Venessa Sims - Georgia Department of Agriculture
Venessa A. Sims, MEP, GA-CEM has a BA in Psychology from Davidson College and is the Director of Emergency Management and Asst. Food and Feed Rapid Response Team (GA RRT) Program Manager for the Georgia Department of Agriculture. She has worked at the Georgia Department of Agriculture for 22 years and has learned a lot about farming, agribusiness, and how the world of agriculture touches our everyday lives. Venessa supports emergency management and homeland security duties for the food and agriculture sector in Georgia. She serves as one of the state’s Emergency Support Function 11 Coordinators. She served as a member of the Georgia Agriculture Recovery Task Force for Hurricane Michael, the worst agriculture disaster in Georgia history, and has chaired stress and mental health education initiatives for the food and agriculture sectors. Venessa currently serves as the PI for the USDA FRSAN-SDA stress grant that focuses on connecting farmers and the farming community to stress assistance programs.
Venessa is the Training & Exercise Coordinator for the Department where she works collaboratively with local, state, federal, and private sector partners to plan, train, and implement exercises related to food and agriculture, public health, and natural, cultural, and historic resources. She has served in leadership roles for exercises for Super Bowl LIII, Georgia Public Library Service, Cobb County Libraries, HERA, metro Atlanta UASI, DOD, GEMA, FDA, CDC, Biowatch, food and agriculture, water, radiological, public health, and laboratory exercises. Ms. Sims regularly presents at local, state, and national events on an array of topics related to food and agriculture planning, response, and recovery initiatives. Venessa has a passion for serving her community and helping others.
