LEADING DURING CRISIS BY A FORMER FEMA ADMINISTRATOR
Elevate your leadership game with the ultimate crisis management training.
Led by Pete Gaynor, former FEMA Administrator and renowned crisis leader, this course equips you with the real-world strategies you need to thrive under pressure. Don’t just manage a crisis—lead with confidence, clarity, and impact.
Hone Your Skills
Study how a FEMA Administrator navigates challenges and handles crisis situations.
Formulate a Process
Put a process in place that you can apply to any crisis situation.
Make Sound, Safe Decisions
Gain the confidence to overcome high risk, low frequency incidents.
The stakes are high in emergency management
The worst-case scenario is being placed in a position that you’ve never encountered.
And this means you won’t have specific crisis experiences in your past to draw from.
But the truth is...
...others will still rely on you to make decisions.
Sound decisions.
Safe decisions. Timely decisions.
Decisions that change the trajectory of the crisis.
You need to hone your crisis leadership skills now.
Because routine, familiar, and comfortable actions don’t work in a crisis.
You have the burden of leadership on your shoulders
One of the most important things you’ll be tasked with during a crisis:
Act decisively.
You could gain leadership skills through trial and error...
...but that means risking thousands of lives, dollars, and your reputation.
You’ve likely seen it on one of the cable news outlets, a leader undergoing a public trial by fire.
And you’ve thought, “Glad I’m not that guy.”
Crisis leadership is a skill.
It doesn’t happen by accident.
You must work at it every day.
To become a trusted leader in any situation, you’ve taken these two paths. Neither has worked out the way you’d hoped…
Path 1: You’ve completed lots of emergency management training.
You’re a leader and a lifelong learner with years of emergency management training.
You’ve participated in...
agency-sponsored leadership courses
executive programs put on by academic institutions
FEMA’s on-line independent study courses
You and your team have gained a lot of knowledge.
When it comes to crisis leadership…
You have been going it alone.
You don’t have all that much real-world, hands-on experience.
But it’s not your fault.
The fact is, since you haven’t been tested under fire...
...you don’t feel confident.
When faced with an unthinkable situation:
You won’t have specific crisis experience to be able to pull from
Your team will still rely on you to be the one who makes safe, sound decisions
You might end up being one of those leaders who doesn’t have a clue how to get out there, and get things done
Along the way, you’ve realized this: You’ve gain knowledge from courses and training. What you lack is frontline experience leading during an emergency, disaster, or other crisis.
You also know that you cannot get experience from reading a book.
And that there’s nothing like a real disaster to test out your skills.
Working 12-14 hour shifts for weeks on end, taxing your mental and physical abilities.
So, you look outside your region to get some experience during a real disaster. And try the next option…
Path 2: You’ve gained crisis leadership skills through trial and error
Sure, you can gain the skills to be a confident, trusted leader through trial and error.
But that means risking thousands of lives, dollars, and your reputation.
When the stakes are high, glaring failures can expose critical shortcomings in your leadership.
The result: widespread destruction, loss of life, and immense suffering.
When it's your time to perform, if you fail at your public duties, there's no coming back from that failure.
Leadership traits that took years to build, like your reputation and credibility, can be destroyed in an instant.
When faced with the gravity of a crisis and a rapidly changing situation, how will you react?
You don’t want to be that guy…
...the leader who
Fails to lead their boss, in a critical moment resulting in mission failure and loss of credibility
Fails to act in time with a mediocre solution that only makes the situation worse
Fails under the enormous pressure of the public and media at a crucial moment
Learning through trial and error could cost you your reputation and even worse the lives of people you have taken an oath to protect.
And when emergency management officials fail, they are forced to resign.
The way to learn the tools you need to be fully prepared for a crisis is through hands-on, front-line training with real-world examples.
What if you could learn from someone else, from their experiences, and apply it to your life and your career?
Now image if you could:
Get guidance from a former FEMA Administrator and U.S. Marine
Spend one-on-one time with such an expert
Formulate a process to apply leadership
Gain the confidence and skills to navigate crisis situations
BECOME THE TRUSTED LEADER IN ANY SITUATION
Introducing Leading During Crisis
The reliable way for senior leaders to fully prepare for the unthinkable with real-world experience from a former FEMA Administrator.
Get ready to become a trusted leader
Learn to confidently navigate any crisis and gain the knowledge and tools to steer your organization through the toughest times.
You don’t need to take another academic, theory-based course.
You need to learn from someone else’s real-world frontline experience.
Learn from first-hand frontline experience
Designed for government, military, and private sector leaders, the 5-part video course is taught by Pete Gaynor, the former FEMA Administrator and Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Throughout the course, Pete shares practical tools, skills, and insights gained from managing the COVID-19 pandemic and historic natural disasters.
The course will empower you to effectively navigate and lead through the unthinkable, ensuring readiness for any crisis.
You should choose Leading During a Crisis when…
You want a quiver of leadership arrows to pull from when it’s you’re turn to lead
You need a process to overcome high-risk, low-frequency incidents
You have a team that relies on you to make sound, safe decisions
You want to validate your leadership skills and gain confidence
You want to learn the tools of crisis leadership along with tangible real-world examples
In This Masterclass, You’ll Learn:
The exact tools, skills, and knowledge you need to be the leader everyone looks to in a moment of crisis.
Your exact role, what is at stake, and the most common crisis minefields and how to avoid them.
How to navigate the crisis battlefield with the same map and compass used by other expert crisis leaders.
He has genuinely impacted how I manage and lead.
“Pete has the sort of easy grasp of crisis leadership which has been forged by experience. He has a laser like ability to dissect a problem and start to coalesce a solution and a team and once you have heard him speak it will change your thinking, approach and philosophy to crisis leadership and emergency planning. Some people you want on your team, I’d like Pete to be leading it but if I can’t have that I will settle for mentoring. He has genuinely impacted how I manage and lead.”
LtCol Steve Johnson,
SO-1 Counter CBRN Policy and Assurance, British Army
Your Guide: Pete Gaynor, One of America’s Top Crisis Leaders
During the masterclass, Pete shares his insights and experiences while leading at the highest levels of government under tremendous pressure and for the highest stakes, including:
During the COVID-19 pandemic
The busiest hurricane and wildfire season on record
And in the midst of a presidential election
In January 2021, Pete was designated as the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security by President Trump.
The U.S. Senate officially confirmed Pete as the FEMA Administrator in January 2020. Previously, he served as the Senate-confirmed Deputy FEMA Administrator.
During his time at FEMA, Pete led the agency’s response to more than three hundred presidentially declared emergencies and major disasters.
In 2020, Pete oversaw FEMA’s first-ever operational response to a nationwide pandemic while simultaneously responding to a record number of disasters.
As a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Pete directed FEMA’s operational coordination for the whole-of-Government response to COVID-19.
In addition to leading the COVID-19 response, Pete led the federal response to the most active Atlantic hurricane season in history, with a record of thirty named storms as well as directing the response to a historic West Coast wildfire season.
Prior to FEMA, Pete led emergency management agencies for the State of Rhode Island and the City of Providence.
Pete served for 26 years as an enlisted Marine and Infantry Officer in the United States Marine Corps leading Marines around the globe and under the most challenging and adverse circumstances.
Leadership Success Stories
Michael Cranson,
Fire Chief, Town of Nantucket, MA
“My organization hired Pete to discuss the challenges he faced in the various roles he has held. I wanted to see how I could improve as a leader with his help. He was able to describe navigating serious issues by practical means and he shared with us how he reached the decisions that he came to. I was able to take away from the talk, more tools to help solve problems that arise, problems that are either predicted or unexpected. I highly recommend his services to any organization.”
Michael J. Mulhare,
P.E., Associate Vice President,
Public Safety, Virginia Tech
“Pete Gaynor’s Leadership During Crisis training is time well invested. The course addresses the challenges faced during a crisis and the difficult decisions needed to navigate what may be unchartered and unprecedented circumstances. Pete’s experience leading the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, a state, and a local emergency management agency as well as serving in the Marine Corps provides him the experience and understanding of the issues facing those called upon to lead through a crisis.”"
Hone Your Leadership Skills with a Former FEMA Administrator
Summit
MOST POPULAR
Pinnacle
Hybrid
When selecting the Hybrid course, you can purchase the Summit or Pinnacle course in bulk (15+), with a 10% discount.
It may also include a customizable in-person Leading During Disaster session with Pete, determined after consultation with Pete.
All participants retain access to online course materials based on the bulk version purchased.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
“How do I know this course will work for me?”
...AND ANSWERS TO OTHER SMART QUESTIONS
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This course is based on decades of experience and leadership during some of this nation’s most intense crises. While we can’t guarantee that this course will 100% work for every single person who takes it, we are confident that if you put in the work and combine it with the knowledge in this course, you’ll have everything you need to propel you on your path to be a successful crisis leader.
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Due to the digital nature of the program and the instant access to our audio files, training videos, and digital downloads we do not offer refunds. Please reach out by emailing info@eight-north.com if you have any questions.
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The course is self-paced. Pete designed this course to serve as a valuable resource you can return to, time and again (opposed to taking it once and never coming back to it), as you continue to grow as a leader and encounter diverse challenges. The entire curriculum contains many hours of course videos and audio files, and bonus resources. Based on the calendar, you may finish the core curriculum in 1 to 2 months. We recommend allotting at least a couple hours per week to go through the curriculum.