Key Personnel

Jeff Morgan

Jeff Morgan is President and Co-Founder of the Foundation. Jeff is President & CEO of Aviem International, Inc. Aviem International is a full service emergency services company dedicated to helping companies prepare for disaster with planning, consulting, training, exercises and disaster support services.

Jeff Morgan created Aviem International, Inc. after a 20-year career with Delta Air Lines, Inc. During his last six years at Delta he was instrumental in creating Delta's first dedicated emergency management department, responsible not only for aircraft emergency response procedures but general emergency preparedness, disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

Jeff Morgan is widely recognized within the airline industry for creating the program that set the standard for how airlines respond to disaster with the joint Delta/Swissair response to the Flight 111 tragedy in Halifax , Nova Scotia.

Jeff Morgan has taken his wealth of knowledge and experience to expand Aviem's services well beyond just aviation and mass transportation and works with many organizations involved in emergency management including various governmental and public safety agencies, healthcare, gas/petroleum and other corporate clients. Jeff also works with strategic partners around the world to provide an integrated network of resources that bring "best of breed" to every service provided to all clients.

Carolyn V. Coarsey, Ph.D.

Dr. Carolyn Coarsey has an innovative approach to designing effective family assistance training: she works with survivors, family members, and responders to discover post-accident practices that help people heal and uses the results as the basis for her curricula. Carolyn created Higher Resources in 1989 to use this approach to help airlines and other responding agencies better prepare employees for assisting survivors following disaster. She is a family survivor herself, having lost her fiancé, Jeff Warner, on Delta Air Lines Flight 191 in August 1985, and an airline industry veteran, having worked for Eastern Airlines and Braniff International Airlines.

Carolyn holds a Ph.D. in Training & Learning Technologies, in addition to being a psychotherapist. Her doctoral dissertation, titled Psychological Aftermath of Air Disaster: What Can Be Learned For Training? is one of the first scientific studies of air disaster survivors. Her research has clearly shown the importance of employee response from the organization believed to be responsible or primarily involved in the disaster. In addition to studying survivors Carolyn has conducted studies for the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board on issues surrounding employee stress. She has also conducted research on the posttraumatic effects of fatal accident response on fire, police and other rescue personnel. In 1991 she participated on a task force with the American Hospital Association that wrote the guidelines for handling mass transportation disasters. Carolyn has also worked with the Department of Defense casualty bureau to address issues of dealing with families after military disasters and terrorist attacks.

In addition to her work at Higher Resources, Carolyn serves as VP of Training & Development for Aviem International, Inc. and conducts training around the world in such diverse areas as Japan, South Africa, Morocco and Europe. She is also co-founder and President of the Family Assistance Education and Research Foundation, a non-profit organization formed to educate and support interdisciplinary response and improved organization for delivering services to survivors in more compassionate ways.