About Us
Dan Eder, MPH, IPEM, LEHP
Dan is the current Program Manager and has been with Lake County since December of 2016. Prior to his employment with Lake County, he was the Assistant Director of Community Health Resources with the Kane County Health Department where he had been employed over 10 years. Dan has a Bachelor of Science in Public Health and Environmental Health degree from Northern Illinois University, a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Benedictine University, is a Licensed Environmental Health Practitioner (LEHP), and is also an Illinois Professional Emergency Manager (IPEM).
Dan has responded to numerous incidents prior to, and during his time, at Lake County. He is passionate about utilizing strategic planning methods and forming strong partnerships to help develop projects and initiatives to help better prepare Lake County before, during, and after an incident or event.
Rebecca Kumar, MEML, IPEM
Rebecca began her Emergency Management career with Lake County in September of 2019. Prior to her employment with Lake County, Rebecca served as a 911 dispatcher and supervisor for a local municipality for 15.5 years. Rebecca graduated with a master’s degree in Emergency Management Leadership from Adler University in 2017. Her desire to help communities be more proactive in disaster preparedness coupled with her prior experience and higher education degree led to her career at Lake County. Rebecca also holds the Illinois Professional Emergency Manager (IPEM) certificate and is the head of the LCEMA Volunteer Program for the agency.
Julie Proa - Emergency Management Specialist
Julie Proa served over 21 years as an active-duty US Navy Hospital Corpsman assigned to various locations all over the world and on the USS Nimitz (CVN-68). She specialized as a Preventive Medicine Technician with experience in public, environmental and occupational health. She took on the role of Hospital Emergency Manager and assisted with the base training team while she was stationed in Sasebo, Japan. Julie has a Bachelor of Science in Health Care Administration and is currently working on her Master of Public Health from University of West Florida.
Julie is devoted to service to her country and community through education, planning, preparedness, and prevention.
Bryan Nicholson – Emergency Management Specialist
Bryan Nicholson began his Emergency Management life in 2005 with Round Lake Beach. Bryan started off early in leadership roles and ultimately was appointed by the village to run the organization as the Commander. During his time with Round Lake Beach Bryan took part in everything from traffic control to event planning and flooding to tornadoes. He completed his Professional Development Series through the Illinois Emergency Management Agency prior to joining with Lake County. Bryan also worked at Great Lakes Naval Base Recruit Training Command for 16 years maintaining training equipment for the US Navy. During his time there, he managed a maintenance program consisting of scheduling preventative maintenance, tracking all corrective maintenance, and maintaining the corrective and preventative maintenance procedures. He also worked on an inventory system to track every part used in the one-of-a-kind training facility.
Tom Lynch – Communications Technician
Having worked in the radio communications industry since 1975, Tom has worn many hats. The first years were with a couple local radio service facilities installing and maintaining Land Mobile Radios (LMR) systems for business and municipal entities in the metro Chicago area. Following this, Tom was employed installing and maintaining E911 dispatch center, fire, and police departments. He also worked for a nationwide paging company which took him out of the local area, overseeing the installation and commissioning of paging systems throughout the upper Midwest. At another company, he traveled from Missouri to the southwest states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico installing cell phone tower sites where there was not cell phone coverage previously. In 2009, Tom began his career at Lake County maintaining the old EDACS radio system and installing and maintaining electronic equipment in the County’s Sheriffs vehicles. In 2015, he began working with the County’s vendor installing the new Starcom21 radio system along with the programming of all the new portable and mobile radio equipment.
Tom joined the Lake County Emergency Management Agency team in December 2022 and continues to work with the radio infrastructure and Subscriber unit radios. He has two daughters, two granddaughters and a grandson-which he says is the best part.