By Rick Markley

Bring together a group of fire service professionals and the term “public- private partnership” is not one you are likely to hear tossed around. The concept is often reserved for infrastructure projects like detention centers, highways, and the occasional fire station.

Yet in a small town about 50 miles east of Chicago, public-private partnerships are being talked about a lot in connection with the fire service, and more specifically, firefighter training. That’s because the brand-spanking new Multi Agency Academic Cooperative — a regional emergency responder training center — is open for business. Known locally as the MAAC, the complex is the brainchild of Stewart McMillan and is a partnership between private industry, nonprofit foundations and state and local governments. The 4.5-acre facility sits on a 12-acre plot about 1,000 feet from the Task Force Tips headquarters, of which McMillan is CEO and his father was the founder.

In fact, McMillan dedicated the site to his father by laboring over how to name it so the acronym spelled “Mac”, his father’s nickname. McMillan not only followed his father into the family business, he followed him into volunteer firefighting. And if you spend any time with McMillan, you’ll understand that his relationships with his father and firefighting deeply informs his personal and professional life; for more on that, you can watch his Ted Talk below.

Like his father was, McMillan is a firefighter training evangelist. And he’s been dreaming of building a training facility since 1998 when Task Force Tips moved to its current location. But building it there would have been an eyesore, he says. And so he waited.

That wait came to an end when “we very serendipitously came upon this property, which was way off my radar. We had 12 acres here that was all stoned and driven on with 50-ton forklifts,” McMillan says. “The minute I saw it, (I knew) this would support fire trucks and this is the place for a training academy — it’s industrial, it’s secluded, it’s in the center of the district, it’s perfect.”

Groundbreaking occurred at the site in September 2016, and in a year’s time a fully functional fire, police and EMS training facility was built and put into operation. In fact, long before it’s September ribbon-cutting ceremony, the MAAC has hosted various training classes including a driver/operator, Firefighter I and II and police tactical training. Weekend and evening classes began in May so the facility could be used without upsetting the on-going construction work.

So what does MAAC have to offer students? Actually, quite a bit given its relatively small footprint.

The 7,200-square- foot main building houses offices and two classrooms. The lion’s share of that building, 6,000 square feet, is a large apparatus bay where indoor training takes place. That area has a two-story structure for bail-out and ladder training; the bail-out area has built-in fall protection. There are also downed firefighter rescue props, as well as space for storage and class instruction.

Outside along the Eastern perimeter are several propane-fed firefighting props. One is a fire extinguisher training area where Class A, B and C fires can be simulated. Other props include live-fir