Weathering the Storm 2026 Speakers
“Building Resilience and Weathering Life’s Disasters”
Dr. Julie Gary is the Director of Mental Health at the St. Louis City Justice Center where she serves over 800 incarcerated individuals on a daily basis. She was the inaugural Behavioral Health Bureau Chief for St. Louis, MO, addressing mental health through linkage to care, outreach, the city’s 1st behavioral health urgent care, & crisis response including that for the May 2025 tornado that impacted the city. She is a retired Army Air Defense Artillery officer serving 20 years deploying to 9 countries in the Middle East. She has a BS in Pre-Med from Notre Dame, and a Master’s & PhD in Public Health from St. Louis University where she was inducted into 2 honor societies. She received the Mary Gumble Levy Award for service, research, & teaching & was named the 2023 Woman of Influence by the Women’s Leadership Institute. She serves on the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, Alternatives to Incarceration Committee and Boards for Ethnic Communities Opioids Response Network, Hope Creates & the Madison County, IL, Mental Health Board.
“Helene: Together We Overcome and Rebuild”
Bradley Lowe has dedicated more than 30 years to serving communities across North Carolina and beyond. Following his recent retirement from full-time service with Rutherford County EMS, he continues to serve his community as a part-time paramedic. Throughout his career, Bradley also served 6 years with the Sheriff's office including narcotics investigations, 15 years with his local rescue squad, 5 years with FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 1 K-9 handler and spent 12 years as a member of the North Carolina Urban Search and Rescue and Mountain Rescue Team, responding to hurricanes, tornadoes, structural collapses, and other large-scale disasters, including Hurricane Katrina. When Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, the disaster struck close to home. Bradley served his own community before, during, and after the storm, witnessing firsthand the challenges of emergency response, the resilience of his neighbors, and the difficult journey of recovery.
“Weathering the Future: Using Climate-Informed Hazard Vulnerability Analysis to Plan for Cascading Disasters and Recovery”
Arien Herrmann is an emergency management professional, environmental health practitioner, and paramedic with more than 25 years of experience in healthcare, public health, disaster preparedness, and emergency response.
He holds a Master of Science in Healthcare Management from Southeast Missouri State University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Climate Medicine from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Population Health at Southern Illinois University. Herrmann is also a nationally Registered Environmental Health Specialist/Registered Sanitarian (REHS/RS) and a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM).
Throughout his career, he has worked and traveled on all seven continents and in more than fifty countries, gaining firsthand experience with the health impacts of environmental change, natural disasters, infectious disease threats, resource insecurity, and humanitarian crises. His field experience includes response and recovery operations following the Haiti earthquake, deployment during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response, humanitarian and healthcare operations across Africa, the Middle East, and Oceana, and work in austere environments ranging from Antarctica to the Sahara.
Herrmann currently serves as the Program Manager for the Comprehensive Emergency Management Program for the Marion VA Health Care System. His professional interests focus on the intersection of climate change, environmental health, healthcare preparedness, disaster resilience, and population health. He is particularly interested in helping organizations integrate climate-informed planning into existing emergency management and public health frameworks.
“Beyond the Emergency Kit: Building Equitable Disaster Preparedness for Every Community”
Cristina Castillo is an educator, behavioral health professional, and community advocate whose work centers on health equity, belonging, and the dignity of every person. She brings together research, lived experience, cultural humility, and community wisdom to address the conditions that shape mental health, recovery, and well-being, particularly in rural and historically underserved communities. At the heart of her work is a simple conviction: meaningful change begins when people are not only served, but truly seen, heard, valued, and given a place to belong.
“Weathering the Digital Storm: Building an Actionable IT Disaster Recovery Plan”
Robert Marshall brings 20 years of real-world experience across IT consulting, MSP operations, and enterprise network engineering. He’s built, managed, and scaled complex technology environments for organizations of all sizes. Their background spans everything from hands-on network architecture and systems design to strategic IT consulting, with a consistent focus on practical solutions.
“Disaster Psychology”
Sherrie L. Crabb has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Arrowleaf, a comprehensive community-based human services organization serving Southern Illinois, since 2014. With nearly two decades of experience in behavioral health and human services, she brings a leadership perspective grounded in supporting individuals, organizations, and communities through crisis, trauma, and significant change. Her experience includes behavioral health service delivery, crisis response, community collaboration, organizational leadership, and disaster preparedness and recovery. In this session on Disaster Psychology, Sherrie will connect the psychological principles of disaster response with practical lessons for supporting both those directly impacted by disasters and the professionals and organizations responding to them.
“Minimizing Impacts of Earthquakes”
Brian Blake is the Executive Director of the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC), which was established in 1983 under the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. Brian’s primary role is to lead and coordinate activities related to earthquake preparedness and mitigation in the CUSEC Region. This involves working with local, state, and federal partners to create and implement programs which help communities prepare for, respond to, and mitigate against the effects of earthquakes. Brian has led and worked on numerous multi-year earthquake outreach and planning projects including the New Madrid Seismic Zone Catastrophic Planning Initiative, the New Madrid Bicentennial, CAPSTONE-14, and the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut Earthquake Drill. Brian has served at CUSEC since 2003 in various capacities, becoming Executive Director in 2023.
Chris Downey is currently the Special Operations Training Program Director for the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute in Champaign, IL. Having been a part of the Special Operations Training Program at IFSI since 2005, he has helped the program and special operations teams in Illinois transition from the post-9/11 model into where we are today. Through the program's work, IFSI has trained thousands of special operations team members throughout Illinois, the U.S. and internationally. In addition to his work at IFSI, Chris also serves as the Deputy Chief of Training for the Decatur, IL Fire Department.
Dr. Lynn Rheinecker attained her Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC). She graduated from UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy in 2015 with a Doctor of Pharmacy. Recently, she completed the requirements for her Master of Public Health degree from SIUC. Dr. Rheinecker is board certified in both pharmacotherapy and infectious disease pharmacy. She serves as the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists' Southern Region Director and Southern Affiliate President. She has practiced in rural southern Illinois across health systems, infectious disease, and academia. She has been selected to speak at the institutional, local, state, and national levels on pharmacy-related topics, particularly the integration of public health policy into pharmacy practice.
Orval serves as the Coordinator/Emergency Manager for the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Management. He has been with the County EMA since 2017. Orval serves as the Chairperson for the Jackson County Local Emergency Preparedness Committee (LEPC) and the Vice-Chairperson on the Jackson County Emergency Telephone Services 911 Board (ETSB-911). Prior to his current position, he served on the Jackson County Board for 8.5 years, completing in the position of Vice-Chairperson. Orval is a member of both the ELKS and MOOSE lodges in Murphysboro and has served as an officer of the ELKS Lodge #572 in Murphysboro. He is also a member and past Elder of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Murphysboro. Orval is a graduate of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and has received his Illinois Professional Emergency Management (IPEM) certification from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA).
Rachel Mazzara is the Pediatric Emergency Preparedness Specialist at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. Working in partnership with the Pediatric Pandemic Network, she is responsible for all emergency preparedness activities at Cardinal Glennon and for supporting the core functions of the PPN, primarily their reunification domain activities. Rachel is also an active member of the St. Louis Regional Healthcare Coalition and does community outreach around pediatric emergency preparedness for community groups and various organizations across the St. Louis metro region and beyond.
Lionel Gumireddy is a Project Coordinator for the Pediatric Pandemic Network at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. His work focuses on strengthening pediatric disaster recovery by identifying children at high risk for behavioral health disorders following disasters and other traumatic events and connecting them with behavioral health evaluation. He also contributes to pediatric emergency preparedness through community outreach and collaboration with healthcare and emergency response partners across the St. Louis region.
Taylor began her nursing career at the University of Iowa as a staff nurse in 2017 in the Surgical and Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit. In 2021, Taylor transitioned into leadership on the SNICU as an Assistant Nurse Manager, then later Nurse Manager in 2022. Taylor obtained her Master’s in Nursing with a focus in healthcare administration from Capella University and maintains a certification in critical care. Taylor also serves as the Nurse Manager of the Special Pathogen Unit within SNICU. In 2024 Taylor led the SPU Staff Nurse Team in activating for a case of Lassa Fever. While managing the SPU Team, Taylor oversees and trains 50 staff nurses to be able to activate the unit and maintain care of patients with viral hemorrhagic fevers.
Jessica McAnelly is in her 30th year as a Public Health Professional. She has served in the Environmental Health programs of three Illinois local health departments before joining IDPH ten years ago. Jessica was initially Division Chief for Food, Dairies and Devices in IDPH, and is now the Division Chief for Disaster Planning and Readiness in the Office of Preparedness and Response. She has been involved with many IDPH responses, including Ebola, Measles, Marburg, Mpox, the Democratic National Convention, the Southern Illinois Eclipse, Federal Funding Challenges, Asylum Seekers, H5N1, various floods and storms and multiple foodborne outbreaks.