John Hallagan, JD, FEMA General Counsel
John Hallagan serves as General Counsel and Senior Advisor to FEMA, and in that capacity, provides legal, regulatory, and scientific services to the association and its members. Mr. Hallagan has served FEMA in a variety of capacities during his over thirty-five years of service and has served as General Counsel since 2000. He served as Scientific Director for FEMA for nine years during the 1990s during which time the flavor industry initiated several major scientific programs to expand the activities of the FEMA Expert Panel, and to work towards a global open positive list of flavoring substances. He currently serves as Legal Advisor to the FEMA Expert Panel. He has published extensively on the topics of flavor safety and regulation, and his two publications with Richard Hall that describe the framework and legal underpinnings of the GRAS concept, particularly as it applies to food flavorings, are seminal and important contributions to the food industry. Mr. Hallagan has made numerous invited presentations to the Food and Drug Administration, the American Chemical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Food Technologists, the American Industrial Hygiene Association, and others.