As the Head of Learning and Development at the Emergency Planning College (EPC), Gregor leads our training, exercising and advisory services which are available to the UK's resilience community and international customers.
A qualified teacher, Gregor’s early career was spent in adult education. He became a civil servant in 1996, working in education and finance policy and in Private Office. Gregor’s work in civil protection started in 2003 when he moved from adult education to take up post as Head of the Scottish Government’s Civil Contingency Unit. His work in Scottish Government Resilience included developing policy, legislation and on Preparing Scotland (the national resilience doctrine for Scotland). As a Scottish Government on-call official, Gregor often led on the Scottish Government’s initial response to incidents and emergencies. He also led the work of the Scottish Government Resilience Room when it was convened to provide a cross-government response to emergencies, or to coordinate the safe delivery of major events.
Gregor has also worked as a Scottish Government Liaison Officer to resilience partnerships covering Tayside, Grampian and the Highlands and Islands. In 2006 he set up and managed the Scottish Resilience Development Service, providing training and exercising services to responders and government across Scotland. His final Scottish Government assignment was to establish its Cyber Resilience Unit. In his cyber resilience role, Gregor was responsible for “Safe, Secure and Prosperous; a Cyber Strategy for Scotland” and for cyber resilience activity in support of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Gregor moved to Pristina in 2017 to work as a resilience adviser to the Kosovo Government. On return from the Balkans, he supported the establishment of Social Security Scotland, leading work to set up the new Agency’s business continuity arrangements. He then transferred to the Cabinet Office, initially to work on the programme to train members of the UK and Northern Ireland Civil Services to prepare for the possible consequences of a no-deal Brexit, and then to work with resilience partners to set up arrangements for the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.
Gregor is based in Perthshire. A former biathlete, he continues to cross country ski in Scotland and beyond.