August Vernon is currently the Operations Officer for the Forsyth County Office of Emergency Management (NC). August returned to his position in 2005 at Emergency Management after a year in Iraq as a security contractor conducting route clearance and long-range convoy security operations. Vernon has been employed in Emergency Management for eleven years and also served as a member of the fire service and a fire service instructor. He also served in the U.S. Army as a CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) Operations Specialist.

August has given over 150 multi-agency presentations at classroom sessions, field training events, conferences, workshops, and seminars over the past 11 years. Mr. Vernon teaches courses in Incident Management, Mass Violence/Mass Shootings, Emergency Management and Terrorism Planning-Response. August is a writer and member of the IFSTA WMD/Terrorism Committee. Since 2004 he has served as technical reviewer for the development of seven different public safety training films produced by the Emergency Film Group. August has also presented in several public safety training films.

August provides critical incident and crisis management planning and training at the local, regional, state and federal level via AugustV Crisis Management, Mass Violence and Terrorism: Planning and Response. He has also written over 40 nationally published articles and is the author of the First Responders Critical Incident Field Guide published by Red Hat Publishing.