Jerome Hauer is the Chief Executive Officer of The Hauer Group LLC, a consulting firm and has served as a member of the Hollis-Eden Pharamaceuticals board of directors since June 2004.

Hauer was the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness (OPHP) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). He was appointed by HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on May 5, 2002 and served until replaced on April 28, 2004. In this role, Mr. Hauer was responsible for coordinating the country’s medical and public health preparedness and response to emergencies, including acts of biological, chemical and nuclear terrorism.

He was formerly the director of Office of Emergency Management

Office of Emergency Management

In the United States, an Office of Emergency Management is an agency at the local, state or national level that holds responsibility of comprehensively planning for and responding to all manner of disasters, whether man-made or natural...

 under New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani

Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....

 from 1996 to 2000. Additionally, he was previously an employee of Kroll Inc.

Kroll Inc.

Kroll is a risk consultancy firm based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. and established in 1972.- History:Kroll was founded in 1972 by Jules B. Kroll as a consultant to corporate purchasing departments...

 which studied biological terrorism attacks.

Hauer was the Director of the Indiana Department of Emergency Management from 1989 to 1993 during the gubernatorial administration of Evan Bayh. Hauer joined IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 in 1993 to manage programs for Hazardous Materials Response and Crisis Management and Fire Safety. For his production of related training videos he received the International Film and TV Critics of New York Bronze award in 1996. In the early 1990s he received a master's degree in emergency medical services from the Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

 School of Hygiene and Public Health (now known as the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

) and later became a member of the Johns Hopkins Working Group on Civilian Bio Defense. He wrote several articles on possible bio terrorist attacks. On April 10, 1998 Hauer attended a "roundtable on genetic engineering and biological weapons" under President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

.

On September 11, 2001, Jerome Hauer was a national security advisor with the Dept. of Health and Human Services, a managing director with Kroll Associates, and a guest on national television, because of his background in counter-terror and his specialized knowledge of biological warfare

Biological warfare

Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...

.

Relationship with Rudolph W. Giuliani

Hauer was the first director of Mayor Giuliani's Office of Emergency Management. He directed the agency since 1996, when Giuliani shifted responsibility for the city's emergency preparedness from the Police Department to the new agency – headed by Hauer.
Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Hauer began their relationship in January 1996 when Mr. Hauer was hired to lead the new Office of Emergency Management, created to coordinate the city’s response to crises. Mr. Hauer, who was little known before he became a Giuliani aide, had previously run emergency management programs for the State of Indiana and IBM.

9/11 Related Events

Jerome Hauer is best known for being the director of the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) when he made the decision to build a $13 million crisis center on the 23rd floor at 7 World Trade Center. This crisis center was unveiled in June 1999, and became the subject of tension between the agency and the Police Department, whose own command center at 1 Police Plaza had until then been the focus of emergency preparedness operations.

As the first director of the new crisis center, "one of Hauer’s first tasks was to find a home for an emergency command center to replace the inadequate facilities at police headquarters," according to the Times.

Reports indicate that the OEM crisis center at the World Trade Center was not being used on 9-11 by the usual personnel. The center had been temporarily relocated to Pier 92 on Manhattan’s West Side, due to a FEMA drill scheduled to begin on the day after 9-11, according to statements made by Mayor Giuliani.
The site was immediately controversial because it was part of the trade center, which had already been the location of a truck bomb attack in 1993. City officials, though, including Mr. Hauer, have long defended their decision, even after the command center had to be evacuated during the 2001 terror attack. The center was destroyed when the 47-story tower collapsed at about 5:25 p.m. on 9-11.