Alum Kehla West, class of 2013, had a circuitous route to planning as a career. After working as a social worker in a domestic violence shelter, journalist and copy editor, private investigator and paralegal, she started law school but decided that wasn’t the path for her. She had long been interested in urban planning, but the University of Iowa program specifically drew her in because of the availability of a course focused on post-disaster recovery. That course brought her into contact with another SPPA alum, Jim Schwab, FAICP, who has been a mentor through her career. 

Kehla headed to Washington, DC, after graduating, where she began working with the Community Planning and Capacity Building Recovery Support Function under FEMA. While working in DC and later in the Region 5 office in Chicago, Kehla deployed extensively to disasters to assist communities with post-disaster recovery planning. These deployments included Colorado, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas (Hurricane Harvey), Puerto Rico (Hurricane Maria), Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, and Florida. When she wasn’t on the road, she worked with state and local governments to create pre-disaster recovery plans.

Working at the nexus of planning and emergency management led Kehla to taking a job at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in January 2020. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic quickly became the primary focus of this position. The following year, Kehla returned to FEMA and pioneered the role of regional resilience officer.

These days, she’s serving as the Executive Officer for the Nondisaster Grants Implementation Branch out of FEMA HQ, supporting grant programs that assist with resilient infrastructure and flood mitigation. In her free time, she flexes her old planning skills by serving on the planning and zoning commission in Tinley Park, IL, where she lives with her husband and daughter.