[Not only does he have no qualifications for this job -- he wasn't even any good at that one. He got the job by working on Bush's campaign.]
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=100857
Saturday, September 3, 2005
Boston Herald
Brown pushed from last job:
Horse group: FEMA chief had to be `asked to resign'
By Brett Arends
The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was
fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.
And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a
deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant
experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at
the time was heading up FEMA.
The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a
growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster.
``I look at FEMA and I shake my head,'' said a furious Gov. Mitt
Romney yesterday, calling the response ``an embarrassment.''
President Bush, after touring the Big Easy, said he was ``not
satisfied'' with the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina's
devastation.
And U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch predicted there would be hearings on
Capitol Hill over the mishandled operation.
Brown - formerly an estates and family lawyer - this week has has
made several shocking public admissions, including interviews where he
suggested FEMA was unaware of the misery and desperation of refugees
stranded at the New Orleans convention center.
Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11
years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International
Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization
based in Colorado.
``We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial)
judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards.
And we keep records,'' explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA
commissioner's office. ``This was his full-time job . . . for 11
years,'' she added.
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits
over alleged supervision failures.
``He was asked to resign,'' Bill Pennington, president of the
IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.
Soon after, Brown was invited to join the administration by his
old Oklahoma college roommate Joseph Allbaugh, the previous head of
FEMA until he quit in 2003 to work for the president's re-election
campaign
<snip>
Michael