Lifetime Achievement Award: Alain Normand

T. Joseph Scanlon Lifetime Achievement Award 2019: Alain Normand

The CRHNet “Lifetime Achievement Award” is the organization’s highest honour and is named after the late T. Joseph Scanlon, journalist, researcher, professor for his lifetime contributions to disaster risk management. The award is presented annually to recognize the lifetime contributions and achievements of exemplary individuals to the enhancement of Canadian disaster safety. Learn more about this award here

Alain Normand is an author, lecturer, teacher and expert in Emergency Management. He completed his post-secondary education at the University of Ottawa in political science and public administration. He has worked in the security field, in emergency management, in crisis communications, and in business continuity.

He directed relief efforts in disasters such as the 1996 Saguenay floods, the 1998 Quebec Ice Storm, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2013 Calgary floods, and the 2016 Fort McMurray Fires. A resident of Brampton, Ontario, he is the Emergency Manager for the municipality since 1999 and led the response in SARS, the 2003 Blackout, and the 2013 GTA Ice Storm, as well as many other smaller incidents.

Past-President of the Ontario Association of Emergency Managers (OAEM), he sits on many national and provincial committees. He was a member of the first committee to develop a national standard on emergency management and business continuity now known as the Z1600. He was instrumental in lobbying the CRTC to create the Alert Ready program. He is also a founding member of the NGO Alliance bringing together disaster relief agencies in Ontario and currently working with other NGOs in the creation of the Emergency Management NGO Consortium of Canada (EMNCC).

Alain is the recipient of the 2010 Canadian Award for Emergency Management and two awards from the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) for the creation of the Community Emergency Response Volunteers (CERV) program and the City of Brampton branding approach to emergency public education.

He teaches emergency management and crisis communication at York University. He has taught and occasionally still teaches emergency management courses for other institutions such as Sheridan College, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, and Humber College. He is a guest speaker at many conferences and seminars and often sought after by media outlets to speak on emergency management issues and on response to disasters.

Alain has been a Canadian Red Cross volunteer for almost 20 years and an ADRA Canada volunteer for 25 years. He now works part-time for ADRA Canada, developing and implementing the national program for In-Kind Donations Management based on the humanitarian role of ADRA International.

During his career as an emergency management professional, Alain has developed and implemented a number of initiatives such as the PX3 Educational Board Games, the CERV program, and the faith-based organization involvement in disaster relief called the Lighthouse program.

Alain is the author of a series of novels on emergency management published by Authorhouse and available on Amazon. With his background as a Seventh-day Adventist, he has written two collections of short stories on biblical topics. He has also contributed many articles and blogs on emergency management and security topics in various forums. In his spare time, he works on new book ideas he aims to publish eventually.

Alain lives in Brampton, Ontario with his wife Nicole. They are empty nesters now that their three children have moved out, all living in the GTA.