Tal Ehlers

In 1998, emergency preparedness became of great personal importance to Tal. Making his family more secure by preparing for the unexpected became a major priority. Thank goodness it did. Over the next ten years this country and the world would see many unexpected events. Y2K, 9/11, the Iraq War, Katrina, and countless other natural and man made disasters. Through it all, being personally prepared has left Tal and his family feeling a remarkable sense of peace and security. Whether it was a temporary power outage or a flash flood there was always a feeling of self-confidence knowing if the roads shut down or the grocery stores emptied of bottled water that his family would be safe and sound.

Today, Tal's passion for emergency preparedness has saturated his personal life and his spare time. Not only does he practice what he preaches in his own home, he also spends countless hours each month helping others in his neighborhood, county, and state to work towards their own personal preparedness and self sufficiency goals.

Tal's experience overflows to that of a First Responder. He is an EMT-I and is Hazmat Operations certified. He is a certified FireFighter with the Bicknell, Utah Fire Department as well as having his Wildland Fire certification. He is a Tactical EMT for the County Sheriff’s office and an officer with the Wayne County Search and Rescue.

Tal has also served as the past county Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) Co-Chair. His current function within the LEPC is that of the Public Information Officer (PIO). He also sits as the Wayne County Citizen Corps vice chair. He is certified as a "Multihazard Emergency Planning for Schools" trainer by the Emergency Management Institute as well as having received multiple National Incident Management System (NIMS) certifications from this institute. He is a state certified trainer for the Community Emergency Response Team program.

Tal speaks regularly to civic and church groups regarding emergency and personal preparedness. His message is that being prepared doesn’t mean that you’re a survivalist and that you should start digging foxholes in your front yard. Being prepared means that should something out of the ordinary happen in your community, you can make it through with a greater degree of comfort until a sense of normalcy returns.

Tal resides with his wonderful wife and five children in rugged southern Utah. His hobbies include camping, hunting, rock crawling and four-wheeling the beautiful back roads of Utah's wilderness.