Adelphi Graduate Student Selected for Prestigious Emergency Management Fellowship

Robert Bristol, an Adelphi student pursing his master’s degree in emergency management, has been chosen for the John D. Solomon Fellowship for Public Service. Every year, the program chooses only 10 graduate students to participate in a nine month paid fellowship with either a nonprofit or a New York City government agency in the area of emergency management. Bristol will be working with the NYC Department of Education (DOE) where he will be helping to build the agency’s Crisis Management Tools well as implementing the Continuity of Operations Plan.

Bristol will begin his second year as a graduate student in the fall 2015 semester. Previously working as an athletic trainer after graduating from Sacred Heart University, Bristol decided to go into emergency management following Hurricane Sandy in 2012. After his hometown of East Rockaway, NY was hit hard by the storm, Bristol, then the Captain of the East Rockaway Fire Department Rescue Squad, was responsible for aiding in both the pre-storm evacuation as well as the rebuilding of the town after the storm. This experience gave him an interest in emergency management, and after a brief time as a 911 Telecommunicator in North Carolina, he returned to New York where he was accepted to Adelphi’s Emergency Management Program.

The John D. Solomon Fellowship for Public Service is the first student fellowship program devoted entirely to emergency management. It was created by the family and friends of journalist and public servant John D. Solomon, and partners with numerous organizations including the New York Fire Department, the New York Police Department, and the DOE.  Bristol will work with the DOE emergency management office as they prepare for, and respond to, any emergency that may arise.

When asked about what he was expecting to get from the program, Bristol explained how he saw this as a great learning experience. “I really expect to see what a true emergency manager does on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “The DOE is a new setting for me, so I will be seeing how the emergency management setting is not just first response (fire, EMS, military, etc.) as well as learning the nuts and bolts of what it means to be an emergency manager and how it relates to such a large school system.” Bristol also expressed a great deal of gratitude to Adelphi for helping him achieve his goals; citing an enjoyable program with supportive directors and professors. Altogether, he is very happy with the direction his life has taken. “Right now I’m where I want to be, and I know where I want to go in my career,” he says. “I know emergency management is what I want to do and it is what I have a deep passion for.”