Gabe Lavine

Gabe Lavine serves as the director of the Arizona Division of Emergency Management, one of five divisions in the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs. In this role, he manages the state’s emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts, and supports county and tribal emergency managers.

Gabe has more than 19 years of experience in emergency services and management, public safety first response, military combat arms, reconnaissance, specialized operations, diplomatic security, intelligence, special weapons and tactics, incident management team leadership, and recovery operations. His emergency management experience encompasses both the city and county levels, including serving in Arizona as the Cochise County Director of Emergency Management and Office of Emergency Services.

Most recently, Gabe worked in Texas as the Administrator of the Office of Emergency Management for the City of Sugar Land.  In addition to several state and federal disaster declarations, his diverse experiences included serving on the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Regional Collaboration Committee, UASI Technology Work Group as Chair, Levee Improvement District Ambassador, the Texas All Hazards Incident Management Team Region 2 as Deputy Team Leader, and on the Texas Disaster Recovery Task Force. Serving as incident commander, Lavine was also intimately involved with the Hurricane Ian response and recovery efforts as well as deploying in various team lead, section chief and liaison roles in support of other statewide incidents including the Uvalde Mass Casualty Incident, Houston Tornado Outbreak, and San Jacinto County Fugitive Recovery efforts.

Lavine served in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) for nine years with domestic and international assignments as an infantry and reconnaissance officer; including multiple deployments to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.  Additionally, he served as a civilian contractor with the Department of State’s High Threat Protection Detail assigned to the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan for more than 2 years. Prior to joining the USMC, he worked in a variety of public safety roles in Virginia.

Certified by the International Association of Emergency Managers, Lavine completed his undergraduate degree at Virginia Tech and earned a Graduate Certificate in Infrastructure Disaster Management from Texas A&M University. He also has completed three graduate programs at Walden University- a Master of Public Administration, and Master of Science degrees in Criminal Justice, Executive Leadership, and Emergency Management.