Butch Kinerney

Butch Kinerney is key national spokesperson for the National Flood Insurance Program and served as acting press secretary for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Kinerney rose to the position immediately following landfall of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. During Katrina and the ongoing recovery in the Gulf Coast, he's been quoted more than 30,000 times since Katrina's first landfall in Florida and throughout the tumultuous fallout from FEMA's response efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi. He served as acting press secretary during the resignation of Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response Michael Brown and through the appointment of R. David Paulison as the new FEMA chief. He is also a speaker and is currently working on his first book.

Prior to his appointment as acting press secretary, Kinerney was the public affairs liaison to FEMA's Mitigation Division, the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration. He joined FEMA in 2004, just before four hurricanes struck Florida.

Before joining FEMA, Butch spent five years as a public affairs specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia, where he worked directly with the USGS Water Resources Division and the USGS hazards program which included earthquakes, wildfires, volcanoes and landslides.

Kinerney worked as the Chief of Public Information for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency and as a Community Relations Officer for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. He was a newspaper and magazine reporter/writer/editor before beginning his government career.

A 1990 graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, Kinerney has a degree in news-editorial journalism.

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1968, Kinerney has lived in Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Virginia.

His family includes wife, three children, a sister and parents. He is an active member of Pender United Methodist Church, in Fairfax, VA, serving in several key leadership positions and is a volunteer firefighter in Loudoun County, VA.