Acting Deputy Director Response and Recovery Directorate
State of California
Sacremento
CAUSA
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Biographical Sketch: Eric Lamoureux serves as the Acting Deputy Director for the Cal OES Response and Recovery Directorate. He has responsibility for oversight of all Cal OES regional emergency management, law enforcement, and fire and rescue operations, as well as Cal OES’ statewide disaster recovery operations. In 2017, Lamoureux served as the Senior State Official in charge of response and recovery operations in Sonoma County following the catastrophic North Bay wildfires. Since then, he has served as the Deputy State Coordinating Officer charged with oversight of recovery operations resulting from five presidentially declared disasters in 2017. In that capacity he oversaw the state and federal cleanup operations of nearly 7,000 home sites in eight counties following the October and December 2017 wildfires in northern and southern California. Lamoureux previously served Cal OES as Inland Region Administrator from 2013 to 2017, Acting Deputy Director of the Cal OES Finance and Administration Directorate from 2016 – 2017 and Chief of the department’s Public Information office for six years in the early 2000s.
Lamoureux coordinated Cal OES' response to multiple Inland Region communities impacted by the historic drought, which was declared a State of Emergency by Governor Jerry Brown in 2014. This included oversight of emergency mitigation projects for numerous threatened water systems, support to counties implementing water delivery projects for thousands of residents that suffered dry wells, and helping to negotiate an agreement between state and local officials that secured a permanent, sustainable water supply for the severely impacted community of East Porterville. In 2017, his team supported the largest-ever, peacetime, non-hurricane, mass evacuation in the nation following the near imminent failure of the Lake Oroville emergency spillway. The evacuation resulted in the sheltering of more than 9,000 people across seven, Inland Region counties. At the same time, his team was deployed across multiple counties providing support to communities impacted by historic atmospheric river storms that targeted the state in January and Feburary 2017, resulting in multiple Presidential disaster declarations. In 2015, Lamoureux led his team as it guided Calaveras County emergency managers in responding to and recovering from the destructive Butte Fire, which consumed more than 500 homes in the historic Gold Rush county. Lamoureux was also on-scene with his Inland Region team to coordinate the initial recovery efforts immediately following the devastating 2014 Boles Fire that destroyed nearly 150 in the small town of Weed.
Lamoureux previously worked for Cal OES from November 1999 through September 2007. During that time he served as Chief of the department’s Office of Public Information. During that assignment, he was responsible for managing the State’s Emergency Public Information (EPI) system, directing the activities of the State’s Joint Information Center, and was California’s lead emergency services spokesperson. Lamoureux managed the State’s communications efforts following the 2005 storms in Southern California, which included the devastating La Conchita and Laguna Beach landslides. In 2003 he led the public information operation during the response to and recovery from the 2003 Southern California Fire Siege. Lamoureux coordinated State EPI efforts following 9/11 and managed the State’s Y2K Joint Information Center. Lamoureux also participated in public information operations for numerous state emergencies and disasters including the 2003 San Simeon Earthquake, 2001 Wildland Fires, the 2000 Napa Earthquake, and the 1997 California Floods.
For more than 20 years, Lamoureux served the State of California in multiple communications assignments. Lamoureux was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. in April 2012 to serve as the Deputy Director for the Department of General Services’ Office of Public Affairs. Lamoureux had served as the Acting Deputy Director since July 2010 and was hired by DGS in September 2007 as Manager of Media Relations. As Deputy Director, Lamoureux served as a senior advisor to the Director and managed all internal and external communications issues for the department. As the department’s primary spokesperson, Mr. Lamoureux represented DGS before the news media and constituent groups.
Mr. Lamoureux began his career in 1993 with the California Integrated Waste Management Board where he handled media relations activities, managed three successful statewide environmental education campaigns, and edited the agency’s award-winning “Waste Watcher” newsletter. In 1999 he was the California Environmental Protection Agency’s lead spokesperson on-scene for the Westley Tire Fire in Stanislaus County.
Mr. Lamoureux studied Government-Journalism at California State University, Sacramento and Journalism at American River College in Sacramento. He and his wife Aimee live in the Sierra Nevada foothills outside Sacramento, where they have raised two children.