Trainees in hard hats building timber shoring during rescue training

Our team

Small, experienced, unpaid.

Seasoned public safety professionals, logistics specialists and community advocates. Between them: real-world emergency experience, resource coordination, and the community relationships that get training into rooms.

Steve Bailey
Founder & Executive Director
MPA, ASC
As Founder & Executive Director, Steve Bailey sets the foundation's strategic direction and leads its preparedness training and equipment donation programs.
He brings more than two decades in emergency services to the mission. He entered the fire service in 2001 and rose to Director of Public Safety, overseeing fire, law enforcement, and airport operations. His experience spans urban search and rescue, public safety dive, SWAT, tactical medicine, emergency response teams, warrant task force operations, and emergency management, built across various public safety departments. He has also served as a volunteer, career, and military firefighter, learning the craft and trade from every angle. A USAF veteran, he founded IERF on a simple premise: help is rarely immediate, and communities deserve the training and resources to get through the first 72 hours on their own.
info@ierfresponse.org
Leslie Bailey
Vice President & Florida Community Director
BBA, Realtor
As Vice President and Florida Community Director, Leslie Bailey starts from what a community actually needs, then works out where IERF's training and resources can meet it.
The rest of her volunteer work has run the same way. She coordinated community development and partnerships in anti-trafficking work, and served in the business service functions of the South Carolina State Guard, building community involvement and bringing in donations. A successful realtor with a BBA, she brings a working knowledge of Florida's communities and of the people in them.
lbailey@ierfresponse.org
Patrick Caunter
Treasurer & Director of Logistics
BSc Engineering
As Treasurer & Director of Logistics, Patrick Caunter oversees the foundation's financial stewardship and directs its logistics pipeline, from equipment sourcing through customs to last-mile delivery.
He brings 25+ years of international logistics leadership to the mission, having led country operations for Panalpina (now DSV), Damco (Maersk Group), and GEODIS across Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. A specialist in project cargo and complex cross-border supply chains, Patrick applies the same rigor to humanitarian cargo that he built over a career moving freight for the world's largest shippers. Bilingual (English/Spanish), he holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from ULACIT.
pcaunter@ierfresponse.org
Arturo Villarreal
Director of Operations for Panama
Biography to follow.
avillarreal@ierfresponse.org

IERF's board members serve as volunteers. Board service carries no compensation, which is worth knowing when you are deciding where a donation goes.

Small, experienced, unpaid.

Steve Bailey

Leslie Bailey

Patrick Caunter

Arturo Villarreal