.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Emily Hajek was happily working in the office of Iowa Gov. Chet Culver as a Senate liaison and policy adviser. Then came the floods of the summer of 2008.

Hajek was asked to help with getting the Rebuild Iowa Office (RIO) started, and eventually was asked to stay on and run RIO as its chief of staff.

“We essentially started an entirely new agency,” Hajek said. “So it was at a time when obviously, while we weren’t involved in emergency response, there was still a lot of urgent needs for Iowans that we were trying to respond to.”

Soon after, the staff had grown and Hajek was in charge of managing about 20 staff members, when prior to the experience, the most people she had managed was two.

“It was very difficult, very challenging, very interesting coming up with an entirely new structure for an organization and figuring out how best to serve the needs of long-term recovery and learning a ton about what happens in a disaster and what happens in disaster recovery,” she said.

Her work earned her praise from the executive director of RIO, Lt. Gen. Ron Dardis, who wrote in a letter, “Iowans are lucky to have such a competent person dedicated to the state’s long-term disaster recovery mission. Ms. Hajek has made an incredible impact behind the scenes.”

Dardis went on to say that in part because of Hajek’s efforts, Iowa’s disaster recovery is being used as a model for disaster recovery policies at the national level.

Hajek has also been a Big Sister to the same child for four and a half years, won the Governor’s Excellence Award, and is a Circle of Friends volunteer with Lutheran Refugee Services providing support for a family from Burundi, Africa.

“I am feeling a little like there is more I’d like to do with refugees,” Hajek said. “Right now the state is at a place where we may be taking fewer refugees because Lutheran Services is having to close their program, and the state bureau is also closing theirs. I feel pretty passionately that refugees have been an important part of Iowa’s history, and we should continue to take more of them, not less, especially since we are a state that is losing, not gaining, population.”

RIO’s sunset is in June 2011, and Hajek said her main goal there is to help leave behind plans for the state to continue with recovery and also be able to recover better in the future.