David Milen

Dr. Milen's educational background includes a Ph.D. and MPH, Community and Public Health from Walden University, an MS in Occupational Safety Management, from Indiana State University, a BA in Media Studies and Communications from Northern Illinois University, and my AAS. in Public Safety and Fire Science comes from Ivy Tech Community College. His professional fields are emergency and risk management both in the field and in the hospital settings. In his previous profession, he worked as a firefighter, medic, and training officer for 10 years in a mid-sized fire department near Chicago. During his tenure with the fire department, he responded to multiple fire related incidents, numerous medical emergencies, and developed a Rapid Intervention Team (RIT) for the department. The last assignment with the fire department was a combination of emergency management and training 180 firefighting personnel. While he was with the fire department, he pursued my Ph.D. and became actively involved in training emergency responders, fire personnel, and working alongside other stakeholders within the community in an effort to raise disaster response awareness.
After leaving the fire department, Dr. Milen had an opportunity to work at one of the local hospitals, St. Margaret Health - Franciscan Alliance, as the Bioterrorism/Disaster Preparedness Coordinator for multiple facilities. In 2007, one of the facilities flooded due to torrential rains and severe thunderstorms that were passing through the area. Eventually, we had to evacuate 67 patients from the hospital due to the rising water. He was instrumental in working alongside many others in communicating with outside community resources and stakeholders for assisting and coordinating evacuation efforts. Dr. Milen worked with many local, state, and federal agencies in a coordinated effort for approximately 82 days to reopen the hospital after the devastating event.
After serving both in the public and corporate arenas, he became Executive Director of the Northwest Indiana Patient Safety Coalition. Dr. Milen further assisted many others in working with 16 hospitals, numerous faith-based organizations, local universities, and other community members in developing criterion for patient safety standards. These standards were developed for the community and have been promoted throughout the 16 hospitals serving 800,000 people. He was the Chairperson of the District Bioterrorism and Hospital Planning Committee in Northwest Indiana. The duties cover a 5 - county area regarding emergency response, public health issues, training and development, and working with the State of Indiana fostering community-based emergency response efforts. I have been published both nationally and internationally, and have spoken globally specializing in emergency response, disaster recovery, PTSD, bioterrorism, fire and emergency response, and active threat/active shooter topics.

Education

PhD, Walden University

MS, Walden University

MS, Indiana State University

BA, Northern Illinois University