January 8, 2025

TEXSAR hires executive director for BeforeDuringAfter

TEXSAR has named Justen Noakes as executive director for BeforeDuringAfter, our emergency preparedness and response resource. Noakes is the former H-E-B director of emergency preparedness and brings valuable experience to the team.

BeforeDuringAfter is a free online resource to help Texas’ small businesses prepare for, respond to and ultimately recover from natural disasters and other emergencies. In June 2024, BeforeDuringAfter.com was launched by a coalition of businesses and organizations, including Texas Mutual, TEXSAR, the Institute for Government Innovation at Texas State University, Wells Fargo, OneStar Foundation and The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. The team from Texas Mutual, TEXSAR and Texas State spent almost three years developing BeforeDuringAfter with significant support from the entire coalition.

Noakes brings 30 years of experience spanning business, non-profit organizations and industry, along with 20 years of expertise in emergency preparedness. Additionally, he has over a decade of dedicated service with TEXSAR. Noakes built the H-E-B emergency preparedness program from the ground up and led H-E-B through 29 major disaster declarations, including Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Harvey, the 2015 Blanco River Memorial Day floods, Winter Storm Uri and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Noakes represents the search and rescue and business and industry sectors for the governor-appointed Texas Emergency Management Advisory Council (TEMAC) and has previously served on the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) to the governor, commissioner for the Bexar County ESD2 Fire Department, TEXSAR CEO and TEXSAR board of directors. He has published papers on business continuity at Sam Houston State University Institute of Homeland Security and has been featured in Texas Monthly for his work in emergency preparedness.

Small businesses make up 99% of all businesses in Texas, but unfortunately 40% of them shut down permanently after a major disaster. BeforeDuringAfter ensures small businesses have the resources to succeed during a disaster and we look forward to seeing the impact that Noakes will have in helping build a stronger, safer Texas.

View the full press release (PDF 310KB).