James Lee Witt
| James Witt | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||
| Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency | |||
|
In office April 5, 1993 – January 20, 2001 |
|||
| President | Bill Clinton | ||
| Preceded by | Wallace Stickney | ||
| Succeeded by | Joe Allbaugh | ||
| Personal details | |||
| Born |
January 6, 1944 Paris, Arkansas, U.S. |
||
| Political party | Democratic | ||
|
|||
James Lee Witt (born January 6, 1944) is a former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), during the tenure of U.S. President Bill Clinton and is often credited with raising the agency’s level of professionalism and ability to respond to disasters.
Witt was born in Paris, Arkansas, and was raised in Dardanelle, in Yell County, Arkansas. He and Clinton met as boys in Little League in 1974. He founded a construction business in 1968. At 34, he was elected County Judge of Yell County. Witt was re-elected to the post six times and was recognized by the National Association of Counties for his work. Witt was a charter Board Chairman of Child Development Inc., which works to advance Head Start programs.
In 1988, shortly after being reelected county Judge, an administrative position he had held for ten years, Witt was appointed by then-Governor Bill Clinton to be the head of the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services. There he reorganized the state's emergency management process. Clinton subsequently moved the new Fire Protection Services Program to OES, including the board and the grant program, which was administered in conjunction with the state Insurance Department."
When Clinton was elected President, he appointed Witt to head FEMA, for which Witt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1993. In 1996, FEMA was given cabinet rank.
During his tenure Witt was able to overcome FEMA's previously poor reputation. A 1992 interim report by the Congress (prior to Hurricane Andrew, which led to further criticism of FEMA) had said, "FEMA is widely viewed as a political dumping ground, a turkey farm, if you will, where large numbers of positions exist that can be conveniently and quietly filled by political appointment ..." The comment had been provoked by the appointment of Wallace Stickney, described in the report as ``weak`` and ``uninterested in the substantive programs of FEMA," owing his post to his relationship with former White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu.
By 1996, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial said, "FEMA has developed a sterling reputation for delivering disaster-relief services, a far cry from its abysmal standing before James Lee Witt took its helm in 1993. How did Witt turn FEMA around so quickly? Well, he is the first director of the agency to have emergency-management experience. He stopped the staffing of the agency by political patronage. He removed layers of bureaucracy. Most important, he instilled in the agency a spirit of preparedness, of service to the customer, of willingness to listen to ideas of local and state officials to make the system work better."
...
Wikipedia