Random Life Tidbits
An "About Me" Post From 2016
2025 NOTE
This is a pieces-and-parts “about me” post from an old website archive of mine at counterfear.com. That site was an early precursor to the Fierce Community work now under active development.
THE ARCHIVE POST
Monday, April 11, 2016
Hello! This writing contains the “extras” from the “Leaping” (about me) post and is hopefully more interesting than the bio (updated in 2025) or the LinkedIn profile.
Some might say I’ve had a crazy life. It has certainly been a-typical, but then, what is normal? We are each so unique, even if we may not think so. Here are some random bits from my own story:
I have moved 33 times since leaving high school.
I’ve lived in nine states and the District: IA, VA, MA, CA, CO, AZ, NC, SC, TN, and DC.
In more detail, that’s the following, in moves-to-or-within-a-state order: many moves in IA (college, etc.), then VA, IA, IA, MA, CA, IA, CO, IA, IA, AZ, IA, NC, SC, VA, TN, IA, CA, CA, CA, VA, DC, VA, and now finally back to IA. Advanced deeply scientific analysis: Iowa wins in number of moves, tied by Virginia and California. Outside of Iowa, Virginia wins the overall title in sheer number of years (10.7) vs. California (4.1). I have no idea what winning means, but I thought this site needed some statistics. Now that’s done.
After I “settled down” by leaving wildfire and buying a condo and a carpet shampooer, I got two black cats: aka The Destructors. It’s a good thing they’re cute. I say that every day. The real question is: would they have been pukers if I had not gotten the carpet shampooer first? [2025 update… while The Destructors have both now passed, I got a new surprisingly not-destructive cat called Violet in 2019 in Iowa. I didn’t know cats came in not-destructive so that’s been educational.]
I left the federal government in 2014 with 18 official years of federal service, even though I actually technically worked a bit less than that. Ironic fact: seasonal employment time counts for more “official” time, since you don’t get benefits as a temp.
My last job-job (versus a contract or coaching) was also my best one yet, except for the social entrepreneur-ing I do these days. That’s tricky to say, because I also loved the world of wildland fire. My last employment-type job was helping the 18 local governments in the nation’s capital to connect to their 5.5 million citizens for emergencies and for other non-emergency use. We also supported first responders and various operations. I worked with amazing, dedicated, and super-sharp people who worked either in the company I worked for, or who were part of the 18-jurisdiction-administration of the National Capital Region emergency notification system (ENS).
I spent my last 9+ years of federal service at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ranked by the Partnership for Public Service project “Best Places to Work” as #19 of 19 large federal agencies in 2015. Yep, DHS is the least popular federal department to work in. Probably that's not a surprise, but considering how promising and necessary it looked after 9/11, it's frustrating. [2025 note… now the whole federal government is not a good place to work but I’d bet DHS is still ranked the worst, and declining].
The last federal sub-component agency I worked for, the DHS Science & Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) was rated #316 out of 320 sub-component agencies in the same "Best Places to Work" report for 2015, which was an improvement of four places… up from dead-last in 2014. That’s one reason why it’s an ex-job.
I was obsessed about wildland fire and incident management for a long time, until 9/11, after which I made a commitment to see incident management evolve. Some major kinks in the evolution of incident management eventually made way in my career for emergency management / disaster management work in general. With family stuff happening, love of that family and what-have-you pulled me home. Now I’m back near the starting gate in Iowa. I do get to smell fires pretty often. Heehee. Plus, people can have fires in their backyards here without the fire department showing up, and/or without starting a major urban-interface conflagration. It’s good. [2025 note… smelling wildfire smoke these days is often not local and not nearly as fun… because Canada is burning way more often, bigger, earlier, and more heavily than ever before and it’s not a good sign].
Now that I’m in Iowa, I have big plans for summer camping, lots of swimming, going to the Iowa State Fair, hiking (ha! this can involve surprise encounters with cows), quality family time, good friends, very long walks on very flat land, catching sunsets from the flat land, and seeing a gigantic pile of relatives more than once a decade.
I’m a little bit obsessed by The Walking Dead. This is because the show has got some of my favourite Counterfear anchors: connection, community, vision, and resilience. In spades. It is literally about being in a tough situation, being resilient, and making change. It’s also got a more realistic post-apocalypse feel than other stuff along the same vein; in that the people actually look the part, and some of the logistical complications of a world without infrastructure are accounted for. Not all, but hey; it is Hollywood. Now, I am NOT a fan of the spin-off, Fear the Walking Dead. But that’s a longer story.
I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would become an entrepreneur (or a social entrepreneur). The paperwork and “business stuff” always intimidated the bejeesus out of me. Now that I write that sentence, I realize the absurdity: I navigated the federal government's bureaucracy for 14.5 straight years after getting permanent employee status. Regardless, once I came across a business idea that resonated, quite a lot of the “business stuff” actually sounded fun.
While this is a random bunch of stuff, there is one thing that is not random about it. It's that every single thing on here was part of my work toward a vision. Even watching The Walking Dead. Now to be fair, that addiction was a side-effect of work on one of the larger visions: moving "home" (there was a Walking Dead marathon on AMC while I was packing to move). But: move accomplished! Plus, the show has turned out to be super relevant. The fact that watching a marathon TV show about a zombie apocolypse was a highlight of the moving process should give a sense for how the rest of the move went.
It's a journey. It hasn't all been sunshine and flowers, but it's been a heck of a ride. Living the dream.
I'm just happy to be here.
Vanessa Burnett is the director at Fierce Community. This nonprofit work promotes connection, community, coordination, creativity, engagement, empowerment, leadership, and resilience in an era of rising instability and societal disruption. Email fiercecommunityteam@gmail.com to set up a conversation.
Vanessa is a social entrepreneur, advisor, and empower-er for doing fierce community in a time of disruption and disaster. Ms. Burnett has a rare systems-level understanding of the pieces and parts that modern society needs in order to survive that can help people and groups navigate this era of fast change and unprecedented challenges. She has over 25 years experience in resilience-building, civic engagement, coalition-building, critical infrastructure, systems thinking, big disasters, catastrophes, wildland fire, emergency management, incident management, land management, park rangering, homeland security, continuity of operations (COOP), continuity of government (COG), technology innovation, public communication, and disaster information sharing.