Tom Mueller: 0:07

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. On this podcast, we talk all things crisis management and we like to share stories from experienced crisis leaders. I'm Tom Mueller. Thanks again for joining us and being back with us. Hey, if you want to reach out to the podcast, you can drop me an email at Tom at LeadingInacrisis.com. And just want to let you know the podcast remains uh clicking up in the rankings out here. We are in the top ten now of management podcasts in the state of Texas by the uh local um podcast rating agency. So we're getting some good exposure there, and uh we're real happy to have you with us today. Hey, on our on the show today, uh we're going to talk books and writing and a little crisis management as well with a new author, Helen Vittori, who is the author of a series of fiction novels. Um, but she taps into her roots as a paramedic and emergency responder and crisis manager to really flavor her novels with a lot of that kind of background and texture. So it's interesting reading. Helen, welcome to the podcast.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 1:27

Thank you for having me. And I have to say, when I would travel for work, which was pretty much all over the country, Texas, particularly Dallas, uh, was one of my favorite spots to go. It's a great street with wonderful people.

Tom Mueller: 1:44

Why thank you? Where is home for you, Helen?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 1:47

We're in Leesburg, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Tom Mueller: 1:53

Yeah, beautiful area up there. Uh, you don't have to go far to get out in the country from there, do you?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 1:59

Not at all. We can walk to where the the sprawl ends and the country begins.

Tom Mueller: 2:06

Beautiful. Well, it's um well, let's talk uh your background a little bit, Helen. Now I know you started as uh as a paramedic, but um give our listeners just kind of a quick thumbnail of your background experience that led you eventually to this career writing fiction novels.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 2:29

I'd love to. Well, as you said, I was first a paramedic. And as we all know, that the emergencies require leadership skills that, quite frankly, I was not sure that I had until I was right in the thick of things. Now, when I mean the thick of things, going to get the education and so forth, going to training, and I learned that to be a good uh patient care uh giver, I had to be an autocratic leader. But the entire uh coordination for an emergency really relies on something more than that. You need the collaborative type of a leader to be able to get everyone to be lockstep with what needs to be done. Then and you also have to learn how to think on the fly. The training is important, yes, it all factors in, but there's always going to be either that black swan or Murphy's Law or what have you that will throw in these perhaps unexpected or um unusual circumstances. So you need to really rely on not only what your training is, but the input of others so that um you can become the transformational leader to ensure everything flows nicely. Now, my husband and I met at the in the fire and rescue service. And when once we started having a family, I decided it was time for me to focus on the kids. But when 9-11 happened, I really wanted to go back into serving. Now, when I announced that at the dinner table, our daughter burst into tears and she said, I can't have two parents as fire rescue people. Look at what happened when the towers came down. I can't take that. So I understood that, and I reached out to someone that I knew was in the Department of Homeland Security to be. At that moment, it had not become the Department of Homeland Security, but it would end up to be that he was my former paramedic partner. We had spent years together riding the rig and going on calls and um just a great guy. And he said, Well, here's a lead for you, and I followed it, which took me to be the senior medical intelligence analyst in the Department of Homeland Security. And then with reorganizations through the years, I ended up being an emergency management specialist, and in fact, was given awards for all the planning and preparing that I did to include pandemics. Now, step forward a little bit more in my time frame to 2018. I retired walking out the door, thinking, okay, well, I've done my job, everything's left in place, and here I go for the next chapter in my life. And as you know, 2020 slapped us in the face with the emergence of COVID. I was, I'll say, dumbfounded after a short time. I was confused, I was enraged at times. I would rant and carry on to my siblings when we were on our Zoom calls. And my sister said to me, My goodness, you have a story there. So I began writing. And lo and behold, a novel emerged, and in it was the black swan, which is a catastrophe that could not have been foreseen or imagined because of its exceptional impact. I wrote Black Swan Impact, excuse me, Black Swan Impact. And um, the amazing thing was to my siblings, as I would send them bits and pieces, that I would forecast what actually happened days, weeks, even months in advance. Well, let me tell you, that wasn't so difficult because, as you know, leaders think ahead, they plan ahead, they understand circumstances, and they have knowledge from years of experience. So I used all that to create the story. I did put it in the future so that you could be separated and have a little relief from the trauma of what was currently going on. But yes, um, it was not uh a stretch for me to imagine this sci-fi political thriller.

Tom Mueller: 7:46

Well, yeah, and you're building on that experience with the pandemic with COVID-19 then, and sort of taking that forward into a more futuristic um setting, but still there's a lot of detective work that happens around sort of tracking down, you know, where are infections occurring. And, you know, you think about folks at CDC who do this for a living, and you know, it's it's a it's a very interesting chore to to do that and to try and keep track, and especially, you know, with as secretive as some Asian countries are about what's happening inside their borders, can be quite a challenge. Well, I want to hear more about the books and the black swan, but um tell me a little bit about your, you know, when you're riding the rig or or doing your planning, any particular stories that um come out from your experience that might uh you know help younger staff who are coming up in those roles?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 8:50

Well, my bottom line is you need to really work as partners. You need to be collaborative. That includes uh whether it's your partner, your single partner, or the department or the state, or the country. You have to be able to work together, to communicate well, to understand how you can create a symbiotic relationship. And I'll toot my horn a little bit. I won employee of the year for doing just that, for having created the collaborative work uh across the federal government for pandemic planning and preparedness for uh biological threats, I'll say. Um, and um, you can't do that without having everyone involved and appreciating everyone and promoting good ideas, uh, you know, working synergistically, like I said, to really have things in place. Because, as we all know, when a disaster strikes, all the planning and preparing is just the foundation. You have to be able to pivot and to be able to anticipate, and even when those things that you never dreamed of came along, you have to be able to find focus and adjust accordingly.

Tom Mueller: 10:24

Well, and that's a huge challenge. And, you know, the whole planning aspect of this is always, you know, there's a lot of value in doing that. But you know, most people I've interviewed for this podcast, and just my own experience working in large oil and gas companies, is uh there's not a lot of time for it, right? In the in the juggling of priorities on a daily basis, finding time to really do this planning can be quite challenging. And and I worked in very large organizations with big budgets typically, uh, but um even then there's always competing priorities for this. So people who are working in smaller companies or in municipal governments can be a huge challenge. So, how did you sort of you know get over that issue, the inertia issue of getting people's attention, bringing focus to it?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 11:22

Um, no doubt, the bottom line comes down to time and money. Every year, the same argument. What's our return on investment, both monetarily and time-wise? And the struggle to uh uh argue the case for that sometimes was overwhelming, sometimes was productive in terms of how I hoped it would go. Uh, it really depends on the climate. For instance, after 9-11, everyone was very focused on planning, preparing, and so forth. But as time goes on, we become complacent. And that's not uh to to say that people um did this on purpose. It's just a natural thing. It's innate in us to let go of that high anxiety. Otherwise, we'd be high strung uh you know, beyond what we could really bear.

Tom Mueller: 12:24

Well, there's a pendulum swing, isn't there, right? After 9-11, you you see a lot of focus, or after a major incident, there's a lot of focus. But then as time goes by, people change, new managers are in, don't have the history, you know, and don't feel the urgency from that event. And so that's when the priorities start to shift a little bit.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 12:50

And there's the, I would say, innate feeling in all of us that, oh, it it can never happen to me. Or, you know, let's say if it happens in my country, it won't happen in my state. Oh, but if it's in my state, it won't be in my city or town. But if it's in my city or town, it won't be in my neighborhood. And if it's in my neighborhood, oh, it couldn't possibly be in my home. That is just something that I think arguably everybody thinks, at least from time to time, if not often.

Tom Mueller: 13:29

Sure. And actually the odds are against it being in your neighborhood or community. But the odds are still there, right? If you've got uh, you know, trucks on the highways carrying hazardous materials, trains running through your communities carrying all kinds of things, uh, pipelines underground that backhoes seem to love bumping into when they're digging foundations. You know, all these things can happen. And, you know, where it was a quiet neighborhood, suddenly there's a big black plume of smoke and a hot fire burning, and now it's real. So what do we do about it? So yeah.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 14:11

And I remember after I was a school teacher for a while. Um, after my kids started school, I I went and um back into the workforce, but not into the fire and rescue service. I was a school teacher. And because of my background, the um the principal came to me and said, I just was given a mandate that we need to develop an active shooter uh uh protocol. And since you've been in the field you were in, I think you would be the best person to do this. And oh, by the way, let's make this all hazards, which is good for her. She was a little bit more forward thinking there. But I remember almost being a little bit taken aback, not by her asking me to do that, but by the fact that we needed to come up with planning and preparing for uh an elementary school that just it just hit home in a in a really almost tragic way.

Tom Mueller: 15:16

I absolutely. I mean, it breaks your heart to think we have to plan for these types of incidents, but but we do. Right? And not not just here in the US, where we have a very healthy gun culture, you know. In Canada, very recently, you know, a shooter took to an elementary school uh with just uh tragic, tragic uh outcomes from that. So yeah, we've we need to have those plans in place and um and take care of that. So uh was that in Virginia when you were uh No, actually it was in Maryland.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 15:54

We moved to Virginia when I retired, actually. So um we've been here a relatively short period of time.

Tom Mueller: 16:02

Hey, what would you say, you know, over your career is kind of the most interesting job that you've held? Uh, you know, for me, I always liked, you know, sort of being at the coal face, touching equipment communities, being out in the field, you know, being that field guy, uh, as opposed to management sitting up high, watching things, planning, prepping, all of that. But you know, as you progress in your career, obviously if you want to move up, you move up and away from that. But tell me, what's uh what was kind of the most interesting role that you had you had?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 16:41

Well, even though they're going to sound part and parcel from one another, it's two phases that to me really are woven together. Being a paramedic, a first responder was absolutely to me a very gratifying and honor, uh honest job that that I was honored to fulfill. But let's be honest, we get older, and that is rather a young person's uh job. And and though I had several jobs until the next one that I'm gonna tell you about, um it wasn't until this one that I felt that same gratification and and um real ownership of. So uh when I became the um uh medical intelligence analyst at the protective medicine branch, I blossomed again. Um it I I was fine, of course. I I really value and and am proud of our raising our children, they're wonderful people. Um, I I enjoyed teaching. Um, I did a few other things which were fine, but it was the being uh in the rescue squad uh as a first responder and then being in the protective medicine branch that really um combined to really fulfill me and allow me to work for others.

Tom Mueller: 18:19

All right. So for those of us who don't know the intricacies of the federal government, what is the protective medical branch?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 18:28

Well, it is no longer. As as government and administrations um ebb and flow, there are always reorganizations. So what that was was um under the umbrella of the uh Uniform Services University uh this because this was before uh Department of Homeland Security. Once Department of Homeland Security was developed, it came under that umbrella. And I I moved throughout that umbrella, I'll say, uh, regardless of how reorganizations were made. But the bottom line is um I was in some way, shape, or form planning and preparing, um, organizing, um, directing things uh related to biological threats really truly uh later on uh across the the board with all emergencies. There are there are 15 scenarios, as you know, that are um that are teaching points or preparedness points, um, and and they help us to get the foundations for anything else that might come along.

Tom Mueller: 19:45

Okay, now I hate to show my ignorance here, but 15 scenarios doesn't ring a bell with me.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 19:52

So Okay, well you you might catch me not being able to come up with all 15 at once, but um of course you have wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, um uh let's see, um uh biological um uh where did that list originate? Oh, in in FEMA, so the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Uh I'm I'm almost a hundred percent sure they were the ones that developed the the concept and and the federal government um followed suit uh to make sure that we could oh uh an EMP, an electrical magnetic pulse.

Tom Mueller: 20:38

Um now there's an idea for a novel.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 20:43

Well, yes, that would be a black swan, wouldn't it? So in my second book, the the threatening disaster is an earthquake, and I don't know if I listed that when I was rattling them off. Uh, but this one is a 9.2 magnitude earthquake, which is absolutely horrendous. And um the reason I chose it was related to the fact that I did some research and there was an earthquake in the New Madrid Fault uh in 1811 and 1812 time frame. Um, and I found many firsthand uh accounts, and I just gravitated toward that, weaving those into the book, such as the bells in uh in steeples in Boston rang because the the earth shook that far away.

Tom Mueller: 21:40

From the New Madrid quake?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 21:43

Wow.

Tom Mueller: 21:44

Well, I grew up in St. Louis, so I'm sort of fascinated to read book number two here now and all that. And my parents um you know lived in St. Louis, retired down to the Cape Girardeau area in the south. And uh always kept an earthquake kit in the car because it's an ever-present danger there. Uh, and I've actually experienced oh two different earthquakes while being down in that area with them. Nothing you know significant, but very noticeable earthquake. So yeah, it's uh it's it's real, isn't it?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 22:24

Well, I've never been in anything greater than a uh 4.2. So I have really no personal experience of a very significant earthquake, but boy, those firsthand accounts were hair-raising and thrilling. And um, I personally love to read thrillers, to see movies that are thrillers, lots of action. That appeals to me.

Tom Mueller: 22:56

So then you've uh so you went deep into the history then to research the novel, the Black Swan Shock. And um did you weave some of that experience then into your writing about this?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 23:12

I did. Not only the first hand accounts from those from the New Madrid uh quake in 1811, 1812, but also my personal experiences, primarily as a paramedic. Uh, for instance, I I military crawled into a corporate headquarters where there was an active shooter and treated patients. And um that was one incident that has stuck with me for life very vividly. And so it it was cathetic, really, to put it down on paper and and have a character be able to express what was going on and and how to use um knowledge and experience to overcome that.

Tom Mueller: 24:04

Okay, so you're digging deep into your emotional well here to to add um color and texture to the characters and the storyline here. Yeah, that always helps when you bring that emotion into it. Um, you know, it makes for just more riveting reading. And as you said, the catharsis of writing, of getting this, you know, assigning this to another character who's going to feel it and live it and do it. Oh, cool. Well, what um so let me see now. You how did you then remind me again how you got into writing the novel, right? So you were working for the federal government, emergency planning, and then COVID hits.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 24:52

And I retired before COVID hit. I walked out the doors in 2018, and you know, I was ready for a new life to travel, to paint, to read, to do whatever I wanted to do. But I also knew that I had left behind what all of us across the federal government worked so diligently to plan and prepare since 2005, when George W. Bush uh taxed us to do this, to prepare for a pandemic. So I felt good about that and everything that I had accomplished. And that was but you know, 2020, up comes COVID, it emerges, and so okay, yes, I agreed with the lockdown. We we don't know what this is, and we need to find out. So, yes, I agreed with that. But as time moved on, I became first befuddled and then perplexed and then even angered. Um, the communication just was not where it should have been, and and I couldn't unknow what I knew. The planning and preparing that had been done for years seemed to have been left to the wayside. And so, leaders, I would strongly recommend that at least once a year you go over planning and preparation and evaluate those and not forget about them. So, you know, that's important. At any rate, one of the Zoom calls, we all were on Zoom calls, I was ranting and raving with my family, and my sister said to me, There's a story in that. Well, I hadn't thought anything of it, but I sat down and began writing. Didn't intend to write a novel, but it just poured out of me. And as I would send bits and pieces to my siblings, my brother particularly was so amazed that I would I would write things that would happen days, weeks, even months ahead of time. And he asked me how I could possibly do that. Well, the thing is, that was my job. That was what I was supposed to know. And I put the story in the future so that we could have a separation from the trauma of the current events, and that would allow us to look at something with a different eye, to be able to digest, oh, you know, maybe we need to reevaluate X, Y, or Z because otherwise we might have a problem. Uh, and so, you know, um a leader can do this as well. Sure, things are going to go sideways, they're not going to go as we expect, but we can always draw on our experience, the plans that have been put in place, and draw from those so that we can adjust them properly and mitigate the issues rather than compound them.

Tom Mueller: 28:18

Well, I want to ask you about advice. Now, obviously, you've just given some advice for leaders in, you know, both in commercial businesses, you know, government entities, all of that is hey, go take a look at those plans periodically. Any other advice that you would uh you know give to people who are responsible for emergency planning, um, you know, but juggling a lot of balls, right? Any what worked for you or what do you recommend?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 28:49

Well, I believe it all starts with the individual. If we act rationally and with measure, we can each collectively um create an environment that reduces the impact of whatever it is. And so in the second book, although both books do have book club questions, in the second book, I offer in question number 15 a way for people to evaluate their preparedness, their readiness, and then offer suggestions of how to become better prepared, better ready. Um, and and they're simple. It's not that you have to be a prepper who has, you know, cartons and cases of this and that. It can be relatively simple things such as storing, stocking up on batteries. If you know um uh there's a possibility of you losing power, um, if you know that there might be an issue with water, let's say there's a hurricane coming and you're worried about not getting potable water, clean out your bathtub very well and fill it up with the water before the hurricane comes. Uh get a radio that you can crank to create the electricity for it to operate. And perhaps one of the most important things is to ensure your family has a plan so that you can communicate, particularly when we all are in different directions most times of the day. You would be really good um uh planners and preparers to have someone outside of your living area, preferably outside of your state, who's your contact person, because you phone lines become overwhelmed very quickly in an emergency, but usually you can reach uh lines that go out of your area pretty well. So identify somebody uh outside um your state who will be the contact person, and that person will say, Yes, I've heard from so-and-so, I've heard from so-and-so, now I'm hearing from you. And and you each will know that the other is safe in that crisis area.

Tom Mueller: 31:23

Yeah, great advice there. I think that's something all of us can take to heart. And did I hear you say you incorporated that into the second book? Is that a sort of an annex in the back or is that woven into character dialogue?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 31:37

Well, actually, the character dialogue has that too, uh, particularly what I just mentioned about the telephone call. But yes, uh in question 15, there's the ability to assess how prepared and ready you are, and then offering of strategies of how to uh better prepare.

Tom Mueller: 31:59

Okay. Well, as we wrap up here, I'm curious if you have uh a favorite character in the uh in the novel. Is it our heroine, Dr. Saya? Who is it?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 32:12

Oh, Dr. Saya Case absolutely is a favorite character. And really, I thought that after I wrote Black Swan Impact, that would be it. But when I put that final the end there, there were just more things that characters had to say, including spoiler alert, her daughter Marla, and Marla, I think might be my favorite of all, because as I was walking, you know, in 2020, we all walked and walked and walked for entertainment. And while I was walking, I saw a neighbor and we waved at one another, and she just brightened my day so wonderfully. I said, This is going to be Marla. So Millie Wiggins, my neighbor, has uh Down syndrome and is the most effervescent, sweet, joyful person. And so that's how I decided that Marla needed to be that character.

Tom Mueller: 33:22

Okay, and she carries on and becomes the heroine in book number two, right? She does. Dr. Saya making some appearances, but Marla is leading the charge in the earthquake-ridden St. Louis area for Black Swan Shock. All right. Well, you I love the you know the sort of continuity there. Uh I'm a big John Scalzi fan. Uh you know, I love the sci-fi and I just I just love his stuff. But same thing, he's writing out of this world fiction, um, but tracing the family uh in from novel to novel as the the kids take over and uh and do their own thing under the tutelage of John Skalzi's talented hand of writing. So it's a neat concept to um to do that. Well, awesome. Well, Helen, hey, thank you for joining us. Where can folks find your book if they want to go and and pick up a copy?

Helen Hynson Vettori: 34:25

Sure. Well, you know, if you have an independent bookstore that is your favorite, that's certainly available in any bookstore worldwide. If you do your book buying on the web, certainly Amazon, Barnes Noble, and the like would have it. You can go to my website, which is helenhinsonvittory.com and click on any of the links to buy either of the two books and hopefully not too distant feature, the third and last in the trilogy.

Tom Mueller: 34:58

Well, Helen, thank you so much for joining us again on the Leading in a Crisis podcast. And uh, we'll post uh some links in the show notes here where you can find um the book if you uh besides Amazon. Um but that's always a good, easy place to go and get it. So, Helen, thank you very much for being with us.

Helen Hynson Vettori: 35:19

Well, thank you for having me, and uh everyone be safe.

Tom Mueller: 35:23

That's gonna do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. Thanks for joining us again. Very happy to have you with us on this journey. Hey, if you uh know somebody who might make a good guest on the show, please drop me a line, let me know, and as always tell your friends and colleagues about us as well. And we'll see you again soon on another episode. Take care.