CAPT Cobb serves as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Acting Regional Health Administrator of Region IV. Region IV includes eight Southeastern States and is the largest geographical region of the ten HHS Regions.
CAPT Cobb’s experience with preparedness and response dates as far back as 1993 and continues to the present. It includes, but is not limited to:
- Hurricane Andrew, Albany Floods, New York Ice Storm, Summer Olympics in Atlanta, 911 Attacks on America, and Hurricane Isabel;
- directing the Management Support Team for the National Disaster Medical System and the Disaster Mortuary Response Support Team; and
- serving as the HHS Secretary’s Emergency Response Team (SERT) leader during the week of the G-8 summit in Georgia. This summit convened the International Leadership from the major 8 countries and is an event which had the potential for very complex public health consequences.
CAPT Cobb actively coordinated emergency operations with the Regional office, State officials, and headquarters. She provided leadership for all of these assets, maintained open communication among the various partners, and provided situational awareness to the Secretary through the Assistant Secretary for Public Health and Emergency Preparedness. Examples of her leadership include, but are not limited to the following:
- providing human resources in a collaborative effort with the Office of Global Health and Refugee Health to assist in the repatriation of Haitian Americans to respond to an urgent potential public health need;
- serving as the SERT leader for the 2004 Hurricanes Charley and Jeanne in Florida, and Deputy SERT leader for the 2004 Hurricanes Frances and Ivan in Florida;
- serving as Deputy SERT leader for the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi;
- interfacing with staff assigned to the State Emergency Operation Center, Regional Response Coordinating Center, and Secretary’s Operation Center to ensure all Action Request Forms and Mission Assignments were developed and acted upon in a timely manner; thus ensuring that all health and medical issues were addressed and Federal partners reimbursed through the Stafford Act; and
- serving as the Emergency Support Function 8 lead for Region IV on the Federal Emergency Management Agency Regional Interagency Steering Committee to ensure that HHS was represented with other Federal partners as related to overall responsibility to the National Response Plan.
CAPT Cobb’s experience, training, and national leadership in promoting the quality of the Federal health and medical response, both within the past year and past decade, adequately qualified her for the 2007 Nurse Responder of the Year Award.