SD hires new disaster preparedness executive

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 12, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

The city of San Diego's newest top executive will be responsible for overseeing disaster preparedness. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The city of San Diego faces an extremely difficult budget year and the possible loss of Federal Homeland Security funding. But Jill Olen, the city's new Deputy Chief Operating Officer for Public Safety, says her experience will help bring back the enthusiasm to emergency services in San Diego.

Olen: "I was in the pentagon during the 9/11 attacks so I consider myself experienced theoretically but also experienced in a practical sense and so I look forward to bringing that experience to San Diego and helping build us to be as safe a community and perhaps a model for the rest of the country."

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Olen says, rather than characterizing San Diego as a high risk city and therefore worthy of Homeland Security money, she will work to reassure citizens and tourists that planning and training has the city well prepared to respond to any disaster. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.