Dan de Grazia is an experienced emergency management and technology leader with more than twenty years of cross-functional management experience spanning public safety, IA/AI, data analytics, and infrastructure protection. As Deputy Director of a regional Joint Emergency Management Agency serving more than 550,000 residents across twelve municipalities, he leads coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery programs focused on resilience in the Chicago metropolitan area.
A lifelong Chicago area resident, veteran, and longtime member of InfraGard, de Grazia would bring a rare combination of broad international disaster planning and response, local and regional emergency management, and deep technology experience to the board of the Chicago InfraGard chapter. Mr. de Grazia, like other board members, believes that the board serves the membership, and listening to what works and what could work better will be his main focus.
de Grazia would bring over a decade of volunteer and fulltime professional Emergency Management experience, covering multiple disaster deployments in Puerto Rico, Kenya, and several US responses. Dan as significant practical experience and holds many EM certifications including several as an instructor, instructor trainer, and in exercise design and management. He has received his FEMA Basic Academy Certification and Illinois Professional Emergency Manager (IPEM) designation.
de Grazia has deployed to multiple major disasters including Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Maria, the Highland Park parade response and recovery, the Kenya drought response, and as a Kenyan Election Observer, contributing to logistics, planning, and recovery operations. His expertise combines hands-on field operatons with a systems-level understanding of communications, technology, and human factors that underpin resilient communities.
Dan would also bring a wealth of technology experience to the position. With a twenty plus year career in Information Technology in organizations ranging from two person startups to a Chief Data Scientist position at IBM, he is well versed in all aspects of technology. At IBM he led global AI and analytics projects and advised governments and enterprise partners on digital recovery and resilience strategies. He was a speaker at internal and public conferences in Europe, Asia, and Africa as well as in the US. His other roles included project management for AI and quantum-computing startups, as well as technical leadership in risk analytics, GIS integration, and a broad range of unique data integration projects.
Other highlights include co-authoring a book in the early days of code generation, providing database, network and software design and development beginning in the 1980s. He started writing software at the Chicago Board of Trade developing inhouse arbitrage software for the financial futures markets and later designing and developing one of the first commercial computer based fax on demand systems at Franklin Mutual Funds and again at SBT software.