NSU Law Alumnus Leads Florida’s Emergency Operations

From hurricanes to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jared Moskowitz, Esq., (J.D. ’07) works to keep Florida safe.

Jared Moskowitz, Esq., (J.D. ’07) is the Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the agency responsible for Florida’s preparedness and response to state-wide disasters and emergencies.

With the unprecedented effects of COVID-19, Moskowitz is instrumental in leading Florida’s emergency response plans including providing personal protective equipment to Florida front-line workers, coordinating testing sites, issuing lockdown guidelines, and providing guidance to families in emergency situations.

“The COVID-19 emergency has set us at a full-scale activation, or Level 1 as we call it, all-hands-on deck, seven days a week […] three times as large as a category 5 hurricane,” said Moskowitz.

He believes that the biggest challenge for authorities during the pandemic is that “this is the first natural disaster in which not everyone accepts what is happening in the same way.”

“In an emergency, it is difficult to spread guidelines when different segments of the population believe different things over the same thing,” Moskowitz mentioned.

He highlighted this fact as a significant difference between a pandemic and a hurricane, “this [the pandemic] has become so political, and everyone’s perspective changes based on where you get your information,” he continued.

Moskowitz was driven to public service from a very young age. He was elected to the Parkland City Commission at the age of 25, when he was a second-year law student at NSU.

Moskowitz was appointed to his current role by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in January of 2019 after serving as State Representative for District 97, which encompasses several areas in Broward County including Coral Springs, Parkland, Plantation, Tamarac, and Sunrise.

During his tenure as State Representative (2012-2019), Moskowitz was one of the first legislators to respond to the tragic shooting in his high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, in 2018.

“I went to the school [MSD], saw the bullet holes, the backpacks in the parking lot. I heard parents screaming. Words don’t do justice to what the community and those families went through and continue to go through,” said Moskowitz.

Soon after the tragedy, Moskowitz led the Florida legislature to pass comprehensive gun control and mental health packages for the state.

“I am tired. I am human. Though, after going through what we went through in Parkland, that’s what gives me the strength and keeps me focused, and it is one of the reasons I took this job. There’s a lot we can do,” he said.

From his time at NSU, Moskowitz remembers the support and encouragement from his classmates and our faculty and staff.

“Professor Anderson, who taught Election Law, was always great to have a conversation with having had experience in running a presidential election,” said Moskowitz. “NSU was very supportive when I got elected at the age of 25. My peers and my professors nurtured my desire to serve,” he concluded.