Frank Borden discusses how CERT was created and what influenced it’s growth and development into a nation-wide (and now world-wide) life-saving program during the February 2017 Huntington Beach CERT meeting.

Before we get into Frank’s presentation, take a quick look at this summary of his extensive background with the L.A. City Fire Department.

Frank Borden retired from the Los Angeles City Fire Department as an Assistant Chief with over 36 years of service and became a consultant and instructor in emergency management and preparedness. During his fire service career he has commanded hundreds of emergency incidents and had a direct role in the management of response to many disasters. In his last assignment, he was the Commander of the Training and Disaster Preparedness Division of the Fire Department and member of the City of Los Angeles Emergency Operations Organization.

He has an extensive background in emergency planning, preparedness, management and training in all levels of government and the private sector. He has been involved in many research projects and developed many nationally and internationally recognized programs such as the Community Emergency Response Team Program (CERT); Urban Search and Rescue (US&R); and the Incident Command System (ICS). This research has been done as a team leader to investigate disasters such as the Mandeville Fire, the Mexico City earthquake, the Loma Prieta earthquake, the Los Angeles Riots, the ’93 Southern California Firestorm, the Northridge earthquake, and the Kobe earthquake. Many improvements have been made as a result of this research in community and government preparedness and response.

You can watch his presentation here.