The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) announced reappointment of officers and appointment of new members to their board of directors at their annual conference and exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
Officers reappointed to their current positions on the board are: Paul M. Fitzgerald, of Holliston, Mass. remains chair; Thomas W. Jaeger, of Great Falls, Virginia, remains first vice chair; Philip C. Stittleburg, of La Farge, Wisconsin remains second vice chair; Vincent Bollon, of Alexandria, Virginia, remains treasurer; and H. Wayne Boyd of Sacramento, California. will continue to serve as secretary.
The newly elected positions will take effect as of the close of the opening general session.
New members of the board include: Thomas Groos, of Greenwich, Connecticut; Peter M. Holland, of Haighton, Lancashire, United Kingdom; Brian J. Hurley, of Johnston, Rhode Island; and Bill McCammon, of Pleasanton, California.
Groos is a partner of City Light Capital and executive chairman of the Viking Group. He has 26 years of experience with Viking Group where he has served numerous leadership positions, including chief executive and president. Groos earned his MBA from Columbia Business School.
Holland is the longest serving fire chief in the United Kingdom. For over 36 years, he has served in various positions and levels of the U.K. Fire and Rescue Service. Holland has served as the international president of the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE), is a current chairman of Fire Conferences and Exhibitions Ltd. (FCEL), founded the U.K. National Fire Sprinkler Network, and will become the U.K. president of the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) in January 2010.
Hurley has served as the executive vice president at FM Global for 20 years. A 38- year veteran of the insurance industry, he holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Toronto and has completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University. Hurley is also a member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario and serves as a trustee on the board of Bradley Hospital, East Providence, RI.
McCammon is the executive director of the East Bay Regional Communication System. He has 27 years of service in public fire protection. McCammon served for over 13 years as the fire chief of the Alameda County Fire Department (ACFD). He also served as president of the California Fire Chiefs Association, president of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association, member of the Emergency Response Training Advisory Committee, is current treasurer of the Las Positas College Foundation, and various other leadership positions.
Awards
The NFPA also presented three awards to recognize achievements in fire and life safety.
Wayne D. Moore was the recipient of the NFPA’s 2009 Standards Medal award. The Standards Medal is the highest award presented by NFPA’s Standard Council and recognizes outstanding contributions to fire safety in the development of codes and standards.
Moore, of Warwick, Rhode Island, is being honored for his valuable contributions to NFPA’s codes and standards development process and his dedication to the cause of fire safety worldwide. Currently, he holds the position of principal at Hughes Associates, Inc., and is an instructor of Fire Alarm Systems Workshop at NFPA. Moore has been a member of NFPA since 1973. Moore has served on NFPA’s Technical Committee on Cultural Resources since 1983; Premises Security since 2002 and has served as chair since 2003; and Fire Protection for Nuclear Facilities from 1992 – 1995. He has served on Technical Correlating Committees on Signaling Systems for the Protection of Life and Property since 1995 and as chair from 1998 – 2006; and on Safety to Life since 2007. He has also served on Signaling Systems for the Protection of Life and Property Technical Committees: Emergency Communication Systems Chair since 2007; Protected Premises Fire Alarm Systems since 1993, chair from 1993 – 1998; Detection Devices from 1978 – 1983; and Fundamentals from 1990 – 1992, chair in 1992. Moore was a member of NFPA Standards Council from 1997 – 1998.
Dorothy Bruck and Ian Thomas received the 2009 Harry C. Bigglestone Award for Excellence in Communication of Fire Protection Concepts for their paper, “Comparison of the Effectiveness of Different Fire Notification Signals in Sleeping Older Adults.”
Co-authors Bruck and Thomas, both of Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, were presented the 2009 Harry C. Bigglestone Award for Excellence in Communication of Fire Protection Concepts and a cash prize of $5,000 from the Fire Protection Research Foundation. The award is named after the late Harry C. Bigglestone, a trustee of the Research Foundation and a fellow and president of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. Each year the Harry C. Bigglestone Award is given to the authors of the most outstanding paper submitted to Fire Technology during the previous calendar year, as voted by the Editorial Board.
Pfizer Inc. is the winner of the 2008 Industrial Fire Prevention Week Contest. The Industrial Fire Prevention Week Contest Award recognizes businesses that promote fire and related safety messages for employees and their communities in conjunction with local fire departments during Fire Prevention Week from the previous year.
The Pfizer Inc. U.S. East Region, based in New Haven, New London, and Groton, Connecticut, was named the winner of the 2008 Industrial Fire Prevention Week Contest for conducting the best program to correspond with NFPA’s 2008 Fire Prevention Week. Pfizer promoted the week’s theme, Prevent Home Fires, as a segway to preventing fires in the workplace. Throughout the course of the week Pfizer employees took part in over 30 evacuation exercises and participated in a presentation which included useful information on Fire Prevention Week, applying the prevention of fires to the workplace, and a question and answer session with occupants on fire prevention. By utilizing Fire Prevention Week banners, displays, and pamphlets, Pfizer worked to educate its staff. The company also reached out to educate faculty, staff, and children in offsite daycare centers on fire prevention.
NFPA has been a worldwide leader in providing fire, electrical, building, and life safety to the public since 1896. The mission of the international nonprofit organization is to reduce the worldwide burden of fire and other hazards on the quality of life by providing and advocating consensus codes and standards, research, training, and education. Visit NFPA’s Web site at www.nfpa.org.
