Biography - Slobodan Pesic

Assistant Professor Slobodan Pesic teaches Interagency Disaster Management (graduate), Emergency and Disaster Theory (Graduate), Hazard Mitigation and Resilient Communities, Crisis Action Planning (graduate), Mass Casualty Incident Management (graduate), Crisis Planning (undergraduate), Consequence Management (undergraduate), Managerial Issues in Hazardous Materials (undergraduate).

Before teaching at American Public University, Professor Pesic served as Government Operations Consultant and Emergency Operations Planner for the Florida State Government Department of Health in Sarasota, Florida, and as Coordinator of the Sarasota Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD). In these two capacities he worked on the development and coordination of written, oral, radio, e-mail, and satellite communication protocols with the County and State emergency management, County hospitals, community partners, Florida emergency management services, and FEMA. COAD is a multi-agency, multi-jurisdiction body with nine subcommittees and over forty agencies including Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, Florida emergency agencies, Department of Community Affairs, Department of Elder Affairs, Department of Children and Families, Agency for Health Care Administration, County Emergency Management, non-profit organizations including American Red Cross, Salvation Army, United Way, Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice, and faith-based organizations. Professor Pesic also worked on development, training and implementation of the National Incident Management System and Incident Command System structure, protocols, resource allocation, and training for the Department staff and COAD partners.

Prior to his engagement with Florida State Government, Professor Pesic served as Program Analyst and Policy Specialist in the Pennsylvania State Government, where he worked on state regulations with regulatory development teams and stakeholders, including State Legislature, Governor's Office, state and federal policy and community advocates, businesses and nonprofit organizations, service providers and the media. While working for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Professor Pesic also served as Project Leader on a major state-wide deployment of a HIPAA-compliant information system for the Commonwealth.

Professor Pesic's tenure as Research Associate and Information Technology Consultant at the Ridgway Center for International Security Studies and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, included research and modeling, student and staff training, and collaboration with US Military Academic Fellows on topics such as NATO-transformation, information warfare, transnational organized crime, and security in Southeastern Europe.

Professor Pesic has been consultant to government and business stakeholders on policy development and negotiation strategies. He has helped in the development of models for integrated policy analysis and strategic approach to emergency and crisis decision-making and management.

In recent years, Professor Pesic visited Taiwan, Argentina, Chile, India, and Serbia.

In December 2007, Professor Pesic gave a lecture on international relations theory and strategic culture at the Institute of Strategy and International Affairs, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan.

Since early 1990s, Professor Pesic has actively participated in the proceedings of the International Studies Association (ISA), Disaster, Conflict and Social Crisis Research Network (DSCRN), International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM); Euro-Asia Management Studies Association (EAMSA), Academy of International Business (AIB) and Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES).

Professor Pesic has conducted a part of his doctoral work at the University of Pittsburgh and is Argosy University, and holds Master of Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and Bachelor of Science in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Belgrade.

Professor Pesic also taught American Government at Argosy University.