Los Angeles, CA — Team Rubicon, the veteran-led disaster relief nonprofit, today announced that its Incident Management Team (IMT) has been awarded the President’s Award by the Incident Management Team Association (IMTA) in recognition of outstanding leadership, operational excellence, and sustained impact throughout 2025.
The award comes in honor of a landmark year for Team Rubicon, which marked both the organization’s 15th anniversary and the 10th year of its Incident Management Team—a decade defined by growth, innovation, and increasingly complex disaster response.
In 2025 alone, the Team Rubicon IMT successfully managed 83 operations across 23 states and five time zones, demonstrating a rare ability to scale effectively for disasters of all sizes. From nationally significant emergencies to low attention disasters, the team consistently ensured communities received timely, professional support—embodying Team Rubicon’s core values of Mission First, Greyshirts Always, and Get Shit Done.
Throughout the year, the IMT led and supported major responses, including the Los Angeles wildfires, extended operations for Hurricanes Helene and Milton through May 2025, July flooding in the Texas Hill Country, a response to Typhoon Halong in Alaska, and Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica. These long-duration and geographically diverse operations required disciplined command and control, operational endurance, and seamless coordination across logistical and cultural environments.
Beyond the field, the IMT partnered with Team Rubicon’s Technology Team to launch a new Incident Action Plan (IAP) application, modernizing incident management processes across the organization. The tool streamlined IAP development, reduced administrative burden, and improved speed, accuracy, and accessibility—allowing teams to spend more time focused on the mission and less on paperwork. The application also empowered both novice and experienced IMT members to manage operations at a higher level of service.
This award recognizes a standard-bearer,” said IMTA President Dr. Randal Collins. “Team Rubicon’s IMT program and its people prove that compassion and operational excellence belong together, and communities are stronger because they insist on both. The country is blessed to have such a formidable disaster response organization.”
For its outstanding contributions to disaster response and its sustained excellence throughout a milestone year, the Incident Management Team Association awarded Team Rubicon’s Incident Management Team the President’s Award, recognizing a model of leadership and effectiveness in incident management.
About Team Rubicon
Team Rubicon is a veteran-led humanitarian organization that serves global communities before, during, and after disasters and crises. Founded following the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the organization has grown to more than 200,000 volunteers across the United States and has launched over 1,300 operations domestically and internationally. To drive equity across disaster and humanitarian services, Team Rubicon focuses on three areas of impact: disaster response, including mitigation, immediate response, and disaster recovery; workforce development and long-term recovery; and medical services, including providing emergent and surge health care, WASH, and disaster risk reduction. The organization is featured in the Roku original series titled Team Rubicon, which highlights the work of Greyshirt volunteers assisting communities across the country. Visit http://www.teamrubiconusa.org for more information.
About the Incident Management Team Association
The Incident Management Team Association is dedicated to advancing the profession of incident management through leadership, collaboration, and recognition of excellence across the emergency management community.