Georgetown University’s Office of Emergency Management supports COVID-19 response
Marc Barbiere came to Georgetown about five months before the COVID-19 pandemic, taking over the recently-restructured Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in order to coordinate the University’s efforts to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies.
Marc Barbiere had only been at Georgetown University (Georgetown) a couple of months before the COVID-19 pandemic started. He was still learning about Georgetown’s operations and governance structure as he took the helm as Director of the Office of Emergency Management. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t ready.
Barbiere has been through many large-scale emergencies, including 9/11, flu vaccine shortages, a steam pipe explosion, collapsed cranes, H1N1, Ebola, and numerous severe weather incidents to name a few. He made the jump into emergency management in 2003, but prior to that, he was an NYC EMS paramedic and a NYC Fire Department EMS Lieutenant. On the public health side, he held leadership positions with the NYC Department of Health, the Fairfax County Health Department’s emergency preparedness program, and the D.C. Department of Health, as well as having served as an emergency manager in the Austin, Texas area, before coming to Georgetown in November of 2019.