CEM Corner: CEM COMMISSION

By Daryl Lee Spiewak, CEM, TEM, CFM, CEM® Commissioner, Past ASPEP President, Emergency Action Coordinator, Brazos River Authority, Waco, Texas

In this month’s tips article, we will discuss the make-up of
the CEM® Commission and describe how the Commissioners review application packets. Most of the following information comes directly from the IAEM CEM® Commission Manual.

The Commission. The CEM® Commission reports to the IAEM Board of Directors. The IAEM Board serves as the final oversight body for the CEM® program and bears ultimate responsibility.

Commission Responsibilities. The primary responsibility of the commission is to provide oversight to and administer the CEM® Program through peer review of submitted credentials and recommendations to award the CEM® designation to applicants who successfully meet the requirements of the program.

Additional responsibilities include recommending program policy, providing direction to the certification program staff, reviewing and approving recommendations of the working CEM® subcommittees, and reporting to the IAEM Board the status of the program and any recommended changes.

The commissioners make sure that the program remains open, fair and impartial, retains integrity, and implements the mission of emergency management by certifying that successful applicants have met the minimum standards outlined in the program.

The Commissioners. The commission is composed of 15 to 30 commissioners, with at least 60 percent of the members being current CEM®s. It is geographically and demographically diversified. At least 60 percent of the commissioners are current emergency management practitioners. Three or more commissioners come from allied organizations, one or more come from institutions of higher learning with emergency management-affiliated programs, one from NEMA, one appointed by the IAEM President, the IAEM Executive Director, and one appointed by FEMA’s EMI Superintendent.

Each commissioner serves for a three-year term and may serve only two consecutive three-year terms. A commissioner does not speak individually for the entire commission but may interpret policy as decided upon by the full commission.

Application for Appointment. The IAEM Training and Education Committee is the vehicle used to formulate and present a slate of potential commissioners to the IAEM Board of Directors for approval. To be considered by the T&E Committee, commissioner applicants submit a letter of application and a resume no later than July 15th of each year.
Not every person approved on the slate of potential commissioners will actually serve. Some will be placed on the standby list to fill any vacancies that may occur in a specific category to ensure proper diversity of the commission.

Commission Meetings. The CEM® Commission is required to meet at least once annually. Usually we meet three times each year – at the annual conference, at the mid-year meeting and again during the summer.

Initial Screening. Commission staff conducts an initial screening of the application packets as they are submitted. This screening is done to ensure that the application packets are complete, that all forms have been properly executed, that all the documentation is in order, and that the minimum requirements appear to have been met.
If the packet is obviously incomplete, staff will send a form letter to the applicant. Additional documentation may be requested, or an applicant’s packet may be returned as many times as necessary prior to review by the commissioners.

The Review Process. The IAEM staff assigns packets to individual commissioners for review. At least two different commissioners will independently review each packet using the Candidate Evaluation Worksheet. The worksheet ensures that the review process is consistent among commissioners and that nothing is inadvertently left out.

We use a checklist for the essay reviews too. This checklist is designed as a quantitative instrument to measure the content and design of the essay as well as to ensure that all of the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA) are demonstrated.

Following the review, each commissioner makes an award or denial recommendation based on the documentary evidence provided by the candidate. The evidence is checked to ensure that it reasonably proves that the submissions reflect the personal work of the candidate. Although commissioners are not required to, they have called references and other points of contact listed in the documents to verify the authenticity of submissions when the evidence provided was not completely clear. They have been known to conduct Internet searches and telephone interviews to gather additional information.

If both commissioners agree that the applicant meets minimum program requirements, a recommendation to award is made to the full commission. If both commissioners agree that the applicant does not meet the program requirements, they note the deficiencies in a letter to the candidate. Candidates will then have 90 days from the date of the letter within which to submit their corrected packet for further review by the commission.

If the two commissioners disagree, then a third commissioner reviews the packet. After this third review, all three commissioners get together as a group and decide whether to recommend award or denial of the CEM® certification.

All candidates who fail to certify the first time get a second chance. If they still fail to certify, they will be denied certification and will receive a letter stating so. Candidates can then reapply for certification after correcting the deficiencies noted. There is no “waiting period” for submission of the new packet, but some candidates may have to wait because they were short on experience or some other time-based criteria.

If you would like to serve on the CEM® Commission, be sure to submit your letter and resume to IAEM headquarters before July 15, 2003.

January 2003, IAEM Bulletin