The Chair of the Management Committee of the Council of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Ambassador Elma Gene Isaac of Saint Lucia, yesterday announced the appointment of Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig as Deputy Executive Director of the Agency with effect from January 3, 2023.
Lieutenant Colonel Craig, a release from CDEMA said, is a disaster risk management practitioner, with over 25 years of military service and more than 16 years disaster management experience working with community groups, government agencies, and national, regional, and international non-governmental organisations.
He served as the Director General of the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) of Guyana for five years up until July 2022 and as an independent Disaster Risk Management Professional thereafter.
He previously held the positions of Deputy Director General and Operations and Training Officer at the Civil Defence Commission, Guyana; Avionics Supervisor and Adjutant at Air Corps; and Infantry Commander/Platoon Commander for the Guyana Defence Force’s First Infantry Battalion. The release said that he presently serves as a Part-Time Lecturer for the Post-Graduate Programme at the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Studies, University of Guyana.
Craig also served as the Chairman and member of the CDEMA Plan Development and Review Subcommittee for seven years.
At CDEMA, the release said that Craig will lead the Technical Programme Management Division which is responsible for the strategic and technical leadership of the Agency’s Disaster Risk Management programme in the areas of Response, Recovery, Preparedness, Disaster Risk Reduction, Education, Research and Training.
