Former East Haven Fire Chief Heads New Emergency Management Program

In the past two years, Connecticut has been hit by a tornado, an earthquake, a hurricane, a blizzard, and a freak snowstorm, and experts say the state can expect more of the same.

So it was not entirely a coincidence that the University of New Haven has begun offering a new master’s degree program in emergency management.

The new post-graduate program is an extension of a certificate program that UNH started last year, according to Wayne Sandford, formerly the fire chief and emergency management director in East Haven for 14 years, who heads up the university’s new offering.

The master’s degree program, the first of its kind in Connecticut, was approved in the fall by the state Board of Higher Education.

This comes as no surprise given that the U.S. Department of Labor expects emergency management to be one of the fastest growing job fields in coming years.

“Emergency management is an area that’s wide open,” Sandford says.

In 2005 after he retired, Gov. Jodi Rell asked Sandford to serve as deputy director of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

Sandford had taught fire sciences courses at the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences at UNH. When Rell decided not to seek re-election, Sandford left his state job, and Richard Ward, Dean of the College, asked him to head up the formation of the new Master’s of Science program.

How the UNH Program Works

To get into the master’s program, a student needs a bachelor’s degree, but Sandford said the requirements are flexible. About 17 individuals are currently in the certificate program and six have entered the master’s program. Some are from private companies and some have public sector jobs, he said.

Students in the program would study what hazards are experienced during a disaster, how to plan for them and how to manage recovery operations.

“One of the areas we know least about across the country is recovery,” he says. Disasters