Michael J Barakey

Michael J. Barakey (MPA, EFO, CFO) has served in public safety for the past 25 years and is a district chief/paramedic with the Virginia Beach (VA) Fire Department. He is a peer assessor for the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI), a nationally registered paramedic, and an adjunct faculty member at Tidewater Community College.


Chief Barakey is a taskforce leader for VA-TF2 with numerous deployments including Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and was an assistant team leader when deployed to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Irma and Maria in September 2017. He is also a classroom instructor for the FDIC and a regular contributor to Fire Engineering magazine.

Chief Barakey has learned that the difference between efficient, effective, and safe operations are the decision-making capabilities of the responders and officers.


He has had a progressive career as a chief fire officer and firefighter/paramedic, as a member of a national US&R team, as a neonatal/pediatric critical care paramedic at a nationally recognized children’s hospital, as an instructor at a world-class fire training center, and as an adjunct faculty member at a community college. He also gained experience as a chief fire officer in a metropolitan fire and rescue department. His assignments have included being an operations shift commander and overseeing fire prevention and life safety education, fire and EMS training, resource management, research and analysis, and information technology. Barakey has developed the wisdom to coach, mentor, and teach others critical decision making and understands that the distance between the point known and the point of resolution is dynamic and ever changing.