Hayden Keleher

Hi, my name is Hayden.

In addition to my job role, I support our IT Team as an IT Projects & Transition Engineer.

I started my career within IT and was first introduced to Emergency Planning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  I started off a loggist and then grew fascinated by how the response worked.

I love detail alongside structure, so Emergency Planning seemed to fit with me very well 😊.  There are a number of colleagues who really  encouraged me.  One in particular was a big enabler, who I now work alongside with, who is also my mentor and  manager for all things Emergency Plannning.

There are no qualifications within Emergency Planning and it’s not widely known about so I didn’t know about this profession at school or college.  Yes, I can still remember those days as I am not long out of them!  The COVID-19 response especially seems to have helped shine a spotlight on the importance of Emergency Planning and what would happen if the profession itself was not there (not even worth thinking about!).

But there is now wider acknowledgement about the importance of effective Emergency Planning both within organisations and their executive and senior leadership teams.  Emergency Planning is being taken more seriously with further recruitment opportunities to strengthen teams and resilience.

I would like to see Emergency Planning more of a mainstream profession so its not treated like an “outsider” or a team that is only ever heard of when there is an incident.  Emergency Planning Teams do a lot of things that help keep things afloat incident or not.  Also further awareness about the Teams and showcasing that no matter who you are, you can bring something important to the table.

And something you don’t know about me?  Originally, I was going to be an Equine instructor.