Jean Brown, California
One of Jean’s key contributions to ASFPM was expanding awareness and hence membership among floodplain managers on the West Coast. When he agreed to serve as chair of ASFPM’s Board of Directors from 1984-85, it demonstrated that ASFPM had truly grown into a national organization. Until this point, all board chairs were from the Midwest, so this was an important step to growing the association.
It was under Jean’s leadership that ASFPM held its 1983 annual conference in Sacramento, California — another important step to expanding the reach of the association and flood risk management to floodplain managers on the West Coast. It was also in the early-1980s that Jean began holding meetings with like-minded professionals in California — a group that would later become the Floodplain Managers Association. Jim Owen soon took over chapter duties for Brown, and the FMA expanded to include Nevada and Hawaii. FMA became an official ASFPM chapter in 2005.
During his tenure as chair, Jean traveled to Washington, DC with ASFPM Executive Director Larry Larson so agencies and those in Congress were aware that flood risk and flooding were important issues for California. He worked to educate those on Capitol Hill to issues around flood mapping regulations and structural issues, such as levees that had a long history of failing, especially in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta.
For nearly two decades, Jean helped coordinate our national awards program to recognize outstanding state and local programs, thus furthering federal and national awareness of exemplary program and projects that could serve as models for others to replicate. Even in retirement, he continues to attend ASFPM national conferences.