The Fire Department Safety Officers Association’s annual Health and Safety Conference broke new ground last month by collaborating and co-locating with like-minded health- and safety-focused fire service organizations.
For the first time the First Responder Center for Excellence’s Health and Wellness Symposium, F.I.E.R.O.’s PPE Symposium, Science Alliance’s inaugural Nerdstock and FDSOA’s Health and Safety Conference were held at one location with overlapping dates.
“This collaboration made sense for the associations, the attendees and the vendors,” says FDSOA’s Executive Director Rich Marinucci. “By co-locating, we saved everyone travel expenses and offered a deeper, more diverse line up of educational programs than we could have on our own. Collaborations always take more work. But when partners like these come together with a common goal of protecting firefighters, everything falls into place — and everyone comes out a winner.”
FDSOA had nearly 40 speakers, 33 break-out educational sessions and two general sessions, Marinucci said. This drew significantly more attendees and vendors than any of the previous shows over the past eight years.
Those speakers included the U.S. Fire Administrator Lori Moore Merrell and Retired Fire Chief Dennis Compton, as well as long list of health and wellness experts.
One of the conference’s highlights was the FDSOA Chairman’s Award being presented to National Fallen Firefighter Foundation Executive Director Ronald Siarnicki. Siarnicki announced earlier this year he would retire after leading the group for 22 years.
“I am humbled to receive this award from our great friends at FDSOA,” Siarnicki said. “And I want to extend my gratitude to FDSOA for everything they do to educate and train safety officers.”
FDSOA named Casey Jones the 2023 Safety Officer of the Year. Jones, in his acceptance speech said the unknown was the most dangerous thing facing the fire service today. “There are a lot of unknowns, but it is really ourselves, because we are the ones who fear the unknown.” Preparedness, he said, is not a destination, but an ongoing effort to learn and improve.
And learning and improving was the at the core of the combined conferences.
F.I.E.R.O. President Robert Tutterow said he came away from the joint conferences with a renewed sense of its importance and the importance of health and safety play in fire department leadership.
“As I’ve reflected on this past week, I’ve had the thought that no one should be deemed qualified for fire chief unless they have served two years as a certified HSO officer in a department,” Tutterow said. “This safety week has established itself as the must-go event for fire service personnel and vendors. You will not find better topics and speakers than at this conference.”
Science Alliance drew standing-room only to its TED Talk-style presentations focusing on firefighter health and wellness research. The new group was the brainchild of noted fire service researcher Sara Jahnke, who is the director and senior scientist at NDRI-USA.
“Everyone worked so hard over the past year to take Science Alliance, and ultimately Nerdstock, from concept to reality,” Jahnke said. “I was filled with a parental-like pride and emotion looking out and seeing standing room only for our sessions. It not only validated our staff’s hard work, but also the importance the fire service places on meaningful scientific research for firefighter health and wellness. The collaboration with FDSOA, F.I.E.R.O. and FRCE was critical to our success.”
About FDSOA
The Fire Department Safety Officers Association was established in 1989 as a non-profit association. 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 can be found on the web at www.fdsoa.org. Please follow FDSOA on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
