The American Red Cross of Greater Arkansas will honor former Federal Emergency Management Director James Lee Witt with the Clara Barton Humanitarian Award on Nov. 19 at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.

The award will be presented during the 2007 Arkansas Hero luncheon, which honors life-saving heroes.

Witt is CEO of James Lee Witt Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in crisis management and preparedness services. Part of GlobalOptions Group Inc. of Washington D.C., Witt Associates provides disaster recovery and mitigation management services to state and local governments, educational institutions, the international community and corporations.

Previous recipients of the Clara Barton Humanitarian Award include former Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2006 and former Lt. Gov. Win Paul Rockefeller in 2005.

"We are thrilled to honor someone with James Lee's involvement with crisis management and preparedness," Larry Choate, Arkansas Hero chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank Little Rock, said in a news release. "His experience and knowledge correlates with the mission of the Red Cross - to not only ready individuals to prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies and their aftermath - but to make business owners much more aware of the importance of business contingency planning and execution for the unexpected."

Witt was CEO of the International Code Council, a 50,000-member association dedicated to building safety and code standards for residential and commercial construction including schools used by a majority of cities, counties and states.

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