When the Sept. 11 attacks shook the nation, Kent State alumnus D. Mark Jones, found himself called into an unfamiliar and deeply challenging role. At the time, Jones was working for Metcalf & Eddy (now AECOM), an environmental consulting company contracted by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Environmental Protection Agency, assisting with disaster response across the country. He had already handled events like ice storms in Oklahoma, where his job was to oversee cleanup efforts and ensure contractors did their work honestly.
But New York City after 9/11 was different.
“This wasn’t debris like trees or appliances from a flood,” Jones recalled. “It was an entirely different situation. Far more sensitive and complex.”
Instead of monitoring debris removal, Jones worked closely with private nonprofits — hospitals, ambulance providers and other organizations — that had rushed to the scene where the World Trade Center towers had collapsed during the terrorist attack. Many lost equipment, including ambulances crushed when the towers fell. His job was to capture and estimate their costs so FEMA could reimburse them, often inventing new cost-calculation methods because the standard disaster tables didn’t apply.
Jones spent nearly a year in New York City, then several more months in Albany, the state capital.
“Living there gave me a deep appreciation for how well the city functions, even under extreme strain,” Jones said.
He said the experience was profound and left a lasting impression.
“I’d visited New York as a tourist, but living there was completely different,” Jones said. “New Yorkers were incredibly friendly and supportive — strangers would stop me on the street and ask if I needed help. I made friends I still keep in touch with today.”
Geology at Kent State
Jones first came to Kent State while finishing his bachelor’s degree at Cleveland State University. Needing courses not offered locally, including the geology field camp, he joined Kent’s program and spent a month in South Dakota and Wyoming in 1995.
"KSU was indispensable to me, providing a lifeline to complete my undergraduate degree,” Jones said. “Based on that short experience, I was impressed enough with the program and the professors to enroll in the graduate program, and I’ve always been proud to call myself an alumnus of Kent State."
Jones earned his Master of Science in Geology from Kent State in 2000.
Today, Jones serves as the state geologist of Ohio and chief of the Ohio Geological Survey, part of the Department of Natural Resources. His team manages the state’s geological data, operates groundwater and seismic monitoring networks, maintains a 600,000-foot rock core library, researches oil, gas, and mineral resources, and even oversees salt mining leases beneath Lake Erie.
A lifelong lover of science, Jones traces his passion for geology back to childhood curiosity about exposed bedrock near Cleveland.
“Geology explains why our planet looks and works the way it does — our energy, our materials — it all comes from the Earth,” he said.
With retirement on the horizon, Jones hopes to keep expanding the survey’s capabilities, especially by using a newly acquired multispectrum core scanner to study and share Ohio’s rock data.
“It really opens our eyes scientifically to what’s under the surface of our state,” Jones said.
Looking back, Jones sees his career as an extension of the same curiosity that drew him to geology in the first place — a drive to understand, to document and to help others make sense of the ground beneath their feet, whether in Ohio or at the heart of a national tragedy.
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Media Contact:
Jim Maxwell, JMAXWEL2@kent.edu, 330-672-8028