Monday, December 9, 2024
PARKER COUNTY — Last week, public relations officers introduced 51-year-old Jason Lane as Parker County’s new emergency management coordinator. Lane will be responsible for the development, implementation, coordination and maintenance of emergency preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation plans as well as the overall management of the county and Department of Homeland Security emergency and security programs.
Lane previously served as the deputy emergency management coordinator for the city of Frisco. Lane managed Frisco’s emergency operation center, dealt with homeland security grants and handled reimbursement following disasters among other duties.
Lane served as the assistant emergency management coordinator for Collin County and was the county’s bioterrorism coordinator. Prior to working for Collin County, Lane was an environmental investigator for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In this role, he was responsible for providing technical information, assistance, expertise, guidance and direction to local and state agencies regarding federal environmental regulations.
Lane holds a Master of Science in in justice administration and leadership from the University of Texas at Dallas and two Bachelor of Science degrees — one in bioenvironmental science from Texas A&M University and another in emergency administration and planning from the University of North Texas. He has completed training in hazardous materials safety, environmental remediation, critical infrastructure protection, biological and chemical warfare and terrorism, sports and special event management and radiological emergency preparedness.
Lane grew up in Collin County in the small city of Farmersville. He currently lives in Palo Pinto County with his family but says he’s looking forward to moving to Parker once he sells his house. In a phone interview with the Tri-County Reporter, Lane said his first goal is getting to know the people and organizations of the county.
“I think the big thing for me is to, at least initially, is to try to meet all the folks that are involved when we have emergencies and disasters, because you can't fix a disaster by yourself,” Lane said. “It takes a partnership. A big part of that is networking and getting to know all the players, the usual suspects, like first responders, law enforcement, public works, those are the ones we kind of think about the most. There's also a lot of other folks that help out in disasters. Here in Parker County, we have a community emergency response team, which is a group of volunteers from the community that we train on how to take care of themselves and then help others in a disaster. They're an active group. We want to try to build that program and make it stronger.”
Lane said volunteers like these are vital in activities like storm spotting. Volunteers with ham radios are trained by the National Weather Service and Parker County in order to carry out these duties.
“It's a broad range of players that are involved when we have disaster,” Lane said. “It's not ideal to be in the middle of a disaster, and you're having to work with somebody that's the first time you've ever met them.”
Lane said his experiences working in rapidly growing fringe communities in the D-FW metroplex will be highly applicable in his new role. In his extensive career he has also already made relationships with key players in the region, like some of the individuals heading the upcoming University of Texas at Arlington West development in Walsh Ranch.
“I've kind of always worked in emergency management in areas that are growing rapidly and Parker County is headed that same direction,” Lane said. “There's some nuances to how things operate in the Parker County, so I'm trying to figure that out but so far, everybody I've met has been really nice and supportive and I'm looking forward to digging in and trying to do what I can.”
With good systems already in place, Lane hopes to work on continuous improvement in the county’s emergency preparedness. Lane explained that in Texas counties, the county judge is in charge during disasters. As communities grow, he said judges will typically appoint an emergency management coordinator. In many Texas counties the position is held by the fire marshal. In Parker County, the position was only recently split with Kurt Harris remaining interim fire marshal and Lane now acting as emergency management coordinator.
