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Pickens County Emergency Management Director Denise Kwiatek named SCEMA Director of the Year
Congratulations to Pickens County Emergency Management Director Denise Kwiatek, who was named the South Carolina Emergency Management Association’s Director of the Year. She was nominated by Scott Krein, EM Director Oconee County; Jessica Stumpf, EM Director Greenville County; Scott Smith, EM Deputy Director Oconee County; Ryan Hansome, EM Deputy Director Pickens County; Paula Wagler, EM Coordinator Pickens County; and Kandy Kelley, Coroner Pickens County.
The nomination says in part, “For the past 15 years, Denise has played a pivotal role in ensuring the safety, security and preparedness of all of the residents of Pickens County. Denise clearly sets the example of service to her community by her activities within her Emergency Operations Center, as well as her devotion to be in the field and help work emergencies on sight.” Read the nomination in its entirety below.
I would like to nominate Denise Kwiatek for the Director of the Year, for the South Carolina Emergency Management Association. For the past 15 years, Denise has played a pivotal role in ensuring the safety, security and preparedness of all of the residents of Pickens County. Denise clearly sets the example of service to her community by her activities within her Emergency Operations Center, as well as her devotion to be in the field and help work emergencies on sight. She has repeatedly assisted in various demanding search and rescue, as well as dive recovery operations to ensure that her responders are quickly assisted with their needs to ensure a successful response operation.
Not only does Denise excel in her performance of emergency and disaster response, mitigation and recovery, but she also leads the way in community service by her activities Denise has devoted many hours performing duties associated with family assistance programs to ensure the overall care of her County residents and helping to maintain a quality of life for these families. Due to her selflessness in the service of her residents, these families were able to obtain the assistance they urgently needed.
Her professionalism and dedication to her county was clearly evident during a very demanding training week when the South Carolina Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team (SC-HART) came to train with Greenville, Oconee and Pickens County. Denise played a vital role in obtaining safe, yet challenging locations for the SC-HART members to train and enhance their skills during daytime and night time rescue evolutions. Throughout this training, her participation in the planning and execution of these evolution sights ensured that the training was conducted without any injuries to anyone involved, while providing invaluable real world scenarios.
Denise embodies the “mission, men, myself” leadership philosophy. She embodies this philosophy by putting the mission at the forefront while putting the needs of her team before her own in order to promote the overall success and well-being of her team and the County of Pickens. Furthermore, Denise has proven herself to be a trustworthy leader and individual. She can always be counted on to be in the “right place, right time, doing the right thing” on a consistent basis.
