Gary Johnson, the group emergency preparedness and security coordinator for the Health and Human Services Agency for the County of San Diego, said he has been asked to lead an interdepartmental effort to improve crisis response and security across the agency’s facilities. "I've been asked to come in here and work with the agency to help us be better prepared for any type of crisis response that we may face here in the county," Johnson said.

Johnson said his role focuses on security coordination and preparedness to protect employees, clients and facilities. "As the group security coordinator, I do similar the same things to help make sure that across all of our facilities that we have basically an unblinking eye on all security related coordination activities, primarily to protect our employees and our clients, but also to preserve and protect our facilities," he said.

Explaining why the work is a priority, Johnson said remote and hybrid work after the COVID‑19 pandemic left some County facilities underused. He said he was asked to "right size our facilities, to meet our missional central functions, and at the same time, being very good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars." The effort, he said, involves staff from multiple departments within the agency.

Johnson also described his background and experience as context for the assignment. He said his father was a 35‑year Marine Corps veteran and that he attended the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps on scholarship. "I owed 4 years back to the marine corps, and next thing I know, I'm retiring after 30," Johnson said, recounting more than three decades of service that included deployments during Desert Shield/Desert Storm and later operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said he left the Marine Corps nearly seven years ago and has worked with the county since. Reflecting on the transition from military to civilian facility management, Johnson said he initially felt like "a little bit of a fish out of water when it came to facility utilization," but credited colleagues for the project's progress. "It's by, with, and through them that have really made us successful in the facility utilization project," he said.

There were no motions, votes or formal policy decisions recorded in the briefing. Johnson’s remarks described the scope and goals of an ongoing internal program to consolidate and better use Health and Human Services facilities while maintaining security and preparedness.