James G. Featherstone
James (Jim) Featherstone is a nationally recognized leader in crisis and emergency management with more than three decades of operational, executive, and advisory experience.
He is the Principal Consultant and Founder of Themata Strategic (established in 2020), an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Emergency Management Master’s Program at the University of Southern California’s Bovard College, and an advisor to a major Southern California utility. He teaches and lectures widely on crisis operations, critical decision-making, and leadership, including at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security.
Following the January 2025 Pacific Palisades Fire, the Mayor’s Office recalled Jim to city service as Local Disaster Recovery Manager, a role designated in FEMA’s National Disaster Recovery Framework. He coordinated both the hazardous-materials and debris-removal phases of the most significant modern disaster recovery effort in California’s history.
That appointment drew on a career built in the field and at the executive table. Jim joined the Los Angeles Fire Department in 1986 and served the City of Los Angeles for thirty years, including as Interim Fire Chief (2013–2014), where he led 3,500 firefighters and paramedics, and as General Manager of the city’s Emergency Management Department (2007–2016), where he restructured the emergency management protocols of the nation’s second largest city. From 2016 to 2020, he was Executive Director of the Los Angeles Homeland Security Advisory Council, connecting the public, private, and civic sectors on regional readiness and resilience.
Nationally, Jim chaired FEMA’s National Advisory Council from 2010 to 2018. He also chaired the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee on building adaptable and resilient supply chains after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and was named 2019 Homeland Security Person of the Year by Homeland Security Today.
A native of Washington, D.C., and a United States Navy veteran, Jim holds an Executive Master of Leadership from USC’s Price School of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Science in Public Administration from Union Institute and University. He is an alumnus of the Executive Leaders Program at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security and served as a Senior Fellow with the Program on Crisis Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School from 2012 to 2020.