Expanding on the concept of emergency management professionalization

This editorial discusses the need for expansion in the United States (US) of the concept of professional emergency management (EM), rejecting the proposal of US national licensure for individuals, and to include oversight and compliance for those organizations that utilize and provide EM staff, protocols, doctrine, etc. Without this last component, the EM field cannot be considered by its own practitioners as professional, as in other fields such as healthcare and financial services. In fact, those industries and others are staffing their own roles for EM as the operational aspects of risk management. EM is not for government only. While in agreement with the basic foundational concepts of both Dr. Jennifer Carlson and Dr. Carol Cwiak in their academic advocacy regarding the need for an elevation in the public's acceptance and recognition of professionalism in our field, there is no concurrence as to the specific pathways and doctrine needed to execute this. Questions of national licensure, requirements for accredited higher educational degrees, new oversight entities, and more need to be further discussed and debated, especially in the context of expanding capacity for locally driven practitioners of professional EM in the US.