“It's the training that's the hardest. It's the preparation. The months and months of preparation that nobody really sees, that's the hardest part” (Katie Taylor).
Eddie Ivy knows just how important preparation and training are, and he works hard every day to make sure that he and everyone in the community are prepared for anything that could happen.
It is hard to find anyone in Clarke County who does not know, love, and appreciate Eddie. He grew up in Quitman and graduated from Quitman High School before going to college and receiving his Associate’s Degree.
Eddie is always lending a helping hand and does so much for the county. He has a heart for people and loves to do as much as he can to help as many people as possible.
“I started out at EMS working on the ambulance, and I saw that emergency management was a little more involved than just patient care. It gave me the opportunity to be involved with more things, such as preparedness, planning, and those things that go into making a community better prepared,” stated Eddie. “With emergency management, I had a bigger opportunity to reach out to people and help them be better prepared and make our community more disaster resilient. That was a big thing to me.”
Since he started working in emergency management, Eddie has held a variety of positions.
“I worked here from 1990-1994 when I went to Lauderdale County. I was there as the emergency manager from 1994-2001,” recalled Eddie. “At that point, I took an opportunity to go to work for MEMA, working out of Jackson covering the northeast 27 counties. As an area coordinator, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, and I experienced a lot of things there that I would not have at a local level.”
Although he enjoyed his job with MEMA, Eddie then took another job where he was able to gain even more experience.
“After that, I had the opportunity in 2004 to come back to Meridian working with the Office of Homeland Security as a trainer for the regional response teams. There were nine counties in that team, which again was an opportunity to advance and better myself,” remembered Eddie. “Through my tenure at Meridian, I later left that position and went over to full time city employment, not focusing outside the city, but doing emergency management training for the city. I stayed there until I came back to Quitman in 2013.”
His different jobs with emergency services have given Eddie a variety of experiences and knowledge that he is able to use. They have also allowed him to make multiple relationships.
“The neat thing about all the jobs I’ve had is that they all focused on building relationships and encouraging the concept of the whole community approach to managing emergencies or preparing for emergencies,” said Eddie. “That’s one of the things I’ve really enjoyed: building the relationships and fostering that concept of everybody has a role to play.”
Eddie is a hard worker and devotes himself to anything he becomes involved in. While many in the county already know him as the Emergency Management Director, they do not know the other positions that Eddie holds as well.
“I am the county fire coordinator, which means I coordinate all 15 of our volunteer fire departments as far as our annual reporting to the state and insurance department. I assist with training. I assist with equipment and repairs and testing to make sure our equipment is operating properly. My job is to be the advisor to the Board of Supervisors for anything emergency management or fire service related,” explained Eddie. “I’m also the deputy coroner for the county, which is a very rewarding part of what I do because I do get the opportunity to assist people in that difficult time to work through the process and help them as they grieve. I always try to put myself in their shoes and treat them how I’d want to be treated in that situation. I assist with the communications system to make sure the towers have backup power.”
His hard work and love for others have been noticed. In recent years, he has been named the Citizen of the Year by the Clarke County Chamber of Commerce. Also, the state association has recognized his abilities in emergency management and called on him to be on special teams when natural disasters occur.
“Our State Association does commendations for different things, and over the years, I’ve been very fortunate to be on teams that deployed after hurricanes and other natural disasters, wither in the state or out of the state,” stated Eddie. “It’s been a big honor to me to be able to be a part of those teams, whether as a team member or team lead, and go those places and other counties in our state when their Emergency Management Director needs a little help. That’s been a very big thing that’s been important to me over the years: being able to help those people and share some of the knowledge and the experience that people have helped me gain so that they don’t have to make the same mistakes.”
Some of the teams Eddie has been deployed with include Hurricane Michael in Florida and Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey.
Over the years, Eddie has been given numerous awards, but he is very humble about what all he has accomplished. He believes in the men and women who work hard to volunteer with emergency management and credits them with a lot of his success.
“So much of what I’ve done has been through working with other people and other people helping to support it,” said Eddie. “Yeah, I’m the face that people see on television, and I’m the first one that does the interviews and all that, but I’m not the one that makes all the responses in this county happen. There’s a lot of folks that make things happen and do things and move equipment, and there’s a lot of those folks that deserve way more credit than I do. I just get to tell the story when they’re out there making a difference. It’s a team; it’s not just one person.”
Although Eddie is very humble about what he does for the county, the volunteers at the fire department, who work closely with Eddie, see and acknowledge just how important he is and how much he does for the county.
“We are significantly blessed to have Eddie do the job here in Clarke County. I cannot stress enough what a jewel we have doing emergency management, fire coordinator, and deputy coroner here in Clarke County. If you were to reach out and look at the rest of the state, you will see that we are above average for emergency management and fire coordination. There’s nobody in this state that does a better job than what Eddie does,” expressed Don Moore, Fire Chief or the Enterprise Volunteer Fire Department. “I don’t think the citizens understand what they have in Eddie and the experience he has and the outreach he has. His fingers intertwine all over the state and southeast region, not just in Mississippi. That is a huge perk for this county for him to be able to pick up a phone and call somebody and they answer and address him by his first name instead of screening his calls because they don’t recognize the number. He has a really unique way of being able to recruit people to one goal in the middle of a disaster. He’s always helped others, so they want to come help him.”
With all of the jobs Eddie does, he doesn’t really have much time to relax; however, when he does have a chance to do something outside of work, he enjoys being able to spend time with his family, camp, and cook, primarily on the grill.
“Family is important to me,” stated Eddie. “I like camping. I don’t get to do it as much as I’d like, but I enjoy doing it. I enjoy grilling and experimenting with different flavors.”
Clarke County is blessed to have Eddie Ivy, and he will continue to do everything he can to train and prepare others to keep the community safe. His experience and plans have always helped the county come through various disasters in the past, and he will continue to help bring the county together and foster a system where every person has a job to do to help with an emergency in the future.
