The Fire Department Safety Officers Association announced two popular fire service speakers will be keynotes for the 2018 Safety Forum, January 17-18, in Scottsdale, AZ. Garry Briese, executive director, Colorado State Fire Chiefs and Bobby Halton, editor-in-chief, Fire Engineering magazine, are well-known throughout the industry for their vision and sometimes controversial insights to the American fire service.
Controversial might be a good description for Briese’s presentation, Our Fire Department’s New Motto: Good Enough is Good Enough, which opens the Safety Forum on Wednesday morning and challenges the fire service to find a “competent and sustainable” level of life.
“How many times do we say ‘yes’ because we’re afraid to say ‘no’?” Briese said. “I see it in all of our lives. If we’re going to continue to demand more of our firefighters, we do it at the detriment of their health—mental and physical.”
“I think that excellence is the enemy of completion,” said Briese and suggests the continuous push to take on more responsibilities needs to be done in more thoughtful ways that contribute to human sustainability.
“We can’t look at firefighters as just firefighters. We have to understand how busy their lives are and we have got to find a balance and we have got to learn to say ‘no’.”
Thursday afternoon, another popular fire service presenter, Bobby Halton, will share his thoughts on Motivating the Organization to Change to a Safer Approach.
Also on Thursday, Dan Madrzykowski, the newest member of Underwriters Laboratories’ Firefighter Safety Research Institute, will share insights on the topic of Fire Safety Research and based on his 30-plus years’ experience with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
For a second year, the IAFC’s Safety Health & Survival Section will partner with the FDSOA to host the 2018 Safety Forum and bring safety education to fire chiefs, chief officers, safety officers and fire personnel across North America.
The FDSOA 30th Annual Apparatus Specification and Maintenance Symposium will be held January 15-16, while the 2018 Annual Safety Forum will run concurrently with two Safety Officer Academies and continue with the Safety Forum Wednesday and Thursday, January 17-18.
Registration for the 2018 Safety Forum is available on www.fdsoa.org
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The Fire Department Safety Officers Association (FDSOA) was established in 1989 as a non-profit association, incorporated in Massachusetts. In 2013, the offices moved to Michigan. Its mission is to promote safety standards and practices in the fire, rescue and emergency services community. The association is led by a volunteer board of directors and has a small staff to handle the day-to-day operations. The association is dedicated to the issues that affect the critical role of the safety officer in protecting and promoting the safety and health responsibilities of fire departments, communities and first responders. FDSOA works to helps fire departments achieve proficiency and promote the recognition of training, skills and a secure future. In May 2016, FDSOA won the Paul S. Sarbanes Fire Service Safety Leadership Award for its work over 28 years, “as an organization fully dedicated to the health and safety of the nation’s firefighters.”
