Did the economy have an impact on the number or type of new apparatus displayed at FDIC last week? It would seem so, as several of the apparatus manufacturers I spoke with mentioned the word “value” in talking about their new products.

“What we want to do is give our customers more value for the same price,” said Gary DeCosse, president of Road Rescue ambulances about recent redesigns. “We started at the wheels and worked our way up and there are more than 40 new changes to the product line.”

These changes include reflective chevrons on the inside back of the ambulance doors and in the door jams for maximum visibility when open.

Crimson Fire introduced its Legend™ Series of entry-level fire apparatus, which offers a modular design and up to nine configurations. According to Dave Versteeg, director of engineering, the Legend has a stainless sub-frame — no carbon steel on the body — for consistent quality.

Rosenbauer’s T-Rex articulating platform took pride of place skyward on the north side of the stadium. The T-Rex is a combination telescopic and articulating boom and is fully NFPA compliant as either an aerial platform or a quint. The T-Rex has a mid-ship pump, 300-gallon water tank, hose storage bed and 115 feet of ground ladders.

Also on display in Rosenbauer’s booth was nifty software that allows you to design your own fire truck. Users can select colors, chassis, bodies and striping, and request the specs and even a bid from a dealer.

Nearby, I saw one of the hottest ARFF trucks that I have ever seen here or in Europe — KME’s Force 1500. The 4×4 ARFF unit holds 1,500 gallons of water and 200 gallons of foam and has a sleek, glass-reinforced polyester body produced by Plastisol USA. The front of the Force 1500 has wrap-around cab visibility and exceeds NFPA 414 field-of-vision requirements.

Horton Emergency Vehicles introduced the first ambulance equipped with HOPS, the Horton Occupant Protection System. HOPS is a collision system developed by IMMI and offers two types of airbags, deployed in a side-impact rollover.

Pierce Mfg. never lets the crowds down at FDIC and this year had several surprises. Pierce’s President Wilson Jones proudly announced that among their dealer network, they have 70 service locations and more than 400 certified emergency vehicle technicians. “This group can take care of the products they sell,” said Jones.

Pierce unveiled a new 100-foot aluminum platform with an aluminum basket, with a 1000-pound pay load capacity, that extends 11.5° below grade and up to 235° rotation. In addition, Pierce showed an all-new Responder pumper, part of the economical Contender series, and an exclusive partnership between Pierce and Detroit Diesel to supply the new Detroit DD13 engine for 2010, which replaces the Series 60.

Finally, during an International reception, Navistar’s Vice President of Sales Jim Hebe, went on record to dispel rumors and said, “I’m damn sure I’m not going to stand up here and announce we’re going to get in the fire truck business. We are in the fire apparatus business big time, but I would have to say we’re in as far as we’d like to go,” referencing International’s DuraStar and WorkStar fire trucks and emergency vehicles.

Value is a good word to describe manufacturers’ response to the economy. Value is also a buyers’ market.

Last week, I attended my first FDIC in Indianapolis. It was refreshing to attend a conference where most of the buzz was about charitable donations provided to nonprofits dedicated to helping firefighters and their families.

For example, Pierce held a press conference at the Lucas Oil Field to announce a $100,000 donation as well as an additional $25,000 donation from Oshkosh Foundation to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, a nonprofit organization honoring the memory of all firefighters who die in the line of duty. In addition, Sperian decided to take the funds that would have been spent on FDIC marketing and booth materials — about $100,000 — and donate it to the NFFF and the Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation — the largest charitable donation in company’s fire history. The donation will be given in the name of firefighters, and the company invites all to sign it online through June 30.

Then I met Brian Farrrell, a silver-haired Irishman who is the founder of the Terry Farrell Firefighters Fund established in memory of his brother, a decorated member of the New York Fire Department’s Rescue 4 and chief of the Dix Hills (N.Y.) Volunteer Fire Department. Terry, along with 342 other firefighters, perished on Sept. 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center attack. The organization honors these modern-day heroes by donating unused firefighting equipment to underfunded fire stations and providing scholarships and additional services to the children and families of active, retired and fallen firefighters across the nation.

The foundation focuses on “living firefighters and getting them the gear they need,” Farrell said.

To raise money, the fund collaborated again this year with Beam Global Spirits & Wine, the producers of Jim Beam Bourbon. The company developed a specialty bottle of Jim Beam to raise awareness for the nonprofit organization, which supports firefighters and their families with educational, medical and equipment needs. It will distribute more than 36,000 cases of Jim Beam bottles with the specialty label — representing a six-fold increase in cases from the previous year — to raise money for the fund. A percentage is donated to the fund. To date, the company already has raised a total of $100,000 for the fund and aims to double that amount this year with an expanded program throughout the United States. One bottle auctioned at the FDIC show brought in $500 for the fund, Farrell said.

The fund is just one example of how firefighting is more than just a career. It’s a commitment to others who serve the public and put their lives on the line to keep citizens safe. It’s about family and taking care of each other. And I feel honored to cover and industry that makes it a priority to give back to our nation’s first responders.

I don’t get angry very often, but my blood pressure spiked earlier this week. American City and County reported the release of “Assessing State Firefighter Cancer Presumption Laws and Current Firefighter Cancer Research,” a study commissioned by the National League of Cities and compiled by TriData Division. The study found no correlation between firefighters and cancer, said the report.

NLC’s press release on the report reads, “There is no substantial scientific evidence that firefighters suffer higher cancer rates than the general population,” and calls into question the “presumption laws” passed in 24 states that allow firefighters with cancer to collect workers’ compensation without proving that they contracted the disease as a result of their job.”

Over the past 30 years, TriData has produced excellent reports based on careful research — including a review of the Navy’s emergency services and Chicago Fire Department high-rise operations — and FIRE CHIEF has published their results.

TriData President Phil Schaenman was unavailable to comment on the findings, but I spoke with Patricia Frazier, director on the NLC report. She seemed frustrated that people focused on the press release or executive statement without reading the full report.

I forwarded the report to Bruce Evans, FIRE CHIEF’s EMS columnist and EMS chief for North Las Vegas. “Everybody responded to the press release and not reading the entire report,” said Evans. The IAFC and the IAFF are preparing a statement to refute the report.

While Evans said there is some validity in the report, he feels there are two or three faults in the study, including the fact that the report only reviewed data compiled in since 1996.

“In the last 10 years, all the research has been done by the drug companies and based on treatment assessments,” Evans said. “The best firefighter cancer study was done in 1988, compiled when a lot of funding was going on in actual universities that study cancer, especially by groups to the benefit of the study.”

Evans said the interesting part of the report were the charts at the end where cancers are broken down into high-, moderate-, low and no-probability in relation to firefighting. Evans was surprised that the report stated that Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had strong-probability link to firefighting; larynx cancer did, too, but gastrointestinal cancer did not. Testicular cancer was highly probable, but prostrate cancer was not.

Evans also added that the report’s premise is that one of two people will get cancer in their lifetime, and that’s no different for firefighters. “However, the biggest block of those people who will get cancer are in their 60s, 70s and 80s,” said Evans. “It’s not the younger population of people.”

Over the past several years, the Assistance to Firefighters Grants funded studies of cancer in firefighters, with significant results. Something doesn’t make sense, and I’m currently awaiting further discussions with TriData.

Until then, get a copy of the book “The Pandora Prescription,” by James Sheridan, a novel about pharmaceutical companies and a medical cover-up. It’s fiction — or so he says.

My family moved when I was in the third grade — and I was devastated. The thought of leaving all of my friends was crushing. Though we were only moving seven miles, it might as well have been to the other side of the planet. I was dead set against it — which only goes to prove that 8-year-olds shouldn’t be allowed to make major decisions.

As things turned out, the move was the best thing that ever happened to me. I made new friends — such good friends that we still get together on a regular basis more than four decades later. The house my parents bought was a block from a giant park, a special place in which I spent most of the next 15 years. In fact, I visit the old neighborhood regularly, if only to buy pizzas from two sisters whose father regularly sold pies to my parents 40 years ago.

I was brought back in time by something said by Jim Vlassopoulos, the deputy chief of Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS, during yesterday’s National Conference on Emergency Communications in Chicago, which is being presented by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Emergency Communications (OEC). Vlassopoulos told the roughly 400 attendees that they needed to “get outside the sandbox,” and advised that “local fiefdoms” — which have plagued the effort to achieve interoperable communications for years — should be avoided in the future because they make it difficult to institute change.

These are concepts that many, if not most, people find uncomfortable. It’s scary outside the sandbox. Change is frightening. Few things are as terrifying as the unknown, which is the first place that change takes us. But as the old saying goes, if you do what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you always got. The worst reason to do anything is because that’s the way it’s always been done.

OEC Director Chris Essid apparently agrees with this notion, saying yesterday that the status quo in public-safety communications needs to change if the goals of the National Emergency Communications Plan — which was mandated by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 — are to be met.

From my perch, change is a friend, not a foe. It is something to be embraced, not shunned. It’s what keeps us moving forward. And, as I discovered a long time ago, when you finally muster the courage to crawl out onto the limb, you sometimes discover the best pizza in the world. Or, as Chicago Fire Department Commander Len Edling said yesterday in his closing remarks, sometimes you discover someone who already has the wheel you’re trying to invent.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

Prompted several years ago by the high number of annual firefighter deaths from preventable causes, the International Association of Fire Chiefs and International Association of Fire Fighters called on the American fire service to conduct a “Safety Stand Down.” The stand down was patterned after U.S. military stand downs: a cessation of all daily activity by operational units, except for mission-critical activities, to focus everyone’s energies and efforts on reviewing operational practices and plans to identify and remediate causes of accidents.

Military safety stand downs typically are prompted by clusters of similar types of accidents in a short period of time involving a specific population or operation. For example, the U.S. Navy ordered a safety stand down in response to several crashes of aircraft during training missions in a short period of time. The original fire service safety stand down was an idea in that same vein: we’ve got serious issues that are leading to unacceptable firefighter deaths and we need to get everyone to stop what they are doing for a short period of time and really focus on solving the problems.

So why do we need a safety week? For years we’ve been saying that our fire prevention activities need to happen 24/7/365, not just during one week in October. So why are we now compartmentalizing firefighter safety to one week a year? We still have the same unacceptable deaths and they’re still happening from the same preventable causes. Shouldn’t safety be a 24/7/365 proposition?

For many years, the American manufacturing industry had quality-assurance or quality-control departments with inspectors who examined finished products. If they approved the product it went out to be sold; if they failed the product, it went into the trash heap. The worker who made the inferior product or who operated the machine that produced the product never knew that they had produced a product that left the plant in a Dumpster. They kept making the same defective product and the inspector kept rejecting it, until a problem became so widespread that it resulted in decreased sales or bad PR for the company.

An alternative was to ship the product and let its quality problems become someone else’s headache. At one time it was acceptable for a new car manufactured by GM to leave the plant with 13 quality defects; the dealerships were expected to deal with the after-market defects.

The Japanese automobile industry took a different tack when its leaders embraced the teachings of Dr. Edward Deming in an effort to change the world’s perception that products produced in Japan were cheap or shoddy. Their efforts, later embraced by the Japanese electronics manufacturing industry, focused on making quality everyone’s business. Their plants didn’t have quality inspectors or quality assurance departments; instead they initiated quality circles of employees who were involved in the product production. Those quality circles examined all of their processes looking for ways to remove barriers to producing a quality product every time and took responsibility for indentifying defects and fixing them before they left the factory.

We in the American Fire Service need to figure out how change our organizational culture so that safety is not an activity, but a way of doing business every day, every week, and every year. We don’t need a safety week or a safety stand down to make that happen. We need quality circles looking at every process that has an impact on safety. We need leadership at all levels of our organizations who don’t just talk about firefighter deaths being unacceptable, but work diligently to identify and eradicate safety deficiencies in their organization today. More importantly, however, we do need leaders who focus everyone’s efforts on changing our culture so that tomorrow’s firefighters never know how to do the job any differently.

When do you take the first serious step toward a building project? Is it when you reach for a blank piece of paper to list needs versus wants or sketch the floor plan? Is it when you pick up the phone to call the banker or the architect? Whatever the step, now might be the time to take it.

Suppliers are reducing the costs of labor and materials because of the fledgling economy, and with stimulus funds dedicated to fire station construction, taking steps to become shovel ready may prove economical in the long run.

At last year’s Station Style Conference in Phoenix, architect/presenters surveyed attendees on their top concerns for an incident-command approach to station design. Budget, funding versus need, and planning for future growth topped the list, which also included continuing operations during demolition and reconstruction.

But before you begin your next project, be aware of emerging trends:

Station lifespan. Many agencies are building temporary (10- to 20-year) structures instead of longer-term (over 30 years) structures, according to Mary McGrath, AIA, Beverly Prior Architects.

Cleaner stations. Designers are incorporating safe zones to limit exposure to contaminated turnout gear and other infection-control methods.

Greener stations. Recycled grey water, solar panels, geothermal pumps and smart-building technology can save money in the long run if designed into new construction.

It’s also important to be aware of NFPA standards that relate to fire station construction, as well as HIPA, ADA, OSHA and FEMA codes.

Is trial-and-error the best way to build your next station? The 2009 Station Style Conference will offer attendees the opportunity to spend time with design professionals experienced fire department personnel one on one. Come learn and network with the top resources in the country.

Do public employees have the right to speak out about station closings or staffing changes without the fear of retribution or even demotion?

Like many communities, Franklin Park, Ill., is facing budget cuts. One area that was affected was the fire department pension program. When a captain brought the issue to local officials — and subsequently the press — he was demoted.

The fire department decided to push back at election time. A fire department ally ran for office and — with the efforts by local firefighters — defeated the mayor last week in a three-candidate race.

“We in the fire service are just now starting to realize the power we have when it comes to politics,” one officer from the department e-mailed me. “We all know that we will still have to endure the threats, passed over promotions and unfair treatment — but as they say, ‘the times they are a changing.’”

Franklin Park firefighters are just part of an overall move to get fire departments more involved in local politics. Congressional Fire Services Institute’s annual seminars features a legislative panel, “New Beginnings … New Opportunities,” that encouraged fire departments and emergency service organizations to work together to address a broad range of issues that benefit emergency response personnel. This move is a continuation of the “one voice” called for by former USFA Administrator Dave Paulison in 2001.

“You should call the office and identify the person best suited in the fire service area, so ask for the staff member who deals with Homeland Security and get his e-mail address,” said panelist Allison Moore, the government relations associate for the National Volunteer Fire Council.

Moore offered several other suggestions on how to communicate with government leaders:

• Send both e-mails and hard copy. “We send an email, then follow with a hard copy, often by fax to save time.” Postal security in Washington, D.C., can delay mail.
  
• Make an appointment. Don’t just stop in to an office.
  
• Stay in touch once you have made a connection, stay in touch.
  
• Send a thank-you note. “Legislators are human,” said Moore.
  
• Take advantage of photo ops. “If you invite your legislators to the fire department or an event, take photos with firefighters,” she said. “They love these photos for their Web sites.”
  
• Maintain credibility. “Don’t lie,” Moore said. “If you don’t know something about a particular issue, don’t make it up, but get back to them. It’s better to admit you don’t know.”
  

To help the fire service present concerns with a unified voice the IAFC, NVFC and International Association of Fire Fighters each offer a hot sheet of national efforts. “Make sure your talking points are in line with national efforts,” said Ken LaSala, director of government relations for the International Association of Fire Chiefs. “And offer anecdotes for your talking points.”

LaSala said that chiefs and officers should not be disappointed if they have to meet with congressional staffers instead of congressional leaders. “The staff is who put together the funding request, call the federal agencies and call on national fire organizations for details,” he said.

The first session of the 111th Congress includes many new senators and representatives who need to be brought up to speed on the needs of the nation’s fire and emergency services. If you don’t have a contact in your congressional leader’s local or Washington office, make that call. Visit www.senate.gov and www.house.gov to find your representatives.

Jim Anderson is a friend of mine who owns a strange little bar in Tucson, Ariz. Jim is a man in his 60s who’s spent his adult life creating a cult of personality around his personality. One of the most important things to Jim is being seen and recognized. His bar is, for all practical purposes, a shrine to him. The walls are plastered with photographs and paintings of Jim, he wears jewelry made into his image, he has a tattoo of his face on his arm, and all of his employees and many of his customers wear shirts with — you guessed it — a picture of Jim.

Jim’s is not one of those faces that blends into the crowd. His bronze, round head is shaved clean save for the long, white mustache, which he waxes and curls.

Jim once told me his goal was to make people stop thinking about themselves, even if for only a few seconds, and think about him.

Despite that it seems his sole reason to live is self-promotion, no person is one-dimensional. I’ve known Jim for more than 10 years and spend as much time with him as possible when I’m in Tucson. The other side to Jim is that he never calls attention to his good deeds. He never brings up how he hires homeless guys to clean his parking lot, or throws money on the ground in public places, or buyout the flower vendor’s supply of roses to hand out to ladies at his bar. He does these things and more whether his business is doing well or doing poorly and never seeks acknowledgment, credit or praise.

I thought about Jim late last month as I ran in a five-mile race here in Chicago. The weather in Chicago can be foul. And it always seems to be foul for the annual Shamrock Shuffle through the city’s downtown area. This year it was exceptionally foul with driving winds, snow and a good inch of slushy water on the roadways. It was a much better day to stay home than to run five miles.

But I had something to prove to myself. I had to prove that I could do it in those conditions in my turnout gear (pants, coat, gloves and helmet). I’m reasonably fit for my age and others, such as the chief from Georgia who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and the firefighter from Illinois who ran the Chicago Marathon both in full turnout gear with SCBA, have achieved more. Five miles seemed doable.

I learned a few things along the way.

The first thing I learned is that running in that gear is hard. In fact, I have an easier time running twice the distance in regular exercise clothes.

More importantly, I learned that when people see you at an event like that in something as recognizable as turnouts, they stop thinking about themselves and think about you — even if it is for a few seconds. During the run, countless runners and spectators shouted encouragements, praise and thanks to me. The praise and “thanks for what you do” comments left me uncomfortable because they are unearned. As a probationary volunteer firefighter, I’ve not yet been cleared to do anything other than training and go on standby during a call. OK, I did once save a headless baby doll during search-and-rescue training.

I also learned that by wearing that gear I represented something larger than just a 45-year-old guy out for a run, and because of that, I couldn’t quit. Failure was not an option.

That much attention also made me think of a dilemma fire chiefs face. A positive public opinion of firefighting is crucial to the success of fire departments. It plays directly into tangibles such as funding levels and fire code adoption. And a key component to positive public opinion is firefighter humility. Being highly visible in the community and being humble can be at odds with one another. Several chiefs have told me they sometimes wish we could return to a time prior to Sept. 11, a time when firefighters were less glorified and more humble.

We can’t go back to when the Twin Towers still stood and Rescue Me was unscripted. But fire chiefs can manage public opinion by setting the tone in their departments to strike the right balance between visibility and humility.

Last week in Washington, D.C., I was involved in a series of meetings an alphabet soup of organizations: CFSI, IAFCF, CVVFA, NAC, FDSOA, NFA. I also encountered members from dozens of other associations — IAFF, NVFC, VCOS, IAFC, IAAI, NASFM — during receptions and networking opportunities. The last list of emergency service acronyms I saw included more than 240, which can be overwhelming to newcomers.

Here’s a look at some of these organizations and the goals they set out during the Congressional Fire Services Institute’s annual seminars and dinner.

USFS. According to Tom Harbour, director of fire and aviation management for the U.S. Forest Service, more than 90% of the wildland acres that are burned on federal sites resulted from fires that were not controlled on the initial attack. He also pointed out that there continues to be a problem with “residual” homes in wildland areas — homes with cedar shake roofs, natural wood designed to fit into the environment and not covered by new standards and codes.

IAFCF. The International Association of Fire Chiefs Foundation held its semi-annual board of directors meeting and introduced a simplified application form for scholarships in 2009. Previous scholarship winners include National Fire Academy Superintendent Denis Onieal and immediate past president of the IAFC, Steve Westerman. The foundation awarded 10 volunteers and 19 career firefighters and officers scholarships in 2008. The deadline for 2009 scholarship applications is June 1.

CVVFA. The Cumberland Valley Volunteer Firemen’s Associations created the Responder Safety Institute to help reduce firefighter fatalities and injuries on the roadways. Steve Austin and Jon Jones discussed the institute’s efforts, as well as the congressional mandate to protect public-safety and construction workers on roadways. Austin introduced the new Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which explains the new Federal Highway Administration standard.

“Nothing trumps firefighter safety,” said Austin. “Even the immediacy of emergency medical services on scene does not trump firefighter safety.”

FDSOA. During the Fire Department Safety Officers Association’s board of directors meeting, Onieal discussed the NFA’s partnership with state fire marshals for fire-prevention classes at the state level, the academy’s strategic plan and its heavy emphasis on health and safety, and 50 new courses that are in development.

“Emergency Medical Services is now on the NFA’s menu,” Onieal said. “We have invited leaders of EMS to lay out the next five to seven years of course work. We’re not teaching intubation, we’re focused on higher end EMS education.”

USFA. Chief Glenn Gaines, the new deputy director of the U.S. Fire Administration, spoke of his focus on firefighter safety during the CFSI’s National Advisory Committee meeting, citing the 114 firefighter fatalities and 70,000 firefighter injuries last year. “I want grandfathers to enjoy their grandchildren,” said Gaines. “I want to partner with everyone.”

Gaines has committed to a real-time National Fire Incident Reporting System within 18 months. “I don’t want fire chiefs to wait for the reports of what’s going on in the next community,” he said.

In spite of budget cuts and a dodgy economy, attendees showed energy and optimism. With plans for online training, back-to-basics training and innovative public education, and Gaines self-proclaimed “relentless persistence,” the meetings showed me that the fire service is in good hands.

The economy may be down, but the attendance at the Congressional Fire Services Institute’s 21st Annual National Fire and Emergency Services seminar and dinner was impressive. Chief Dennis Rubin, D.C. Fire and EMS Department, opened the evening and introduced the presentation of the colors by Westwood Volunteer Fire Department and the City of Hackensack Fire Department Honor Guard. Former Chief Jerry Naylis, Bergenfield Fire Department, sang the National Anthem before turning the program to this year master of ceremonies, Chief Dennis Compton.

The evening had a party atmosphere with the appearance of Vice President Joe Biden. Biden received a standing ovation when he returned to be with his old friends at the CFSI dinner last night. A devoted friend of Delaware firefighters and former co-chairman of the Fire Caucus, Biden regularly had attended the annual dinner and didn’t let his new duties keep him from speaking this year.

Biden acknowledged two old friends of the CFSI. Hal Bruno, the CFSI dinner’s master of ceremonies for many years, was ailing and could not attend. “Hal felt as deeply about firefighters as we did about him,” Biden said. He also asked the attendees to remember former Sen. Paul Sarbanes whose wife died this week. “Friends are those you can count on when you need them most.”

Biden spoke of the efforts to protect firefighters with better equipment and more training. The Obama administration understands the needs of the fire and emergency services, he said. “We have to do everything we can to save your lives. You are the bravest defenders we have,” Biden said. “When you have more of what you need, our communities are stronger. When you are safe, we are all safer.”

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the newly named chairman of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus who also is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, reiterated what Biden said. “You need the tools and you need the technology because the job requires so much of you,” King said.

For the first time in the 21-year history of the dinner, the CFSI Legislator of the Year was awarded posthumously to former Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) — who died last summer of a brain aneurysm — for her work in fire prevention. In announcing the award, Kevin O’Connor, assistant to the general president of the International Association of Firefighters, said of Tubbs-Jones, “Her true passion was children and kids and trying to make campuses and colleges more safe.” The former congresswoman’s sister, Barbara Walker, accepted the award and said, “Stephanie was a true champion of the fire service. We have lost a giant supporter of the fire service.”

Bill Jenaway, president of the CFSI board of directors, told the attendees that with changes in members of the new 111th Congress, the Fire Caucus needs new members and encouraged the audience to get in touch with their congressional leaders and encourage them to join the caucus.

Among other awards presented at the dinner, the CFSI/Motorola Mason Lankford Fire Service Leadership Award was presented to Steve Edwards, director of the Maryland Fire Rescue Institute. (An interview with Edwards will appear in the April issue of Fire Chief). The Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes Fire Service Safety Leadership Award was presented to the International Association of Fire Chiefs for its Near-Miss Reporting System and to the Common Voices Coalition for its efforts in burn treatment advocacy. Pat Mieszala, R.N. and the president of Burn Concerns, was awarded the Dr. Anne W. Phillips Award for leadership in fire safety education.

The evening ended with a special performance by the comedy group, Capitol Steps, sponsored by the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association and the Fire & Emergency Manufacturers Services Association’s Government Affairs Committee.

Next year’s CFSI Annual National Fire and Emergency Services Seminar and Dinner will be held on April 28–29, 2010.