop and simulation-based exercises that translate complex emergency operations into practical learning environments. Her work uses game mechanics and participatory approaches to explore decision-making under pressure, cross-agency coordination, and adaptive leadership during disasters. Kluge integrates academic research with real-world incident experience and creative design to develop exercises that strengthen organizational and community preparedness, response capabilities, and resilience.

Sylviane Miharisoa is a medical entomologist and quantitative researcher specializing in mathematical modeling. Her work applies Bayesian statistical methods and other quantitative approaches to examine patterns and event probabilities in complex environments. Miharisoa’s work aides in supporting data-driven decision-making in EMDG's digital disaster wargames.

Corey Padrón is the Owner of SARAem LLC, and the Designer of SARA's "WatchKat" Emergency Management dashboard. He built WatchKat for agencies that need a full emergency operations center dashboard and have found enterprise models either incomplete, overly complicated, or priced outside an average agencies budget capability.  He has 25 years of experience, in private, nonprofit, county, and Tribal public safety, with 14 of those years in emergency management.

In his previous work, Corey was the Director of Emergency Management for Columbia County, Oregon, and the Regional Tribal Emergency Manager for Tlingit and Haida in Juneau, Alaska, where he established and stood up the Tribe’s first Office of Emergency Management, and Tribal Emergency Operations Center for Tlingit & Haida’s response to COVID-19. In Public Safety, Corey held the rank of First Sergeant, and was certified in Law Enforcement, Firefighting, and advanced Emergency Medical response.

Corey holds a Bachelor of Science in Fire Services Administration from Eastern Oregon University and associate degrees in criminal justice and emergency management from Portland Community College.

Loren Lamb is a firefighter/EMT with an all-hazards response fire department in the Front Range of Colorado. In 2019, he earned a B.S. in Natural Resources Management through the Warner College of Natural Resources and a B.A. in Languages, Literatures and Cultures with a Spanish Concentration from Colorado State University. He spent nine years working for the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service on a Wildland Fire Module, Interagency Hotshot Crews, and as a Smokejumper. During that time, he traveled throughout the United States to some of the nation's most remote, rugged, and beautiful areas to assist in prescribed burns, fuels reduction projects, and wildland firefighting efforts. He combined his love of strategic board games with his experience in wildland firefighting to create Fire Danger: Extreme. 

Sarah Lux is a public relations and crisis communications professional with more than 13 years of experience in community education, government affairs, and emergency communication. She has deployed ten times to support communications efforts in affected communities, including Fort Myers Beach following Hurricane Ian. In 2024, Lux earned the Master Public Information Officer designation through the federal Master PIO program. She specializes in translating complex governmental and emergency information into clear, accessible communication for the public. Lux currently serves as Community Information Manager for the City of DeLand and leads her own communications consulting firm, Lux Communications Strategies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Central Florida and a master’s degree in Public Relations from Full Sail University.

Andrew Boyarsky is an emergency management, business continuity, disaster recovery, and project management professional with 30 years of experience. He serves as President of Pinnacle Performance Management and as a Clinical Associate Professor in Project and Emergency Management at NYU and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Earlier in his career, Boyarsky managed large-scale international emergency programs in the former Yugoslavia and the Caucasus with the Red Cross and Catholic Relief Services. From 2007 to 2016, he supported the New York City Office of Emergency Management as a program manager focused on emergency preparedness. His consulting experience includes work with FEMA and emergency management and public health agencies across several major U.S. jurisdictions. He is also the author of Riding the Wave: Applying Project Management Science in the Field of Emergency Management.

Philippe Borremans is a crisis, risk, and emergency communication consultant and Managing Director of RiskComms FZCO. Over more than 25 years, he has worked across more than 50 countries developing crisis and emergency communication plans and delivering simulation training for international organizations, governments, and corporations, including WHO, ICRC, ECDC, and IAEA. His career includes roles with Porter Novelli and IBM, where he spent a decade working in corporate and crisis communications. Borremans is a former President of the International Public Relations Association and former Vice President of IARCC. He is the author of two books on crisis communication and has contributed to professional standards and peer-reviewed research. His work combines communication strategy, technology, data, and human-centered approaches to strengthen organizational readiness for complex crises.