Russell Accardi

Mr. Russell Accardi has more than 38 years of diversified experience in Fire-Rescue, Emergency Services, Emergency Management, EOC Operations, Natural and Man-Made Disaster Response, Hazardous Materials/WMD Response serving on the FEMA Improvised Nuclear Device (IND) Working Group for First Responders. Mr. Accardi served over 20 years on the DHS-FEMA Urban Search & Rescue (US&R) South Florida Task Force 2 (City of Miami Fire Rescue), as a Haz Mat Specialist & Search Team Manager.

Mr. Accardi’s work has led to his current position as Director, Public Safety Division with L2 Defense, Inc. where he oversees local, state, federal, and private sector business engagements. Using his national network, he designed and coordinated numerous functional and Full-Scale Exercises (FSE) between the Federal DoD and metro first responder organizations such as New York City, Miami Dade, and Las Vegas. These exercises involve some of the busiest Critical Infrastructure Key Resources (CIKR), and sports venues in the nation. As project executive he assembled key teaming partnerships resulting in contracts for the Atlanta UASI, San Francisco Bay Area UASI, and other homeland security, training and preparedness initiatives.

Prior to this Mr. Accardi held the position of Operations Manager & Subject Matter Expert (SME) for ATEC, Inc. His main responsibility was program management for the U.S. Army North (USARNORTH) contract providing hundreds of Subject matter experts to support mobile training and evaluation of the 12,000 soldier Federal Defense CBRNE Response Force, C2CRE throughout the United States. The Response Forces are assigned to conduct mass casualty decontamination, medical, haz mat recon, and urban search & rescue operations for U.S. Northern Command.

Prior to coming to the private sector, Mr. Accardi served at the executive level as the Chief in Charge of Operations for the City of Delray Beach (FL) Fire-Rescue Department. In this position of Assistant Fire Chief, he oversaw all fire rescue operations personnel with a 21million dollar budget, consisting of three Battalions, and three Divisions including Emergency Medical Services, Training & Safety, and Special Operations. Chief Accardi held the position of Emergency Management & Homeland Security Coordinator for the City of Delray Beach, FL. In this position he was responsible for the development of the city’s Comprehensive Emergency Management Plans, and the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Additionally, he oversaw the training and FEMA certification process for 800-employees city wide.