JIM CHESNUTT BEGAN HIS CAREER IN BROADCAST NEWS as a television reporter in Minnesota. He later became the spokesman for the American Red Cross in Denver. Earthquakes in California, Hurricane Andrew in Florida and the humanitarian crisis in Somalia were the events that shaped the early days of his career - a career that would eventually lead him to New York in September of 2001, to the site of the World Trade Center attacks.

The day after the attacks, a perimeter was established around the site and journalists were barred from the area. At the time, Chesnutt was employed by The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). For the next three weeks he and three other photographers served as the official pool photography team that documented the rescue and recovery effort. Each day their video and still images were fed to media throughout the world via satellite and to this day is the primary source of video footage of this important event in U.S. history.

While with FEMA, Chesnutt worked as public information officer on more than 35 presidentially declared disasters. He honed his skills working some of the most challenging events in recent history, from the Columbine school massacre to the World Trade Center, and more recently Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf Coast.

He founded NCI in 2000, but continued working for FEMA until 2005. At that time he left federal service to focus exclusively on NCI and its clients. 

Chesnutt combines strategic vision and compelling imagery to help clients tell their story. His background in crisis communications was vital when clients from the humanitarian aid community needed help alerting the world to a devastating famine unfolding in Ethiopia in 2003. Nearly 13 million people were relying on emergency food aid. Chesnutt spent a month in Ethiopia capturing images and stories that eventually ran in newspapers, radio and television stations in multiple media markets. In 2005 Chesnutt and NCI vice president Mark Amann traveled to Uganda to cover the fallout of the 19-year civil war and its effects on the civilian population. Save The Children, Oxfam UK and World Vision used the materials to raise public awareness and support for their programs to ease the suffering there.

Chesnutt’s work extends beyond disasters and humanitarian emergencies. His strong background in state and federal government allows him to connect with the culture and speak the language of NCI’s government clients. His current focus is working with several public sector clients on safety and security training videos and multimedia products.

Chesnutt’s work has been featured on CNN, CBS 48 Hours, 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, ABC Evening News, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Dateline, The Early Show, The Los Angeles Times, BBC Online and the National Geographic Explorer program, among others.