Zach Usher currently serves as the Deputy Director for Individual Assistance at FEMA. He previously served as the Branch Chief for the Mass Care, Voluntary Agency Coordination and Community Services Branch. In this role, he led a team of more than 50 staff managing programs supporting disaster survivors with shelter; food; rebuilding assistance; crisis counseling; disaster case management; legal services; and unemployment assistance. He also served in leadership roles in more than a dozen emergency activations in the National Response Coordination Center.
During his FEMA career, he has served in leadership roles overseeing functions in training development and delivery; recovery policy development; disaster recovery center operations; and voluntary agency coordination. During Superstorm Sandy, Zach served as the mitigation advisor to the Federal Disaster Recovery Coordinator in New York State.
Prior to Superstorm Sandy, he supported legislative reform efforts for the National Flood Insurance Program and served in a variety of roles within FEMA’s Mitigation Directorate at FEMA Headquarters and FEMA Region 2. Zach’s first FEMA disaster assignment was DR-1437, Hurricane Lili operations in Louisiana. In the private sector, prior to joining FEMA, he provided management engineering and technical services on mitigation and recovery related contracts.
Zach has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington and Lee University. He currently resides in Montgomery County, Maryland with his family.