Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday announced the abrupt departure of the head of the state Department of Emergency Management, Bryan Koon, and replaced him with Scott’s former campaign aide and Republican Party of Florida operative, Wes Maul, who has just over a year of emergency operations experience.
Koon, 45, the former director of emergency management at Walmart stores who helped shepherd the agency through the most ferocious storm to hit Florida in a decade, came to work for the state in 2011. He told the governor on Sept. 1 he would resign before the end of the hurricane season "to pursue an opportunity in the private sector,'' said McKinley Lewis, Scott spokesman.
The governor asked Koon to stay until Oct. 1 and he agreed, Lewis said. Maul, 29, will be promoted from chief of staff to interim director.
Unlike previous governors, Scott did not allow his emergency management director to address the media at briefings or answer questions, preferring instead that he be the lone voice warning Floridians to be prepared. At one point, when a reporter asked Koon to respond to questions at the state’s emergency operations center, he said he might have to “get the PIO [public information officer] to tell me if I can answer them or not.”
Maul, who graduated from the University of Florida School of Law in 2013, worked as a travel aide in the governor’s 2014 reelection campaign, and the state Division of Elections shows he was paid more than $84,000 by the party and the governor’s campaign. According to Maul’s application for work in the governor’s office, he then came to work performing similar duties with the title “special assistant to the governor.”
This is the second time in two years Scott has elevated Maul. In May 2016, Scott named Maul chief of staff reporting to Koon. Details here.
Photo: Wes Maul, courtesy of LinkedIn
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