Education Sessions: Friday, August 15

501: Chief-Officer Mentoring Primer

As leaders, we have a fundamental responsibility to succession planning, and for many, development of leaders is one of the greatest challenges we face in the fire service. The large number of recent retirements has exasperated this challenge. This CPSE Fire Chief Mentoring Primer is not only designed to assist peers and colleagues outside our departments, but can be adopted to assist the local chief within their organization. Matching new fire chiefs with experienced senior leaders will improve job competency, organizational relationships and customer service. From a liability and risk management standpoint, it will enhance a leader’s critical-thinking abilities.
Marc Revere, CFO, EFO, CPC, Fire Chief, Novato Fire Protection District, Novato (CA); Christopher Riley, CFO, Fire Chief, City of Pueblo Fire Department, Pueblo (CO)

502: Building Tactical Information System for Public Safety Officials—Response to an Intelligent Building

Modern buildings function with control systems programmed to run building systems, such as HVAC, lighting, access control and life safety. Network communications carry commands from controllers to actuators and switches, and sensors feed data back to controllers. All this information is bottled up in the building even while it could provide tremendous situational awareness to those outside the building, telling them where a fire is, where smoke is, where occupants are, etc. Building information needs to be sent to a variety of display devices, including high-resolution screens at dispatch centers, notebook computers in fire apparatus/police cars and handheld devices. Learn what you need to know when responding to an intelligent building.
Robert L. Vettori, P.E., Fire Protection Engineer, National Institute of Standards and Technology

503: Progressive Leadership Concepts—Tools for the Next Generation

This session explores progressive leadership concepts and skills that will contribute to the success of fire officers of all ranks by improving their performance. Developing criteria for effective fire-officer leadership will set the stage for the success of our fire departments in the future. Getting promoted to fire-officer positions doesn’t necessarily translate to effective leadership. Attendees will find this session unique and practical, and they will be able to incorporate aspects of what they learn as soon as they return to their organizations.
Dennis Compton, Fire Chief, Ret., International Fire Service Training Association

504: Lessons Learned the Hard Way—The Pennsylvania Story

From 2004 to 2006, Pennsylvania saw a 67 percent decrease in line-of-duty deaths. Pennsylvania’s goal of no firefighter fatalities is shared by all states, but Pennsylvania has the unique situation of having more than 2,000 individual fire departments. Learn how Pennsylvania has brought about a change in the safety culture of their fire departments by using a combination of local and national programs. Programs such as Courage to be Safe and the National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting Program will be discussed.
Cathy Hedrick, Special Assistant to Executive Director, National Fallen Firefighters Foundation; Ed Mann, Pennsylvania State Fire Commissioner; John Tippett, Project Manager, International Association of Fire Chiefs

505: Building the Department of Tomorrow, Today

Leading fire departments are using self-assessment, integrated risk-management planning, strategic planning, master planning and other processes to ensure they have addressed due diligence and are delivering the best possible service to their communities now and in the future. Many departments have had little or no exposure to these concepts. The Center for Public Safety Excellence will provide an overview of these practices and illustrate their long-term value.
Rick Black, Program Manager, Center for Public Safety Excellence, Inc.; Debbie A. Sobotka, Deputy Director, Center for Public Safety Excellence, Inc.

506: What’s New in the Hazardous Materials Response Arena?

The first half of this session will give an introduction of the Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Fusion Center that is being created through a partnership between IAFC and the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Learn the background for the Hazmat Fusion Center, its vision and its progress to date.

Those interested will learn how to get involved in this endeavor. The second part of this session will relate to ethanol emergency response. With ethanol production and transport on the rise, responders needs to know how best to deal with ethanol-related incidents. The IAFC has been working with the Ethanol Emergency Response Coalition to address some of these issues.

507: Development of National Strategy for Fire Prevention: Vision 20/20 and other Prevention Programs

This session will focus on the DHS-funded project to develop a national strategy for fire prevention. This project will be completed in August 2008 and the IAFC has an integral role in this project.
Jim Crawford, Fire Marshal, Vancouver Fire Department, Vancouver (WA); Bill Kehoe, Institution of Fire Engineers; Azarang (Ozzie) Mirkhah, P.E., EFO, CBO, Fire Protection Engineer, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, Las Vegas (NV)

Opening General Session

Dr. Denis Waitley has inspired, informed, challenged and entertained audiences for more than 25 years—from the board rooms of multinational corporations to the control rooms of NASA’s space program. Waitley has served as the chairman of psychology on the U. S. Olympic Committee’s Sports Medicine Council and has written 12 nonfiction books, including several international best sellers, Seeds of Greatness, Being the Best, The Winner’s Edge, The Joy of Working, and Empires of the Mind. Waitley is the most listened-to voice on personal and career success, stressing the importance of core values and inspiring audiences to have a positive impact on those they lead and the community they serve.

601: Coping with Caring—A Guide to Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

There is a cost to caring, and it comes from the residue left over when we work in a helping capacity with traumatized people—those who are in crisis or are experiencing acute stress. Statistics indicate turnover and retention rates are significantly impacting emergency response and care-giving occupations. Prevention and recovery skills are paramount to improving these rates and increasing life satisfaction for at-risk occupations.
Sandra L. Hare, Consultant/Trainer, S*HareSolutions Training & Consulting

602: Statistical Analysis Supporting Firefighter Health and Safety Programs

This presentation will provide information on USFA data collection of firefighter on-duty fatalities. It will detail effective statistical analysis of on-duty firefighter fatalities, educating the audience of fundamentals of statistical principals. This presentation will engage the audience with the innovative firefighter health and safety partnerships USFA has with the IAFC, including efforts in health and wellness, emergency-vehicle safety and other areas. It will provide additional information about other health and safety partnerships USFA has with other national-level fire-service organizations, such as the IAFF, NVFC, IFSTA, etc.
William Troup, Fire Program Specialist, United States Fire Administration; Jim Heeschen, Statistician, U.S. Fire Administration

603: What the City Manager Wants from the Fire Chief

The fire chief is one of several department heads in a typical municipality that forms the organization’s leadership team. The leadership demands on the fire chief are no different than those on other department heads. In addition, the fire chief has management and technical demands to meet in order to completely fulfill his or her responsibilities. City-manager requirements of the fire chief may vary by individual, but there are some requirements that are non-negotiable. Hear from an experienced city manager who has reconstructed management teams, including fire, building the teams based on those requirements.
Leon Churchill, City Manager, City of Tracy, Tracy, (CA)

604: Ventilation in Today’s Fire Buildings

This class is a review of ventilation practices and how ventilation can affect the fire building of today. Plastic furnishings cause a fire to be hotter, and buildings are now constructed tighter, holding in the products of combustion. This does not always make for a safe or easy entry into the fire building. Ventilation must be coordinated and controlled. Does your department have procedures to control your venting? This class will be a review of the SOP for proper ventilation and the way we make the fire building behave if we use proper ventilation techniques.
David McGrail, Chief, Denver Fire Department, Denver (CO)

605: Building Your Fire-Service Toolbox

As a fire-service leader, are you considering the benefits of building the team to include other community stakeholders? Do those stakeholders know what can be gained by including fire protection in the planning process for growth? Real-life examples will demonstrate the potential advances that can be made when the fire service educates other community stakeholders about the opportunities to create win-win situations. Fire sprinklers are a part of the formula that will yield success. Learn the latest facts and statistics showing why this is a positive choice for fire-service leaders to promote.
Vickie Pritchett, Project Manager, Fire Team USA; Shane Ray, Chief, Pleasant View Volunteer Fire Department, Pleasant View (TN)

606: Bringing Broadband to Public Safety

Fire service professionals rely on mission critical communications to exchange information to protect the lives and property of the citizens they proudly serve, as well as for their own safety. Departments require increasingly intelligent communication systems capable of transmitting data, still images and live video. As the 700 MHz broadband environment becomes available for public safety agencies, such potential can be realized through partnerships with commercial providers. Next generation systems will need to fit the new spectrum environment, incorporate new technology, maximize coverage and data rates, build off of commercial economies of scale and simplify architecture design to minimize costs..
Stuart Overby, Vice Chair, Motorola, Inc.

607: AFG Supported Research and Development into Firefighter Safety

This panel features reports of the principal investigators for two cutting edge, innovative Research and Development (R&D) projects: one that illustrates work being done to improve firefighter safety in the clinical, behavioral, and social sciences area, and a second that aims to improve safety through technology advances. These are two examples of the nearly 30 projects that are funded by the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program since 2005 when the Congress amended the authorizing statute to support these kinds of efforts. The AFG office will summarize these projects and also will highlight how partnerships with fire service organizations help to shape priority setting. Products emerging from R&D efforts and their impacts for firefighters will also be described.
Brian Cowan, Program Director for AFG and Ellen Sogolow, Staff Executive for R&D Grants