Senior Manager, Emergency Services
Best Friends Animal Society
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Remote
Location: Remote • 🇺🇸 United States
Visit company websiteSalary
💰 $95,000 - $105,000 per year
Job Level
Senior
About the role
- Provide national leadership and strategic direction for the Best Friends Animal Society's emergency response initiatives and internal preparedness.
- Develop and execute a comprehensive emergency response strategy that supports animals and communities affected by disasters across the country.
- Serve as an operational leader, directing large-scale field response efforts, coordinating cross-functional teams during activations, and building collaborative partnerships with emergency management agencies, shelters, and community organizations.
- Drive readiness, safety, and training efforts across all Best Friends locations where animals are being housed, ensuring clear Emergency Action plans, consistent staff training, and an integrated approach to internal response needs.
- Lead the creation, implementation, and ongoing improvement of emergency action plans (EAPs) and any correlating SOPs across all animal housing locations.
- Oversee organization-wide readiness development through structured training with both staff and managers.
- Work cross-functionally with leadership in different areas, facilities, safety, risk, animal care, etc.
- Serve as the internal central command lead during incidents affecting any organizational location.
- Develop and execute the Best Friends Animal Society’s national emergency response strategy, ensuring operations are scalable, efficient, and adaptable across event types.
- Build and maintain robust emergency management partnerships at the local, regional, and federal levels.
- Represent the organization during EOC activations, unified command structures, and disaster planning coalitions.
- Lead national emergency and disaster activations on behalf of Best Friends from preparation through recovery.
- Manage and coach emergency services team members, volunteers, and staff temporarily reassigned during response operations.
Requirements
- 5+ years’ experience in emergency management or supporting emergency response in the animal welfare space.
- An understanding of the emergency management structure at the federal, state and local levels is required.
- Strong understanding of animal welfare practices, animal transports, and disaster response operations for animals, experience with large animals is a plus.
- Must have familiarity and/or certifications in water rescue operations & fire rescue operations.
- Experience with multi-agency coordination and incident command systems is preferred (ICS 100-400 and NIMS).
- 3-5 years of experience managing employees in a leadership role is required.
- Prior experience overseeing/coordinating volunteers.
- Experience developing and implementation of training programs for staff and volunteers.
- Proven ability to manage people and logistics in high-pressure, dynamic environments.
- Excellent communication, crisis management, and decision-making skills.
- Bilingual or multi-lingual skills are preferred but not required.
- Customer-centric, non-judgmental approach to engaging with adopters, partners, visitors, volunteers, and colleagues; familiarity and comfort with a conversational adoption process.
- Basic ability to identify and speak to medical and behavioral characteristics of dogs and cats.
- Strong interpersonal skills, a team player, personable, professional, and able to get along with people from different backgrounds, as well as the ability to handle sensitive and confidential situations.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with well-developed organization skills to juggle multiple competing tasks and demands.
- Resourceful, get-it-done attitude; initiative to assist in any area or process; problem solving, seeking answers independently and enthusiastically; flexibility to persist until goals are achieved.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with public speaking and presentation experience.
- Ability to professionally advocate Best Friends’ positions on issues; experience in supporting, engaging with, and developing relationships with volunteers and donors.
- Must have strong proficiency in MS Office skills including Outlook, Teams, Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
- Willingness to travel frequently and deploy to emergency zones, including extended field assignments under challenging conditions.
Benefits
- great benefits! 📊 Check your resume score for this job Improve your chances of getting an interview by checking your resume score before you apply. Check Resume Score
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard skills
emergency managementdisaster response operationsanimal welfare practiceswater rescue operationsfire rescue operationsmulti-agency coordinationincident command systemstraining program developmentlogistics managementcrisis management
Soft skills
communication skillsdecision-making skillsinterpersonal skillsteam playerorganizational skillsproblem solvingflexibilitycustomer-centric approachadvocacyresourcefulness
Certifications
ICS 100ICS 200ICS 300ICS 400NIMS