Home I Program I Bios and Presentations I Q&A I Resources I Increasing Wildfire Safety I Future Actions
At our Summit we had world class speakers, please find their bios and presentation here.
Dan Belville, San Mateo County Public Safety Communications Director
Dan Belville has served as Director of San Mateo County Public Safety Communications for three years. He previously served as fire chief for the cities of San Mateo and Foster City, and held other interim fire chief assignments in the county.
At 9-1-1 Communications and as fire chief, Dan has led or helped develop numerous strategic planning efforts to include multi-agency participation. He participated in the development of San Mateo County’s Advanced Life Support JPA, was a founding member of the County’s Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Team and was the principal executive in the newly created San Mateo Consolidated Fire Department. He was an early driver of the County’s Fire Safe program and proponent of multiple JPA’s throughout San Mateo County.
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Craig Clements, PhD., San Jose State University, Professor, Meteorology and Climate Science
Dr. Craig Clements is a Professorof Meteorology at San José State University and Director of the Fire Weather Research Laboratory. He leads research on fire weather, extreme fire behavior, fire-atmosphere interactions, and conducting wildland fire field experiments. Dr. Clements has over 20 years of experience in meteorological field observations and teaches courses in Fire Weather, Wildfire Science, Mountain Meteorology, Climate Change, and Meteorological Instrumentation. He received his PhD in Geophysics from the University of Houston, his MS in Meteorology from the University of Utah, and a BS degree in Geography from the University of Nevada, Reno. In 2012, Dr. Clements received the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award for his research on wildfire dynamics and fire weather. His current research focuses on obtaining meteorological measurements using state-of-the-art Mobile Atmospheric Profiling Systems such as Doppler Lidar and Radar at active wildfires in the western US and his research has been featured in PBS NOVA, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Time, CNN, and Scientific American.
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Jonathan Cox, San Mateo County Fire Chief and Cal Fire Division Chief
Jonathan Cox oversees fire operations at the San Mateo County Division of CAL FIRE, which includes San Mateo County Fire Department. Previously, Jonathan was a regional (Northern California) Battalion Chief and Public Information Officer with CAL FIRE's Communications Office.
Jonathan also responds to, and manages, some of California's largest disasters as a member of CAL FIRE's Incident Management Team 6 (FEMA Type 1), where he serves on the command staff in the capacity of Public Information Officer (PIO1). He holds a Bachelors Degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a Masters Degree from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has also completed an intensive training at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Geneva, Switzerland. Jonathan is a State of California (OSFM) certified Chief Officer and Registered Instructor.
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Denise Enea, Woodside Fire Marshall
Fire Marshal Denise Enea, a 24 yr fire service member, is responsible for fire code enforcement, fire and life safety prevention/education activities, and fire investigations in the Town of Woodside, Portola Valley and various unincorporated SMC areas. . Given the area’s location in the very high fire hazard zone of the county, Denise has been instrumental in creating evacuation strategies, home hardening recommendations to residents, multiple hazardous fuel reduction projects and the first robust chipping program in the bay area. Denise also chairs the FireSAFE San Mateo County Council, an umbrella organization of fire departments (including CAL FIRE), other first responders, County parks, open space preserves, utilities, homeowners groups, government officials and elected representatives. The Council has proactive strategies including grant-funded projects for vegetation management at various sites.
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Graham Kent, PhD., professor and director, University of Nevada, Meteorology Department
Dr. Graham M. Kent is Director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory/ and Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. Previousto July 2009, Graham was a Research Geophysicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and had been Director of the Visualization Center at Scripps from 2001-2009. Dr. Kent is a native of South Lake Tahoe, California. He attended San Diego State University, where he studied Geophysics and graduated Valedictorian of the Class of 1985. Soon thereafter, he entered graduate school at Scripps Institution of Oceanography receiving his PhD in 199
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Brian Nowicki, California Climate Policy Director, Center for Biological Diversity
Brian Nowicki is the California Climate Policy Director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. Brian is based in Sacramento, where he works on state climate policy, including forest management and fire issues. Brian received his Master of Science in Forestry at Northern Arizona University before joining the Center in 2002. Before moving to Sacramento, Brian worked as a conservation biologist in the Center’s National Forests program, advocating for environmental values and wildlife habitat in USFS logging projects and vegetation management.
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Kevin Rose, Office of Emergency Services Manager, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office
Kevin Rose is the Manager for the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services (OES). He joined OES in May of 2018 as its newest Supervisor before being promoted to Manager in March of 2019. Previous to OES, Kevin was an Emergency Preparedness Specialist for the San Mateo County EMS Agency for roughly 12 years. Prior to the EMS Agency, Kevin worked as a Legislative Aide for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors for 5 years. Kevin has a Bachelor of Arts in Communication with a Minor in Mathematics and a Minor in Public Administration from the University of Puget Sound.
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April Rose Maurath Sommer, JD, Wildtree Foundation, Executive and Legal Director
April Rose Maurath Sommer brings expertise in energy regulation, environmental law, and experience in non-profit governance and environmental advocacy to Wild Tree Foundation. Prior to joining Wild Tree Foundation, April was the Executive Director and Lead Counsel of the Protect Our Communities Foundation (POC) and Staff Attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). As POC Lead Counsel, April successfully advocated before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and California courts for denial of approval for a new natural gas pipeline and denial of a $379 million rate increase for SD&E for the cost of a series of fires the utility caused in 2007. At CBD, she challenged development of dirty utilities infrastructure, advocated for sustainable energy and protection of wildlife in practice before the CPUC, CEC, air districts, state and federal agencies, and appellate courts. She holds a B.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell University and a J.D. from Emory University.
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