At the time of this interview (Winter 2022) Zachary (Zach) Smith was Assistant Vice Chancellor for Emergency and Risk Management at UNCG. He began his career at UNCG August 1, 2016 as Emergency Management Director. Smith was instrumental in UNCG's response to the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020-2022). In this interview, Smith discusses his family, background, growing up in Kenly, NC, and working as a junior firefighter from age 14. Smith has degrees from North Carolina State University (BA- Business Administration) and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (MPA). Smith discusses his career before coming to UNCG, which has been entirely focused on emergency services. He has worked as Emergency Services Specialist for Johnston County Emergency Services, Deputy Fire Marshall at NC State University, Emergency Management Director for the City of Burlington, and Senior Emergency Management Coordinator for Guilford County. Smith describes how he got his job (originally Emergency Management Director) at UNCG and discusses his job duties and the Office of Emergency Management, which has grown under his tenure as Assistant Vice Chancellor for Emergency and Risk Management. Smith discusses in depth, UNCG's pandemic response and his role in that response. Smith served as deputy Incident Manager on the Incident Command Team, which was created to handle the task of successfully guiding UNCG through the pandemic. Smith talks about the plans, implementation, and communication that was so crucial to UNCG's pandemic response. Smith concludes the interview by talking about what UNCG means to him and where he sees it heading in the future.