T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Marshall County Emergency Management Coordinator Kim Elder, left, pictured alongside Chief Information Officer James Nehring, center, and Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Carol Hibbs, right, was honored for 20 years of service to the county during a recent supervisors meeting.

From natural disasters, extreme weather, terrorism, mass casualties, biohazardous waste and other threats to public safety, emergency management serves an important role in prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Kim Elder has spent 20 years serving in emergency management for Marshall County — the only staff person — and is housed at the sheriff’s department.

Elder grew up exposed to emergency services. Her father Dennis Bachman is a former Hardin County sheriff’s deputy and longtime paramedic in Marshalltown, while her mother Judy Moore worked as a nurse.

“I grew up behind the desk at the Marshalltown Medical & Surgical Center,” Elder said. “Mom and dad divorced and dad still lived here. It was back in the days before HIPAA and not the privacy we have now. I grew up with all the dispatchers that sat back there. Dad would take calls and run the ambulance, and I would hang out mostly with the girls dispatching.”

She and her mom moved to southern Illinois where she graduated high school. Then she attended Southeast Illinois College. Elder considered a career in EMS but wasn’t sure she had the stomach for the more gruesome aspects of the work.

“Dad would bring home all the pictures — he did a lot of the photos for the medical examiner. I was snoopy as a kid. I said I can’t do that, so I’ll do something else in the medical field,” she noted. “That’s where I got into the medical transcription and medical billing.”

Upon moving back to Iowa in 1997 with her husband Dan, she caught the “bug” and decided to take an EMT class.

“I am still a licensed EMT but I don’t work the streets anymore because I’m the only person in the emergency management office,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fair for me to promise something I couldn’t do. I eventually got my Firefighter I certificate in the early 2000s.”

She noted her experience in EMS and fire has helped inform her duties in emergency management. She worked as an EMT for Marshalltown’s hospital nights while raising a family.

“Then I’d come home, take care of them, and do medical transcription, then go back to work at night,” she said. “I also volunteered with State Center Fire and EMS.”

In January 2005, she took the coordinator assistant position, back when there were two jobs in the emergency management office, while still doing some EMS work. She assumed the lead coordinator role in October 2010 when Deanna Neldeberg Bachman retired.

“They didn’t fill the role of assistant due to budget constraints. We are still fighting hard to find funding to get an assistant,” Elder said.

She never earned a college degree, but she keeps up with continuing education.

“There are a lot of great people out there with degrees, but I think the opposite is true too,” she added.

She noted that emergency management degrees are a fairly new concept.

“It hadn’t been fine-tuned until the last 10 years roughly,” she said. “Locally it used to be retired law enforcement or sheriff or dispatcher — someone with that type of background in the role…some have the hands-on experience, while others have the degree, or a combination.”

When asked how to explain the duties of emergency management, Elder said no two days on the job are the same. Sometimes she’s working on paperwork and budgeting, other times she’s doing trainings and presentations. Fieldwork can be tedious, yet exciting.

“Hazardous materials are always interesting and dangerous. It takes a lot of skill, and we do contract with Des Moines Haz-Mat,” she said. “They can be a long event, trying to figure out what spilled or was released, and then mitigating that.”

Incidents she has handled through the years include water main breaks, severe weather, cybersecurity, and more. The 2018 tornado and 2020 derecho are never far from her memory.

“Even though we’ve had many declared disasters, those were higher damage numbers,” she added.

Elder said following Sept. 11, 2001, emergency management shifted from civil defense to Homeland Security.

“I came in just a few years after the switchover and the focus more on terrorism,” she noted. “We’ve also seen historic flooding — we train for bigger events and try to be creative on how we can better prepare our counties. It’s always a challenge.”

The people she works with among various agencies have made the job worthwhile.

“There are a lot of counties that just can’t get along for whatever reason, and the EMAs come and go and have a really hard time,” she said. “I can’t say enough about the partners that I’ve had, and I think that’s why I’ve been here 20 years, because it’s hard enough to be in a demanding position and fighting for every penny you can get for your budget, but if you’re not good partners with your partners, I think people burn out really quick.”