That’s because Dylan Hagen, whose first day was Jan. 11, had spent 20 months serving as the emergency management coordinator in neighboring Hamilton County.

The Webster County emergency management coordinator position is just the latest that Hagen has held over the years.

“I live in Coalville, and I’m on the (Otho) Fire Department, on the (Fort Dodge/Webster County) reserves,” he said. “And I know a lot of the stakeholders already and have that connection with them. I felt like this would be the ideal place to come back to.”

Hagen, who has also been a police officer in Dayton, as well as an emergency medical technician, said the time he spent as Hamilton County’s emergency management coordinator helped him get experience in the field.

“You understand the administrative side of it because you’re in charge of your own budget, all of your claims, the bills,” Hagen said. “And you’re a one-man show, and you just kind of learn as you go and look to your peers if there is something you don’t know.”

When he started earlier this month, Hagen said he hit the ground running.

“It’s been crazy,” he said. “I started off right in budget season, so I had to figure out my budget and get that submitted and completed.”

He’s also been spending his time going and meeting with what he referred to as “stakeholders,” that being the agencies he’ll be working with as emergency management coordinator.

Besides his budget, Hagen also had to start working on a number of grants, including a couple that are critical to local law enforcement.

“There’s reports to do and that was one of the things that I have to have done by the end of the month,” he said.

One of them is the Justice Assistance Grant.

“The JAG Grant provides extra funding for different tools and things that the department needs that they can’t necessarily budget for,” he said. “That might be cameras, TASERs, training, sending task forces to specialized training, in-car cameras.”

His other responsibilities as emergency management coordinator include administrative tasks, such as paying bills and meeting with stakeholders.

That’s really important, he said, “so we have that working relationship before a disaster happens. And also (I help) provide the resources necessary that we might not have locally.”

Hagen anticipates that the Webster County position will be similar to the Hamilton County position, but that there could be differences.

“Every county’s kind of different as far as things that the coordinators do,” he said. “I try to be active and respond to calls so we have that working relationship,whether it be a semi rollover full of hogs — which I responded to in Hamilton County — hog confinement explosions, large structure fires with multiple departments.”

“Just being there to support those departments and any resources they might need.”