Former Orange County emergency manager lands senior role in Charleston County

Alan Mack, who spent 10 years with Orange County and retired in January 2026, has been hired as Charleston County’s senior emergency manager. The move pulls one of Orange County’s most experienced public-safety hands out of a job that only becomes visible when storms, disasters, or major incidents hit.

For Orange County, Mack’s departure comes from a division whose mission is more than paperwork and planning. The county’s emergency-management office says it coordinates the response of county agencies during emergencies or disasters, aims to reduce loss of life and property, minimize suffering and disruption, prepare for terrorism consequences, and serve as the county’s portal for emergency-management information and expertise. Losing a veteran leader from that bench raises the stakes around continuity as the region heads into the period when severe weather and other emergencies can strain local systems.

Charleston County has placed Mack in a parallel role inside its Emergency Management Department, which says its work is built around mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery across man-made and natural hazards. That makes the post a central one inside county government, not a symbolic title, and it puts a former Orange County official into a job where the ability to coordinate across departments can shape how quickly a county gets back on its feet.

Mack brings a military record that reaches far beyond county government. Orange County’s archived release from August 2022 said he was publishing Razor 03: A Night Stalker’s Wars, a book about his experiences as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001. The county said his awards included the Legion of Merit, nine Air Medals, three Bronze Stars and two Distinguished Flying Crosses. Biographical material tied to Mack says he served more than 35 years in the Army, began as an aircraft mechanic before becoming a pilot, and spent 17 years in Army Special Operations.

His service also included flying CH-47s in support of Desert Shield and Desert Storm, later serving with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and taking part in operations including Desert Thunder, Desert Fox, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Mack’s own biography says he was entrusted with command of the United States Military Academy Flight Detachment at West Point, and Orange County’s release noted that he spent the last three years of his military career in that role at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh.

For Orange County, the move is more than a career update. It is a reminder that the county’s emergency-management and military-adjacent workforce can produce leaders who carry local experience into major public-safety posts elsewhere, even as the county must keep its own institutional knowledge intact.