Las Vegas, NV – The Metropolitan “Metro” Fire Chiefs Section of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) held its 2006 annual conference in Las Vegas from May 7-10. Approximately 150 Metro chiefs from Canada, China, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States attended the conference and elected the Section’s 2006-2007 officers and board members.
The new officers are Chief William McCammon of the Alameda County, California Fire Department, chair; Chief Robert Ojeda of the San Antonio, Texas Fire Department, vice chair; Chief Keith Richter of the Contra Costa County, California Fire Department, secretary; Chief William Stewart of the Toronto, Ontario Fire Services, treasurer; Chief William “Shorty” Bryson of Miami, Florida Fire Rescue, board member; Chief Michael Smith of the Fairfield, California Fire Department, senior board member; and Chief Bob Hendricks of the Lexington, Kentucky Division of Fire & Emergency Services, alternate board member. Chief Kelvin Cochran of the Shreveport, Louisiana Fire Department is the immediate past chair.
The Metro Chiefs bestowed the following 2006 Metro Awards: Bill Bamattre of the Los Angeles City Fire Department was named Fire Chief of the Year; Herman Brice of the Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue received the Lifetime Achievement Award; and Charles Parent of the New Orleans Fire Department received the Chair’s Award of Distinction.
The Metro Chiefs also passed resolutions expressing unanimous support for the confirmation of R. David Paulison for the position of Under Secretary for Federal Emergency Management at the Department of Homeland Security and for Senior Metro member Warren McDaniels’ nomination for election to the position of chair of the NFPA Board of Directors.
The 2007 Metro conference will be jointly hosted by the Los Angeles City and County Fire Departments. The conference will be May 5-10 at the Los Angeles Sheraton Universal Hotel, Universal City.
The Metropolitan Fire Chiefs (Metro) Section brings together fire chiefs from large metropolitan fire departments to share information and focus on major issues effecting policy changes in the U.S. and abroad. Its members belong to the IAFC and NFPA and are the fire chiefs of jurisdictions with minimum staffing of 400 fully paid career fire fighters. For more information, visit http://www.nfpa.org and look in the member access section or contact Metro Executive Secretary, Russ Sanders at rsanders@nfpa.org.
