Thompson Talks About Goals for National Academy
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What effect will the leadership of the National Fire Academy’s new superintendent, Dr. B. J. Thompson, have on the direction of the academy’s programs? To find the answer to this question, Dick Sylvia, associate editor of Fire Engineering, interviewed Thompson in his office at the NFA in Emmitsburg, Md. The new superintendent, a doctor of philosophy, comes to the academy with a background as fire chief of Santa Ana, Calif., and most recently as city manager of that city.
Q. What did you see as a challenge in the National Fire Academy that made you want to become superintendent?
A. After spending 25 years of my career in studying the fire service and trying to develop educational and training programs that would better prepare a person to cope with the national or local fire problem, it was a natural thing for me to want to direct the final years of my career into an area where I could maximize what I had learned and observed during my years of work experience. There is a tremendous need for fire fighters to have educational opportunities that for the most part have been omitted from most college curriculums.
Q. Was there any misdirection in the educational program of the National Fire Academy that you will change?
A. Misdirection is kind of an indictment. I don’t feel that there was any misdirection as such. I think any time you identify a new organization and establish goals and a program, it takes a lot of fleshing out to determine exactly what needs to be done.
I think that the fire academy had to go through that in-between stage when it was identifying responsibilities and needs. I would not call it misdirection. I would call it searching, trying to establish an identity, trying to establish a clientele, trying to gain support, trying to gain a structure to identify valuable programs.
I felt I was very fortunate to come in when that extreme had passed. We know what we’re going to do and where we’re going.
Q. What are your priorities for the next year or so?
A. My personal priorities are to develop an innovative curriculum that will help prepare fire fighters to become officers and officers to maximize the utilization of their resources for the protection of their community.
That curriculum development will be put into a five-year plan this year. We will develop basic courses now and build on them through time. We’re also, of course, going to continue the executive development III course because we feel we must keep that level going.
It s hard to decide where you’re going to spend your resources first. The thing we are doing, though, is making certain that we don’t do a scatter-gun approach, but rather see that everything we do is based on a plan that will make it possible to reach our goals quickly and realistically within the resources we have available.
Q. Are you considering, in developing the courses, any intent to fit them into the college credit structure of another college?
A. There are a number of ways that we can address that question. We will have an integrating curriculum, a very comprehensive curriculum, as I see it. The program will be developed in two areas. One will be called fire protection management and the other will be called fire service technology.
The fire protection management program will be broken into three areas of concentration. One will be called emergency incident management, the second will be called fire prevention and loss management, and a third will be called fire service management.
Now as I look at. the fire chief, he really has those three broad scopes of responsibility. There are times when he must manage major incidents of various types and magnitudes. He also has a responsibility to see that fires are prevented in his community and that structures are well designed and have fire protection built into them. The chief’s third responsibility is the management of his department—personnel management, budgeting, the political environment. We will be developing a series of courses to cover these areas of concentration.
Now non-fire service people in related services, such as insurance, design and architecture, may wish to come to the academy and take certain courses in the fire prevention and loss management group.
In that particular area, we’ll have courses in fire prevention we developed this year for fire prevention analysts and fire prevention inspectors. We’ll also have courses this year on building construction. We’re developing one right now called fire-safe building design, a three-day course, and we’ll be expanding on that for those with particular responsibilities for building construction, both from a standpoint of code enforcement and design.
Other courses will include fire detection and protection systems. Students will learn to evaluate designs of systems, such as hydraulically calculated sprinkler systems. If we don’t teach them to design, which we probably don’t need to, we will teach them how to evaluate the systems to see if they are adequate for the structure and occupancy.
I might mention that in each of the areas of concentration, we anticipate having a certificate. We will have a certificate in fire prevention and loss management.
Q. Would this be backed up by course examinations?
A. They’ll have to pass exams. There will be standards and performance requirements for receiving a certificate.
I might mention, also, that by completing the certification in all three areas, students can get a diploma in fire protection management from the National Fire Academy.
In fire service technology, there will be three areas of concentration. One will be fire investigation, a second will be fire instruction, and a third will be basic fire and rescue skills.
Now we don’t plan to do hands-on training on the campus. The idea is to identify the curriculum and develop courses to hand out to state training agencies. In areas where classes are not available for fire fighters—particularly volunteers—we will do all we can to organize resources for delivering courses in their areas. I think this is a major area of concern that hasn’t really been addressed by the academy.
We’re meeting this weekend, as you know, with state training directors to ask them how they feel we can best implement this kind of program so that we can reach out and touch those people who are volunteering their services.
Q. When you talk about making this program available in various areas, are you talking of money to finance the presentation of the program?
A. That’s what we have to address. What’s the best method to use? I would say it might be done in two ways. We could give a state some money to coordinate a program, or we could take the money ourselves and organize the program in the state with state support and cooperation. Either way, there will be state involvement.
If the state has no mechanism for doing it, we could work with the cities in a region to try to get them to help support a program. In all cases, we’ll work through local government, whatever that might be—state or regional.
Q. As far as the open learning university program is concerned, what type of development do you see for it in the future?
A. We have the open learning university program right now, which is really in its infancy, in which students enroll for a fire administration course in one of a half dozen colleges. It’s a program that you might call a correspondence-type program. However, it’s a very intensive program.
We want to have all our programs very credible so that anybody who looks at the certificates or credentials of any type will say, “Well, if you got it from the National Fire Academy, we know that it’s quality and we accept and recognize your effort.”
Q. In accepting students for the academy itself, how do you judge the applicants and do you consider whether they are paid or volunteer?
A. I personally am not differentiating between paid and volunteer. I consider both of them to be professional.
My concern is that a person who is enrolled in a course (1) has sufficient background to absorb the material and gain from it and (2) can apply what he learns.
The problem is that we are limited, in the beginning, as to what we can do, and our urgent desire is to maximize the impact on a nation that has a fire problem. So if there’s a person who can take what we offer and apply it 40 hours a week in an environment where there’s an intense arson problem as compared to a person who is doing arson investigation on a part-time basis in a relatively low arson incidence area, we’d better spend the money where we’ll make the greatest impact.
Q. Have you had any information back from the field as to whether the arson courses the academy has been giving have had an immediate effect?
A. I can’t say that we have. I can say this: From my experience as a fire chief, I believe that where fires are well investigated and there is cooperation with the judges and D.A.’s, people are going to leave you alone because they know that if they set a fire in your city, there’s a lot better chance they’re going to get nailed than in a city two or three doors down the road.
As a local fire chief, I felt I had a very effective program. I’m one of those who believe fire investigations should be under the fire chief because it seemed evident to me years ago that the police department has a greater concern for other crimes than they have for arson. There’s a better chance that they can catch the rapist or murderer than the arsonist. They have to look at their productivity and their impact on the reduction of community crimes. A police chief is going to use his resources to reduce the maximum amount of crime he can, and that’s not arson.
On the other hand, you put that in the fire department and that’s the chief’s No. 1 problem. So he’s going to concentrate on arson to show crime reduction. He tries to show fire reduction, and one of the best ways he can do this is by reducing arson.
Q. Are you in favor of an integrated police and fire arson squad under the fire chief?
A. Only if the police chief is willing to allow his personnel the time necessary to do the gumshoe work. Otherwise, I’d say go ahead and make the fire department people peace officers and give them the rest of the authority.
Where I came from, I had three investigators who carried guns, and they needed to carry guns. In that area, it was rough. They were, in all effects, police officers, but they came through the fire ranks. They were fire-trained. They were experts in fire detection, and they were experts in fire investigation and the preparation of cases.
I feel that the task force is an essential and valuable approach. We need the coordination. I guess I’m saying that I feel that the ball needs to stay in the fire department’s court. That’s where you find the greatest interest and dedication.
Q. Gordon Vickery (administrator of the United States Fire Administration) was saying a while ago that there was going to be some emphasis on emergency medical systems at the fire academy. What have you done on that so far? What are your plans?
A. We’ve identified the curriculum and course content. Such things as rescue practices—heavy rescue, that type of thing—we’ve planned.
What we haven’t dealt with is the paramedic level. We will not, in my vision, be involved in that kind of training for many reasons. For one, it’s intensive training that requires a hospital resource.
We intend to offer an EMS management course, but it is not our intention to offer an EMT-1 course. However, I want to keep my options open on this. If we got a lot of pressure to put on an EMT-1 course, we might do it.
Q. Would you actually train people or would you provide a course curriculum for them?
A. I anticipate, depending on the need, offering that on the campus. I believe there are areas that have serious problems in receiving that kind of training. We do not intend to offer the program where it is available. Like all other programs, our desire is to provide what’s not been provided and coordinate it so that everyone possible can receive the training.
We recognize that in most areas, the fire service is becoming an emergency service rather than a fire department. Someday you may see the community change the title from fire department to department of emergency service.
Q. So far, the academy programs have been directed mostly toward the classroom. Are you planning to do any work that would perhaps evaluate different fire fighting techniques under different circumstances?
A. The academy is a delivery agent for disseminating knowledge, but we’re not an agent for gaining that knowledge. Other parts of the U.S. Fire Administration, however, are. What we learn from national data collection, we hope to be able to formulate into courses.
In the very near future, there will be research into the manning of an engine company. Is it six persons, is it five persons, or four or three persons? What is that magic number and under what conditions is it the right number? So that’s an area that will be approached, and we have some money, if I understand correctly, assigned for that purpose.
Q. Have the completed master plans for training and education been of any real value to the academy?
A. Considering that the academy is very much a neophite in delivering programs and evaluating their impact, I don’t feel that I can honestly say one way or the other. Secondly, I’ve only been here four weeks myself. My energy has been directed to getting the ship on course and immediately getting involved in a five-year plan of our own. There’s no way I’d be able to assess how well the states are doing with their five-year plans.
Q. Were their plans of any help to the academy?
A. At this point, state plans have not been a help to the academy. But I think the logical answer to your question is that this weekend we’re meeting with the state training directors and we’re going to consider these types of issues. Perhaps if you ask that question a year from now, I’ll say yes or no. I’ll have a better feel for it at least.
Q. How are you going to allocate your resources to assist fire fighters in thinly populated states where the number that will participate in outreach and open university programs may be rather small?
A. You must recognize that we have to report to Congress that we’ve trained so many people. When we look at our data to find out where the fire loss is, we find that our fire loss is not, dollarwise, in those sparsely populated areas, and the mass numbers of fire deaths are not in those areas. You must realize that we have to concentrate our dollars where the biggest problem lies.
At the same time, we feel a moral responsibility for the fire fighter in some small area of Wyoming or Montana who is just as vulnerable to injury as anyone else and you ask yourself, “What can we do for these people, too?” That’s a question we’re going to try and address this weekend.
Q. About two or three years ago, state fire training directors voiced criticism of the academy because they felt it was infringing on their territory by presenting courses that had, as an end result, the training of the student himself. Then there was some feeling that the academy should concentrate more on the train-the-trainer type of course. What is your direction for academy courses?
A. It seems to me that it’s very difficult to concentrate only on training the trainer because there’re all too few people who have responsibility only in training. On the other hand, every chief has responsibility for training. Every battalion chief has responsibility for training. Every captain has responsibility for training. To me, everyone who comes here with a supervisory responsibility is a trainer.
Even most of those who are not officers and come here for a course in educational methodology or public fire education aspire to be officers. They are selected to come here because they have the basic tools, skills and individual drive to become officers, so when we train these people, we’re training the trainers.
They’re going to go back and they’re going to be training others. It might be just in a bull session around the table. It might just be a comment on the academy stating, “If you go there, you’re going to learn a lot.” That’s training in one dimension.
I believe there will be some programs designed here that will use the train-the-trainer methodology. At the same time, we’ll have end-user aspects also.
I might say that one of the hard things to do with fire fighters is to make them end-users of fire prevention. How many of them have fire extinguishers in their cars? How many of them have fire extinguishers in their homes? How many of them have smoke detectors? We haven’t trained them as end-users.
Q. Do you feel that the academy courses in administration will be specifically different from courses covering some of the same subjects in a school of business administration?
A. There’ll be various management courses that will have some of the same ingredients that you have in management courses at a university—personnel relations, budgeting, planning. There will be certain ingredients that very well may be taken at universities.
One of the differences is that the fire service has some unique characteristics. We have some structural characteristics that you don’t find in other organizations. We may provide the same information that students get in another educational institution, but we can relate it to the fire service. Also, academy students will be working with other fire officers and they can find out what these theories and philosophies have meant in coping with problems in different communities.
I believe that if a person has an opportunity to go to a local university and take a couple of courses in public administration or public finance, he would be well advised to do so, by all means.
We are not trying to substitute the academy for a university education. We can’t begin to. What we are trying to do is to provide a basic understanding of some of the managerial philosophies, a basic understanding of good organization, a basic understanding of personnel relations so that academy students can cope with the society with which they’re involved.
Let’s say they have a master’s degree in public administration. I believe that they can come here in this environment and still learn more.
Q. Is there anything in particular you would like to add?
A. I think I might mention that the administration of the fire academy recognizes that we are in an infancy stage. We recognize that there are going to be emerging needs that we don’t now envision.
There are going to be upheavals, I believe, in the fire service. I doubt if we really know what’s going to be happening in the fire service during the next five or ten years, but I can see some tremendous changes on the horizon.
The point is that we’re going to develop a curriculum. We’re going to develop a five-year plan that two years from now may not be our cake, and we’re going to have to be adaptive and modify it. My concern is that many of us like to see a curriculum or a program all outlined and defined— and that’s it. But if we do that, the academy is not fulfilling its role. So we are going to be a viable change agent.
Q. It’s good to hear that as your basic philosophy, because the academy will have to be responsive to the fire service needs to be really useful.
A. We will put together a five-year plan as best we can. By next year there will probably be a new five-year plan.
Q. This bothers me when you hear fire people say we must have standardization throughout the country. They’re quite sure you make much progress from total standardization. You have to have someone somewhere who says, “No, let’s try it this way,” and then you evaluate it.
A. I look back in my thinking to some of the philosophies expounded during the foundation of this nation. One of the statements was that it’s like having 13 or 48 or now 50 laboratories where you can do research, and that’s how I look at it at the fire academy. Right now, we have 50 laboratories out there that are doing research and training and education. That’s a resource that we’re not going to overlook. Then, within those laboratories, there are rooms, some of them are pretty large rooms, like New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, that are doing research, developing programs and training, reviewing and analyzing. We hope to be able to take advantage of their findings and transfer them to others.
Q. There’s a great advantage in that. As long as you keep flexible here, you can make use of those capabilities in states and cities.
A. We’ll keep flexible, but we’re going to have a backbone.
