Brown: Worse And Worse…

by hilzoy

I have to write this quickly: I just checked Amygdala, and Gary hasn’t posted on this yet!!! I can scarcely believe it: if I type very quickly, I might possibly get it up first. But you should visit his site anyways.

There’s yet another story about Michael Brown, this one from Time. Apparently he padded even more of his already dubious resume. Excerpts:

“Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA’s website, was “serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight.” The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 “overseeing the emergency services division.” In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an “assistant to the city manager” from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. “The assistant is more like an intern,” she told TIME. “Department heads did not report to him.” Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. “Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University,” recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. “Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I’d ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt.”

In response, Nicol Andrews, deputy strategic director in FEMA’s office of public affairs, insists that while Brown began as an intern, he became an “assistant city manager” with a distinguished record of service. “According to Mike Brown,” she says, “a large portion [of the points raised by TIME] is very inaccurate.””

I saw an interview with one of the reporters who filed this story on CNN, and she said that the municipal records of Edmonds show him as an assistant to the city manager for the entire time he worked there.

“Brown’s lack of experience in emergency management isn’t the only apparent bit of padding on his resume, which raises questions about how rigorously the White House vetted him before putting him in charge of FEMA. Under the “honors and awards” section of his profile at FindLaw.com — which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their offices—he lists “Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University”. However, Brown “wasn’t a professor here, he was only a student here,” says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University). “He may have been an adjunct instructor,” says Johnson, but that title is very different from that of “professor.” Carl Reherman, a former political science professor at the University through the ’70s and ’80s, says that Brown “was not on the faculty.” As for the honor of “Outstanding Political Science Professor,” Johnson says, “I spoke with the department chair yesterday and he’s not aware of it.” Johnson could not confirm that Brown made the Dean’s list or was an “Outstanding Political Science Senior,” as is stated on his online profile.

Speaking for Brown, Andrews says that Brown has never claimed to be a political science professor, in spite of what his profile in FindLaw indicates. “He was named the outstanding political science senior at Central State, and was an adjunct professor at Oklahoma City School of Law.””

Outstanding Senior, Outstanding Professor: what’s the difference?

“Under the heading of “Professional Associations and Memberships” on FindLaw, Brown states that from 1983 to the present he has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond. But an administrator with the Home, told TIME that Brown is “not a person that anyone here is familiar with.” She says there was a board of directors until a couple of years ago, but she couldn’t find anyone who recalled him being on it. According to FEMA’s Andrews, Brown said “he’s never claimed to be the director of the home. He was on the board of directors, or governors of the nursing home.” However, a veteran employee at the center since 1981 says Brown “was never director here, was never on the board of directors, was never executive director. He was never here in any capacity. I never heard his name mentioned here.” (…)

Brown’s FindLaw profile lists a wide range of areas of legal practice, from estate planning to family law to sports. However, one former colleague does not remember Brown’s work as sterling. Stephen Jones, a prominent Oklahoma lawyer who was lead defense attorney on the Timothy McVeigh case, was Brown’s boss for two-and-a-half years in the early ’80s. “He did mainly transactional work, not litigation,” says Jones. “There was a feeling that he was not serious and somewhat shallow.” Jones says when his law firm split, Brown was one of two staffers who was let go.”

When the reporters get through fact-checking Brown’s background, I suspect it will turn out that he spent his entire adult life huddled in a tiny room somewhere, pacing around and around, muttering: ‘I am the Outstanding Political Science Professor! I can practice family law! I am the Director of an obscure nursing home! It’s just that God and I are keeping it all our little secret for now. But one day everyone will have to listen to me for a change!’

*** Update below the fold.
*** And another update as well.

From the WaPo, a story about more unqualified FEMA hires:

“Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA’s top three leaders — Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler — arrived with ties to President Bush’s 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska anda U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

Meanwhile, veterans such as U.S. hurricane specialist Eric Tolbert and World Trade Center disaster managers Laurence W. Zensinger and Bruce P. Baughman — who led FEMA’s offices of response, recovery and preparedness, respectively — have left since 2003, taking jobs as consultants or state emergency managers, according to current and former officials.

Because of the turnover, three of the five FEMA chiefs for natural-disaster-related operations and nine of 10 regional directors are working in an acting capacity, agency officials said. (…)

The agency’s troubles are no secret. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes careers in federal government, ranked FEMA last of 28 agencies studied in 2003.

In its list of best places to work in the government, a 2004 survey by the American Federation of Government Employees found that of 84 career FEMA professionals who responded, only 10 people ranked agency leaders excellent or good.

An additional 28 said the leadership was fair and 33 called it poor.

More than 50 said they would move to another agency if they could remain at the same pay grade, and 67 ranked the agency as poorer since its merger into the Department of Homeland Security.”

***

Second update, via Kevin Drum: Newsday reports:

“New questions surfaced yesterday about whether the White House inflated FEMA chief Michael Brown’s past work experience when he took over the agency, where several of the most senior managers bring little or no disaster-response experience to their posts, including Brown.

The official White House announcement of Brown’s nomination to head FEMA in January 2003 lists his previous experience as “the Executive Director of the Independent Electrical Contractors,” a trade group based in Alexandria, Va.

But two officials of the group told Newsday this week that Brown, in fact, never was the national head of the group but did serve as the executive director of a regional chapter, based in Colorado, where Brown has lived.

And, Brown’s immediate successor as the Rocky Mountain executive director, Terry Moreland, recalled that Brown held the job for less than six weeks before becoming FEMA general counsel in 2001.”