Tribe hires Jamie Baxter in case of emergencies

When the Grand Ronde Tribe hired Jamie Baxter, 59, of West Salem as Emergency Preparedness coordinator early in March, it landed one of the nation's premier emergency professionals.

Baxter served at Ground Zero in the wake of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. She also served in Haiti in 2010 on the heels of the Samoan tsunami deployment in 2009.

"Real world experience," Baxter says. "That's what I try to bring back here. I like to prepare people for anything that might put us at risk."

Baxter has been a registered nurse for 35 years, both in Silverton and Salem, always in the Emergency departments. She also continues to work with the federal Department of Health and Human Services as a disaster nurse and safety officer.

Baxter also is one of the few internationally certified emergency managers. "There are only a couple thousand in the world," she says.

Now Baxter brings that wealth of experience and training to Grand Ronde in an effort to keep Tribal people and employees safe in an emergency.

"The job is pretty broad in scope," she says of her new duties. She is responsible for preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery.  Basically, how to keep us safe in a disaster.

Baxter is and will continue to teach and train volunteers about being prepared. "The whole point of preparedness is not just surviving the event, but surviving it economically. So that's part of my job … to help create resilience," she says.

She orders disaster supplies. Rapid response medical and preparedness kits include small amounts of food, water, flashlight and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radio to get people through the first few days. She would like to see "a little go-bag" next to everyone's bed and in every Tribal office, with another at home in the garage. She thinks of the bags like people have an extra set of eyeglasses; just in case.

"Right now, I'm doing things incrementally," Baxter says.

She started with a just-implemented mass notification process for everybody on the Tribal campus, in Tribal housing and in the community in the event that something happens on Tribal property, such as a road closure or major accident.

"To give credit," she says, "the Tribe's Information Technology Department brought the mass notification process to the Tribe - I just implemented it."

With that said, she also advises that in the area, "Risks are kind of minimal. We've had some local flooding and some local events, but no major disasters. We've been very fortunate.

"Our biggest threat is the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a potential earthquake fault along the coastline from British Columbia down to northern California, including, of course, the coasts of Oregon and Washington.

"If the whole thing ruptures, that's a mass disaster."

One of her responsibilities, Baxter says, is putting in the time to search for faults in the local area. She studies maps from the U.S. Geological Service and the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

"And there's always the chance of a chemical event if a truck goes over carrying refrigerant, for example. That's one of the bad things. If it happens, we have to respond quickly."

Different Tribal agencies and businesses have their own emergency plans, Baxter says. She mentions the casino among others.

"My job is not to dictate how others should plan, but to help with the coordination, to keep in touch with them. I'm here more as a resource person, to help in any way I can.

"The Chief (Tribal Police Chief Al LaChance; she operates under his program) has been great," she adds. "He is really interested in doing the right thing and bringing the right training and education to the Tribe. He's committed to helping us be prepared."

Look for Baxter giving talks, taking questions and answers on campus and off.

"This is a great job for me at this time in my career," she says. "I want to build a department that is an example to other Tribal nations. I've always loved the Tribe and had friends here. And I really love being able to go the opposite way to traffic."

Her husband, Jeff, is an electrical engineer who manages a software integration company based in Albany. Together, they have five children and seven grandchildren.

Jeff says she lives and breathes this stuff. "He's used to it," she says. "It's just part of who I am."