FDIC Program Arranged for Memphis March 19-22
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Training—for fire fighters, company officers and chief officers—will be stressed at the Fire Department Instructors Conference in Memphis Monday through Thursday, March 19-22.
Speakers at the general sessions, held during each of the four mornings, in addition to training subjects will discuss the mandatory use of breathing apparatus, certification of fire fighters, and accident prevention. A large fire and the lessons learned will’be the subject of the final speaker at each general session.
More than a score of workshops will be conducted during the afternoons of the conference.
Modular approach
Assistant Chief Carl Holmes of Oklahoma City will talk about the objectives of job-related training and using a modular approach to fire department training after Dr. John Cragen of Illinois State University, the keynoter, has set the stage with a discussion of how to best develop a department’s most important resource—its personnel.
Chief Ron Coleman of San Clemente, Calif., will describe his newly developed course to improve the instructional skills of company offices. How a state fire training school provides a variety of services to fill the needs of municipal and industrial fire departments with a variety of special fire problems will be described by Chief Henry Smith of Texas Fire Service Training of Texas A&M University. Assistant Chief Charles Lewis of Orlando will advise on ways to motivate fire fighters to become more proficient in fire suppression and fire prevention.
A recent movement in the fire service—department orders making the use of breathing apparatus mandatory in buildings—will be discussed by Chief Clarence Nimmerfroh of Minneapolis. He will explain how the order is enforced in his department. Commissioner Augustus Beekman of New York City will tell how greater protection can be provided for fire fighters, and Robert Firenze, a former New York fire fighter and now president of R.J.F. Associates, Inc., occupational environmental consultants in Bloomington, Ind., will talk about accident prevention.
Talk by head of USFA
Because of the interest generated by the transfer of the United States Fire Administration from the Department of Commerce to the newly created Federal Emergency Management Administration, a place on the program has been made for the at this writing yet to be named new head of the fire administration.
There will be a panel discussion of the national fire fighter certification testing program followed by answers to questions. The panel will include John W. Hoglund, director of the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute as Moderator; Martin Grimes of the National Fire Protection Association, who is secretary of the National Professional Qualifications Board; and William Quirk, training director of the Minneapolis Fire Department.
James Dalton, chief of the Division of Fire Prevention of the Montgomery County, Md., Fire and Rescue Services, will talk about modernizing a fire prevention bureau, and Fire Marshal Howard Boyd of Nashville will tell why public fire safety education should become a priority goal of the fire service.
The speakers on major fires will be Gene Allen, a fire protection engineer with Starr Technical Risk Agency of Houston, who will discuss catastrophic industrial fires; Chief Ray Crouch of Kingston Springs, Tenn., who will talk about the LPG tanker explosion and fire in Waverly, where he responded with mutual aid; Fire Marshal Stewart Foster of Cobalt, Ontario, Canada, who will tell about the conflagration in his town; and David Demers of the NFPA staff, who will report on the Syracuse, N.Y., fire in which four fire fighters died.
Proposition 13 talk
The effects of proposition 13 on the fire service will be evaluated by Chief James H. Shern, president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and Dr. William Ward, management professor at Virginia Polytechnical Institute, will tell how fire departments can cope with zero-based budgeting.
In a plea to avoid getting into a rut, Edward W. Bent, California fire service training supervisor, will urge flexibility in making decisions and striving for quality rather than quantity. Dean K. Wilson, executive engineer with Industrial Risk Insurers of Hartford, Conn., will offer suggestions on promoting fire safety in industry.
Arthur Haggart, training officer for the Sarnia, Ontario, Fire Department, will describe the Canadian method of planning for disasters, and Theodore Szymanski of Ithaca, N.Y., a psychology instructor, will discuss non-verbal communications. Pat Goff, director of the Galveston Shriner Burn Institute, will talk about burn prevention.
Conference registration
The FDIC registration desk will be open Saturday, March 17 from 2 to 6 p.m., Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and then open at 7:30 a.m. during the conference days. The registration fee will be $30 for those who register by mail to ISFSI Headquarters, P.O. Box 88, Hopkinton, Mass. 01748, before February 1. After that, the registration fee will be $40.
On the Sunday afternoon before the FDIC, there will be an orientation session to help first-timers learn how to get the most out of the conference and on Sunday night, there will be a no-host get-together in the lobby of Cook Convention Center, site of the conference.
Manufacturers will exhibit products Monday and Tuesday from 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 4:30 to 7 p.m. The exhibits will be closed during conference sessions.
As an added attraction, there will be a “run-for-fun” over a 3-mile course Wednesday noon under the direction of Jack McElfish, coordinator of the Montgomery County Communication Center in Eagleville, Pa.
The FDIC is sponsored by the International Society of Fire Service Instructors in cooperation with the Insurance Services Office. It is hosted by the Memphis Fire Department, a □
