Richard Anderson
Senior Consultant
With over 35 years of Incident Management, Business Continuity Planning, and related crisis management planning, Chief Anderson is an experienced environmental, health and safety professional, with significant involvement in the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
Chief Anderson focuses upon the delivery of emergency preparedness services that are integral to enterprise risk management programming from an operational perspective, including emergency management, supply chain risk management, and business continuity/disaster recovery program implementation.
He has been involved in the arena of preparedness both in the private and public sector since 1972. Upon completion of his tour of duty abroad in the U.S. Army as a tank commander, he was employed by Merck & Co. Inc. as an Associate Chemical Engineer. After two years, he was promoted to deputy chief with responsibility for development, coordination and delivery of the training for the facility Fire Department and Haz-Mat Team. In 1992, he was promoted to chief and emergency response coordinator of Merck, becoming the company's worldwide leader for loss control, emergency, crisis management, and business continuity planning involving four hundred facilities in over thirty countries.
Chief Anderson has extensive experience and supports client initiatives in the following areas:
- Conducting preparedness quality assurance reviews;
- Development of effective corporate and facility emergency, crisis, and business continuity programs;
- Development and strategic implementation of world-wide and local business continuity infrastructure and solutions;
Chief Anderson has worked in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific providing practical insights into the development of effective incident management organizations solutions integrated with the corporate requirements.
He attended Thomas Edison College in New Jersey and graduated from the National Fire Academy. He has completed numerous certifications including: Certified Fire Protection Specialist, Loss Control Specialist, Certified Business Continuity Professional, Certified Emergency Manager, N.J. State Certified Arson Investigator, Hazardous Material Technician, Instructor, and Course Developer.
Chief Anderson served as a member of the board of directors of the International Association of Fire Chief's Industrial Fire and Safety, and Safety and Health Sections, and chaired the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) Lodging Industry Section Executive Committee. He is a member of the NFPA Technical Committees for Disaster Management and Business Continuity (NFPA 1600) and Fire Protection for Laboratories Handling Chemicals (NFPA 45) and the Technical Advisor Committee for the International Standards Organization (223) Societal Security. He was commissioned by NFPA to revise the chapters in the Fire Protection Handbook on fire protection in laboratories handling chemicals. He has compiled a document based on his experience of the best in Business and Industry preparedness practices entitled "Best Practices in Facility Emergency Preparedness Program" and is the developer of the Preparedness Quality Assurance ReviewTM.
