William Flagler

William Flagler Jr. is the Deputy Director of the Arlington County Department of Public Safety Communications and Emergency Management. In this role he takes the lead in directing the immediate operations of Emergency Management, overseeing strategic planning, providing policy guidance for the development and implementation of the budget, administering, and coordinating the management of grants related to homeland security, and monitoring the implementation of the County’s emergency plan in County departments and with resident groups and other organizations and is responsible for the County’s emergency operations plan.

Prior to his current position, Mr. Flagler was the founding Director of the Department of Emergency Management and Safety at Northern Virginia Community College which is the largest (75,00 students) institution of Higher Education in the Commonwealth of Virginia, where he successfully coordinated the response and recovery associated with an active shooter in 2009 and other crises. He also worked for Loudoun County Emergency Management (Formally Loudoun County Fire, Rescue, and Emergency Management)

He has almost twenty years of progressively responsible executive leadership experience. He’s earned master’s degrees in Public Administration and Homeland Security.  He holds a Certified Emergency Manager designation as well as the Virginia Professional Emergency Manager designation. He is a graduate of the Naval Post Graduate Schools’ Center for Homeland Defense and Security, Executive Leadership Program and Leadership Arlington c/o 17. He also received training from Harvard University, Crisis Leadership Program. He received the Meritorious Service Award from the Arlington Chamber in 2017. He is also an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University, and serves as a Visiting Scholar at Virginia Tech. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors for Arlington based LiveSafe Mobile App. He has also held leadership positions in the Virginia Emergency Management Association (VEMA) and most recently elected to serve as the 1^st Vice President with overall responsibility for the annual Emergency Management Symposium. He has also been recognized the Leadership Center for Excellence and the International Association of Emergency Manager’s as a 40 under 40 honoree.