Area first responders came together Wednesday for an active shooter exercise at Columbia Basin Job Corps in Moses Lake. The training lasted most of Wednesday and allowed emergency responders to become familiar with the Job Corps facilities and emergency response plans. “This exercise was an example of emergency management partnerships and training which happens regularly in Grant County,” said Susan Mann with Job Corps.
- PUB DATE: 4/26/2018 10:33:18 AM - SOURCE: iFiberOne

William “Billy” Goldfeder was awarded the 2018 FDIC Tom Brennan Lifetime Achievement award at this morning’s General Session.  Making the presentation were Chief Bobby Halton, editor in chief of Fire Engineering/FDIC International education director, and Eileen Cress, daughter of Tom Brennan.

In his introduction remarks, Halton noted: “Today we recognize someone who, not to sound cliché, truly needs no introduction. We gather to honor and recognize him for his life’s work. More than that: We bask in the complete and total love within this room at this moment. It is a love that is not conditional or limited. The type of love Billy evokes from us can’t be expressed in words. It allows for disagreement and struggle; is unaffected by position or point of view; and is unspoken, unbreakable, and without boundaries.”

RELATED: Talking Shop with Chief Billy Goldfeder

Goldfeder, a deputy chief in the Loveland-Symmes (OH) Fire Department, has been a firefighter since 1973, when he joined the Manhasset-Lakeville Fire Department in Long Island, New York. He has been a chief fire officer since 1982 and has served as a chief in Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. He is a 1993 graduate of the National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer Program and the former chair of the International Association of Fire Chiefs VCOS Committee.  

In 1998, Goldfeder, along with the widely recognized authority on risk in public safety Gordon Graham, created  the Web site www.FireFighterCloseCalls.com, a 100-percent, noncommercial, independent, and free site with firefighter survival as its sole focus. He is a news and editorial columnist for Fire Engineering.com and FirefighterNation.com and has a monthly column “Nozzlehead,” which has appeared in FireRescue for the past 20-plus years. He is the author of the best seller PASS IT ON; the royalties derived from its sale are being donated to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the Chief Ray Downey Courage and Valor Scholarship Fund. Royalties from his second best seller Pass It On … The 2nd Alarm will be distributed to the same beneficiaries and the Firefighter Cancer Support Network.  

Goldfeder is an honorary battalion chief of the Fire Department of New York, a member of the board of directors for the International Association of Fire Chiefs; the September 11th Families Association, and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation; he served as a commissioner of Fire Accreditation International for the Center for Public Safety Excellence.

Chief Goldfeder has served on several NFPA and IAFC Committees and on the National Firefighter Near-Miss Reporting Task Force Board. He chaired the IAFC Safety, Health and Survival Section and is a subject matter expert for the CDC NIOSH Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program.

His achievements and involvements are too numerous to list. As Halton succinctly expressed it: “Suffice it to say that Chief Goldfeder has sat on every board, consulted with every agency, and shared with every organization and company in the fire service.”

The Lifetime Achievement Award is named for Tom Brennan, who was the editor of Fire Engineering for eight years and a technical editor. Brennan had more than 35 years of fire service experience, including more than 20 years with the Fire Department of New York and five years as chief of the Waterbury (CT) Fire Department. He was co-editor of The Fire Chief’s Handbook, Fifth Edition (Fire Engineering Books

Lieutenant Paul D. Combs, Bryan (OH) Fire Department, has been named the 2018 Fire Engineering/International Society of Fire Service Instructors George D. Post Instructor of the Year Award. Presenting the award at the FDIC 2018 General Session on Thursday were Steve Pegram, ISFSI president, and Glenn P. Corbett, technical editor, Fire Engineering.  

“Please know this recognition doesn’t belong to me, but to everyone who has helped me along the way, and to my family, who supports my crazy dreams,” Combs noted. An instructor since 2000, Combs also instructs through his cartoons depicting timely fire service issues. They appear in Fire Engineering, FireRescue, and JEMS.

RELATED: Paul Combs Illustrations

The award incorporates the Fire Engineering Training Achievement Award previously presented at the FDIC. It is named for George D. Post, a long-time member of the ISFSI and a member of the Fire Department of New York. Post was an illustrator for fire service publications and developed instructional materials. Many consider him to be the father of visual training materials for fire service personnel.

Humpday Hangout: Visiting with ISFSI Instructor of the Year Paul Combs

 

“Most of us are here today because we caught the most amazing break of all--being introduced to the fire service. We found a passion in its duty, honor, service, and traditions,” Gavin Horn, director of research at the Illinois Fire Service Institute, related in the opening remarks of his keynote address at Thursday’s General Session. Gavin noted that even at the age of three, he was attracted by mechanics, which he attributed to his father’s being a great mechanic, and the motorcycle shop his parents owned in Illinois.

But, he ultimately credited Wilb’s Fix It shop in Elgin, Illinois, for arousing his passion for the fire service. This “magical place” not only enforced his inclination for mechanics, he explained, but “would let me get my hands on a project and learn the value of getting a difficult job done”; being a “craftsman”; and “knowing a little about electricity, plumbing, welding, and just about anything that can get you out of a jam.”

Wilbert Westerman, owner of Wilb’s, and his employees kept the lawns and yards in town in good shape and were great mechanics. But what really impressed Horn was that “they resolved the problem of the loss of fire protection for the town by adding a bay on the back of the shop to house a pumper and [the shop] became Pingree Gove Station #3. Five members of their community dedicated their time and energy to learn the art of fighting a fire when they weren’t turning a wrench. These guys were real life supermen. This was a place where everyday people – mechanics, parts boys, shop owners– went to work each day – until called upon to help our neighbors. They would drop their tools, wipe the grease from their hands, head to the back bay and emerge on a shiny fire truck to help those in need. Their lessons, their dedication, and their actions left an indelible mark on me. I could not ask for better role models.”

Horn attended college and earned a doctorate degree in mechanical engineering. After college, when trying to decide how he could use his skills and abilities to make a difference in the world, he said he came upon the profession called “Fire Protection Engineering and then this place called the Illinois Fire Service Institute and he became aware that his ‘passion [for the fire service] could be reinvigorated even after years.’”

His next “break” came in the form of an “opportunity at the Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI), which provided amazing grounds for cultivating a passion.” Horn described how during his first Fire College at IFSI, he went from class to class “amazed at what he heard, saw … and did.” He recalled company officers showing the mechanics of the hands-on techniques built on years of experience, proudly teaching the students “what was learned through blood, sweat and tears."

Horn cited a “fix it” similarity between the IFSI and Wilb’s: There was a need for action-oriented research based on the needs of the fire service, driven by the fire service, and so the fire department instructors in the state of Illinois fixed it, ensuring that research, science, and engineering were critical pillars of the education and training for firefighters for the past several decades. He recalled becoming excited about Denise Smith’s “incredible studies on the mechanics of how a firefighter’s body works and Underwriters Laboratories Fire Research Institute’s Dan Madrzykowski presenting the mechanics and science related to The Station nightclub fire at Winter Fire School.”

He found another igniter of his passion for the fire service when he went to the FDIC for the first time: “Each year, we can all be reinvigorated by the education, the camaraderie, and the entertainment we find there. There is the legacy of influence from so many of the legends who have impacted both FDIC and IFSI–so many

“One thing about training I know now that I wish I knew at the beginning of my career is the training technique ‘Deliberate Practice,’” Deputy Chief of Operations (Ret.) Ted Nee [Albuquerque (NM) Fire Department] revealed in his featured presentation at this morning’s General Session. Nee, a specialist in instruction and building instructional simulations, shared with the audience how deliberate practice can accelerate the acquisition of skills.

As a background for defining Deliberate Practice, Nee introduced a model of skill acquisition developed by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, professors at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1980s when the brothers were conducting research for the U.S. Air Force on the effectiveness of pilot training. The model, which can be applied to any skill to be mastered, consists of these levels:

• Novice. The model refers to this phase as “Know what” knowledge. You know what you were taught, you have no practical experience, you rely on training, department standard operating procedures, and the direction of your company officer.

• Then, you begin to relate what you were taught to your experiences in the field, usually after being on the job for a while and getting a couple of fires and a bunch of EMS responses under your belt.

• Competent. At this stage, you’re no longer prone to making “rookie” mistakes. You can apply what you’ve learned to solve problems posed. You may not be the fastest or most skilled, but you get the job done.

• Proficient. You can read the critical cues--building construction, fire conditions, radio reports from crews—and recognize what those cues mean and react based on that recognition. An example of operating at this level would be quickly and accurately sizing up a structure fire.

‘Engine-1 is on the scene of a medium-sized two-story apartment building. We have fire and smoke showing from the second-floor side Alpha of a middle occupancy. Engine-1 is securing a water supply and stretching a line through side Alpha. We are in the offensive strategy. Engine-1 has command. Hold the current assignments.’

• Expert.  Experts see the world through the filter of all of their prior experience. They’ve progressed from following abstract rules to skilled behavior based on concrete experience and the unconscious recognition of new situations as similar to previous ones. This is a progression from “Know what” knowledge to “Know how” knowledge.

Nee explained that it generally takes about 10 years to progress through these five steps: “With the right circumstances and training, you can progress quickly through the first three steps, but it takes time to acquire the necessary experience to reach the proficient and expert levels. It often takes as much time to go from the proficient to the expert level as it takes to get from the novice to the proficient level. Every time you learn a new skill, you start back at step one as a novice.”

Deliberate Practice

Deliberate Practice is a specific way of training that was identified by Florida State University Professor Anders Ericsson who sought to discover why some people excelled in a given field while others didn’t, Nee explained. “He discovered that the deciding factor was not innate talent or IQ, but how the subjects practiced. Ericsson and his fellow researchers found that across a wide-range of activities--whether physical, cognitive, or a combination of the two--how you practice makes all the difference.”

Nee cited the six elements of Deliberate Practice:

1. Clearly defined goals and objectives. “Every training session has to have a purpose. It isn’t just a matter of putting the time in,” noted Nee. “Ericsson refers to practice without clear goals as ‘naïve practice.’ Sitting around strumming on a guitar will not make you the next Eric Clapton.”

2. Be willing to work outside of your comfort zone. Nee added