Chris Breitbach named Pitkin County Emergency Manager
Credit Pitkin County
The Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office has named Chris Breitbach as the county’s new emergency manager. Breitbach, who has a leadership background in emergency management and incident response, will start on April 2.
Originally from Minnesota, he most recently served as director of emergency management for Minneapolis-based Allina Health, a healthcare system with 13 hospitals. In his role, he oversaw emergency management staff and was responsible for the organization’s preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery functions.
He also served as a deputy team commander for the Minnesota All Hazards Incident Management Team, which has been activated for incidents ranging from a fatal shooting in the Twin Cities to hurricanes on the East Coast. Additionally, he serves as an operations section chief on a US Health and Human Services Incident Management Team.
“Chris bridges two different worlds of emergency management and incident response. He has a great, diverse background that can benefit us in our management of incidents and in emergency management preparedness, which includes resiliency planning and community affairs,” said Alex Burchetta, undersheriff for the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office in a press release.
Breitbach will oversee the county’s emergency preparedness program, which includes preparing for an incident, responding to it, and organizing the recovery.
During non-emergency times, he says he looks forward to creating plans that might be used during a response and building key relationships in the community.
“A lot of thought and effort has gone into building Pitkin County’s emergency management program already. My goal is to be able to carry forward this important work and continue the planning and preparedness process,” he said.
He takes over for the county’s previous Emergency Manager Valerie MacDonald who held the role for more than a decade. Parker Lathrop, chief deputy of operations for the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office, has served as interim Emergency Manager since August.
