Policy, Strategic Initiatives, Legislative Affairs and Recovery
Dawn Mehlhaff currently serves as the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Strategic Initiatives, Legislative Affairs and Recovery for the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA), the state's public safety, homeland security, and emergency management agency. She is responsible for the planning, development, implementation and administration of strategic initiatives, emerging issues, executive briefings, and external affairs. She is responsible for articulating the long-term view of Cal EMA and translating the strategic priorities into planning products that drive integration, component priorities, and resource allocation decisions. She strengthens public safety, homeland security and emergency management by developing and integrating agency-wide policies and programs in order to better coordinate Cal EMA’s prevention, protection, response, and recovery missions. She oversees the statewide recovery unit and directs statewide disaster recovery operations and manages the coordination of state and federal resources. She is also responsible for Cal EMA’s legislative affairs and serves as the point of contact for state and federal legislative and policy matters.
Dawn holds a Masters Degree in Industrial-Organizational Psychology with a concentration in statistics from the California State University, Sacramento - School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.