Lucien G. Canton

When Lucien Canton talked his way into the San Francisco emergency operations center to volunteer his services during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, he never expected that it would result in a career change that would send him to exotic locations in the Pacific and the Caribbean, involve him in Federal disaster planning at the national level, and see him appointed in 1996 as the Director of Emergency Services for San Francisco by Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr.

A career officer with extensive overseas service, Canton left the Army in 1980 to pursue a Master of Business Administration degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and built a solid reputation in the private security sector. Following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake he accepted a position with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and began a new career in emergency management.

Since 2004, Canton has been an independent management consultant specializing in helping managers lead better in crisis. He is a frequent speaker at national conferences and a guest lecturer at universities both in the United States and abroad. His book, Emergency Management: Concepts and Strategies for Effective Programs, is used as a textbook for both graduate and undergraduate courses.