Fire Fighting Programs
Lead and direct all hands-on fire fighting programs at the Champaign burn site. This involves creation, curriculum development, maintenance, staffing and delivery of classes that range from 3 days to six weeks, spanning all aspects of firefighting and emergency response training from brand-new candidate firefighters to officers and officer candidates with 25 or more years of experience. Over the past year I have also begun to develop a staff mentoring program, and invest more time in human resource development. http://www.fsi.uiuc.edu/administrative/index.cfm
I am currently the chair of two technical correlation committees for the State of Illinois, seeking to bring our state into compliance with NFPA standards. The two standards development groups I lead are the Fire Fighting (NFPA 1001) and Fire Apparatus Engineer (NFPA 1002). I have also helped to secure and develop training to reach rural fire departments in Illinois and provide them with skills and knowledge to better combat rural and wildland fires.
I work with a staff of 46 full time and 530 part-time instructors and support staff.
Annual Illinois Fire College
Lead and direct the Annual Illinois Fire College. This event is held on the first weekend of June each year and is the oldest continuous fire college in the United States, and the largest state school in the Midwest. We train over 1,000 firefighters from Illinois and the surrounding states with a staff of 200 instructors, leaders, and support staff. http://www.fsi.uiuc.edu/fire_college/
IFSI Champaign Facilities
Oversee the development of the Champaign Training Site. This 27 acre site is used for training emergency responders in all disciplines, from hazardous materials, fire suppression, technical rescue, emergency medical services, and some tactical law enforcement training. My role is to design and oversee construction of new training props and coordinate the placement of props to maximize their use. I also work to oversee maintenance, scheduling, and planning for all aspects of the facility.
Illinois Homeland Security
Oversee the transformation of 19 Illinois Terrorism Task Force training courses to exceed federal Department of Homeland Security standards. Illinois has been ranked third in the nation for terrorism preparedness, and our model and methods for building response teams that are interoperable from the local to regional to state level is unique in the US. This project is reformatting our Illinois classes to meet the DHS guidelines for curriculum design and delivery.
Action-Oriented Research
Collaboration to Prepare, Respond, and Recover (CP2R) NIST grant with eight other disciplines at UIUC. I am one of the co-PIs on this grant which seeks to improve the quality of communication of responders to disasters, both natural and man-made. More about this project is available at http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/05/0301disasterresearch.html. I am also involved in research that focuses on the physiologic effects of heat stress on firefighters and emergency workers, decision making under stress, and physical fitness issues for the fire service.
Additional Background:
Prior to accepting my appointment at IFSI I worked for eight years for a local hospital and trauma center, starting out as an EMT working in the field, and progressing through the organization to gain experience as a Paramedic, Pre-Hospital Registered Nurse, ER Nurse, EMS System Coordinator, and Trauma Nurse Specialist. I was involved in training and education across my time spent in the healthcare field. I completed my Bachelor's Degree in Nursing from the University of Illinois Chicago while working full time as a paramedic. I will be graduating from UIUC in May of 2006 with a Master's Degree in Education, with a focus on Human Resource Development.
I live in rural Urbana, Illinois with my wife, Laurie and our two sons, Mitchell (8) and Matthew (6). My hobbies include spending time with my family, camping, home improvement, volunteering in my community on the fire department as a Captain, helping out our Cub Scout pack (I'm an Eagle Scout), and reading in the slivers of time I have left.