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A Jamaican-born American who can claim to be a distant relative of United States Vice-President Kamala Harris has pioneered a new field in crisis management - crisisology - for which he has received an impressive list of accolades.Vernon Rupert Grant, who hails from Kingston, Jamaica, has devoted the last four decades to the fields of crisis management, real estate, local government, and medical research. His primary and current expertise surrounds his work as a crisisologist and founder and chief managing executive of Crisisology Group International LLC.Among the honours garnered by Grant is a distinguished place of inclusion in Marquis Who's Who in America, the 122-year-old America biographical volumes published since 1898/99, and which is granted to individuals on the basis of position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field of importance.Grant, a cousin of Professor Donald Harris, father of the US vice-president, offers consultancy through his Crisisology Group International LLC (CGI) to organisations and communities needing mitigation planning and preparing for and recovering from crises.He has published, and currently teaches a wide range of classes for private businesses. He served as an instructor for the Service Employees International Union/32BJ. His teaching assignments include crisis and prevention management, human relations, management ethics, project and facilities management, and customer service.Grant explains crisisology in an article titled, "Crisisology and Its Theoretical Value", in which he argues: "It is a lot less expensive (psychologically and financially) to prevent a crisis event from occurring, or at the very least (if unavoidable) reduce the extent of the potential damage it may cause, than to address it during or after such crisis has occurred."Before establishing CGI, Grant worked in the real estate industry for many years, and retired from the field as a managing director. He attributes his love for real estate to the influence of his father."I dedicated myself to real estate after working for the New York City Government. I came to the realisation that real estate incorporates several facets of business, and so I paved a path for myself and developed expertise in property management," the St Ann native said.It was while in the practice of managing residential and commercial properties that he gained proficiency in crisis and emergency management. As a crisisologist, he has been pioneering crisisology since 2009 and has created the Crisis Convergence & Integration Theory.In 2012, Grant founded CGI, for whom he serves as chief managing executive, noting that "the mission of CGI is to offer a broad and deep foundation of problem-solving skills and export efforts that lead professionals to transformational leadership".He also worked for the New York City Government for over five years; and before that, served more than eight years as a medical research analyst at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. While there, he co-authored and published two research papers, and contributed to the publication of more than a dozen others.Grant has been cited numerous times for his outstanding work, earning a Property Manager of the Year Award, a Leadership in Management Award through The Cooperator, and professional recognition as one of only five managers in New York with prodigious expertise in people management. He also received Platinum and Bronze Management Achievement awards for successful leadership in crisis management.He is a New York University and City University of New York trained management executive who holds academic and professional credentials including the coveted graduate of the Realtor Institute designation. He also studied crisis and emergency management at UNLV, and in addition, holds a number of FEMA certificates.Demonstrating his varied interests, Grant is also involved in music, and is pursued a course of study for the Professional Certificate in Musicianship at Berklee College of Music.Looking toward the future, he says he will continue to work to gain greater recognition of crisisology as a new discipline by the crisis and emergency management industry. He believes that "universal resilience" (his coinage) "can become the gold standard for crisis prevention and recovery, not only in the field of real estate, but across all other industries as well".Ultimately, Grant who attended Harrison Memorial High School in Montego Bay, St James, plans to write a book that focuses on the elevation of crisisology as an impactful discipline globally.- Desmond Allen