Kevin Smith, CEM, is the Chief Executive Officer of Rule One Consulting, LLC. He is a Certified Emergency Manager who has worked with local, state and federal government and nonprofit organizations for more than 25 years. Kevin began his career 1996 with The Salvation Army where he led disaster relief efforts for multiple federally declared disasters as Area Commander including wildfires, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and earthquakes. In 2001, Mr. Smith served multiple Incident Management General Staff roles for The Salvation Army following the attacks on September 11.
From 2005-2008, Mr. Smith served as the National Disaster Specialist with Feeding America helping to build resilience and response capacity within food banks and community-based organization member agencies. In July, 2018, Kevin was appointed as the Director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives. During his time there, Kevin contributed to the establishment of the first ever faith-based advisory council to a federal cabinet secretary and was appointed as the Designated Federal Officer to the Faith-based Security Advisory Council to oversee its establishment.
Kevin worked with the White House Office of Public Liaison to forge relationships across all DHS component agencies developing partnerships between the public, faith and community-based organizations, emergency managers and first responders to strengthen the resilience of our nation. This includes increasing faith-based and community engagement in support of the DHS Blue Campaign, the unified voice for the DHS’s efforts to combat human trafficking. His office supported faith-based organizations through the response and recovery efforts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the humanitarian aid crisis on the US southern border and the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kevin holds certifications from the International Association of Emergency Managers and has completed Harvard University’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. He has received the Distinguished Service Awards from National Hurricane Conference, and the Florida Governor’s Hurricane Conference.