We are excited to welcome Brad Slater to the Kenyon Emergency Services team as our new Associate. With over 30 years of extensive experience in emergency and crisis management, Brad brings a wealth of practical knowledge and a deep passion for supporting communities in their most critical moments.
In this Q&A, Brad shares insights into his career journey, his specialties in crisis response and humanitarian assistance, and what motivates him in his new role with Kenyon.
Can you tell us a bit about your career path and what led you to crisis management?I have been in the emergency management space for 30+years, first joining as a volunteer firefighter within a small mining town in Western Australia in the early 90s, as I wanted to provide assistance to the community in their time of need. This desire to help then led me to enlisting in the Royal Australian Air Force as an Aviation Rescue Fire Fighter, which I really enjoyed for the majority of my career. I left there to join a state government fire service, where I held both operational roles as well as roles with a strategy and emergency management focus. Working within crisis and incident management teams enabled me to continue to assist the community, and I used my skills to develop the capability of both internal and external emergency management personnel during my time there.
What specific areas of crisis management do you specialise in?Having worked across multiple areas I have a number of different focus areas. My main specialty is my passion for helping communities, specifically within crisis response and providing humanitarian assistance. I am also able to provide effective communications during incidents with this really essential to ensure community safety, and I am able to take an approach of risk management when ensuring business continuity and developing crisis leadership capability across groups. I am also able to work with external stakeholders such as business organisations, government entities or even NGOs to enhance capability within their operations, inclusive of emergency operation centres.
What attracted you to join Kenyon Emergency Services?My desire to assist local communities remains strong. I enrolled as an associate responder in 2024, and having learnt more about Kenyon and the essential work they do with affected communities post-emergency events during this time I felt that I might be able to assist in other ways also. The broad nature of the opportunities to build client capability from across the aviation, road and rail, education and maritime industries was a key attraction.
How do you approach high-pressure situations or crises?After 30+ years of working within different emergency management roles, from first responder, to working as part of an incident management team, and to acting as incident controller I have learnt the value of being calm. Knowing that doing so has a positive effect on others around me through reducing stress and providing the time to make the right decision is a key learning from my multiple experiences.
What makes a good crisis management team in your opinion?A good crisis management team is one that is collaborative, has a shared understanding of what they are being asked to achieve, and is able to handle the stresses that will undoubtedly come. Having an effective leader, whether that be an incident controller in the sense of an emergency services organisation, or a team leader in a business sense, who knows how to form a team quickly and provide the required guidance is essential. Even more so is having a team that engages fully with the event to do the best they can to achieve a successful outcome.
What are you most excited about in this new role?I am looking forward to the opportunity to engage with a broad range of varying clients from an international perspective. I have a passion for the aviation industry and am keen to become further involved in building capability through training of clients within crisis management, as well as through project management in developing key documents such as aerodrome emergency plans. I am also very interested in engaging more with other industry groups including government, and the energy and natural resources sectors, to assist them to understand their vulnerabilities and to work with them to mitigate their risks.
To learn more about how the Kenyon Emergency Services team can support your organisation in crisis management and emergency preparedness, get in touch with us today.