Denver ? Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who was criticized for his agency’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina, is starting a disaster preparedness consulting firm to help clients avoid the sort of errors that cost him his job.

“If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses – because that goes straight to the bottom line – then I hope I can help the country in some way,” Brown told the Rocky Mountain News for its Thursday editions.

In the aftermath of the hurricane, critics complained about Brown’s lack of formal emergency management experience and e-mails that later surfaced showed him as out of touch with the extent of the devastation.

Brown said companies already have expressed interested in his consulting business, Michael D. Brown LLC. He plans to run it from the Boulder area, where he lived before joining the Bush administration in 2001.