Community Commitment and Give Back

 Each year Tim Bonno readily gives his time and resources to help individuals, businesses, and communities become better prepared.  On average he’s given over 200 hours annually to community projects such as citizen preparedness, community awareness, business continuity professional development, and community collaboration.  His passion drives his commitment.  Examples of the projects and initiatives he has helped include the following:

CERT (Community Emergency Response teams)  www.citizencorps.gov/cert/

Tim provides community training and leadership support for several Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programs in the St. Louis regional area.  CERT educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations.

Eureka Fire Protection District Search and Rescue Team www.efpd.org/?mdp=msar

As one of the “newer” members of the team, Tim currently volunteers as a ground searcher.  The Search and Rescue Team was formed in 2002 after the Eureka Fire Protection District recognized that there was a need for trained volunteers when searching for lost, injured, or missing persons. It has grown from a mounted only unit to a multi-disciplined, self-sufficient search team with its own communications and support capabilities along with trained planning and management personnel.

 “Earthquakes:  Mean Business” Conference

The “Earthquakes:  Mean Business” Conference is an annual public outreach offering that takes place in February. It is an effort to showcase the issue of earthquake hazards and earthquake risk in the central United States and how we can better prepare for it.  Tim has supported the production and planning aspects of the conference for the past six years.

“PREPARE AMERICA” Conference

PREPARE AMERICA is a citizen preparedness conference in the St. Louis, Missouri area.   It is a one-day conference that happens in September during National Preparedness Month.  PREPARE AMERICA provides attendees the opportunity to learn how they can prepare themselves, their families, businesses, and places of worship from disasters.  Tim originated and produced the conference overseeing all event management functions.

MidAmerica Contingency Planning Forum

Back in 1994, Tim was one of the original founders of the MidAmerica Contingency Planning Forum (MCPF).  The Forum continues today and serves to facilitate the exchange and dissemination of information regarding all aspects of contingency planning in both the private and public sectors and as an interface for private and public sector cooperation.  In 2011, Tim serves as the Forum’s President.

Community Collaboration

In February 2011 Tim self-sponsored a FEMA based Incident Command System (ICS) class.  Participating students came from both the public and private sectors.  ICS is a management system designed to enable effective and efficient domestic incident management by integrating a combination of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures, and communications operating within a common organizational structure, designed to enable effective and efficient domestic incident management.  http://www.training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/ICSResource/index.htm