Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: As Americans, we believe it's our divine right to be happy; or at least be given the chance to work our tails off trying. I'm not afraid to admit it, my work has been great to be me, as I'm fortunate to have found happiness in what I do for a living. Not everyone feels the same, so for those who have stumbled upon a fork in the road to happiness, I bestow upon you the top reasons to work in emergency management (EM):

• The field-of-knowledge is ever-changing, keeping you on your toes in a constant quest to find "today's guidance."
• For those of you who like each day to be different, this is the job for you. One day you're writing a preparedness plan, the next day you're participating in an exercise, and two weeks later you may be responding to an emergency event.
• The emergency management field is wide-open for opportunity and advancement. Have you seen the list of universities that offer degrees in emergency management? Ten years ago there were about five. Today, the numbers are in the hundreds!
• Everyone knows everyone else, or has at least heard of them before. Having been deployed on multiple disaster response efforts, I'm amazed at how close-knit the EM community is. You always run into the same people regardless of the state or territory affected.
• Job security. There's always an emergency somewhere that needs to be managed.
• I'm not going to lie…it's kind of fun to develop Armageddon-like exercise scenarios.
• Cleanliness. As the emergency operations center coordinator and manager, you will witness amazing tools and tricks of first responders from the comfort of a command vehicle or behind yellow tape. Don't feel like getting dirty today? You don't have to.
• Passion. The EM field is full of people who truly love what they do and people they serve. Trying to organize a disaster is both challenging and fun, and emergency managers know that their actions directly impact the lives of everyone around them. It's this passion that inspires us. We see that it drives retirees to come back for the experience again and again!