Robert Olson Associates, Inc. was founded to help solve its clients’ hazard mitigation/loss prevention, emergency management planning and operations, and public safety services management problems. The underlying philosophy continues to include establishing and maintaining a close relationship with the client throughout the consulting experience; applying the knowledge, experience, and wisdom through small teams of highly qualified experts; delivering materials and counsel that fully meets our clients’ needs; and supporting our clients’ efforts to implement the results. ROA pays particular attention to building our clients’ capabilities to respond and operate successfully within unexpected and stressful conditions.

These values are best reflected in five Guiding Principles that have been applied and tested repeatedly during ROA’s 26-year existence:

• Establish and maintain optimal working relationships with our clients’ decision-makers and staffs, key external organizations and public agencies, community groups, and other stakeholders. ROA’s experience is that a project that features the active and ongoing participation of the decision-makers and other involved parties ensures comprehensive analysis and facilitates the design and acceptance of realistic final results.
• Collect accurate and comparable documentary and interview data while gaining a full understanding of our clients’ organization, needs, operating context, governing laws and regulations, culture, demographics, and other relevant factors that affect our clients’ abilities to deliver their products and services.
• Use qualified and experienced personnel by forming customized teams of experts to help meet our clients’ needs. ROA’s project teams, often performing as extensions of our clients’ staffs, always include highly experienced and well qualified individuals. The teams "hit the ground running" and do not have to use valuable overhead time "coming up to speed."
• Provide realistic and workable results. ROA’s efforts focus on the development of recommendations, reports, plans and other materials with the active involvement of those stakeholders who must adopt, implement, and live with the results. ROA’s implementation recommendations recognize prevailing conditions and capabilities: What works in one organization or area may not in others.
• Ensure that ROA’s products meet all legal, policy, standards, specifications, and other governing or regulatory requirements or guidelines. Many of our projects are governed by such requirements. We are fully knowledgeable of existing (and sometimes pending) ones. ROA’s teams use this information to craft both compliant and useful results.