Zack Adinoff

Zack Adinoff

Degree: 2013, M.S.

Job Title: Emergency Planner, Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff, Emergency Services Division

Zack Adinoff (M.S. '13) is an Emergency Planner for Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to the general responsibilities of public safety, planning, and general disaster continuity; he is the liaison for cities within the central part of the county as well as specializing in logistics and continuity of operations/government planning. He has developed a Point of Distribution Plan and collaborated on various other projects including a Catastrophic Earthquake Plan. Prior to this, he was the Emergency Management Project Coordinator for the California Resiliency Alliance, a non-profit focused on bridging the gap between Private and Public Sector emergency managers. In this role, he developed a Disaster Legislative Waiver process and Disaster Access to Travel program along with managing many others. Before this as part of his degree and for six months afterward, he worked for the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management. While there, he developed a three day functional tsunami exercise, did a comparative analysis of San Francisco and nearby San Mateo mass casualty incident plans, and assisted with numerous other projects and plans.

During his time as a student in the University of Delaware Disaster Science and Management Program, Zack specialized in High Reliability Organizations and network response theory. He has applied these concepts and others taught in the DISA program across his numerous positions. The most important lesson he learned was that disasters are less about management and more about coordination.