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Robert W. Cobb Joins ISO as RDS director of Community Hazard Mitigation
Robert W. Cobb has joined ISO as RDS Director of Community Hazard Mitigation after retiring from his responsibilities as Jersey City's Deputy Chief/Fire Department Operations and Deputy Coordinator, Office of Emergency Management/Homeland Security.
Cobb will direct ISO's public fire protection information gathering and analysis process that includes the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule, a manual containing the criteria ISO uses in reviewing the firefighting capabilities of individual communities. He will also act as ISO's key spokesperson to the nation's fire service.
In addition, Cobb will provide strategic direction for ISO's other two key mitigation products: the Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule, which assesses the building codes in effect in a particular community and how the community enforces its building codes, and the Community Rating System Flood Program, a voluntary incentive program that assesses a community's ability to mitigate flood damage.
A nationally recognized fire service expert and frequently requested speaker at industry conferences, Cobb also served as a contributing editor for a leading fire service periodical and is the author of more than 50 fire service?related articles. In addition to his career fire department experience, he is also a current volunteer and past fire chief of the West Milford (NJ) Fire Department, and a past chief of the Dumont (NJ) Fire Department.
"Chief Cobb brings with him 37 years of subject-matter expertise, with numerous examples of design and implementation of innovative ideas within his department," said Michael R. Waters, Vice President, Risk Decision Services at ISO. "These include authoring specialized incident management guidelines for the Jersey City Fire Department, which comprises 650 uniformed personnel operating 28 pieces of apparatus from 17 fire stations. In addition to his considerable background in fire suppression, he was also responsible for the city's emergency all-hazard planning process, which will be valuable experience related to ISO's governmental and homeland security initiatives."
