Ms. Kemp

Good day hard-chargers, today we have un-fortunate news.

Dr. Janet Kemp, a longtime Veterans Affairs administrator who established the Veterans Crisis Hotline Line, passed last week.

Kemp had an illustrious 30-year career at the department which featured numerous honors for her mental health work, including a 2009 award, Service to America Medal for her work on the veterans suicide prevention hotline.

Since the initial launch ten years ago, the Veterans Crisis Hotline has answered over 3 million calls and initiated emergency intervention in almost 75,000 cases.

It's become the keystone of the department’s efforts, and employs more than 500 specialists.

Kemp oversaw much of that expansion, growing the program from small offices at the Canandaigua VA Medical Center.

In 2011, during a military suicide conference in Washington, D.C., Kemp admitted she did not initially think the hotline would be such a critical tool.

“I said, “I don’t think veterans will call ... We have (other) crisis lines in the country. Why don’t we use those?’”. “And I have never been so wrong about anything in my entire life.

“Veterans do call. All genders, all ages, people with all sorts of needs. If the services are there and help is there, people are reaching out to get them. Now our main task is being available for the veterans in need.

At this point it’s working in all sorts of ways and shapes that we didn’t imagine.

Kemp worked as VA’s National Mental Health Program Director for Suicide Prevention from 2007 until 2014. From there she was Chief of Education for the VA Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention until retiring in 2016.

She was the lead author on numerous reports on mental health and suicide prevention at the department. Kemp earned nursing degrees from SUNY Plattsburgh and University of Colorado-Denver before starting her work with VA in 1986.

Ms. Kemp, thank you for your unwavering support and dedication to veterans. You've saved more lives than people can actually comprehend and for that you will never be forgotten.


May you rest in paradise ma'am...


Isaac J. Hall II
#SemperKill