Fire Code Tech

Christina Francis is the Technical Director of Global Fire Protection at Procter & Gamble. In this episode of Fire Code Tech, we get into some incredible technology and smart life safety systems while also discussing Christina's career. Tune in for discussion on fire suppression and the future of data-driven decisions in fire protection. 

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the.

You're in the right place. Welcome to episode 22 of fire code tech. In this episode of fire code tech, we have Christina Francis. Christina is a fire protection engineer at Proctor and gamble. In this episode of fire code tech, we talk about a bunch of really neat and. Popular topics in the industry like storage, um, internet of things and smart fire suppression and fire alarm devices.

Also, we get into Christina's fascinating career and the global impact that she has had. As her time as a fire protection engineer, if you're a fan of fire, suppression and technology, I think you're gonna love this episode. Christina talks about some integration with fire suppression and data, and the new way that technology has been able to integrate and make smart decisions with data.

And if you have interest with where the future of fire suppression is headed, I think you're gonna love this. Don't forget to follow us on social media and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. So you miss an episode. Let's dive into the show. Well, hello, Christina, thank you for coming on the show.

Thank you. It's my pleasure. Awesome. So I just wanted to get started with a little bit about, um, your career and how you got into, uh, fire and life safety. If you wouldn't mind giving the viewers a little bit about. Yeah, perfect. So I actually, um, have a bachelor's of mechanical engineering and my first job outta school was with Becktel and the first, um, day of work at Becktel ever at the Savannah river site, I ended up, um, In a room with three people and one person wa they said, one person was gonna go to this group.

One person was gonna go to this group. And then to me, they said, you're gonna go to our sprinkler group. I said, okay, didn't really know anything about that. Um, but that is my great story of how I started in this wonderful industry. Yes. Um, I joke of maybe that was pre-planned maybe it was just the arrangement of how we I'm sure it was pre-planned but, um, no.

So I started at Beall doing, um, at the Savannah river site and did, um, design and layout a sprinkler pipe. We were retrofitting a bunch of DOE facilities for, um, Sprinkler pipe. So I started actually in the field doing design learning, CAD, doing, you know, plugin, chugging calculations, that type of type of work.

And it was great. And went on from there still stayed in piping, left the sprinkler world for a little while, went on to do some, um, construction engineering, um, still all with Beal. And then after that, um, went on to. Property insurance. So with IRI, which industrial risk insurers and did that for a few years also.

So did that whole lo insurance loss prevention. I think that kind of hooked me that I was pretty much gonna be staying in this industry for, for, you know, as long as I could. And from that, I then jumped into the corporate risk management job or role, and I, um, Now I for the past. 22 years, I've been managing, um, the global fire protection program for Proctor and gamble.

We see all types of, um, I would say our, the fire protection world looks a little different, but everything that I learned in the past applies to what I do today. That's awesome. It's good to hear about your, uh, background and, you know, uh, you speak about, um, your time and. More on the installation side or closer to the installation side of things and, uh, how that experience I'm sure.

Is still, uh, impacts, um, maybe in some small way, how you, how you look at fire protection systems today. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we, I was, you know, walking around and looking up a lot, you know, where's the best place to put the pipe or to hang it. I had some fantastic mentors, um, at the time too, of. I learned very on that, just cuz you know yeah.

You could route the pipe there, but is that the best place, most cost effective place, you know, are you still gonna get all the, um, you know, what about the calculation part of it? Is it gonna, is that the most best route for the water? You know, so actually we, we didn't, we didn't just do it with drawings.

We actually had to go out in the field and, and lay everything out, like literally pipe by pipe and. You know, in our office, we, if there was a design change, the field would always during construction, the field would call and say, you know, this can't work because, you know, give their reason. And then whoever did the design had to go out to go, um, figure out why.

And. Then, you know, write up a change on your drawing as such if that was the case. And we really didn't wanna have a design change, especially in office, right. You didn't wanna be known to the one that always had the, the changes, but it was truly fantastic experience. I would say though, back when I started, you know, N F P 13 was, I don't know, um, a hundred pages maybe if that it was, you know, pretty 50 pages, it was.

Then compared to what it is today, there weren't that many choices of sprinkler heads either. But one of my first days at work, my job was to read 13 and learn it. So that's what I did. I, I think I still have the copy someplace probably today where yeah, I read through it. Not knowing again, anything.

Sprinkler systems other than maybe an irrigation system that I helped, you know, my grandfather installed our yard or something. And so that was about it, man. That's uh, I could see I've worked for a fire suppression contractor right outta college. And yeah, I could, that sounds like a, in a great learning experience, but also the contentious situation where you'd have to go out to the field and talk.

Foreman through your logic on, you know, uh, design change. I know that that can be a, um, a sticky situation, you know, it's, you don't want to step on anybody's, uh, toes as far as, you know, explaining why or why not. It wouldn't work. And you know, there wouldn't be too, too slow to tell you, uh, you know, why something wouldn't work.

Right? I did. One situation. And I don't know if my manager at the time, you know, put the, put the fitter up to this or anything, but I'd had a situation where they called me out to the field and said, you know, this isn't, they had, not that it wouldn't work, but the fitter decided that, you know, they had a better idea and wanted a design change because they're, um, They felt that their pipe routing was a little bit better.

And, um, I said, yeah, it may be, but mine doesn't, doesn't not work. Doesn't not work. And so I wouldn't sign the design change. So I, um, again, I don't know if my manager at the time just said, oh, let's see, you know, How much I would push back on either. So I didn't, I've never seen the design change and made him change it back to what was on the drawing.

So it's just one of those, one of those little memorable times for me. So it's important to know when to, to stand your ground professionally. So that's a, I'm sure that felt like the, a victory, you know, but it's my small victory. Yes. Yeah. But, uh, that's awesome. So I wanted to, you know, Hear a little bit more about, um, your role at, at Proctor Proctor and gamble, you know, um, kind of where you started and, and where you are now.

And you know what maybe a little bit on, uh, how things have changed, but yeah. Really interested in that. Yeah. So this is actually a really easy, um, easy question as I am doing pretty much what I started doing 22 years ago. Um, typically at P and G it's a great opportunity cuz you come in and um, you can.

Rotate and grow your career as much as you want. Um, internally, uh, I have always done fire protection at P and G. So I came in doing fire protection and I will most likely retire leave doing fire protection with that we, um, what's really changed is when I hired in I've changed organizationally. So I've gone from, um, originally.

My role was part of our property insurance group. And, um, currently I've gone through a couple of different organizations doing the same thing, but I currently sit in our global facilities, um, group. So I am in corporate engineering now, which actually is a great place for the technology to be. Yeah, that's I really appreciate that background on your time in Proctor and gamble and.

Yeah, I don't know. Uh, I still, uh, don't know if I have, uh, like a great sense for what a day in the life of somebody who would be in, um, like facilities in like corporate facilities and fire protection from, uh, you know, a big picture from such a large company like Proctor and gamble. Maybe you could. Give a little bit of exposition on, um, what kind of, of roles in fire protection that you're involved with to paint the picture a little bit.

If you wouldn't mind, my day, it changes every day, obviously changes every day, but, um, there's a little bit out there. It really starts with, I look at myself as I'm a, basically an in-house consultant. So in, in my role, I set our standards for. Global standards on how are we going to best protect our, um, businesses?

So I, I actually, um, for my disclaimer is I actually work look more towards the property side. So, um, property loss prevention and business. So how do we keep our businesses running life safety is really held more at our plant levels. And so it's definitely one of those top. Definitely our, you know, one of our principles, but, um, so they talk, I won't talk specifically about the life safety aspect of it, as much as the property control outside.

So with that, I, I am looking at how do I consulting for how do we keep our, um, property. Um, standing and our business is operating. So we set our standards based on that and, um, on a global basis. And my, our goals are that we, we don't have to change our systems every time we change our either products or change our, um, Maybe how we're doing something in manufacturing or packing or anything like that.

So that once we build something, we don't have to continue to retrofit it. So we look at things I would say somewhat in a. Um, one size fits all. Um, obviously, especially with all the stuff that we have out there, there is not one size that will, will fit all. But we, we really do wanna try to look at, at, um, minimizing the times that we have to touch the sprinkler systems, um, or fire pumps or any of that, any of the, um, fire protection systems.

So with that, I, you know, a. I say I'm just a in-house consultant. So my customers are, are site leaders. Um, my project engineers internally. So my day, really, it, it definitely varies all the time. Um, and what I can do whenever I think, oh, today I don't really have much on my calendar today that can quickly change.

Um, really look at it. What email questions have come in as kind of my first thing is, you know, what's happening, um, around the globe overnight. Uh, And what questions have occurred? Um, I get everyone's project review. Uh, so sometimes, you know, it's just a quick glance, even though it's been reviewed by our third party a quick look and see what happened on the review itself.

There's, you know, some people ask questions specifically to a project. Some contractors there may have been an issue that something was designed wrong or installed wrong. And then I know how, what do we do with that? Um, What is the easiest again, cost effective solution while still maintaining, um, our intent to protect, you know, sometimes there's new.

Well, always, I think there's always new projects that come through to ask a question. So of on the design basis, what do we need to do? There's um, yeah, I could say questions about temporary storage even though. I think everyone in the industry could understand what does temporary really mean? Um, yeah, there new project initiatives, you know, new products, you know, how do, how would they burn?

What do we do with that all types of, um, of fun, interesting stuff. And then on top of that is just the, how do we grow our systems and how do we change them? So how do we innovate differently? To, um, You know, help our systems, help our sites, do things, um, with less touches with more, um, you know, more, um, digital innovation, smart technology.

How do we grow that system? How do we change something that is very typical into something new so that we're just not standing still with. That's that's awesome. That's really helpful to, to hear about, or really, and I find very interesting. Um, some of the things that you talked about. Yeah, I just would like to go over that point again, uh, that you, you know, said that you look guys like to design buildings for kind of a, like a one size fits all type of approach for fire protection, but.

I just wanted to remark like that must, you know, present some very robust fire protection systems, you know, with the kind of, um, commodities and, you know, things that can be found. I'm sure with the variety of, of the products, although I'm sure you guys compartmentalize for different facilities, but, uh, yeah.

I mean, that sounds like you guys would probably be interested in, you know, some of the more, um, Uh, complex and, um, just more robust fire protection systems. If you guys are approaching the buildings and, uh, more of a one size fits all approach, which, I mean, I feel like is a common, uh, thing in the industry as well, but yeah, I thought that was interesting.

Yeah. Our one size fits all really is that we design warehouses for group a plastic, cuz knowing that we're never. Even if we make, have something where the class, just class three commodity today, the chances of that lasting for 20 years is very slim. Right. So that, that approach too. So, yeah. Yeah. That's great.

Yeah. I was recently listening to a webinar with the NFPA and they had talk to yeah, yeah. They were talking to that approach and I was like, wow. You know, I've, you know, in a lot of the projects I work on. Start with, you know, four commodity class four as a baseline, but that, but I had not heard, you know, people saying, you know, start at group a and work your way backwards.

So I thought that was pretty interesting. Right. Right. Well, it's easier to manage, right? If you think of, I think in the industry sometimes, and I, I did listen to that webinar also, where if looking. To, to do base minimum all the time of based on what's, what you have at the site. And I think, um, Folks in the webinar, pointed it out.

Sometimes owners don't know what they have. Right. So you're asking a question in commodity classification of, we don't really, sometimes people don't know and they try to go down to that. Oh no, it's only a class three. I only went this now. I don't have to have the wa the fire pump. We must always have a fire pump cuz we don't have any, um, local water right.

Or avail or avail. So where. Where our sites are located, you know, we're not in the major cities or any, you know, so we're outside or outside of, um, more municipalities. So we have water in some cases, in some cases it's, um, a harder one to get in. So. To have enough flown pressure for any system, we will end up having a, um, a pump and tank.

And we want that reliability of that too. Cuz again, without a water supply, our sprinkler systems end up to be decorations. Right. Um, so, but with that, we, we look at every time a little change comes or if the incident occurs, having it designed for group a, we don't have. Manage through that. So if there was a change, we don't have to say, okay, you can only store five feet high instead of 10 feet high.

That's all touches at our sites that add, um, I would say unnecessary, um, time costs to it, right? So if I can only store five feet high instead of 10 feet high, I've lost half my floor space. Right. So it ends up being, I haven't never done this study, but for the. Little incremental costs to, you know, treat as, um, a group, a warehouse versus a class four warehouse, especially with today's sprinkler Heights.

I think, you know, we're talking very small, very, um, small differentials in, in cost versus the benefits we get. I am not on N FPA 13 committee, but I think it would be great if we had. Either a, you know, a very light hazard or it's either a light hazard occupancy, or it's not, or it's a group, a warehouse or it's not right.

Um, cuz I think some of our. Classifications, although they're great and very, they are, they are real. I don't, you know, sometimes, um, we complicate something that doesn't needs to be so complicated or so exact, I should say. Right. I mean, if that makes sense. Definitely. You know, I, I completely agree with you about, um, trying to provide, you know, if you're in a situation to, to provide the.

Like the premium fire protection solution. And, you know, I don't, I mean, most people are aware, you know, for existing construction to go back and touch a system. I mean, you know, as, as far as what it costs to do it for a new construction system, it can be, you know, double or more just to go back and, and, um, you know, alter that system.

And then. You know, that you're dealing with interruptions to operations. And so I can only imagine how those, um, costs can compound very quickly. I definitely understand what you're saying and, uh, I agree, but, um, yeah, another thing that I wasn't aware of, but, um, I, uh, somebody at the company I worked for, uh, said that they had been involved with a sprinkler sprinkler project with Proctor and gamble before for one of their facilities.

And they were saying that. Proctor and gamble, gamble has their own, uh, like, uh, standards or kind of criteria. I wasn't aware of that. We do. Yeah, we do. We've had 'em since I, um, started, um, originally we had a mix of our standards and at the time our property insurer standards, um, And our standard, our fire protection manual originally originated really more as, um, giving some training for around the globe.

So we had sites globally that really had never heard of, you know, think back 22 years ago. Um, never really heard of N F um, and we're trying to install an N F. System when that wasn't there, or it wasn't very common, especially contractors. And even for our site leaders, like how would we, what is it that you really need to know?

So our, uh, original standards had a lot of training stuff, had a lot of, um, interpreted stuff from N F P in today's world. Um, our Sooners are. I would say more reduced. Um, so a standard that may have been nine pages, 10 pages back in the day, maybe one now, as in, it's only for, um, when we differ from NPA or, um, we have our own maybe test state of how to protect.

So we try, or if it's something we just really have had issues with that, even though we may be exactly the same as what the industry says that we want to, um, to go ahead and. And put that into our standard. And as I said, kind of the one size fits all. If we went just an FPA, we, we could have contractors again, debating what our, what type of commodity do we have and or is this a light hazard occupancy or ordinary hazard?

But for us, we have standard, um, densities for our storage areas and for our non storage areas based on the, the height of our buildings too. So, um, So it makes it a little bit easier in some cases, cuz we can just say, you know, if we have a 40 foot high building, this is our, these are our only options versus all the options in the code right now doesn't mean that we say no to anything in the code, but this is where we, you know, we try to simplify it.

That's nice that you guys have an established baseline and an understanding of. Commodity classification. And I mean, I don't, I doubt that you guys could do business without that, but, um, yeah, I, as far as like, you know, owners who might not know what they have, uh, you know, I've seen the, the gambit of owners, you know, being like, I don't know if we have.

High piled storage. And, you know, they have 25 foot racks, um, you know, fill in like tires and tires. And they're like, I have the high piled storage. I'm like, you guys, you ha you have high piled storage and you know, this new facility you wanna create and we have to, you know, accommodate that. So, absolutely.

Yeah. It's definitely a, a knowledge. It's it's neat for me to hear about how you guys, uh, are involved with that process of, you know, having standards and criteria in a high bar for fire protection and right, right. That's something I like hearing about. Yeah. I was joking after the N FPA webinar on warehousing.

I was telling someone that we probably need an owner support group just cuz you know, a support owner sometimes get um, yeah. Oh, the owner didn't know the owner didn't so, which is true though. Unfortunately, I mean, things change all the times and you know, we can't be everywhere, but yeah. We know a lot of stuff, but sometimes that not all those things for sure.

For sure. So yeah, in the, in the vein of, you know, kind of like storage and, you know, the, uh, high complexity fire protection, mm-hmm yeah. I just, I mean, you've already kind of, um, explained a little bit about, um, how P and G you know, tackles some of. The big challenges for the, like your storage and, and, and manufacturing occupancies.

But yeah, I'd wondered if you had any more exposition on, you know, how, um, Proctor and gamble and you and your career have, um, tackled these very, um, tough challenges for fire protection systems. Yeah, so we, um, We have a diverse group of products. And so, um, fortunately being a leader in the consumer products world and a variety of business units, um, we, we have a lot of things.

And over the past 22 years, you know, I've seen a lot of things come in and a lot of things go also. But, um, we take a look at ours. We, we always, when we look at something new, um, and, or, and, or. Um, storage arrangements. We will take a look at, you know, what does industry say? What's, what's historical out there.

What is kind of the loss rate for it? Um, and then how do, how does that differ to what we, um, what we have today, right? So maybe it's okay. So. Packaging may be different or maybe, you know, the, the only thing that we have out there is, um, the code only allows up to a 30 foot high building or 9.1 meters, um, for those non us unit folks.

Um, but what if we, what if we wanna be higher? Right. What if we wanna go up to 48 feet? So, you know, where do we. What do you do? So I think there's a couple, I think times, oh, more than a couple we've actually been, um, we've found it actually very, um, helpful for us and to actually to go in, um, do fire testing.

So we've done all types of fire testing. We've done, you know, cone, Cal testing for commodities. Under the big cone, we've done small scale cone, um, testing we've, um, done a lot of full scale testing. And again, it's one of those where maybe sometimes it's to get the bare minimum, you know, like where, what, um, What, um, so what, what, where does that, um, can we, can we free the technology of how we differ?

Um, if there's something we stretch the code, sometimes we're not looking per se for, you know, we're, we're not the sprinkler manufacturer, so we're not looking for the sprinkler listing. We are looking really of, if the fire occurred at our site, would we be able to control it and control to us? In a couple different ways, right.

Um, we look at it as I would say, a very complex, but simple, right. In the sense of how do we get to a point where we can keep everything cool. Long enough so that we can get our fire, our look either our own, um, internal fire brigade or our external fire support to the site to help for extinguishment. So with that, we have, um, you know, every test that we've done, I think.

Well, maybe not every, I think we're probably a very high hit rate or of we have control, um, what we believe we have suppression, but then we always turn the sprinkler systems off at the end to see if the fire would rekindle. Um, I think anyone in the industry knows that, um, a lot of these incidents have occurred from people turning off the sprinkler system, too.

So we'll take what we have a very controlled scenario and we will start, like I say, at the very end, when we, it's a great visual, great training that we have, where we'll shut the system off. Wait a couple of minutes and what we always tend to have is some type of rekindling. And, um, it goes to the importance of that, you know, fire response on the other side is okay if we've turned them off, can we still see the fire?

Or is it up high in Iraq? Maybe you just, we do need to leave the sprinklers running longer. You know, the water damage is done. How do we, how do we keep things going so that we can actually say that, um, we have full control. That's fascinating. That's great to hear about, uh, you know, the different fire testing.

I mean, it's remarkable that you are involved with the company that, you know, not only, you know, cares for the premium fire protection solution, but also, you know, is, um, kind of stretching the, the bounds of the building. I think that it's, uh, you know, it's, it's interesting because the building code is, you know, kind of based on these, uh, standard parameters for, um, you know, the lion share of buildings, but it really doesn't encompass, um, buildings, you know, The direction of expansion and like, um, development of buildings that we're trending towards with the increased level of complexity.

And so, yeah, it's really interesting to hear about the, the way P and G is approaching. It seems like, uh, you know, very, you know, I'm used to providing the, you know, Good fire protection solutions and you know, up to code solutions, but, um, you don't always get to provide the, the premier, you know, like fire protection solutions with fire testing results.

So it's really interesting to hear about, right. And you know, our goal is to be cost effective. So when we again is okay, so do, just because we're a couple feet, maybe higher in a scenario in a storage, maybe building height. Do we really need to go, you know, install in rocks in every level, you know, that type of stuff is like, okay, so where does that, um, where does that break point for us?

And, you know, especially, you know, what, if we are, I would say back in the day, so there's a great example is we had a site that, um, Installed an ESFR system with K 22 S and, and in a 45 foot high building, the only issue, um, is at the time the building ended up to be 48 feet. So at the time that this was done, um, yeah, we.

We were, you know, three feet too high from what the code allowed with. No, in rack. So then the question became, do we install in racks or do you put a drop ceiling in just to meet that 45 foot high? So we actually went back to the manufacturer, started ask, you know, where was your limit? Where to go well at the time too.

Um, testing lab. Yeah. Uh, Heights were really limited to what everyone thought was 45 feet ends up at, um, one of the labs. You could go 48 feet. So we said, well, Let's test 48 feet. So we actually went with the manufacturer on that one, um, cuz they had an interest on what was happening too. So we started doing um, the 48 foot test and they actually then got that um, the K 22 as far listed for, um, 48 feet.

And then of course, after that everyone had a 48 foot high ceiling or 48 foot high option. So, and then we didn't have to do anything else. So other than tests, we. Our again, our, our goal is our own, um, property protection and business. So how do we, we wanna protect our assets and, um, with that, then, you know, we're done without having to go and do anything else to our systems.

That's a great story. That's awesome that you got to work with the manufacturer and, you know, push the limit on the test. It's funny how, you know, only recently, or I'm not aware of much higher listing for ES so far heads, 10 48, I guess I would think 50 is, would be what the max that I'm aware of. But, uh, that's pretty tall, right?

it does. Absolutely. But, um, so yeah. Um, you talked a little bit about, you know, innovation and, and how Proctor and gamble kind of stays on the forefront of fire protection systems and technology, but. I know you've had some experience in the past, and I'd love to hear about, um, you know, uh, how Proctor gamble works with, um, smart systems and kind of like the advancement of fire protection and, you know, the connection of things.

We, um, so this one of my favorite topic, if, um, for some of your listeners too, have probably heard me talk about this over and over and over again, but it is it really, I think our industry is typically been very, um, I say brick and mortar, but not in a negative way cuz I do, you know, I, I do love and respect this industry, but we are very much, um, You know, we still have people that have to go walk to read a gauge, um, fire pumps running.

You still are going to, um, typically people walking to go to the fire pump back in, um, around 2014. So it's been probably about at least five to six years. Now. We. Um, in the industry, there had been a loss at a protected building and there was a number of things going around. This was a little bit before that time of, you know, high bay, high challenge warehouses, how do you protect them?

Right. So cuz this one warehouse had just, um, burnt to the ground fully protected and everyone was trying to try to do something. Change the design of, okay, so maybe, you know, do, is it not ESR? There is racks, maybe it's two, two, cuz there is a, a huge firefighter challenge, you know, in a, in any type of rack storage, um, arrangement.

Whether I, I would, I would argue any whether if it's. You know, most times people say greater than 45 feet, but I would say any rack storage, um, fire is going to be of challenge anything, especially off the ground. Um, and, and so I went to one of the, um, symposiums that they did on this high challenge fire.

And a lot of people were talking like, well, maybe we put foam in the sys foam in the warehouse. Maybe we put CO2 and again, having. They were specifically talking, uh, these warehouses 45 feet and higher. Now my, my highest warehouse in the company is like 150 ish feet. Um, so I mean, and again, there's no manual firefighting.

That's going to easily occur again in any warehouse, especially one that is, um, High in the air. So we started and, and that's been a problem for a long time. I can go back to 40, 50 years ago and look at some of the documentation we had about how do you fire a fight in a high challenge, um, warehouse. So, and no one has a, the actual solution there.

But with that, when we started talking about how do you protect? And I said, To myself was like, you know, we, we've done a lot of testing. We've mocked up some of our, what I would consider our high challenge, warehouses, those within racks, um, those with in racks and barriers, those, you know, just, ESFR only, we've had very successful fire testing.

Um, and the industry has too, so it. Kind of leads you to, is the design the wrong thing, or is it the response, the wrong thing. But then if you put yourself in the firefighter's shoes, as you know, they show up at our sites, there's chaos, they, um, you know, there's smoke, there's probably flames and all this type stuff.

Well from being in the lab and doing testing, I thought, you know, in the lab, we. Basically monitor the water flow outta the sprinkler heads. So it became this idea of, Hmm, our fire pumps have been giving us data, um, at the time as say the fire pumps, but it really is. The water flow has been giving us data during all of our incidents.

That we could give to the firefighter in our incident command to say, you know what you have control at this time, or you don't have control. And with that meaning when they show up at our sites, how much water are we actually flowing? Because if I were to look at any fire test scenario where we consider that we've, um, that we have control, I would say that we.

We've been flowing a, you know, say 700 gallons per minute. We may, we've probably have flow, been flowing that for, you know, 10, 20, 30 minutes and there may still be fire, but it's ultimately gone out. So if you look at the fire growth curve, right, we've already hit our peak when the sprinkler system came off and now we're on the decline.

And then the question is, can we, can we keep that long enough? Um, we know in the lab, it may still be smokey a little bit, but we. With enough fire control. We were ultimately getting to that ambient, um, temperature in the area so that we can then safely go in and it really is giving firefighters, um, instant command data, um, to make decisions based on stuff that they've never had before.

We're not gonna lead them. They actually have control of the scenario of the situation when they come to this site, but this is just providing them with stuff. Cuz I mean, again, one of our, our PVPs our principles is, you know, we're protecting people and that includes anyone who comes on our site. Right?

So firefighters come on our site. We don't want them to, you know, We want them to, we wanna empower them to make wise decisions on what they should can do while still, you know, being protected. So, um, at that time we, we worked with, um, a pump manufacturer, came to us and said, do you don't, you wanna know everything about your fire pump from remotely?

And I was like, I kind dunked to us said not really, you know, Yeah, but we, we came to this conclusion of, you know, once we gather all that data, we can easily start, um, monitoring, fire pump performance. So it started off on how do we, if the fire pump's telling us what's happening during the event, let's gather that fire pump and we can, you know, possibly do a curve or something.

But now, now it's, it's gone to, um, on part of this app that we have now with fire connect, we actually can look at this app and during the incident we can, um, It's almost like an EKG right. Type deal where you can actually see how much water is flowing during the incident. So we have an incident command page of it so we can monitor it.

So fire department shows up, you can pull it up on an iPad and you can, um, say, you know what? We have a. We have a fire in this warehouse, we are currently flowing 500 gallons per minute, and we've been flowing 500 gallons per minute for the past 10 minutes. Um, on this app, you can see your, that our fire pump is running.

It's operating, you know, properly. We've been trying to put any of the, the major warning signals, um, on there. We actually have also, um, schematic of the water tank. Again, if you tell someone like, let's just let things run well with this, we can actually on, um, the water tank, you can we're, you know, calculating and giving that, um, instant commander.

How many minutes of water we have remaining based on that flow rate. So we may be refilling the tank. Um, doesn't really matter. We're taking head pressure on whatever is existing. So hopefully if the refills open, you know, we'll actually, it'll just continue to calculate minutes per the level. That doesn't mean that we're not gonna go check it visually.

That's a long, um, Test or a long fire or a long event, but this way we can actually go do that. And then that's actually grown. Um, now just our, our upcoming thing that we're piloting is, um, trying to be more sustainable with it. Now that we have a, um, water flow meter, like where we can tell how much water is flowing.

Um, you know, my, our next goal is, um, how do we stop dumping? Fire water just on the ground. So we're actually gonna take our, like our cooling water discharge, like per code. You're allowed to put it back to the tank as long as you're again, monitoring, um, temperature and flow off of that. But, um, And wanting to be able to monitor that in a way that we still maintain full protection.

Right. We don't wanna do, I've always had this thing as, as cool as it may be to do. We don't want to hinder our ultimate goal of, you know, Providing the protection for what it's needs. So as cool as it may be to digitally monitor certain things, we, you know, we don't wanna lose a fire pump because we were just being cool.

So in our sustainable world now, so we're gonna start piloting, um, digitally monitoring that cooling loop back to our app and, um, yeah, then go and stop dumping. You know, cooling water discharge on the ground each week. And then from there we can start, you know, take the fire pump, loop test, all types of stuff is dumping it back, cuz we'll have, um, yeah.

Um, in theory, our own, you know, pressure flow that we can pull digitally on the system. So, and then on top of. One of the greatest things about all this digital stuff is instant notification to our site leaders. They don't have to rely on just the guards or the main fire alarm panel saying fire pump running.

We can get a text notification, fire pump running. They can pull it up on the app. They can see specifically what's there. We even have, um, um, Pump house temperature now. Right? So before we just monitor low pump temperature, low pump room temperature, but you can imagine low pump room temperature, depending on where you are in the world, um, means different things.

So yeah, in some cases, if, as we're monitoring just below 40 is 30 90, if I, you know, our site's up north. 39 degrees is not gonna make them crazy. Our sites down south 39 degrees may start to make them crazy. Right. So again, if that happens, the, our site leaders can now just pull it up on their app, look at it.

And really when they're looking at their app, um, with the fire connect system, they can see everything that's, um, Basically can see the whole fire pump, jockey panel, everything. If the fire pump is running, they, you know, see that on there. They can actually go and look at the water flow. Is it running, just running or is it running with water flow and how much water?

Um, and then make decisions based on that too. Wow. That's a lot of data. Yeah. That was a lot of talking all in one thing, but yeah, no, I that's awesome. I'm great. I'm so excited. The whole point of this show is to, you know, talk about subjects you're passionate about. And I, you know, I love hearing about you talk about, you know, getting excited about being able to provide all this information and this.

Data, and not only be able to run facilities more effectively and more safely, but also protect, you know, members of the fire service. I mean, there's not too many more noble pursuits than that, but no, I loved hearing about all those things. I'm taking notes over here and thinking about follow up questions, but I love data, you know, I think that, uh, fire protection is gonna be, you know, trend as I think the whole world is on more data driven decisions.

So, right. I really liked hearing about, you know, the different points of data from the fire pump and the, and the wa fire protection, water storage tank. I think that's really interesting. I'm a, I'm a big, uh, suppression, um, nut. So I like really like hearing. Um, extrapolating all those different data points from the yeah.

Um, equity systems. Yeah. And you actually just learn. So one of the things that we have that you. I'd say data learning is, you know, jockey pumps. We, we monitor and have a graph of how many times the jockey pump started so that data's always been in the controller. Um, a little harder to get, you know, without, unless you go hit a bunch buttons or download the data and read a text file.

I mean, there's, but this is a visual and what we're, what we're doing now too, is actually text notifying. When the jockey pumps starts. Running more, a percentage based over what is normal. So, you know, so with our normal is say 15 times a day, but all of a sudden we're up to 50 times a day, then obviously, um, something's going wrong.

So it's gonna be a little bit more predictive, um, instead of waiting, you know, To it, other than cuz again, not many people just hang out at the pump house all the time, you know, weekly, they come in and it's like, how long is that jock pump running? Right. There's not that easy, um, predictive monitoring, I should say for that, but we're also doing one of the things we're doing is on our risers were piloting also.

Um, we put some gauges to. Basically read our gauges on, um, our risers. And it's been fascinating because at each riser, um, you know, it normal operation at that gauge and the lower gauge of the check valve, right. Is, um, Right there following the jockey pump on and off. What we've learned now too, is if a valve is shut going to it, which obviously seems very simple, but I can, if we shut a valve, um, Really within the cycle of the jockey pump, I can get a notification to my site leader that there's low pressure on that system.

Um, which is really fantastic. If you look at, I think a couple things, just the whole, um, system reliability, um, did the, you know, did my site leader know that that riser, you know, was gonna be closed? Um, was it gonna be. Um, did they know that they were doing work on it and that's been all the cases so far, but if some reason something was shut for, um, an unusual reason, they would be able to get that notification really as it's occurring.

And again, it's not just that Hays. For the tamper switch, being more supervisory saying, Hey, something happened, go check it. In this case, we would actually monitoring normal pressure or normal health of the system. It tells us when things are, um, again, trending off. So when that, so it's been, it's been really fascinating to see.

Well fascinating for some of us, right. To see how these things, right. So I think some people were like, okay, that's great. You know, systems are, but no, even when they, if they, if we turn the jockey, pump off how each one goes, and even for our sites, you can imagine our sites are quite large, but the differentiate, you know, elevation pressure, normal C right.

Um, You know, one system may be 1 50, 1 system may be 1 46. Right. But we don't when we are doing this and we can see it graphically, we can actually, um, we can see all these differences versus when you walk around, you know, it's like, yeah, it's 1 45 ish. Right. Um, so we're getting a little bit more data. And our, our goal there really is, um, It allows us.

We, we, so we tied this, which is we we're using a system from Cypress, um, environmental systems right now where there it's just like a clip on gauge to our existing gauge, but we're, we've actually taken that data into that fire connect smart platform. So again, when we go back to instant command, when if the incident occurs, you can actually access.

All the riser pressures if you wanted to by a click. But what we're doing also with that is it allows us to, to build in, um, in that click, you can get real time pressure, but what I can do is I've had, again, we're just, we've just started this out too, where we're, um, we can, we have fields in there to say, what is the hydraulic information?

So if you think of your hydraulic placard, you can actually. We can almost, we're typing all that into this real time data. And the point of that being is we go back to the incident, um, command and monitoring water flow. So if I tell, you know, the fire department, Hey, you know, we're only flowing 700 gallons per minute.

Maybe we should just wait. Right. But what it'll do is, is say we know riser five is. In alarm, right. Is the water flow switch. So we can then pull up riser five on this dashboard per se. And if we've added all our hydraulic information, we can then tell them, you know, Hey riser five has ESFR heads and it was designed for a total flow of.

Yeah, 1,271 gallons per minute. So we're only flowing 700. We still have some heads to operate before we get in concern area, because I think what happens right now is, you know, We'll open some heads. We don't know how many heads are opening. We don't know how much water is flowing. And we just know that there's fire there's smoke and the fire pump is running.

Right. So in this case, we're trying to again, give that data, but we also, we pay a lot of money for sprinklers to be designed for 12 heads of D PSI, whichever. So, yeah, we're not gonna have concern. Well, you know, great concern until we're, we're pushing that limit of the design. If that makes any sense. So this way we're giving that data, even if we were right at maybe we're flowing 1500 and the design was 1200, we're still, there's still a level of.

Concern, but if it hasn't changed, then it's like, okay. But our level of concern is gonna be greater if we're flowing more water than only one head at five, you know? So that's awesome. I really like hearing about the different, I loved your comparison to like an, like an EKG of the, of the fire pump. I was like, that's so telling of, you know, the kind of data and the sensing of all the hydraulics.

I'm picturing all this in my head, as you're describing it. You know, I, I really like, uh, how you talked about the, the jockey pump, you know, and that kicking on and mm-hmm and knowing that the valve was shut. I mean, wow. That's incredible. I mean, for a number of reasons, you know, inspection, testing and maintenance.

Yeah. Yeah. No. So the, uh, you know, uh, I mean, you, like you said, you. What if somebody didn't mean to shut it off and they shut it off, or what if somebody intentionally meant to shut it off and it wasn't supposed to be off. Right. You know, like all of these things, so yeah. That's and even if they it's really interesting, even if they meant to shut it off, is it back up and running?

So I've got some graphs now that I can see like normal operation valve set work being done during the day. And then really you can go back up to, um, um, When it is back on it's back to normal operation. Right? So again, my site leader where we're piloting, this can actually just, you know, pull up their, um, their data, right.

And their dashboard on here and say, yep. They turned it back on because it's not a question of, you know, What is like, it's, it's back up to normal operating procedure. So, but yeah, you, you hit it. You're exactly right. So we're looking at this, you know, our main goal is, um, reliability, right? How can we, how can we make sure that we have reliable systems of, if you look at the major losses that have occurred, normally it's a shut valve or turned off water supply.

Right? So, um, Losses that can occur. There's a number of losses, you know, that can occur because of a most obstruct or this and that. But, you know, are, are things that really make a difference in how a normal loss incident would change from normal to maximum, um, or MFL type event would be that there was no water.

And so that no water comes from valves. Um, valve shut. So no water to the system and or your water supply fully shut. So. Again, us monitoring those critical things. We have, um, you know, have a, a higher level of assurance that, you know, our systems are reliable and operating as goal number one. And then two is, as you said, inspection, testing and maintenance.

So now I think we're gonna be able to get to a more performance based on some of that as, um, again, do we really need someone to. Visually go check a gauge monthly when we're really pulling the data every 15 minutes now. Right. So we can stop, you know, having people. Whether our people, um, contractors, anyone stop walking around to, you know, take a, a clipboard and paper and write stuff, you know, and even flow testing.

If we're, as we're digitally capturing that information again, trying to not dump it on the ground, but also get data from the digital systems. Um, You know, can we, we, we can just plot out last year's test curve versus this year's test curve. Right. Without having to worry about the gate, you know, we all, anyone who's ever done a fire pump test knows, uh, you know, that gauge needle moves a lot.

so it's as simple as that. Right. Of like, okay. So yeah. Is that range one 50 to one 60? Let's go for 1 55. Right. But, well, as we're pulling, especially the fire pump stuff with sensors, It, it does eliminate a lot of that, that guesswork and we can actually take then good data curves and compare them on, on, um, um, to each other.

Wow. Yeah. I can't tell you, this is, uh, I don't know if you can get much more right up my alley than, uh, fire protection systems and, you know, suppression and data. But, um, I wanna be respectful of your time and yeah. I just want you to know that I could ask you questions about this stuff for, uh, you know, another two hours, but we can talk again.

No worries. Absolutely. Yeah, that'd be awesome. But yeah, I just want, thank you so much for coming on the show and yeah, it's been. Yeah, thank you guys. And best to you. Thanks for listening, everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.

Jonathan Bernal is a recent graduate from the Oklahoma State University fire protection and safety engineering technology program. In this episode, we talk about Jonathan’s fascinating career and what it’s like to graduate during a pandemic. Tune in for networking and professional development tips to stay competitive in the current climate.

How did you find fire safety? 2:15

Would you speak about your time at Oklahoma State attaining the fire protection and safety engineering technology (FPSET) degree? 9:35

What was one of your favorite courses during your time at OSU? 13:25

How have you been involved with professional societies? 17:24

Would you speak about the new role you have accepted? 32:45

What are you plans for the future? 34:30

What piece of advice would you have for others who are graduating college right now? 39:10

What would you recommend as a resource for professionals? 46:10

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Welcome to episode 21 of fire code tech. On today's episode, we have Jonathan burn. Jonathan is a student who just graduated during the pandemic. On this episode of fire code tech, we get into Jonathan's fascinating career, all the different roles he has had leading up to his graduation. And some of the interesting topics involved with going through the end of your college experience in the pandemic.

I know you might be thinking what could a college kid have to teach me or. Can a recent graduate have in his bag of tricks that I don't know, but I would invite you to listen to the episode because I think Jonathan's really gonna give you a surprise. Although Jonathan just graduated in December. He's had no list than five roles in which his duties involved, fire protection and life safety.

We go over some great professional development tips and Jonathan lets us know how you can stay competitive in the global pandemic in job seeking. Don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Also check us out on YouTube. I'm gonna start. Adding clips. So you can get a taste of the episodes and smaller doses.

If that's something you're into and follow us on social media. So you can see all the resources that we post let's dive in. Well, Jonathan, thank you for coming on the show. Welcome to fire code tech. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I'm I'm really excited, really excited that we were we're able to do this.

Yeah, me too. Me too. So yeah, I just wanted to get things kicked off with, uh, telling people a little bit about your background and, and how you found at fire safety. Absolutely. So to me, the way I first first see it is, uh, I started off as a volunteer firefighter in, uh, long island, New York. And, you know, when, when he joined the volunteer fire department, they're required to go to the fire academy.

So I went and I didn't really know what to expect. You know, I, I didn't have anyone in my family who's ever been in, you know, anything fire related. So I went to the academy and I actually got to learn about fire science. And that's what initially I want to say sparked my interest into the science of fire, the fire phenomenon.

And I did that for, you know, I did the volunteer fire department thing for about three years. And eventually what happened was. I kept waking up three o'clock in the morning to false alarm, you know, especially in the volunteer environment, you know, our house, particularly, we didn't really have like a shift.

So it's like I'm leaving my house at three o'clock in the morning to rush to the firehouse, to get changed, to rush to a false alarm. And eventually I told myself, I was like, What is causing these alarms? So I went on Craigslist. I looked for a job opening. Um, I just typed in fire alarm and I sent my resume to two places and one place called me back and was like, yeah, we'll hire you.

And then eventually after I got involved with fire alarm systems, I eventually wanted to start getting more, uh, more involved and I just wanted to do more. I wanted to get more involved into the. The engineering side. So that's eventually what led me to. Seeking a program that had all those things. That's fascinating, Jonathan.

Yeah. You know what? I got a funny story about how we met. Um, I remember, uh, we were, I was at a joint S F P E meeting. For, uh, they were giving out awards for the students and I, I was part of the professional chapter and I was up at Oklahoma state. You, uh, you had won one of the awards for, uh, the scholarships that we were giving out that year.

yeah, I remember. I remember. Yeah, everybody was, you know, asked to, to say a couple words and, you know, basically. You know, there was somebody who came up before you and they maybe had like a, like a one or two minutes of exposition and talking about stuff. And then, um, you came up and you got to speak about your background in New York.

And your, you know, time as a fire alarm technician, and I was just blown away. And you were, and you were dressed to the nines. You were dressed up in a suit and I was like, man, this guy has got it going on. He is not some, uh, you know, uh, teenager who's struggling to, to find himself. In, uh, you know, as you were accepting this award.

And so like immediately I was impressed with you. And, and really I told that story, uh, to say, you know, I'd love to hear more about, you know, your, your fire alarm technician days, because I know that you're, uh, selling yourself short by just saying, you know, you got involved. You got involved in fire alarm technician stuff.

And then, you know, you wanted to learn more about, you know, how systems can get an education. You know, you had a very, uh, unique, um, intro into your career. So yeah, I'd love to hear more about your time in New York. Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate, I remember that event. Exactly. Um, , you know, it was my first semester, I think at OSU, it was my first year at OSU and, you know, I had, I was told I was gonna win the award.

So I had emailed, uh, Dr. Charter, Virginia charter, and I was like, Hey. Um, am I supposed to do like a PowerPoint? Cause to me that that was a standard, you know, anytime you give her presentations, like PowerPoint, PowerPoint, PowerPoint. And she was like, yeah, go for it. and I felt so bad cuz like the other recipients, like didn't do a PowerPoint and uh, I didn't want to do it.

And she was like, just do it anyways. But yeah, definitely. So, uh, when I started off as a fire alarm technician, uh, I started off as a help. You know, making $10 an hour and just really learning as much as I could. And between working for one company called New York city alarms as a helper doing $10 an hour.

Within my first year, I had switched to a few different comp, uh, for just a few different reasons. Eventually I aligned at DJ security systems and within my first year I actually doubled my salary. I went from $10 an hour to making $20 an hour. I think a lot of that just, you know, it is not really to brag, but I think it just shows the, the promise and kind of the vision that company had for me, you know, within six to eight months of starting off as a fire alarm helper.

I became a service technician. Uh, I was doing service calls on my own. I was running teams of fire alarm inspections, and, you know, I was getting company vehicles. They were giving me company phones. You know, I felt like I was getting a lot of responsibility, uh, for someone who was just fairly, very new to the industry and my view, I have no electrical trade school experience.

So anything electronics wise is very, very much limited to my low voltage, uh, fire alarm experience. Anything I know about electronics, it has, you know, I learned on the job. I, I didn't go to trade school or anything. I worked on huge projects, you know, I worked on in, uh, projects at the Lincoln center. Um, I did there's this one building in times square, where they house, um, homeless teenagers.

And it's three buildings with one fire alarm command system in one of the buildings. So, you know, it's kind of a challenge to try to do an inspection like that because you're controlling three buildings simultaneously at the same time on one panel. So, you know, it, it, it definitely was challenging, but I would definitely say my boss threw me to the wolves and I was lucky enough to come out surviving.

And, um, that's kind of, you know, I I'd say the gist of the fire alarm experience. Sure. That's awesome. That's extremely compelling. You, you know, hearing you talk about your, your time in, in New York and, uh, yeah, I was just, uh, immediately very impressed with you. And I was like, you know, Jonathan did it exactly the right way and I didn't think it was strange or awkward at the time at all.

I just had the thought, I was like, Man, this is kind of like what more I was expecting. And, you know, there was no like strict guidelines that we gave people for, you know, accepting the reward or whatever, but right. No, I thought you just knocked it out of the park and you immediately made a indelible mark on my mind about your, uh, your character and, uh, your ability.

So I was thinking that that was, uh, I appreciate that definitely the right choice. So thank you so much. Thank for those who don't. About, you know, where you're at in your career. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about your time at, at Oklahoma state in the fire protection and safety technology program and, um, give people a sense of, uh, you know, your time at OSU.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, I will tell you this, uh, in high school, I was not the student I am today. . Um, and that being said, when I came back to college at the age of 26, I wanted to kind of make up for that. So I was never involved in like student government, student organizations, any clubs at school, you know, I did sports, but you know, it's not the same.

And well, that was one big thing, you know, especially when I came back to school and I was at OSU, I got heavily involved in student organizations. I think like my first semester there. I was in like eight different organizations, um, outside of the benefit of getting free food, uh, when you attend the meetings, , you know, I just wanted to get involved.

I wanted to see, you know, what, what organizations I clicked with, you know, you know, what I thought was gonna be best re professionally and socially. Um, so I got very involved, uh, at OSU. Um, you know, I got to. Get involved with administration and making policy changes, uh, which I was happy about. But you know, other than that, I mean, it's, it's, that's one thing about going to school at OSU is I'd say the degree in engineering is very breathable.

You can like do engineering. And still have a life, you know, it's, uh, you know, which I wouldn't say it's always the case for some other schools. So, you know, for those who aren't, you know, particularly familiar, you know, the fire protection program, the first, I'd say the first two years, freshman, sophomore, It's very hands on, big picture oriented.

Then you go on to your junior, senior year and it's more, it's more detailed and technical. Um, and I definitely feel like the pedigree of the, of the degree has gone up since I arrived. I mean, almost all the faculty except one currently have their PhD. And that one that doesn't is, you know, she's on her way to, to.

To, to get her PhD now. So, you know, I think definitely the pedigree that degree has gone up, um, in the past, you know, four, uh, short few years. Yeah, definitely. It seems like, uh, OSU recently has taken, uh, extra initiative to, um, make the degree more technically sound, um, kind of rounded out for the, uh, for industry.

I know that they. Conversation with industry stakeholders to make sure that we're providing the, the right kind of classwork and education and practical knowledge that you know is what these employers are looking for. So, yeah, I know that when I was in school, um, they didn't require. Organic chemistry.

But I remember that as like, as I was getting towards the end of my degree plan, I know that they had, uh, made some changes to adding organic chemistry and, uh, like, um, some higher, uh, engineering, math as well. So it seems like they are, you know, trying to make the degree more technically sound. I agree with you in that regard.

So that's awesome. Yeah. I, uh, I'm a big fan of the okay. State program. So, yeah, I just like talking with you about that, but no, no gun to you on this one, but , uh, I just wanted to, you know, get a sense of, you know, everybody kind of has a class or a subject that they're more drawn to. I mean, for me, I really enjoyed sprinklers and in hydraulics that for my time at okay state.

But yeah, I just wanted to, to get a sense of. For where you are now and for where you wanna go, you know, what kind of coursework did you enjoy when you were at OSU or, you know, what was one of the, the subjects that you were most interested in? Definitely, definitely. Um, top of the head, I'm going to have to say fire dynamics.

Uh, just to me, it was like the most science and math based class. It just made the most sense to me. And I think for me, Like when I first got into to engineering, I was like, well, I, you know, I wanna wanna learn, like, what are the equations of, uh, you know, behind fire? Cause it's such a phenomenon, you know, and for me that, that's what interested me, it, you know, understanding the units, uh, behind the energy, you know, behind energy and fire.

But you know, at the same time, a lot of my classmates did not enjoy fire dynamics as much as I did. Uh . Which was a little unfortunate for sure. Yeah, that's gotta be one of the, one of the hardest class in the, in the degree, without a doubt. I know that as far as just, uh, the calculations involved and, uh, there's a lot of, you know, vocabulary and it's, it's pretty intense one, but that's pretty neat that you like that, you know, uh, looking back on, uh, my time at Oklahoma state and just, um, have taken and passed the professional in engineering exam in.

Believe it was, uh, 2019, but there was a lot. Yeah, thank you. There's a lot of questions that, uh, pertain to fire dynamics in the, in the, uh, fire protection engineering exam, I'd say it was like pretty substantial portion of the exam, like, like 20 plus percent or, you know, were these fire phenomenon, fire dynamics question.

So that's definitely a good one to be interested in. Yeah, absolutely. And I. One more that I could think of. You know, when I first got there and I took, um, F P S T 30 13, which is, you know, fire alarms and sprinkler and, you know, fire and Sprinklr alarms. And in that class, you get to be so hands on with the stand pipe systems and as a ex fire alarm technician, the biggest thing I have ever been scared of while doing inspection.

Is tripping the sprinkler system to the point where like it had to be reset, you know, and the fact that I was able to put my hands on a stand pipe, taken apart, reset the valve, you know, when it comes to the drive, the drive valves to me, that that was, and you know, to me, my money, my money felt great.

Putting it into the program. As soon as I was able to learn about doing that. I think that for you. Any individual getting involved in fire protection technology, you know, like the technology or the system side of things. It's, it's a lot to, to take in for, you know, to understand the components of a we pipe, sprinkler valve, or the components of a, you know, dry pipe, deluge pre-action systems.

And so. To have that lab where you can put your hands on the nuts and bolts of it. I, yeah, I worked for a time at a, uh, fire suppression contracting. Company. And yeah, I could see immediately that that heads up knowledge of the system and its component architecture was, uh, invaluable. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it, it, it brings you to asks, you know, when you're doing an onsite inspection, how familiar are you with these components that you can actually.

Point out something that's not to be the way it's supposed to be, you know? And I think that class definitely helps with that, for sure. With that adapt. So you spoke a little bit about, um, these professional organizations and how you got involved when you, um, got to okay. State, but. Yeah, I just wanted to hear a little bit more about your, um, involvement with professional societies.

Would you tell me a little bit about that? Absolutely. So when I first got to OSU outside of S F P E uh, the first organization I really got involved with was ship, which is a society of Hispanic professional engineer. And within my first month there, I became their public relations officer. And, you know, in the past three years, I've attended two of their national conferences to their regional conferences.

Um, in my involvement, I made internal bylaw restructuring. I did corporate outreach, corporate fundraising. And even after I wasn't in the exec position anymore, I helped mentor the other exec officers, um, up until now, now that I'm graduat. Um, which that, that organization got me involved with a lot more policy and administration stuff when it came to the college of engineer technology, because that position put me into.

um, the colleges, diversity equity and inclusion, um, council, and which is now the Dean's student advisory board. So within that I help foster the relationships be, um, relationships and events between like ship, um, AE, which is a. Female based engineering organization and then NSBE, which is the national society, black engineers.

Um, so I helped, you know, foster those relationships, get them to do events with each other. And then I also was a master of ceremonies for their annual seat, um, seat diversity award banquet. I didn't even know this was a thing, but, you know, just in, throughout my own, like, you know, fruition of like always wanting to work hard and putting 100%, um, I actually got to win the seat diversity student of the year award my first year there.

So I was pretty, pretty, pretty excited about that. Um, I didn't even know that was an award I remember going. Uh, going to the award ceremony and not winning the ship member of the year award. And I was like, really? I put in so much work. I was, I was kind of upset. It was my best friend. I wanted his name's Daniel

I was kind upset. And then the next, the next award is like the bigger award, like, and now for the C year award time. And I was like, oh, okay. Okay. I won something. that's impress. Yeah. And, um, you know, I also got involved with the seat ambassadors. So if anyone listening doesn't know what seat is, it's an acronym for the college of engineer, architecture and technology.

So I would give tours like perfect students, academic and athletic talent donors. And then, um, you know, eventually I became, I became the president for S F P E, and I was able to organize, I think the largest today. SPE and as SS E networking, social we've ever had. So, you know, I was pretty, um, was pretty excited about that.

That's awesome. That's such a good experience that you got to be, you know, not on top of, I mean, not to mention the, you know, educational, but that you took and seized these extracurricular opportunities. You know, I know that, uh, Just keeping up with, um, education can be enough trouble at times. So that's pretty incredible that you , it's pretty incredible that you, um, filled your time with all these excellent extracurricular activities and, you know, professional societies that I'm sure are gonna serve you for the rest of your career.

I appreciate that. Thank you. That's pretty incredible. So yet, so. As a transition, you know, just to highlight more of your, your time at OSU and kind of the, um, your career. I wanted to talk about, uh, your internships and some of the different, um, roles that you had over the summers, um, from your time at O.

Okay. Yeah, definitely. Um, well, before OSU, I, I had two internships. Um, I had one with Brook Haven national lab through the department of energy, and then I interned for Jens and Hughes. And then during my time at OSU, I interned for Cincinnati insurance based out of, uh, Ohio. And we Jenny Elzer, which is a mainly an architecture engineering firm who recently started the fire protection engineering division.

And I would say, you know, my biggest project at Cincinnati was they, you know, my, what I was assigned to. um, I was assigned to the lost control department, but I was their first non lost control intern. Um, so within the loss control department, I'd say like on a pecking order, there's loss control and then above it, there's a technical specialist unit.

And that was a unit that I was primarily interning for. And, uh, what they did was they had purchased. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with this program. Uh, Tyco. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, I, I think I'm aware of, uh, spring calc. Okay. So they, they bought this program and what my job for the summer was. To develop a training program.

So then I could, you know, so then they could then use it and distribute it. So what I did was I traveled to five different cities to meet with five, five different, um, technical specialists. And I made the, I made the training program and I would train it to them on the spot. And then I would kind of see, you know, like, you know, sometimes, you know, it's kind of like, um, doing calculus.

When you do a calculus, sometimes you skip the step to algebra, right. Um, you know, just cuz you know, the algebra, you don't, you know, you know, you already know that. Practices a plus B squared is, you know, a square plus two B plus B squared, right? Like you can skip all those intermediate steps. And sometimes, you know, when, when you're making a training program, that's what I was doing.

So when I would go out and meet with these people, I was making sure that I wasn't skipping any steps that they understood how to use the program, um, effectively. And then they would use that program to analyze, uh, pipe schedule systems. Because a lot of the, a lot of the systems that they insured were old pipe scheduled systems that were in occupancies that were not supposed to be having pipe scheduled systems.

If you get what I'm saying. Um, yeah, so like warehouses with pipe schedule systems and you know, things like that. Um, so I created that training program for them. And then with WG, I would say that was my hardest internship I've ever. I think part of that has to do with my boss, from Jen and Hughes was the one who recruited me for w and his name.

Who's been a great mentor ever since he gave me a lot of challenging projects. And I think, you know, just cuz he trusted me to do them and you know, I got to work on like safety designs. Um, Uh, egress and occupa load calculations when I haven't even taken life safety yet. That was the crazy part for me.

um, I worked on egress planning for like a mass timber residence. Uh, I worked on federal facilities. I designed a firearm system by myself, which was the hard part was they didn't have like a template at that time for, for CAD work. So it was like I was making all those symbols from scratch. And, um, so it was pretty interesting internships that I feel really got me prepared.

Um, you know, for, you know, for when I'm about to start working and hopefully the next month or so, man, that's incredible. You have, uh, really run the, the gambit of, uh, different roles that you not only got to work for. Um, a pretty, pretty big, uh, Um, architecture and engineering firm, a couple, I mean, Jensen Hughes.

I mean, they gotta be the biggest, uh, The biggest name in the game when it comes to just fire protection in the United States, they are, uh, absolute Titan. Oh yeah. W J E I mean, there's some definite members in that company that they are heavily involved in like S F, P E and N F P, and so well connected people as well there.

So that's pretty incredible. I liked, uh, when you were talking about. Analyzing the pipe schedule systems because, uh, you know, yeah. I mean, you run into these systems and they can be grandfathered in and you wonder how, how well pipe schedule really does cuz you're so used to seeing everything hydraulically calculated these days.

Right? Um, yeah. Interesting. Uh, design, uh, challenge I ran into recently was, uh, you know, somebody was, uh, a client was. Wanted us to analyze the possibility of, um, installing a, uh, new, uh, pipe schedule, um, system for a new facility, which is something that we would, uh, you know, generally never even think of as a option.

We're so used to doing hydraulic because of the competitiveness of the, you know, pipe sizing and valve sizing and all that. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. I think so. I think it's an interesting topic you bring up and that's pretty incredible that you got to man. You just had a, really a wide range of experiences.

That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. And one, one of the things with that was, you know, we were trying to use that program to analyze, to see is if we did, if we did have a pipe schedule system in place, could we replace the K 5.6? Uh, with the next one. What's the next, what's the next 8.6 K eight. Yeah. K 8.0.

So the, you know, the issue is no 5.6 is, are on half inch, right on a half inched. So the idea was to cap it. Install a mechanical T right next to it, and then put a three quarter inch. Hmm. And you know, that, that was one of the things that we trying to see if, if, if it still met, the hydraulic require, you know, the, you know, the math, uh, if it's still, you know, if it's still provided enough protection, if we did that.

So that, that was one of the big things that they were working. That's really interesting. Yep. I have a, I still have a big, um, uh, passion for the hydraulic side of things and, and just fire suppression in general. So I think that's fascinating. I wanted to get into a little bit about, you know, um, the next chapter and, um, what you see.

What you see in your future? I understand that you've, uh, accepted a role. Um, and yeah, and those who don't, who, who don't know, I, we kind of danced around it, but yeah, you just, uh, graduated. I mean, um, when we're recording this, it's been, it's been mere hours from when you, uh, attended your virtual graduation.

I didn't even get. To ask you if you had got to virtually walk across the stage or how they did that. Yeah. I, I, I, uh, I virtually walked from my bedroom to my living room.

man, the pandemics. What a bummer. You've been working so hard for this moment. I know. Oh man. It's it's um, it's been a little disappointing. What was nice is the fire protection, uh, fire protection, safety engineer, technology department. They put together their own graduation before, before Thanksgiving break.

And, you know, they had like a little something with all the graduates, so it was still nice. That's nice. That's that's good. They did that, but yeah. So I just wanna make sure we said that for sure. Cuz that's awesome. And a, in a big accomplishment, but yeah, I wanted to get into a little. Of, um, the next chapter, which is, uh, the position you recently accepted in Las Vegas.

Would you mind speaking about that? Yeah, absolutely. So I'll be working for TURP consulting, um, based on the Las Vegas, when I position is a fire protection consultant and I plan to be primarily working on, uh, onsite inspections and fire alarm. That was, uh, that was the biggest thing that made me competitive.

For that job was my prior experience with fire alarm. That's fascinating. That's cool. That's exciting. Are you, uh, so you gotta be pretty stoked coming outta, coming outta school with the offer in hand and, and getting to move on and it feels great. And at the same time, you know, it's really a blessing at this, you know, where we're at in this country right now.

It's it feels really like a blessing because when it was. Prior to COVID. I had three job offers back home in New York. Wow. And I lost them all after COVID like, oh my gosh, all my communication, you know, there was just like, we don't have, you know, we don't have, we're not financially stable enough to, to ensure that this position's still gonna be here.

You know, you know, March to December, you know, I'm like at that time I was like, what? Eight, eight plus months from graduating. Wow. You know, so. It was, you know, it was definitely a shock to, to go from three to zero man, you know, and then I applied to a couple dozen companies and positions within the span of like a month and had maybe like a dozen interviews.

And I finally was able to lock down this position with TURP and I was happy. I was able to do it, you know, cause you know, I, to me, what what's important is like company culture, like company culture and work environment. I really feel like they have that. So, um, that, that's one thing I'm looking forward to about moving to Vegas.

Definitely, man, that's an incredible story about, uh, you know, I, I can't imagine a much stronger candidate for, uh, a job outta college, then somebody who's had three internships, uh, prior work. You know, two jobs before college in the industry, you know, or in the periphery of the industry that they're trying to get involved with.

And so, man, I can only imagine how, um, students yeah. Would maybe less experience are, you know, um, dealing with the pandemic right now and graduation that's uh, I know OSU is, you know, the fire protection safety technology program is usually really strong as far as job opportunity, uh, out. Out of school and, and having, you know, that, uh, ability to have multiple offers and, and that, so that's a really crazy story about, uh, what a shake up this year's been.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, yes. So it sounds like you're going to be getting into fire alarm work and some onsite inspection. And I bet you'll be getting to work on some pretty significant jobs in, in Las Vegas. I'm sure that will be some fascinating work that you get to be involved with. But, um, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. I just wanted to say, I think that that was one of the things, you know, during my interview, like why Las Vegas? And I was like, well, do you see the type of buildings you have? Like, these are like one in a million buildings. Like each building is so like it's architecture designed just for them. Cause everybody wants to stand out.

You know, there's like no cookie cutter designs when it comes sometimes, you know, to the, to these hotels. And I think that's what makes it interesting. I want the challenge yeah, definitely the, uh, the type of buildings and, you know, I mean, people are pushing buildings, architecturally, and, you know, as far as fire protection and life safety goes to the limit.

Um, for what the building code is capable of providing. So I think you're going to get to be involved with some really unique and, um, big projects. It, I bet that'll be, um, awesome for you, but, uh, yeah, so I just wanted to, you know, talk about, we talked about, you know, where you are now. Yeah, I'm interested since you seem like an individual who is looking to progress and looking to push the needle as far as, you know, your career and your, and your, um, education and involvement.

Yeah. I just wanted to ask where you see yourself, you know, in the future, you know, two. Three five years down the line. I mean, I don't, I know you just graduated like hours from now but yeah, I just feel like you're the kind of guy who, who, uh, has a plan. So I'm just interested in, you know, kind of where you see your career going.

Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, PE license. You know, that's, that's definitely, I think that's an obvious, uh, an obvious thing to, you know, to be said, um, outside of that, you know, hopefully I can get more involved with NPA and S technical committees. Um, right now I am involved with a S S subcommittee, but, you know, it's for diversity.

So I would love to, you know, get more involved in the technical side of things. Um, and a big passion of mine is to make sure that I can continue to help mentoring someone else in the future. You know, throughout my whole fire protection education, I've had, you know, one significant person who's really mentored me the whole way.

And I just wanna be able to give back that same advice and experience it to, you know, if at least one person, but if not, you know, multiple and several people. So, you know, outside of, you know, mentorship, I would hopefully like to increase the awareness. Of the fire protection engineering industry. Yeah.

That's all great. That's all great stuff. You know? Um, the PE I'm sure. I, I didn't, uh know, have you, uh, taken your Fe or gotten into that business yet? Uh, I did. Yeah. I just paid for it a few weeks ago. I'm gonna take it in June, um, with a body of. He's graduating in industrial engineering and we're both gonna take the industrial engineering one together.

Cool. Yeah, that'll be good. That's the plan. yeah, that'll be good. It's best to get it knocked out of the way. Um, it'll be good for your first six months of your career. A good goal. But yeah, I might have some tips and tricks for you. Okay. Okay. on the back hat, but, but no, I mean, uh, other than setting a routine and trying to look at those courses, they, they make a lot of courses, um, for those, but yeah, I've found that it's hard to stay regimented.

you know, when you're trying to also get acclimated to mm. I mean, you've worked a, you've had a lot of different job opportunities and worked a lot, so I bet you won't ha have as much of a hard time acclimating as some fresh college grads do, um, out of, you know, just getting into the, the work schedule and that type of pacing, but yeah, it's definitely.

Definitely different, but I'll tell you what I know I left, like, you know, working at nine to five before I have not missed it so much, I have missed it so much. , you know, I personally think school is much, much harder than work, you know, like I have been looking forward to the day that I can just work, you know, you know, have my job and just work and do what I have to do and not have to focus about taking six different courses.

You know, all this other stuff I'm really, really looking forward to working out. Yeah. It's interesting because, uh, you know, it's a, it's definitely a different set of gears to be worried about exams. I feel like when you're studying or getting a degree, you always kind of had this feeling in the back of your head.

I should be studying right now or yeah. You know, like what, what homework? And I still will have test nightmares from every once in a while, but from, be like, be like, I didn't study for that physics test I'm but, uh, but yeah, that's awesome. I think it's, I mean, like, obviously there's plenty to do and plenty to be stressed about, but you know, I think that we're gonna.

Working a, in a, you know, an eight to five job is, is a less stressful it's, it's more of a routine you can get into and just, you know, go in, do good work, come home, kick the shoes off, you know, for somebody I love that you touched on that mentoring piece about, you know, what you wanna do with your career.

I think that's so important. It's, uh, I think that mentoring is, uh, is a big, you know, Moment and management and mentoring is a much as much a skill as doing the job is so I love that you touched on. As far as something you're looking to, um, progress in, in your career. I wanted to ask about, you know, what's a piece of advice that you might have for somebody at a similar stage in their career progression as you.

Yeah, definitely. So I think one thing that I used, the tactic that I used that kind of leverage some of the job opportunities was even though I was probably obviously looking for a full time position. I started off the conversation. When the conversation I started off the conversation, letting them know I would not be opposed to an internship.

And a lot of employers were really taking back by that. And you know, when they asked me why, I mean, I gave them my perspective. I said, well, if your company cannot financially take me on full time right now, at least hopefully they can take me on financially as an intern. And once they bounce back financially, I'm already there.

I can make that easier transition to go from an intern to a full-time employee versus, you know, continuing at, then looking for someone to come in full-time so, you know, definitely, you know, you. I, I use that as a leverage point. Um, I wouldn't definitely, you know, give, you know, tell people be flexible on locations, but be rigid in knowing what what's you're worth.

That was one thing I was very, I was very serious about, you know, don't, don't take a, a salary that you don't think you don't deserve. Yeah. I think that. That right now in the pandemic, it's, uh, important to be flexible and, you know, your approach. And I was helping, um, my sister-in-law she's in college right now.

Look for internships and, you know, casting a wide net, you know, and really exploring different options. And, you know, just people might. No, um, you know, getting into, you know, working full time that, uh, you know, if you just, because where you start out, my father always says where you start out is not where you end.

So I mean, getting your foot in the door as a professional. Is important. And, you know, just because maybe it's not the exact role or the exact town or the exact even industry that you expected yourself in, it's important to get experience and to, you know, you can leverage that, um, further down in your career.

Absolutely. And I think also using LinkedIn, you know, seeing if you know, someone who works there already and ask them, you know, ask them what. What their hiring process is like or what their work environment is like, you know, I definitely use LinkedIn a lot. Yeah. LinkedIn's a great tool. And I think that it doesn't, you know, uh, fire protection and life safety, the community is very tight knit mm-hmm so if you can develop, um, Uh, you know, profile and, you know, practice reaching out to people.

I know it's not something that's easy to do, but if you practice it, it's, uh, not a daunting task. And you know, what's the worst thing somebody's gonna do is not reply to you. I mean, that's probably the worst thing. Yep. Absolutely. I mean, you know, I remember, uh, that was like one of the first things I was doing.

I would, I, I would message random people and be like, Hey, do you wanna go get coffee? Tell me your story about, you know, how you got involved in the fire protection industry. And it would be, it would always blow people's mind, like. Who are you? yeah, I was like, I just wanna get some coffee what's up. yeah. I mean, that basically shows that you're like, you know, 20 years older in your career.

I mean, some people never obtain that ability to, um, cultivate an, a network or to have the foresight to, you know, Connections with people, you know, that you don't have in interest in, you know, needing something from them. I mean, I think that's, uh, it's definitely an art, you know, building relationships in.

And, um, trying to, you know, just connect with people. I mean, the, the podcast for me has been such a great way to reach out to people that would have no business talking to me ever in my life, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I just, I mean, I just get to shoot people a message and you know, sometimes I get to talk to somebody with the incredible life story like yourself.

And man, it's just been so much fun for me. That's awesome, man. Yeah, honestly, likewise. So, uh, yeah, so I wanted to get into some more professional development topics, but yeah, I wanted to, I know that you've, um, been mired in school and just, uh, trying to make it out alive with a degree and a job, but yeah. I wanted to pick your brain on.

Yeah. What you see as, uh, you know, a career in fire and life safety, you know, or you could just, uh, you know, what's a career in, uh, like, uh, what you've been experiencing lately with the pandemic and what, um, business and jobs and all that. Yeah. Um, you know, I think when it comes to far protection engineering, and I don't know if you agree with this and you could tell me if you do.

Um, but I think a rebranding might. For a long time, you know, just as an example, people would get hired on as lost control consultants. And now a lot of those positions are being called risk engineers. You know, so if we could maybe rebrand the term fire protection engineering, I think people might stop thinking that we're or at least that's the assumption I get.

Every time someone asks me what my major. They're like, oh, so you're gonna be a firefighter. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna be a firefighter. Like, yeah. , you know, I agree with you. I dunno. What, what do you think? How, how can we rebrand the name? I don't know, I have such a hard time. Sometimes I'll talk with people on the podcast and be like, oh, you wanna call somebody a fire protection engineer, a fire protection professional, but you know, somebody who's in, uh, a fire and explosion investigator.

They're like, I'm no fire protection professional. Or, you know, if you say fire protection engineer to somebody who started off as an electrical. Engineering, but does fire protection stuff, they don't wanna be called fire protection. So it's like, I dunno how you encapsulate what we do cause it's such a, a generalist role.

And you know, like the different areas that we get into and the different building systems, I mean, You know, you could only ever deal with the, you know, passive fire protection. You know, all you deal with is UL rated, um, fire, uh, barrier and, you know, penetrations and assemblies, and that's a fire protection engineer, or, you know, you could never deal with any of that.

And you could just be designing sprinkler systems and, you know, that's a, that's a fire protection engineer and, uh, you. Depending on the degree and the licensure. And it's like, so yeah, I don't, I don't have the answer, but I agree with you. We need a better PR plan because fire protection is just, uh, kind of in obscurity in a lot of, um, senses.

So I completely agree. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I think if the industry could fix that, we would be, we'll be great. for sure. Yeah. We need to, somebody needs to give the industry, uh, marketing and PR overhaul, but, uh, yeah. Yeah. So it seems like you have a good, like, uh, finger on the pulse of, you know, like professional development and just kind of, you know, like career progression, but yeah.

What would you recommend as like a resource or. You know for professionals. Um, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. I think of two things. Well, one of them is, um, as far as resources, what do you mean? Like technical resources? You know, it could be, it could be technical resources. It could be, you know, I like, um, do you use, uh, I, I don't know about you, but do you use, uh, up codes?

I do use zip codes. I'm a fan of, yeah, I'm a fan of up codes. I wasn't aware. I think the first, one of it was a podcast guest that was like, you know, what up codes was or is? And I was like, no, I have no clue. yeah. I mean, I've used it in class. Uh, like for some of these classes that are like open book and they're about like building code, I'm like easy, quick.

Um, I mean, I love it. And, but I mean, outside of that, I think, you know, one of the things, um, that I had wished. Um, you know, throughout my time in the, you know, industry, as far as like in my internships is I have not always seen, you know, mid and senior level professionals always be open to the entry level, uh, people coming in and I, and I understand why they're afraid they're gonna mess it up.

You know, there's a level of trust that just isn't there yet, you know? Sure. But at the same time, it's like, you gotta give. Right. at one point in time, you, you have to just, you know, give it up and I don't mean give up like the project, but like, give that, give that person the opportunity to fail or succeed, you know?

Sure. Um, You know, because anytime I had an internship, I always would finish my projects. And then I would run through the whole office and ask every single person pretty much every day I was like, do you have more work for me to do? Cause would give something small sometimes and I would knock it out and I'd like, alright, I'm done.

Or, you know, or sometimes if I reviewed something and I submitted it, well, now I'm waiting. I don't know how many days for it to be submitted back, you know? So I think it, you know, for the professionals out there, if, you know, maybe be a little bit more open to entry level people, I think it would just help the industry grow so much faster.

Yeah. I agree with you, you know, I think this goes back to, and I've experienced the same thing. So, um, I think this goes back to, you know, mentoring is not an. Delegation is not innate. These are not just things that you know how to do. And so I think that's a skill. I think delegation is a skill. Um, it's something that I've had to work on recently being comfortable with carving off a sizeable enough chunk of a project for it to be meaningful, to give away, but also, you know, not letting somebody who is.

Uh, junior in their career, um, taking too much slack, you know, hurting the project or, you know, hurting the process. So I, it's a hard thing. It's a hard thing to do. Some people are more geared for it than others. And so, yeah, I completely understand what you're saying. Um, it's something I've struggled with recently is.

Knowing how to delegate. And I mean, it only helps you work more effectively. If you can learn how to effectively, um, give away big enough pieces of work to help the young people learn and to free you up to do the higher level work. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that one of my, uh, one of the people who've done to me in the past is they gave me, you know, um, something important to.

But they gave me 24 hours to do it. So , I had 24 hours to complete something. Well, they wanted to see what I could come up with in 24 hours. Right. Huh. And if you think about it from your perspective, as a project manager on that project is 24 hours going to make or break your deadline. And if not, give it to the.

You know, see what he comes up with and if it's something that you can use use it. If not, I never got her. I never heard about that project ever again.

It's is that hours gonna, or, you know, your deadline, you just give it that level. Show me what you could do. 24 hours in this project. These are the submittals. If he comes up with it, you know, I would, you know, I would go home and, and continue doing my work cause I wanna, you know, I wanna impress, you know, my senior people in the office.

You know, I didn't care that I wasn't logging in anything. Like I'm an intern. I don't have like, um, I don't need to log in X amount of billable hours, you know, I don't have, um, what's that called? When you have to do that? Um, uh, like the time sheet hours or what are you referring to minimum amount of billable time or, right, right.

I don't have a utilization goals, you know? So like I can just go home and work on it. Like, what else am I going to do? You know, like I can just go home and work on it. And if my work is good, they're gonna use it not then, you know, I never heard about that project ever. That's a way to look at it sounds like you have a pretty good work ethic and you know, I think that's a huge.

That's a huge, uh, deal as far as in, in, early in your career, getting people to build that trust. You know, I heard you speak about like building that trust and, you know, I remember coming into, you know, one of my jobs and being like, you know, why do I feel like this guy who's been here for four years has, you know, just like people trust and more, and you know, like I've, I'm doing work.

That's good. And. You know, like, why am I, but it just, you know, it's some of that just takes time. Right. But also some of that is, is your track record, like you were talking about and how often you are able to say, Hey, I'm ready for more work. You know? And I've made sure that the work that I had was done well, So, right.

I think that's great. Those are good points. Well, Jonathan, I just wanted to end with, uh, yeah. Is there anything that you, uh, wanted to talk about that we didn't talk about or, um, anything you want to ask me just to, to end the show with? Yeah. What, uh, what inspired you to do this? You know, cause it it's crazy when you started this podcast.

I was thinking about doing one, but I didn't know. I was thinking about doing not a podcast. I wanted to do like tutorials of homeworks and fire protection, because like , I feel like there's no assistance, you know, like if you need help with homework outside of going profess. You know, like there's, it's very small to, to find things on YouTube or such and such.

So I'm just kind of curious, like how, how did you get the motivation to do. Yeah. I mean, honestly, it was the exact thing that you just said right there. I was, you know, I'm, uh, somebody who grew up with the use of the, the internet, you know, of the age, where I've had the internet for most of my life and, um, finding myself in the exact position that you're in right now.

I was, I. Burning up inside with how come there are no resources for me to consume, to become a better fire protection engineer. Right. You know, I don't have a thousand dollars to spend on courses for somebody to spoon feed me this. There is nothing on YouTube. Uh, you know, to tell me how to do this job. I just wanna do my job better.

Um, I would, you know, and I would be listening to. I taught myself how to, you know, like some web development and like computer programming. And there's so many resources online. Like if you wanna pick that up there is. Thousands of YouTube videos where people will teach you that for free. And I was like, it is insane that like how cool the stuff that we get to do and the work that we're involved with.

And there is just feels like, unless you wanna shell out major dollars. , you know, there aren't resources for young professionals who just want to, you know, progress or, you know, and, and I know some more things now about places I could have gone or things I could have done, but yeah, I still think like, uh, fire and life safety is behind a little bit.

And so, yeah, that was the impetus for me wanting to reach out to people. Talk to them about, you know, my curiosities, um, areas that I was weak in areas that, um, I was currently struggling in. And so, yeah, that's kind of the, the backstory for it. So I guess like follow up question on that. At least for me, I'd say one of my hardest things that, um, I showed with as a new person to a company is always.

Reports, because like, I feel like every company has a different boiler plate. Of a report. You know, they, every, every company is different in the way that even though they put the, all, they all put the same stuff, you know, if you look at a, you know, a life safety analysis from company a to company B all the, all the things are the same, but how they structured is different.

Mm-hmm , you know, so, I mean, how would you say you dealt with, you know, when you went into your career with, I think report writing is, is honestly the most cynical part. I mean, you could do all the. You know, the pretty pictures, but when it comes to, you know, putting the actual reports, I think that's one of the hardest things.

Yeah. I would agree with you. Uh, you're like writing, uh, engineering analysis and like a technical report is something that I've had to do a bunch of recently. Uh, we've done a bunch of facility assessments at the company. I work now for. Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, like, I'd say the number one best way is like reaching out to somebody who's more experienced than you in the company and being like, Hey, do you have a project that, that fits the same kind of template of work that we're doing in this project?

You know, uh, new or existing construction facilities, assessment, you know, these type of systems and then seeing what kind of verbiage they use, seeing the structure of how they write the report. You know, not trying to reinvent the wheel and just think that you need to be some virtuoso that knows exactly what kind of content needs to be included in one of these reports.

Um, you know, I've heard it talked about in like, uh, music or in writing. People will take, uh, famous, um, composers or famous. Writers or authors and they will re rewrite their work, uh, or, you know, redraw the, uh, music or, you know, um, different piece of literature. And so, and then they will learn the structures and, and the kind of thing.

So it's, it's kind of that same theory. Take somebody who's done it before, see how, see the composition of it. And it'll be. You know, you'll be like, oh, okay. I need to describe the, you know, the state of the existing systems. I need to, you know, compare that to X, Y, and Z. I need to, you know, note these type of deficiencies.

So that would be my piece of advice for report writing. Nice, awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Jonathan, I just wanna say thanks again. And I really enjoyed speaking with you and yeah, you did great. . Thank you, man. It's been a pleasure. I'm looking forward to hearing it so I can share with everybody.

Thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional.

If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

Rodney is the President and CEO of the National Fire Heritage Center (NFHC). He’s dedicated most of his career in fire and life safety to working for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. In episode 20, we discuss how understanding human behavior and social interaction plays an integral role in providing fire and life safety in modern society. We also explore the fascinating collection the NFHC maintains and restores.

https://rodneyslaughter.com/

https://fireheritageusa.org/

Would you speak about your genesis in the fire service? 2:02

How did you fascination with anthropology begin? 4:49

Do you have a particular fire or project that was extremely impactful in your career? 11:33

What kind of courses did you teach while you worked for the fire marshal?  13:56

Would you speak about your work with the National Fire Heritage Center? 22:39

Do you expect to have a physical location of the NFHC? 30:43

What kind of different pieces are in the collection of the NFHC? 33:17

What is one of your favorite pieces from the collection of the NFHC? 35:32

How can some one get in contact if they want to donate to the NFHC? 37:36

Would you speak about your organizational culture consulting? 39:47

What would you consider a trend in the fire and life safety industry?  48:02

Where would you recommend going to find resources? 55:47

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Hello, all welcome to episode 20 of fire code tech. In this episode, we have Rodney slaughter. Rodney is the president and CEO of the national fire heritage center. Rodney spent the bulk of his career as a deputy to the California state fire marshal. In this episode of fire code tech, we get into Rodney's interesting career in fire and life safety.

We talk about some of the interesting things that the national fire heritage center is collecting and how you can get involved. In this episode, we talk about the interesting parallel between anthrop. And social sciences and fire and life safety. Rodney breaks down some of the interesting pieces of the collection of the national fire heritage center and how some of them date back to the 18 hundreds, we speak about the origins of Rodney's career and the fire service and how he got started as a fire and crash rescue firefighter.

I ask about Rodney's interesting consulting work he does with organizational culture. If you're a fan of the show and you want to help us out, do me a favor and go follow us on social media and be sure to subscribe. So you never miss an. If you wanna check out more about fire code tech, you can find [email protected].

Let's get into the show. Thank you for coming on the show. It's a pleasure to have you here. My pleasure, GU I appreciate this. Awesome. Well, I wanted to get started Rodney, with a little bit about your background and your origin and how you found yourself in the fire service. If you wouldn't mind. I kind of think that the best way, because I have over a 40 year career in the fire service is to.

Present and work my way backwards. So, you know, right now I am the president of the national fire heritage center, uh, in Emmitsburg, Maryland, just outside of Gettysburg. And, um, the national fire heritage center is, um, mission is to preserve the history of the American fire service. From that position. I just retired in 2017 as a deputy state fire marshal with the office of the state fire marshal in California, and a division chief within the Cal fire.

Uh, firefighting organization. I had been working for both the state fire marshals office and Cal fire for a good 24 years. And prior to that, I was a United States air force crash rescue firefighter, how I started, which is your question is, uh, back in the seventies, uh, I graduated. High school in 72, I inducted into the air force, right at the end of the Vietnam war and the air force at the time had a job guarantee program.

So I could go into the military with a guarantee of becoming a firefighter, uh, which would help me find a career after I got out of the military. And, um, and I could keep working. So that's kind of my Genesis. That's how I. Wow. That's fascinating. So, so you begin your career in the air force and crash and rescue firefighting.

And so how does your role in the fire service lead you to kind of more of the, the code enforcement division or that role? Um, at the fire marshals office, how does that transition kind of. Work from, uh, well, it it's interesting. So, uh, going into the air force as a crash rescue firefighter was an end to a means.

So, um, my, uh, academic interest is in cultural anthropology and, uh, I was working minimum wage part-time jobs, right out of high school, trying to support myself. And, um, you know, realizing that I wasn't gonna get very far in, in, uh, the shape that I was in. So I joined the air force basically because, uh, I could get a guaranteed job as a firefighter and I would get, uh, the GI benefits of, uh, full tuition for going to college.

So that's what paid for my anthropology degree. Wow. That's interesting, uh, about, uh, your fascination with anthropology and kind of how that's. Been a, a through line in career in your career from my research. Uh, so when did you know that you had this fascination with anthropology and just the culture of things?

Um, yeah. How did you kind of find out that that was something that really piqued your interest? I, I was president of the science club in high school. And, uh, I was interested originally in paleontology and geology, and I switched into anthropology, you know, as a teenager. So you, you, you explore lots of things when you're a teenager.

What's interesting is the segue from becoming, uh, from becoming a firefighter, working for the military, um, and really, um, Uh, having a blast, uh, you know, working as a firefighter around the country, I was stationed in, uh, Miami, Florida for a year. I was stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii for three and a half years.

And I worked as a civilian firefighter, uh, in Sacramento, California in that segue. Once I finished my degree in cultural anthropology, uh, to the state fire marshals office is they were looking for people that have a four. Fire engineering degree. And I I've been a little bit of an odd duck in that organization.

In that I don't come from the perspective of engineering. I come from the perspective of social science, the way I ended up getting the job, uh, was the fire marshal himself. And my third interview asked me, what does anthropology have to do with, um, code enforcement? And my reply to that is that.

Anthropology studies the pattern of human behavior. And when you're doing code enforcement work, different occupancies, present different problems that you have to watch out for there's different patterns, uh, that occur. And, uh, and that would make me a more effective code enforcement person, uh, than just an engineer.

And they. That's a good answer. I like that. I like hearing about your days in, uh, aircraft rescue firefighting. That's, that's very fascinating. It sounds like I feel that that being in the fire service is already, uh, something that people kind of have this notional idea of, but they don't really understand, or maybe don't grasp the full implications of, so I just like, in my head, I, I feel like I too have some question of, I don't really know.

A day in the life of an aircraft rescue firefighter looks like. Yeah. I mean, is it just like the same, pretty much as the traditional fire service or would you categorize that differently? Yeah, so I'm working for, um, the department of defense, you know, essentially the us air force and as a civilian at a air force space.

So it really doesn't look any different than, um, you know, firefighting anywhere else. And, and we'll get, we'll get to talk about fire culture. Um, but, uh, for the most part, I was an engineer, uh, on the first run engine that went out of the station for structural fires. Um, but we cross manned vehicle. So if there was something happening on the flight line, I had a, another set of, uh, turnout clothes already on another truck, a crash rescue truck.

That would then go out onto the flight line. So depending on the type of emergency was dependent upon which truck I jumped on, uh, with my crew. Yeah, I wanted to, uh, go back to something you touched on that I think, uh, rings true for me as a fire protection engineer, who's, you know, studied and interested in the phenomenon of fire and the way humans react with it.

And I just wanted to say that I really like that point of the culture and the human behavior around fire and how that helps you. In code enforcement. I think it's, uh, one of the more interesting parts of the analysis of fire protection systems and how we design safer buildings and safer fire protection systems is this human behavior piece that is understanding, um, how truly people interact.

And so, yeah, I just wanted to say that I, I think that's really fascinating and yeah, I think that's neat that you drew that parallel. Between these two subjects, culture, and the way that. That we live as a society and this phenomenon that can be a catastrophe at times that we know is fire, but maybe that's a long exposition to say, I like what you said.

And if you have more in that, I'd love to hear it. But I was just looking for job. I was, the question was the question. So it, it, it helped me, uh, tremendously, you know, in your world, in fire engineering world, you know, most of your clients, I'm sure. We just like to be told, what are the code regulations?

What are the code requirements? And, um, you know, the performance based codes, people just wanna know what the answer is and, you know, they want the same answer time, uh, after time. Um, but we also have the ability, um, beyond prescriptive codes for performance based codes. And I think that that's where. Uh, the social science part of this starts coming more into play.

Um, when you're designing a performance based, uh, system, you know, how do humans react? You know, uh, and, and it's not just for the occupants or codes or not just built for the occupants, but they're also. Built, uh, for the safety of the first responders responding to an emergency of that structure. So, you know, uh, I think that my world as a social scientist becomes more important in a per, uh, performance space code system than in a prescriptive code system.

Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting topic of performance based design because it's something that's becoming more and more prevalent. And if you take a look globally, performance based design in other countries is a mainstay of how people conduct business in design safe buildings is performance based designed, but it's something I'm fascinated with.

I, you know, essentially. Effectively all of the designs I've ever been a part of have been prescriptive in nature. So I'm fascinated with, uh, performance based design. And I think that, uh, in my career I will see, you know, a growth in people's willingness to, um, accept performance based design. But yeah, I think that's, uh, interesting note about culturally, how.

It performance based design is more significant of a concern in understanding the human dynamic, if that makes sense. Or if I said that correctly, um, anyway, so I wanted to get into, um, not to belabor too much on, uh, your history and the fire service, but I'm just really fascinated, uh, with your career. And I just wanted to talk about, um, yeah, I don't know if you had.

A particular, uh, project or fire that was indelible in your mind, um, from your career in. Uh, fire and crash rescue firefighting. You know, he had suggested this question earlier, you know, what was it in my career? What was a pivotal moment or an important moment? And I don't think that there's anything surprising on the firefighting side.

And I only did that for, uh, the first. 14 years of my career, the lion shirt of my career was working, uh, with the California state fire marshals office. And I, I would say probably the, the significant event for me, uh, was a couple of years in, into my employment there. Um, there was a, um, massive layoff. I had gotten a pink slip.

And what's interesting is because I worked for the state fire marshals office. They didn't require us to have, uh, certifications because we were the certifying body for everybody else. Uh, so when the layoff notice came and we were out looking for jobs and a competing. You know, with other people coming outta college with engineering degrees and things like that, none of us had certifications that would allow us even to get interviewed.

Uh, so my pivot point, they rescinded layoff notice. Uh, but my pivot point from all of that, that was really kind of a critical point in my career when I realized that just being a firefighter and just working a couple of years as a deputy state fire marshal was not. Uh, to keep me gainfully employed. So I started, uh, at that point, probably I was about 35 years old, 40 years old, starting to develop other skill sets within, you know, the fire marshal's office that could help me, uh, stay gainfully employed.

So I started writing grants. Uh, you know, I started doing a lot of other things other than just code enforcement, uh, related stuff, primarily. My focus was in training, you know, developing, developing curriculum, instructional design, uh, teaching classes up and down the state of California. Um, that was pretty much my bread and butter work.

That was work that I can take with me and have taken with me, uh, as a consultant at the same. From a research. I see that you had taught some courses in some emerging fields, like, uh, photovoltaic, but, uh, what are some of the other courses that you were involved in teaching for the state fire marsh? So this is, this is kinda interesting that you, uh, that you were able to research and tease all of that out of my background.

Um, so when I, um, uh, had a new fire marshal, come on board, uh, Ronnie Coleman, Ronnie J Cole. Uh, became our, uh, state fire marshal. And he basically merged the California state fire marshals office with the California department of forestry and fire protection, uh, to become the CA fire agency. It is today, um, and working for, uh, chief Coleman.

I was writing grants. I was writing grants on subject areas. So one of my first projects was on tire fires. I became a national expert, uh, on tire fires researching it. I hired, uh, researchers, fire protection engineers, actually outta Berkeley. Brady Williamson was doing some computer modeling on tire fires, uh, tall stacks of fires.

We had, you know, areas in California with 20 million tires in them. So I, I started out, uh, in the curriculum design business. Developing a training program for fire prevention and mitigation for tire fires. Um, that led me into, um, other projects, urban wild land interface. I've got a 300 page textbook on, you know, California's zone, fire prevention, mitigation for, uh, the urban wild land interface, um, electric vehicles, um, in the mid nineties when California had a zero emission mandate, um, to train firefighters.

On, uh, electric vehicle emergencies was seen as, uh, a mechanism to ensure that the public, uh, felt that electric vehicles were safe, knowing that the emergency responders could deal with any kind of emergency with. Electric vehicles. And then that led me into other alternative fuel vehicles. So I have another program out of alternative energy programs and, um, I've always been fascinated with photo Tex.

So basically when you put a solar panels on top of a roof of a house or big Bo box store that you have. You have the, the information you need as a firefighter on how to deal with that. And so that was another grant funded project. So I've had a number of really, really interesting, uh, grant funded projects that, uh, are relatable to the environment, which is kind of a focal, uh, focal point for me.

Uh, environmental protection, uh, energy production, waste management, all of these things then become fire related problems. And you know, how do we solve those in the fire service? So those were very specialized courses that I was doing, uh, for the fire marshals office. Yeah. As, uh, somebody who has an affinity for fire suppression systems.

Uh, yeah, I really am interested in what you said about tire fires. I know that they are high hazard materials and probably, you know, some of the most dangerous things that you could have, um, stacked up end on end. So, yeah, I'm interested. What kind of findings did you have from this research? I, I think that sounds like such an interesting story to be working with, uh, fire protection, I guess they would be researchers or scientists in Berkeley.

That sounds wow. That sounds like a movie. That sounds cool. yeah, exactly. Because we would pile tires. And, uh, and torch them. And we would, um, you know, measure the radiant heat flu that came off the tires. And then, uh, Dr. Williamson would then calculate and extrapolate, you know, how much separation needs to be between piles and, and things like that.

Uh, it was very interesting work, but, uh, what what's, I think fascinating how things come back around you. Decades later is I just added somebody to the, uh, board of, uh, directors for the national fire heritage center, uh, by the name of Dwight Williams. Dwight Williams actually responded to one of the tire fires that we have in California, uh, 20, some years ago.

And, uh, he's now we have a nice little chat about that. Uh, he's now working with me, um, on the. The national fire heritage center as a board member, there is a lot of information about tire fires. Uh, you had a, a significant one in St. A mob, uh, uh, in Canada and, um, You know, that, that, uh, case study as well as others, Winchester, Virginia, and around the country, you know, gave a lot of credence to the need, uh, to have some kind of a plan for, you know, protecting, uh, these large tire piles, um, the chemistry of the tires of change significantly as well.

And they've come up with better, um, ways of recycling them. So they're not stacked up the way they used to be. I could give you a whole class, it's an eight hour. Wanting to . Wow, that sounds, yeah. I mean, most people would be like, uh, I'm good. But yeah, that actually sounds, uh, pretty intriguing. I've given it about 20 years.

It's been a long time, but I still have mobile material. That's awesome. I wanted to also touch on the, the photovoltaic thing cuz yeah, it's I mean energy storage systems and uh, you know, the role that, uh, photovoltaics are playing in the environment of the fire service and, and fire prevention is still very prevalent.

I was, I was, uh, had a to add, I guess on, uh, I forget whether what social media was. Today and they, it was a roof shingled that was essentially a photo full takes, uh, cell or. Um, some sort of solar generation mechanism, right? The whole roof just looked like a glass shingle, if you will. Right. And so, uh, I was just thinking, man, that probably presents a pretty significant, uh, hazard for somebody trying to put water on a fire.

Or when that system reaches the end of life. Uh, I wonder if it fails gracefully, I'm not thinking that it probably does. Um, the solar systems take, uh, quite a while to degrade and the system that you just described, you knowed, uh, photo, um, then have to be wired together underneath in the attic. So, you know, each, each shingle or, uh, stack of shingles that they, um, install then needs to be wired underneath, as opposed to having panels, you know, that are put on top of the roofing system and then wired together on the top and then sent to the, in and to the, uh, You know, to the electrical system of the unit.

So, you know, there's so many different, uh, styles and types, and this is an area. I think if I were fire protection engineering, um, that I would want to keep an eye on because they have, uh, basically a windows that, you know, glazing that goes on the exterior. Walls that, um, can, uh, generate electricity as well.

And, uh, there's lots of examples of that in use around the country. So, um, you know, I think photo vault takes and the fact that we need to start decarbonizing our economy. Um, that we need to find a way of, uh, generating more sustainable energy sources. I think that, uh, the photo vault takes is one is along, along with wind power and so many others that, um, we really need to pay a lot more attention to.

I think that you're going to see too. We're talk about trends later on, but I think the trend is going to be, uh, to decentralize a lot of the energy production that your home or your business. Can generate enough electricity to sustain itself. And, uh, it could still be tied to the grid. And so, you know, energy back to the grid and that kind of thing.

So the smart grid systems that are, um, coming up into the future are going to be very interesting for, uh, people like yourself, working in fire protection engineering. I agree with you. Photo takes and, uh, alternative energy is not going anywhere. And so we definitely have to keep an eye on these. Hazards and just these, uh, construction means and methods as we move forward, I guess is the only answer.

But, um, so I wanted to get into a little bit more on your work with the national fire heritage center. Um, and just talk about, uh, for those, I know you already gave, uh, like a overview description of what that is. Um, maybe for the people who aren't aware, if you could go a little bit more in detail on, um, the work that you all are doing.

I, I think it's a really neat historical perspective on the fire service and fire prevention. Yeah. So I'm, I'm kind of excited. I, I just, uh, picked up the gavel, uh, for the president's office of the national fire heritage center and, uh, the, the national fire heritage center. Started out with a us fire administration study, um, you know, back in the late nineties.

Um, and they funded the study. Where does fire history go to? There are national. Uh, organizations that are collecting the history of the fire service, the Smithsonian doesn't collect it. And F P PA doesn't collect it. There's no organization that really has, um, you know, a sustainable archive. So they developed a document, uh, it's called heritage hall.

It's a proposal to archive. The history of the fire service and fire protection dis disciplines in America. And so, uh, what's really important about that title. It's not just about firefighting. It's not just about the fire trucks and, and, uh, you know, the hoses and nozzles and all of that. It also has a lot to do with your field as well.

Fire protection engineering. As well as laboratories and testing and things of that nature. There's a lot of historic information that is out there, um, that are in the hands of people who are long in the, like myself. Who've been around for a really long time and they've collected massive amounts of material.

And when they start passing away, Or having to downsize into smaller, uh, homes and, and that kind of thing, their relatives come in, they have no idea what the value of any of this collection is. And they either start throwing it away, or they're looking for fire museums or someplace to place it. And so the Nashville fire heritage center basically is going to step up to, uh, protect these documents.

Now, certainly we're looking at. You know, you know, the history of the fire service starts back in Ben Franklin's era and, uh, colonial America. But we've been in lockstep, you know, Ben Franklin also started the insurance industry. So we've been in lockstep with the insurance industry, um, laboratories, engineering companies, things like that.

And the data that's been collected. Or that was developed, needs to be collected. Uh, so that way people can research go back and see what, where did this code requirement come from, for example, and what event actually, um, started this, uh, code requirement, you know, uh, exiting hardware, for example, or one hour corridor doors.

You know, those kinds of things, um, occurred in the code because something. You know, typically somebody had died, uh, or many people have died or, you know, firefighters have been injured. So, you know, going back and collecting this kind of information, I think is, uh, informative for people today to be able to plan for the future.

We can go back and see the evolution of sprinkler systems, for example, or fire alarm systems. And, um, and then kind of decide, well, how can we make this program better? What did we miss historically that a technology wasn't available or material wasn't available, but it is today. That could then be used, um, for a future application.

So I think the national fire heritage center has a very big role into collecting as much material as we possibly can. Now having said that we're still a very young organization, uh, we're still, um, you know, trying to find our footing. We have no federal funding. Uh, we have no, um, major funding source, uh, right now.

So we're campaigning for, uh, people to make donations and, and people become members of the organization. There's a, a membership, uh, button and a donation button on our webpage. Fire heritage usa.org. And, uh, that helps a lot because we need to scan material. We need to, to house the material, keep the material on, on storage.

It costs about $600 a year. Um, per cubic foot of material to have it stored. So when you calculate, we've got over 15,000 pieces already cataloged, and we've probably got another 15,000 pieces that we're unboxing right now. Um, that is a lot of storage and that, that there's a huge expense in, um, maintaining that storage alone, not to say, you know, to preserve it.

So some of the material is so old, 18 hundreds. Some, I think we have two pieces that are in the 16 and 17 hundreds, you know, that stuff needs to be preserved as well. So we're, uh, putting together a catalog and, uh, we're moving our catalog to an online, um, uh, data system, uh, called past perfect. It's a museum quality system and we're gonna connect that to our website.

So people like yourself. Can actually, if you're in school and you're doing a paper or a thesis, or if you're in a design, uh, capacity like yourself, and you need some information of what happened in the past, uh, you could go into our archive and you could basically find it, uh, electronically. So we're trying to scan as much as we can and get it, um, get it posted to the web.

Our goal is to have the new system up and running the first quarter of 2021. And, uh, we're looking at a partnership with Google, uh, and Google is gonna help us scan some of our, um, more rare articles. That's uh, that's incredible. I'd love hearing about that. Yeah, I think, uh, One of the great points that you touched on was fire prevention.

And the fire service is, uh, is something that is built on tragedy. And I think that, you know, through my education at Oklahoma state university, um, we were, you know, instructed on some of these historic fires. And so I think. History is an integral piece of what it means to be in, um, fire prevention in the fire service.

So naturally the preservation of these irreplaceable pieces of historical importance are it's a noble pursuit without a doubt. I think that's great. I'm so glad to hopefully shine a what little light I can on it for, um, those who don't know about it. I know that the way that I found out about the national fire heritage center was through a really, um, riveting picture of.

Students at Oklahoma state university learning about fire protection. I think it was like in the forties or something. And I was just thinking, wow, you know, my program that I am part of is nearly a hundred years old for, uh, individuals who are wanting to learn fire science and be in the fire protection, um, industry, or, you know, any, any fire and life safety, um, pursuit.

Yeah, I think that's so great. Yeah. Our, our mission is important. I'm excited about, cause I'm not only helping, uh, you know, develop the organization, but, uh, develop the organizational culture, uh, that goes along with the national fire heritage center. So I have. A really, uh, great team of board members who are fire service related themselves and board of trustees members as well.

And I've been diversifying the board. So we have a lot more females on board. Um, and we have a lot younger people on board as well, which is kind of important. And, uh, the new voices in the organization. Given that organization a whole new energy. So I'm, I'm really excited about what 2021 is gonna look like.

Sounds like you guys are really taking the charge on the digital side of things, as far as the archival and, uh, just the, uh, cataloging of these different historical pieces. But yeah, I didn't know if you guys had any thoughts of maybe having like a physical museum location at any point. Is that something you guys have talked about or had thoughts of?

Uh, right, right now we're in Emmitsburg, which is really considered fire town USA. Emmitsburg is where the national fire academy is. Um, right now the vigilant hose company is hosting us. They have, uh, an activities building we're on the second floor of the activities building. Um, they've been very gracious in allowing us to.

Um, start building our collection there. And, uh, as a collection grows out, we're looking for property. Uh, yeah, so, so definitely having a building of our own, uh, is in the cards and something we'll be exploring, uh, uh, more this year. Uh, but until we have a stable and reliable, uh, funding stream coming in.

Talking about a building, uh, right now is kinda just kinda wishful thinking I guess would be the, the best way to describe it. We're we're we're we're we're wishfully. That one day we're gonna have enough money, uh, that comes in and enough funding streams coming together that allow us to build a building and, uh, and be able to house this collection because it's gonna be huge.

When you think about all of the, uh, material that's out there in, in your own library, for example, right? Think of somebody who's been around, like John Bryant. You know, who's teaching at the Maryland fire rescue Institute and what we're is we're when we get a collection from a specific individual like John Bryants Coleman, we, the BII is

doing some, some kind of a research. So for example, Ronnie Coleman, uh, was an early, uh, adopter and proponent. Uh, for residential sprinkler systems, you may want to look at the Ronnie Coleman collection to see what he's read and the things that he's developed that informed his decision to hang into, uh, you know, to, uh, you know, uh, become a champion for residential sprinkler systems, as, as an example.

That's great. I love that it's categorized and you finds somebody who is really a hero and your preferred area of the, of the field, and you can kind of delve into what they thought was, uh, meaningful to. Um, consume as far as literature on the subject. So that's, that's really incredible. So for, for people who don't know, I've taken a look at the, at the website and yeah.

So for people who don't know what kind of media it can be found, um, in the collection, cuz it. There's quite a diverse array. So when you, when you talk about the history of the fire service, you know, you're talking about, we're looking at preserving the written documents, uh, primarily, but also there's an oral history.

You know, a lot of the history of the fire service itself among the firefighters was passed on. From person to person, it was never written down. It was the, the war stories, um, you know, of how they survived a particular incident. And it's those survival stories that you hang onto as a firefighter that, you know, keep you out of trouble in the next incident.

Right. And so, um, there's a oral history, um, segment. There is the written history. But as, um, the written history then becomes more diversified into electronic media, uh, print media videos, audio, you know, all of this stuff then becomes collectible, you know, at, at the point that they emerges the new technologies.

I thought it was, uh, pretty interesting, uh, for those who. Wanna take a look, I would say go online and, uh, check out the website because you can kind of click through the different pieces and it's all available for people to take a look at from what I could see. And so if you have interest, you know, go dig through some of the pieces that are available.

It's a big old database filled. Lots of stuff that any code nerd, self profess code nerd would probably want to take a look at. So exactly including heritage hall. So the, uh, original documentation by the us fire administration, heritage hall is also on the website. So if you wanna know about our strategic direction, um, you know, you could read through that.

It's, uh, it's pretty interesting. And I'm, I'm reemphasizing, you know, this original, uh, document. Uh, as we go into 2021, because it's got lots of important things that we need to accomplish. That's great. So yeah, I was talking about the, the piece that really sparked my interest in the, in the national fire heritage center.

But I didn't know if you also had. A a piece that you found that was, um, truly compelling, maybe just for your own interests, or I know you've given some examples so far, but I didn't know if you had one that was near and dear to you. Um, well, so, you know, as a social scientist and as a, and as a researcher, The kinds of stuff that I see the national fire heritage, uh, center collecting, isn't just the engineering stuff and the, uh, lab reports and, and things like that.

But it's also some of the other research that helps keep firefighters safe. For example, um, there is a, you know, lots of social science research, uh, and there's an article I've got sitting here performing under uncertainty that contextualization. Engagement in wildland firefighting. And basically this is an article, uh, a research, uh, paper that was done, uh, to look at, um, how we communicate with one another on a fire scene.

And how, how do we maintain a level of safety, the hierarchy of the fire service. Um, suggest that you just take orders. You don't, you don't, um, you don't provide input into that decision making model. That model is beginning to change significantly. Um, you know, as they've studied wildland firefighting, and as they've studied, uh, structural firefighting, industrial firefighting, they're discovering that there needs to be a level of, um, uh, trust.

A level of respect and, uh, a higher level of communication among team members, uh, that will keep them safe in the long run. And that's being documented now in a lot of the social science research that's being conducted. Um, at the same time, I like that. I like that. That's, uh, something that people might not, uh, initially come to mind.

That it's not just these documents about, uh, historic fires and whatnot, but it's also some documents that have a social perspective on the fire service and fire prevention. So if people want to, uh, get involved, you know, donate or, or if they have something that they, that they might want to send to the museum, how would they do that?

Uh, they would contact, um, any of the, um, board members. Or the executive board, but we also have an archivist on the ground in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and his name is Dick Devor. And, uh, Dick is a retired fire chief, uh, and he, uh, all of us, you know, just, um, Donate our time. We're, we're all volunteer. We're an all volunteer organization.

Um, Dick, uh, goes into the archives a couple of times a week. Um, pulls things out of boxes, checks our mail, uh, that kind of thing. He is actually a pretty good point of contact and his contact information is on the website. You he's the chief archivist or, you know, archive, uh, at, uh, fire heritage center.

Excuse me, fire heritage usa.org. That's his email address. So you can just make contact with somebody in the organization and arrange for a drop off or a pickup. That's great. Saw a post I think today on, on LinkedIn and was somebody who had almost collected all of the, um, the old uniform. Building codes.

They were keeping an eye out for just a couple more copies. But yeah, for, for people who maybe aren't aware of, um, the history of the, you know, what the model codes were before the international building code, you know, there used to be a couple different model codes utilized throughout the us. In addition to all of the, uh, more specific.

Regional amendments stand or stated options, but I thought that was fascinating. Yeah. That that alone could be an entire career. Just keeping track of all those code changes. The evolution of the code. For sure, without a doubt. So, Rodney, I wanted to talk a little bit more about the consulting work that you're involved with and you know, how you help companies, uh, talk about, um, how to create sustainable, sustainable and meaningful cultures.

Yeah. I think that's interesting. It's, uh, kind of unique. I don't, I don't think I've ever seen a fire in life safety professional with that sort of, um, interest or passion. Right? Exactly. Exactly. You know, there's um, I don't know where to start with

guessing. So working as a civilian firefighter, In Sacramento, California, I was going to school, um, studying anthropology and a turning point for me was a book that came out, uh, by Terence steel and Allen Kennedy called, uh, corporate culture, the rights and rituals of, um, Corporate America. And I, I, through that book, I instantly saw the application of my anthropology to an organizational application.

And, um, my assistant chief that I was working for at the time, uh, was. Tasked with trying to change the attitudes and behaviors of the firefighters that you know, were working in the department. And, um, you know, knowing my interest in, in, in this work, uh, he asked me to design a program. And so we, um, We sat down and we defined the core values of my shift.

I was using the, we had a two shift system. Then at the time, the other shift was my control group because they weren't doing anything. And my, my shift, um, basically sat down and defined the core values. So what was it that made us. A success. And once we've identified what those values were and we defined it, then we, uh, came up with a system that reinforced those values.

So every time we gave, uh, a training class, everybody was tasked to teach some aspect of firefighting throughout the course of the month. Um, if you're teaching hydraulics, Ground hydraulics or SCPA systems or whatever you had to do it within the context of those core values. And, uh, the program became extremely popular.

Everybody on the shift was really excited and, and, uh, we really, uh, made an impact in terms of engagement, uh, and in terms of employee morale and in, and in terms of what, um, The firefighter saw in their management. And so it was a, a pretty impactful program. And that success is what kept me into, you know, wanting to stay in this area for a long time.

I just finished my degree, uh, uh, with Pepperdine university as an organizational development, and I've got my master's of science and organizational development. And there, my foundation as an anthropologist is then amplified. With, um, the organizational development side of things. It, it's hard to answer your question specifically because it's a very general, if I go into an organization just as I did last year, I went into a, a combination fire department, um, and did a cultural assessment.

And, um, as I'm collecting the data. I recognize the fact that the, the volunteers and the career firefighters don't respect each other. The young guys don't respect the old guys. Um, the men don't respect the women. You know, the, the, the story goes on. Everybody was in silos within this organization. So we went back to, uh, once we've done the initial.

Analysis of the culture went back and did workshops on respect, you know, what does respect look like? How does, how do you feel about that? And, you know, giving the people, uh, a mechanism to define their own terms and share that definition with one another. So everybody's operating from the same sheet of music, uh, essentially.

So that's the, that's kind of the crux of the work that I do. And it's easy for me going into a fire organization because. They don't have to teach me first, what it means to be a firefighter. You know, I I've already done that job. So I, I know, uh, essentially, and basically, you know, what firefighting entails, you know, shift work, uh, going out on campaign fires, I've done all those kinds of things.

You know, I've worked as an engineer. I've worked on the prevention side of things. So I, I pretty much have a pretty good idea. So it's an organizational culture that I don't have to be explained to. Um, but every organization has a different culture. You know, the, uh, the small combination fire department I did in Northern California would be completely different than say Chicago fire department.

I mean, the culture. Completely different. So, um, you know, that's, you know, that's the aspect for firefighting, and then we could go back to that for a second other organizations that I might not have as much experience in I've I've. Um, I've done some, uh, light industrial. Um, I'm going into those organizations, uh, pretty much, uh, you know, wide-eyed, uh, there's like so much going on when I walk into, uh, a new business that I'm absorbing things like, like crazy, and it's really a lot more fun for me to go outside the fire service and work in organizational, uh, cultures outside, um, and, and discover what they're all.

And, uh, uh, that work is, um, you know, that is just as fulfilling for me, you know, either, either way. I, I enjoy it a lot. That's very interesting. It sounds like, uh, it sounds like an interesting role kind of helping, uh, Promote being inclusive and also, uh, kind of workshopping different companies, um, strengths and weaknesses.

So, yeah, but it's a, it's gotta be a different, pretty different each time. It sounds like. Um, I'm sure there's no one size fits all for, uh, fixing company culture. Sounds like something that's pretty unique and it's something that like you work in an organization. It's something that the organizational leadership needs to work on every single day.

It's not something that, you know, uh, and certainly it happens, you know, culture just develops the behaviors, uh, the patterns of behaviors that people have organizationally develop over a period of time, oftentimes led by the personality of the leadership to begin with. Um, so my suggestion is. That, uh, we go into these organizations purposefully decide what kind of culture that we wanna have and, and build towards that culture.

So in your, in your line of work, you know, innovation would be very important. And if you have a leadership team that, that squashed your innovative, uh, uh, tendencies, then that would pretty much kill your desire to keep working for the. So, you know, um, the, uh, the culture and the leadership kind of work hand in hand and it's, uh, it's, it's really fascinating.

It really is a fascinating area. Definitely. Uh, innovation is a big thing, um, at the company that I work for. Uh, it's interesting, uh, you know, cuz there's a varying levels of how much a company will buy into. The latest and greatest technology, or maybe alternative approaches to design, or just some of these sorts of things that, you know, a company can take a stance on.

Hey, we, we do wanna be on the, more of the cutting edge of what technology can do and, and push the limit or know we're a more conservative company and we wanna be, uh, Uh, less innovative and, and, and more reliable. So I think that's an interesting point. You touched on there anyways. Well, I wanted to get into some, a couple of professional development topics to round out our, uh, conversation and just, uh, yeah, button up the interview.

But, uh, but yeah, I always love asking people because I, I feel like everybody always has a, a different answer and it's, and it's always interesting is, you know, what do you see as a trend in. Uh, fire and life safety, or just maybe in, in a more broad sense, um, in, in business. Right. You know? Uh, yeah. Do you have like a finger on the pulse of what you would call a trend right now?

I know we talked about a couple things. Well, you, uh, you know, you mentioned the word inclusiveness and in today's environ. Diversity equity and inclusion, I think are going to be really important going forward, uh, you know, bringing other voices into the room. And I, I, I, and, and this again comes from that anthropological perspective, is that, um, Different, uh, cultures, different people from around the world have a different way of solving problems.

They, uh, men and women look at problems completely differently, right? and so, uh, how they come up with, uh, you know, solving problems. So I think that the strength of many of our organizations and many of our, uh, you know, things that we should be looking forward to in the future is being able to. You know, bring people that aren't traditionally.

So, you know, let, let's be Frank, you know, the, uh, the fire service in America is predominantly a white male. Um, uh, and even in the engineering section, I, I I'm, I'm starting to see more diversity, but, uh, it has not always been that way, you know, bringing people in. That's not white. That's not male. That's not, you know, over 50, you know, that's, that's kind of an important thing where you have younger voices, you have female voices, you have people from different cultures coming in.

And I think that that is going to add your ability to solve larger and larger problems. So that's, that's the first thing does that, uh, does that work for. Definitely. I mean, I, I totally resonate with what you're saying, you know, the, the more, uh, different kind of voices and opinions that are at the table, you know, uh, people's perspectives vary pretty widely.

And yeah, there's lots of supporting research, you know, for that. And then the other part of this is technology. Cause you know, um, what we're doing. Is largely technologically driven and the safeguards that we can provide people within the, um, you know, fire engineering, uh, perspective, uh, I think is gonna, uh, happen, uh, through technology and even firefighting.

The itself is already being impacted. Uh, it wasn't that long ago where they're going to outlaw drones. You know, over wildland fires and now they're using drones to help identify the wildland fires and the, and the perimeter of the fire and things like that. You know, it seems incredibly ridiculous that we're still sending live human beings into very dangerous, um, life threatening situations as firefighters, um, where we now have robotic systems that could do the same.

Automatic sprinkler systems and, uh, detection systems. You know, all of that I think is going to, um, only improve and get better. Building materials are going to change. So it's not just the people, uh, in engineering, but there, uh, there are inventors out there that are using new materials or new combination of materials to come up with better systems.

And so technology, I think, is gonna, um, be a, a, a big factor. And, uh, in the future without a doubt, it's pretty interesting. Did, you know, even in my short career, some of the advances in technology and, you know, um, what's been happening as far as, uh, suppression and detection. So, uh, I get really excited about the.

Systems side of things, you know, seeing some different, um, innovations like electronically controlled sprinklers. And you know, some of the more advanced means of detection and initiation, uh, are some things that I kinda get, uh, revved up about. But. Yeah, I definitely hear what you're saying. That makes a lot of sense.

You know, I have, I've had this, uh, philosophy and I've shared this over the years that the fire service is pretty much a generalist kinda, uh, occupation, uh, occupationally, you know, firefighters are. Or, um, electricians or carpenters, uh, they're roofers. Um, you know, they work a lot in the trades plumbing, that kind of thing.

Um, but we've grown more and more, uh, over the past couple of decades, I've been in the fire service. It's more academic areas. Um, and I think it's important for people entering into the industry at large. Is to appreciate that it's not just one thought process, um, of a variety of disciplines make the strength of what the fire service community and industry is all about.

So, um, whether you're interested in, you know, uh, English or, you know, physics or biology, uh, anthropology, or any of the social sciences, you know, all of these things academically, Um, have a value and a place in, in the fire service industry. And I say industry at large, not just firefighting, but fire protection, uh, fire engineering and fire research.

Um, so I think that, um, having an appreciation for somebody who comes in with a, you know, a degree in fire science, And, uh, you know, bachelor's degree in, um, uh, administration, uh, public administration, you know, that's kind of the standard profile for a lot of people academically. Um, but, um, I, I guess what I'm, uh, suggesting is people like myself who have, uh, a different.

Background in social science or English. I taught grant writing. I, I traveled around, uh, north America, basically training firefighters, how to write grants. I, I would have a, uh, fire truck mechanic with grease under his fingernails, um, who could barely construct a sentence, write successful grants. So, you know, getting people to learn a little bit about grammar and English and honing their writing skills.

Is like cred incredibly important. So I think that we really need to expand our mind in, in terms of what a fire person looks like. You know, fire person could come from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds and be, uh, very effective. It's a really interesting point. I've never really thought about that before.

I was wondering on how much to try to butter you up to get you on the show. And you were saying, oh, I don't know how compelling my, my background is because it's not conventional. And I, and I wanted to say this and I typed it out and I deleted it. But, you know, I wanted to say, you know, I think some of.

Best backgrounds and, uh, careers in fire service and fire preventions are the people who come from, uh, non-traditional means and, and methods to, to make it to the field fire protection and the fire. Services's not a really, I mean, maybe the fire service, but not fire protection. Engineering is really a thing that, uh, most people aspire to be as, you know, three or four year olds.

You know, you don't hear any kids saying, oh, I wanna be a fire protection engineer. So I think it's interesting that, uh, a lot of people do come from various backgrounds. Well, cause the kids don't see the guys behind the, you know, they're not front, like the firefighters are. Yeah, I wanted to ask, uh, so what would you recommend to professionals for resources?

It sounds like you are, uh, a subject matter expert on, um, writing research grants and some of some different areas that are maybe not as, uh, prevalent in the industry. I'd love to hear about, um, where you like to go to. Get, um, information about these things or just about fire and life safety in general?

Um, yeah. I didn't know if you had any tips for the listeners. Not necessarily. I think that, uh, you know, this is another one of the technology things that there's more and more information available on the internet than ever before. And, um, everybody's now curing. A a computer and or hand that that has more capacity than the first spaceships that we sent to the moon.

Right. And so, um, I think the information is really available. You know, there's lots of information that's available out there right now. I think that, um, for people who are going to be successful in the future is to take the available information that is, that exists and recombine. And to new ideas and innovate, you know, off of the stuff that's already been done.

And, uh, so, you know, uh, from my perspective, I would say, keep an open mind and, uh, and be inquisitive, you know, just, you know, use your imagination and use your natural and innate, uh, curiosity about things in the world and, uh, and follow up on it and, and discover things for. Well, Rodney, I think that's, uh, a perfect incap to the interview.

Um, I want to thank you so much for your time today. Uh, speaking with me and coming on the podcast and, and yeah, thanks again, sir. I appreciate it. Gus. It was really fun talking to you today. Thanks for listening everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

Happy New Year! I want to ring in the new year with some of the best Fire Code Tech clips from 2020. I’m grateful for all who have supported the show, and, as a way to say thanks, I’ve created an episode with clips and commentary from 2020 podcast episodes.

1 Fascinating Stories and Careers

Bill Gustin Bowstring Truss. Timestamp in this episode 2:42. Original Episode 11

Richard Meier First Case.  Timestamp in this episode 4:29. Original Episode 9

Andy Lynch Flame detection and Careers. Timestamp in this episode 8:05. Original Episode 5

2 Process of Being a Professional

Chris Campbell Performance based design.  Timestamp in this episode 11:23. Original Episode 8

Mike Snyder intro clip for hazardous materials? Timestamp in this episode 14:40. Original Episode 15

Cathleen Childers What it looks like to be an FPE? Timestamp in this episode 19:00. Original Episode 7

Andy Lynch the listing process. Timestamp in this episode 25:15. Original Episode 5

Chris Campbell Life Safety Design. Timestamp in this episode 30:24. Original Episode 8

3 Fire Investigation

Richard Meier Fire patterns and effects.  Timestamp in this episode 33:58. Original Episode 9

Aaron Johnson Nuisance Discharge.  Timestamp in this episode 38:10. Original Episode 4

Bill Gustin Change in construction Legacy to Modern. Timestamp in this episode 41:17. Original Episode 11

4 Codes and standards development

Aaron Johnson What to be learned from being involved in a committee 45:33. Original Episode 4

Chase Browning Codes and Standards Timestamp in this episode 47:46. Original Episode 6

5 Trending Topics in the Industry

Aaron Johnson PFAS and PFOA. Timestamp in this episode 50:30. Original Episode 4

Mike Snyder Beirut Chunk. Timestamp in this episode 51:51. Original Episode 15

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Guss Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Hello. All welcome to the Clipse episode of 2020. I wanted to highlight some of my favorite episodes from the first eight months of fire code tech and bring some more content as a bonus feature. In addition to the two episodes that I'm gonna release in the month of January, I'm gonna have a couple different segments in this clips post.

And if you want to skip around, I'm gonna have all the information in the show notes. I'm extremely grateful for all the people who have supported fire code tech in the first eight months. And I wanted to just say, thank you. My goal for 2021 is to keep putting out content at the regular intervals. I have been, and also to add some new features to the podcast.

In addition to all the other locations that I upload the episodes of fire code tech. We are now on YouTube. So if you're more interested in short form content, then you should check out our YouTube page. You can find the link on our [email protected] and, uh, all of our location and publication information there.

If you'd like to help out the show, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also follow us on social media so you can find all the great information we post about fire and life safety. Let's get started with the show. Our first category of clips is called fascinating stories and careers.

On fire code tech, we talk to people who have incredible careers and backgrounds. During these interviews, we usually get some really interesting nuggets about people's careers and stories from their travel through fire and life safety. Our first clip is from bill Gustin, somebody who has no shortage of incredible stories from his time in the fire service in this clip, he speaks about some of the harrowing incidents that he had early on in his.

If you are interested in listening to the entire episode, check out the show notes and I will annotate which episodes these clips come. I experienced some things at a very young age that have just stuck with me my whole life. Uh, in September of 1973, we were at a meeting that paid our calls, you know, co 'em volunteers.

And we had a, a call for a fire at a drug store that was adjacent with a party wall to a grocery store. We went in there. It was a little bit of light wispy gray. As we advanced an inch and a half line thinking that we had a fire in the storage area, about 200 feet deep into the building, we saw a bluish orange flame blow out of one of the, uh, air registers.

HVAC registers. We did not know that this building had a boing Tru roof had a tin stealing and the fire was roaring roaring in that truss loft. And we didn't know it. And thank God we were not successful in pulling that ceiling because had we been successful? It would've been like opening up the damper of a wood burning stove.

So we got outta. And within minutes, the entire roof collapsed. It would've killed about 20 of us at a very early age, very early age, boing trucks. I remember being awestruck when I would hear bill Gustin. Talk about some of these stories when we were during the interview. Some of the impetus for the guests in the podcast for fire code tech are subjects that I didn't know very much about this next clip comes from a guest who has a career in a field that I really didn't have much knowledge in before I started doing research for the episode.

I. Richard talks about one of his explosions investigation. And it's a really fascinating story about what the cause was for this exact explosion investigation. Well, actually, I've, I've had two cases and I can talk about 'em cuz they're both closed. Uh, generally I don't talk, discuss cases that are, are open and in litigation, but, uh, the first case was in Detroit, Michigan, uh, it was a gas leak and this was a catastrophic explosion.

Uh, the homeowner. Was entering through the back door, turned the light switch on basically the house turned smoother res uh, there was, uh, a debris field extending about a hundred yards or more in every direction. Uh, the house next door literally had shrapnel that went through the, through the exterior walls through interior walls.

And this was a house that was built in the 20. So it had LA and plaster. I mean, this is stuff that'll normally stop bullets. Sometimes, but they had, you know, shrapnel that had gone through multiple walls. Unfortunately, nobody got hurt in that one. Uh, the homeowner at the house had exploded, unfortunately, uh, died from his injuries.

But in this case, uh, we had a home that was initially hooked to natural gas and then was later converted to propane because the, the owner of the. Owned a propane company, so he could get, uh, propane fairly cheap, but the gas line still ran into the house. So then the question became, you know, where was the leak?

Not so much as, you know, what the ignition source was, uh, more or less. Likely that it was the, you know, turning on the light switch is, is what did it, but the, uh, it came down to, uh, doing an evaluation of both systems. And we had found out that the, the natural gas coming from the gas company, uh, they had had a number of leaks, uh, in a.

Gas main across the street. And this is about, uh, 60, 70 feet away. The gas main was an old steel main. That was almost 80 years old. Uh, so, uh, it had a lot of time to, uh, collect, uh, corrosion, uh, had a history of being repaired every 10 years or so. And on the couple of days before the explosion, there were some heavy rains.

And what that does is it actually seals the ground. Uh, normally the, the gas was basically coming outta the pipes and going through the Sandy soil. Straight up. And then you could, you could tell there was a line of dead grass that followed the gas main. Uh, but on the couple of days before the explosion, uh, there was some couple of days of heavy rain.

And what that does is it saturates the top of the soil with water, making it, uh, kind of impervious to the gas flow. So the gas decided to personifying the gas, which I shouldn't do. Uh, but the, uh, the gas, uh, then went laterally, uh, under the roadway. Under the front lawn and leaked in through the, you know, the old basement walls that were pretty poorest block by comparison.

We found no issues with the, with the piping, for the propane. That is only a couple of years old. It was plastic. It was all solid and no, no issues found. Uh, so we determined that the. It was a gas leak from the gas main is what, uh, led to the explosion. It was really interesting talking with Richard because I could tell from his experience with being a part of depositions and trial, that he had almost no effort in speaking about these cases and about fire phenomenon.

This next clip is from Andy ly. He has an incredible career as a fire protection engineer, working in predominantly listing and testing. This story is about when Andy was involved with getting a detection system listed and incorporated into N FPA 72. The big projects I worked on there were actually for, um, the Navy, uh, the Naval research labs.

Um, I think to this day, Hughes still has the contract with them and they have a ship down in Alabama that we did a lot of fire testing on, which was a great opportunity. I was there and I was working on now, this is, you're talking about 15 years. We were working on the detection suppression systems for the next generation of destroyer and carrier.

And we were looking at video image detection. We were looking at, uh, UV IR. We actually looking at acoustic detection. So we had microphones in the compartments and we could hear if there was a pipe rupture or, or some event going on. And then. What happened was one of the startup companies that was doing video detection at the time, actually hired me away from Hughes.

And I worked for a company called Exxon X. I was actually the third person. Um, I was a partner in that company and we developed video image detection from what it would do was take normal CCTV cameras and feed 'em through, uh, server and process the pixels to look for fire and smoke. We ended up building a fire lab, doing a lot of comparative testing with other detection, um, you know, air aspiration, spot type P type, and looked at how video detection would perform.

We migrated the analytics from the server actually onboard the camera. So you had a self-contained detection device that had, uh, dry contacts that could feed into a fire alarm panel. And then. Actually got that technology FM and UL listed, and there was no listings at the time. So we had to actually work through the process with FM and UL to, to create a new standard for video image detection and then test to it so we could get the UL and FM mark.

And then we also got it into N FPA code and FPA 72 adopted video image detection, uh, as well as you know, we were finding customers and. Beta test sites and, and rolling out the product. We built it up to a point where, um, Fike, which, uh, is a fire protection manufacturer, bought the company. I stayed on board with Fike for about three years, and that's when I left and started the fire solutions group, which is where I am now.

And I do mostly fire testing. Andy is incredibly intelligent and was a pleasure to speak to, and let's face it. That Boston accent didn't hurt for the audio content. This next segment is called the process of being a professional. And basically throughout the process of recording the episodes of fire code tech wanted to learn more about certain professions and, you know, wanted to provide a resource for some of these different careers and backgrounds.

And so, uh, really, I just wanted to highlight the individuals and, um, show people what incredible work that fire and life safety professionals are involved. This next clip is from Chris Campbell, who is a professional engineer who works in construction in the DC Metro area. He gives a breakdown of performance based design and some of the options that you can use when you are trying to integrate performance based design, instead of prescriptive design, one important distinction, I think is that performance based design can be used for all of the building design.

Uh, but it can also just be used for a certain portion. Um, you know, so one example of that might be, uh, let's say that you're, you're well into a building design and, uh, you realize that there is a dead end corridor issue. Um, for example, you, you might just consider doing some sort of performance based design to just mitigate that specific issue, but the rest of the building could comply with the.

Prescriptive egress requirements. So, uh, certainly if it's gonna be, you know, your entire egress system is performance based. I think that's gotta be a pretty early determination, but, uh, there is an opportunity later on for perhaps smaller portions of the design to be performance based, regardless of, of at what stage.

That decision is made. It is really crucial to get the aha on board. Um, I've had the opportunity to work with some, uh, really knowledgeable authorities having jurisdiction. Uh, a few that come to mind are the, the Smithsonian institution. Wow. Uh, they have their own fire protection. Uh, In-house fire protection group there that access the aha.

And, uh, they're generally very open to using performance based design techniques, but at any rate, uh, you obviously have to get the, the aha to buy off on the approach that you're using. And, and if you're doing something like egress or fire modeling, they have to agree to the assumptions that you're using in those modeling, uh, approaches.

Ideally very early on. I think another good example of, of an opportunity to use performance based design is, uh, when you're doing. Work in existing buildings. Uh, so I'll give an example a few years ago. Um, I was working on a project at the Kennedy center in Washington, DC, which is, uh, a very notable performing arts center in the district.

And, you know, they have some, some very notable and, and large scale, uh, performances there. Uh, I think every president for. You know, recent memory has, has visited there for one show or another, but at, at one point in time, the, the garage that sits beneath the Kenny center, performing arts center, the garage had, uh, some exits that were discharging onto a sidewalk that was, uh, directly next to a.

A freeway that goes through DC there, and they decided that they no longer wanted to use those exits just because of the danger that is associated with a sidewalk right next to a freeway. Uh, so we had an existing building that, you know, had a building permit was occupied and, uh, they wanted to. You know, stop using two exits.

Um, so adding additional exits elsewhere in the building, would've been very disruptive and costly. So that's an example where we had an existing condition that they wanted to modify. And we used, um, fire and egress modeling to show that even with the. No longer using two of these exits that the, uh, the building could still be evacuated safely.

What an interesting story about how to use performance based design as a tool to help you problem solve as a fire and light safety professional. Mike Snyder is a consummate professional when it comes to chemical safety and hazardous materials, check out this clip where he gives an introduction to hazardous materials.

Sure. So, you know, obviously, um, and I'll. With I'll call it the academic side and then we'll step back. And I think, talk about how we, how you can frame this, that it's applicable really to anybody who is gonna be touching, uh, has just materials in our, in our work process. So, you know, most programs in chemical engineering and chemistry are looking at the normal routes.

Of of basically how you, how you take chemistry or chemicals and move them from kind of condition one to condition two, very seldom. And, and even today, uh, in the academic environment is there are a lot of discussion about unanticipated consequences, contamination, or undesired reactions. Um, and that probably is from a personal mission standpoint, getting that more robustly into our a.

Uh, curriculum is still something that we need to do a, a greater deal of, of work on. Right. And if you think about our practice in fire safety, loss control and process safety, most of what we're really trying to do is can you identify the, the potential unanticipated outcomes? And do you have proper Le levels of protection to, to deal with that?

Oftentimes, as we talked about, right. Chemistry can be daunting. And so the things that as I reflected upon this in preparation for our discussion here, that I have found to be very effective in dealing with clients, in dealing with regulators, in dealing with community members is. We have to take complex topics and frame them very straightforward and as simple as we can.

And that doesn't mean gloss over important facts, but you need to be able to distill down what is the exposure. What is the risk and how are we gonna control that? And I always kind of joked, right. If I could explain it to my mother and she could understand it, then I probably got it to the point that it was appropriate, uh, that I've, I've, I've distilled it down to its most simple element because oftentimes we love to talk in acronyms.

We love to talk in, in technical detail and there's a forum for that, right. With colleagues. And when people are doing technical review, But many times when you're dealing with a client or you're dealing with an owner or a authority having jurisdiction without, again, trying to, you know, say, well, you can't understand this, but simplify the problem.

And, uh, all of a sudden people get on your, on your same page. And then I think you also have to think about the work process and, and you know, that. You're doing some type of work here with this hazardous chemical or with the code compliance there. How does it fit into the broader picture? And the way that I do that is I in as simple as this sounds, it is the root of many problems in chemistry.

It starts with what. Is the problem we're trying to solve. And I, again, it's a very simple question, but I ask it three or four times a week. When we get into places where, oh, the client doesn't understand it, or the authority having jurisdiction is being unrealistic in this. I, I really. Come back. And I ask that Sentinel question, and when we have a dialogue there, it's like, oh, we're missing, we're missing the point or we're missing the, the understanding or the resistance of what we're doing.

Um, and then, you know, obviously as, as you look at that, you need to make sure that you do have that background data. Uh, that's gonna be necessary to support the simplification and the discussion that you have there. Again, if you, if you can kind of frame the issue or the hazards simp. You can think about it in the workflow, uh, and how it fits into the work process.

And again, start with, you know, uh, what is the problem we're trying to solve? You will be much more successful. Uh, and I would say much more satisfied, uh, when you're dealing with these hazardous chemical challenges in your work. Definitely check out Mike's episode. If you have any interest in dealing with hazardous materials, also check out Lynn KPA, who also has a great episode on hazardous materials.

I get asked sometimes what the job looks like to be a fire protection engineer. I think cat Childers, who is a professional engineer in New York city has a great response to this question in this clip. There's a good back and forth between Kat and I on the process of fire protection engineering and a typical work week for cat.

So, I mean, as we kind of were chatting about earlier, We're all working from home now. So it's definitely not what it used to look like. um, but I have always enjoyed, um, maybe we'll talk about my typical week, uh, getting out of the office a little bit. Um, so I, with the healthcare and, um, some other stuff I've worked.

There's a lot of inspections that I have to do, um, which, you know, if you're going a hundred percent inspections, it's driving you crazy. But if you're in the office every single day for months, you're also going crazy. So, yeah, I, you know, in my four years at Costantini have gotten a, a good mix of inspection versus design.

So we just wrapped up, well, we're kind of wrapping up, uh, a project where we were looking at fireproofing and fire stopping above the ceiling in a million square foot building. So that was a lot of months wow. Of being out in the field, um, you know, on a ladder with a flashlight. And that stuff is really interesting to me.

And I think you need to have. The full picture for that. Right. So you're gone up and you're looking at these things and you're noticing, you know, one tiny square inch of an issue, but then, you know, you have to remember the person that you're gonna ultimately submit this report to. Does he care or does he just need to know what needs to be fixed?

Right. So I think like the biggest thing is understanding the construction process as a whole of like I'm looking at this so that I can create a document that tells somebody else how to fix. Yeah, the inspections, the report writing, you know, I just, I like when it's the full process and it makes sense to me, right?

So, you know, that was fire proving, but it could be sprinkler design. If it's an existing building, you gotta come in, you gotta somehow be able to express to somebody what's there, what they can reuse, what they have to remove, um, and what needs to change going into it. And I. You know, a lot of times with the design, you know, people are worried about the HJ approval and this and that, which is all.

You have to look at everything, right? You don't just wanna put things on a drawing, so it gets approved. You wanna put things on a drawing so that everybody who picks up that drawing understands what you saw and what you need it to look like at the end. Um, yeah. So inspection report, writing drawings, wanna meetings when things don't go great or when they're going good, the collaboration on projects is so important, right?

Like when. Designing the system and you're, you know, all just staring at your computer screen, trying to figure out this valve room, you gotta talk to the architect, right? Like, Hey, can you make this room a little bigger? Is this absolutely it right? So you, you know, you can spend hours trying to solve a problem that might not be a problem.

If you had just picked up the phone and asked the a. Um, if there was anything that they could change. So that, that part is fun. When you, when you have a good team, who's all on board. It's nice when you see the process work well. Yeah, I think I said this, uh, before on the podcast, but you know, you get into fire protection and you think that fire protection's gonna be the hardest thing you do, but turns out.

Coordination and teamwork and communication end up being the things that are the hardest and, you know, uh, vary the most from project to project is the. People on the team and the stakeholders. And I like what you said about, you know, knowing your audience with these projects, you know, every project's different and, you know, uh, who you're reporting to, or what the end goal of the project is, is always different.

So you have to know your audience when you're writing these reports and, you know, uh, making these engineering judgements, um, as well as knowing the technical for, you know, why they shouldn't have the conduit or the sprinkler. In the rated wall without, you know, uh, protection. Yeah. And I, you know, in healthcare and, and some of the government projects that I've had, I found that having a fire protection engineer on the owner or client side, you think it's gonna make your life harder, but it.

Often makes it so much easier to have somebody on the client side, just say, yeah, that's absolutely correct. We absolutely need to make this change. Um, you know, mm-hmm, sometimes when you're the only person in the room saying, you know, you can't do that. And everyone's like, well, why. You know, it's nice.

It's nice to have another person who understands, um, where you're coming from, especially when they're on the client side. Definitely. And having somebody who knows what they're doing on the client side is gonna help you get the information for you to get your design going and get everything moving along the way it needs to be in the first place.

And you know, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So if you need. Information about existing systems or, you know, what they really want for deliverables. Then you have somebody who, you know, understands what's required, you know, talking to you about what they want instead of, you know, part of the. Um, consulting and just engineering and, and, uh, architecture stuff is in general is narrowing down these nebulous thoughts that the owner might have about what they want or what they need, um, and kind of synthesizing that and giving them something.

That, uh, is gonna make them happy at the end of the day and, uh, achieves what they're trying to get at. So, yeah, it's hard to do, and it definitely helps if you're talking to some people who know what's going on. If you're looking to hear some more commiserating of fire protection engineers, go check out episode seven with cat Childers.

This next clip is Andy Lynch. Again, talking about the listing process and really breaking down why we have to get fire and life safety products. you know, the big three in, in north America and the, the us is you've got factory mutual, you've got underwriter lab, and then you have Intertech. So you've got the FM, mark UL, uh, listing, and, and you've got the ETL, which is inter Tech's.

Um, Mark there. So it really depends on if you have a product that already has a standard, or if you, a lot of the companies I work with have a very new and unique technology. So you kind of have to either find the standard that closest. Fits or, or you have to talk to FM about creating a, a new standard test standard.

The reason we have these companies to, to start is that when we look at, you know, the life safety industry, we want to make sure things work. We want to make sure that we're getting the same. Piece of equipment. Every time we purchase it, that changes aren't being made that could, you know, um, change the functionality of it.

And, and it's it's for consistency. So the, the testing portion of it, the fire performance test is, is just one piece of it. Most of these processes to get a listing is actually a lot of component testing. So they want to see what failure rates of certain rubbers and plastic gaskets are. They want to. You know, make sure that.

The functionality of some valve or some circuit board, you know, I mean, there's one test where it's just turning a, a device on and off 500 times, you know, there's, there's a lot of just wear and tear corrosion, electric tests. That just to make sure that the device that's going out in the field is gonna be resilient.

So the, you know, and then you've got temperature tests where they bring stuff down to negative 40 or, or zero and, and up to a hundred, hundred 20, whatever the, the high temperature is. So a lot of it is, is component testing. Um, you have the fire testing in, in the next part. Looking at the manuals, looking at your spec sheets, anything you're gonna put FM on.

They want to have control of that to make sure you're not saying something that's outside the listing. You're not making a claim. Um, that isn't true. And so it's protecting the market. It's protecting, you know, it's a life safety device, so they want to make sure that that's gonna function. And then. FM there's follow ups on the manufacturing facilities.

They actually come out and do quarterly audits in some cases where, uh, every quarter an individual from FM comes into the facility and makes sure that your manufacturing process, your quality control in the, in the manufacturing process is there. So when you get a product to submit it, go to FM, um, their website, does they kind of break it down by different departments?

And you'll send in drawings, you'll send in your manual. You'll send in, uh, you know, there's paperwork attached. Um, I do an authorized agent form for my clients so that I can speak directly to FM on their behalf. And then they'll give back a quote. If it's, if it's a, if there's a standard that already exists, the quote's pretty cookie cutter.

They say, this is how much it's gonna cost, depending on what device. I mean, yeah, it takes, it can take up to a year. I know that with any kind of pressurized cylinder, they have a year long leakage test. So that's, you're gonna start that right away and then you'll start. Doing all the other component tests in the meantime.

So a a year is a typical timeframe. It could be shorter if it's, you know, if it's a simple spray head open, you know, day lose spray head, it could be, you know, three months prices range from, you know, $3,000 to, I I've heard tests, you know, for ESFR sprinklers, they're actually gonna do full rack tests. So.

You're gonna be, it's gonna be very expensive to run those. I've heard test as high as, or close to a million dollars, um, to get a listing on some devices. If there isn't a standard, then it's, it's a lot more difficult. Now you're talking about a two, maybe even three year timeframe where you're presenting the technology, you're presenting the case on it.

Um, someone has to kind of be your champion at one of those organizations and say, yeah, we can see why this. You know, benefit the industry or in N FM's case. I mean, the reason FM's approving is for their insurance clients. So they wanna make sure that there's a reason that their clients, uh, would be putting, putting that device in.

Um, it, so if you do find that champion, then what they're gonna do is say, okay, we'll form a committee and we'll write a test standard and they'll usually give you a, a cost associated with that. Um, when that cost. If you pay that cost and they, they move forward and they, they build that standard. Then you pay to actually test to that standard.

So you, you kind of hit, uh, double hard on that aspect if there isn't, uh, a standard already. Wow. I couldn't believe after Andy said that, that it could take up to three years to get a product listed through FM or UL. Here's another great clip from Chris Campbell, talking about how to conduct a life safety analysis for a building.

Yeah, we do. And, and that's a good question, Gus. Um, it, it does vary from project to project. I think, uh, in my mind, the ideal case is that when we're working with an architect that we are brought in, um, at the beginning of the design, ideally in just the, the concepts phase where it's, uh, just the general.

Uh, concept of the building and we don't even have, you know, full scaled plant yet. It's maybe just renderings or some, you know, blocking and stacking diagrams or something like that. And, uh, when we're able to get in early on, uh, we can offer a lot of guidance about, uh, What is the, you know, for example, the type of construction that you could choose based on the sides of the building that's being considered and the occupancies that might be in the building.

And that really then feeds into the allowable heightened area and, uh, requirements for fire protection of structural elements. So you get a lot of the basics, uh, early on covered. Um, if, if you're able to, you know, get in early on the. Um, so we, we prefer when, when that's the case, I, I will say there's a lot of times where architects don't bring us in that early.

And we're, we're almost brought in after the fact. And, um, if the architect has done a really thorough code analysis, sometimes that can work out just fine. And, and we're just, you know, making some minor tweaks. Uh, we've also had instances though, where we're brought in kind of later. There's some pretty major, um, concerns that we have about the design.

So, uh, we do typically start with the, what is the, the construction type of the building. And then that goes hand in hand with how big is the building in terms of height, number of stories and area. Another big item is just identifying any of the, the IC chapter four. Requirements, which are the, you know, detailed requirements based on use and occupancy.

So a few major ones in that would be if the building's a high rise, there's a series of life safety and fire protection requirements that are triggered for that. Uh, we do also do a good bit of residential work. So there's a number of, of group R specific requirements, both in chapter four and also in chapter 10.

So that's usually the, the starting point. Once we get further on into the design, so into, to schematic design or design development phase, Uh, then we're typically doing a more detailed egress analysis where, uh, we're taking a look at the architect's life safety plans and their occupant load calculations, verifying them, making sure that the, uh, egress system is of sufficient capacity to handle the, a occupant load.

And also that it's set up correctly in terms of, um, Where the exits are located, exit remoteness, travel, distance, common path of travel, things like that. And then finally, a, a big portion of our role in life safety is, uh, assisting the design team in obtaining a building permit. So, uh, once a permit submission is made for almost every project, there's usually, uh, several rounds of permit, review comments that the local building and fire departments make.

And. We, we play a big role in, in looking at those comments, uh, evaluating whether we agree with them or not. And, uh, then assisting the architect to make any necessary design changes to, uh, address those comments or perhaps negotiating with the code officials to. Uh, try to, uh, argue for our point of view and why we think, uh, the design that we have is correct.

This next clips block is about fire investigations. This first clip from Richard Meyer discusses some of the fundamental topics of fire investigations, such as fire patterns, fire effects, and origin and cause investigations. Okay, well, I can't talk about fire patterns without first talking about fire effects and a fire effect is a, the effect that the fire has on a particular material, it may be melting.

It may be Charing. It may be loss of mass. Uh, it may be change in color. It may be change in chemistry. Uh, an example of change in chemistry is chips and wall. Gypsum will go through a, a process called calcination and what it is is the heat drives the water out of the gypsum. Uh, so you have chemically bound water, and then you also have free floating water that that's in this mixture.

Uh, the, the heat. Drives it out and it turns a solid, you know, hard material that normally you'd, you'd have to punch pretty hard to put a, put a hole in it, uh, into the soft, chalky stuff that crumbles when you, when you poke it with a finger. So if we look at, uh, that, just as an example, uh, so that's a fire effect.

Now, if we look at it on a wall and we see that it starts in the lower left hand corner of the room and extends upward into the upper right hand corner of the room. Well, that's a fire pattern and the, the patterns can be, uh, you know, alar, a large effect or collection of effects. Actually fire patterns can actually be very small too.

It's I've had cases where, uh, we're looking at, uh, say a gas leak out of a, a Butan lighter. Um, and in that case, you're looking at fire patterns. It might only be, you know, a couple of millimeters, but, but generally speaking, when we're talking about fire patterns and, and say residential fire, we're talking, you know, fairly large patterns, uh, could be a couple of feet, could be, you know, size of the room, whatever, but we look at those patterns and there have been a lot of, uh, things attributed to fire patterns over the years as this shape means this and this shape means that.

And some of that is true. Some of that's not. So. Uh, but say, if you have a, a, what we call a, the classic V pattern, that's a, you have a, a pattern that starts small at floor level and goes upward. Well, we can infer from that, that, Hey, there's a fire that started there, uh, that the, the fire plume one upward.

The once it hit the ceiling, basically it hits resistance. So it starts going sideways. And that's why your plume goes from basically a, uh, an inverted V or a, a straight up and down pattern to going wider at the top. So we can say, okay, the, a fire started here or was burning here. Uh, now the more important thing I think about fire patterns is they can tell you time and or intensity.

And also direction. And that's the, the, the goal of fire patterns really is to find the origin of the fire. You know, where did the fire start? So if we look at each pattern and we say, okay, this, this burned for either burned very hot or burned for a long time. And also it can point us in a direction. Well, we know which way the smoke went.

So. Or the, the fire plume went. So if we go the other direction, well, the, the fire patterns in that way, and if we take more than one of those, we'd take two or more fire patterns. We're starting to do what we call heat and flame vector analysis. Uh, so we, we take all those fire patterns and it will. Going back from once they came, that will point us to the area of origin.

And the area of origin is important because, uh, if we can't determine the area of origin, we're gonna have a hard time determining how the fire started. Once we get that origin down to a small and area as possible, we can start looking for the potential sources of ignition and the potential first fuels and additional fuel packages that.

Added into the fire. The discussion of fire effects and fire patterns is fascinating. My grandpa was a firefighter and he would talk to me about these very things. When I was a little kid, check out this clip from episode four, with Aaron Johnson, where he discusses a nuisance foam discharge, and then suing investigation.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean of fire investigations. I, like I said, I've done a, I've done several of those, but I, I, I'm always more intrigued almost by the, um, the system activation because they're, they're not supposed to activate unless there's a fire. Right. So it's like you have the system that's meant to do something that doesn't do.

So I guess that's why I'm intrigued by, you know, why did it do this thing that, um, it's not supposed to do that everybody kind of worries about it doing. Um, but. You know, they're interesting to, first of all, find out, you know, go to scene, Hey, find out what happened. Here's what happened. And then it's interesting to kind of play it backwards there.

Right? Well, you know, for the system to have to have dumped its contents, what would've had to happen for that to take place. And then you realize, oh, okay, you trace it back. Um, it could have been a, maybe it was a sill Andoid maybe there, you know, for example, you have to rule out all the things that it wasn't, you know?

Well, there's no one in the hangar at the time. So nobody pulled the pool station accidentally isn't com it isn't you. isn't not saying that they did, so no one pulled the pool station. There was actually, there was no fire for sure. Right. You look around for evidence of that. So you can rule those two things out.

Um, maybe, maybe it was the weather, you know, I know we've had a couple where, um, a lightning strike actually set off some, maybe some alarm systems or things like that. Um, we actually had one hanger. I investigated, uh, the system had dumped and, uh, it turned out that it was in the middle of a bad tropical.

Tropical storm force winds to type of storm. And the act, what had actually happened is the foam release pool station had gotten water down inside the back of it and had shortened it out and called the OID to open, which caused the system to dump. Um, so the, that was an interesting one. Um, but just stuff like that, looking for that, you know, what is that thing?

Cuz you see things that every investigation is different and every time you do one, you realize something else that could have happened. You know, you might have done. 10 investigations in that 11th, one, something completely different than all the other 10. Uh, so that's always neat. And I'm really involved in the, uh, the codes and standards side of the thing.

I like, I sit on several committees and I like doing that work. That's I always tell people that's the most important part of the job is even more than the enforcement is being on that being in that process, whether you write and develop these. So looking to see, getting to these investigations, finding, Hey, here's, what's happen.

That really can inform a lot of that code development process. I know that for, um, 4 0 9 and FPA four nine, the standard for aircraft hangers, you know, is a, um, they're in a, in a, a rewrite revision cycle right now. And you, the big conversation was about, you know, the insurance companies are saying, Hey, we're, we're not seeing any hanger fires fire.

We're seeing a lot of these foam dumps that are costing us, lots of money. So what can we do to, to change that or address this issue? And so a lot of changes are coming out to actually address that, to say, Hey, maybe we don't. Foam in every single, in as many hangers as we think we do as the code currently requires.

So what can we do to not, um, without creating that greater risk, what can we do to still mitigate the risk, but maybe also cut down those costs and those activations and that foam damage. We'll get into more of the codes and standards process later. But in the meantime, check out this clip from bill Gustin about the change in construction types, between legacy and modern construction and the effects that that has on fire in the built environment.

You know, fire is a gases phenomenon. Uh, it has to be the fuels have to be vaporized in order to burn. And, uh, and I've experienced this. If you don't think fire is a gases phenomenon, just take a look and see what happened in Los Angeles. Over the weekend. It's a gases phenomenon and, uh, solids have to, uh, firmly decompose Alize and, uh, in our petrochemical environment today.

See, I'm an old bull here. Now. I was a firefighter in the early seventies. Early early seventies and we didn't even wear a breathing apparatus. We could put out a room content fire without a breathing apparatus without a hood of Nomex hood, or a PBI hood with Gardner gloves with a 65 gallon, a minute nozzle with an inch and a half hose line.

Why? Because back then just about everything in a, in a household was a naturally occurring. Woo wood cotton. And, but today, just think in your lifetime, I don't know how old you are Gus, but, uh, I know I'm older than you. I'm probably the oldest guy in the room right now, but even in your lifetime, Gus, think of how many things that used to be made out of metal.

Are now made out of plastic. The whole environment has changed when you take a look at that underwriter's laboratory side by side, uh, comparison of, uh, the legacy, uh, like the 1960s, seventies living room, uh, versus the modern furnishings of today, which are basically polyester, poly chloride, polyurethane.

Where the time for flashover years ago with naturally occurring materials was like 24 minutes today, less than three or. Four minutes. The whole thing has changed. It used to be that you could have a small volunteer fire department, have a, a fire in your house. And let's say it takes 'em 20 minutes to get there at best.

The fire is still basically in the incipient phase today. It's post flashover. And in many cases, because of the building being closed up it's ventilation limited oxygen deprived. In other words, the fire reached a crescendo, but then it ate up the available oxygen. Because petrochemical based material in order for it to be converted into energy, has to unite with oxygen.

Well, the amount of oxygen released or the energy released has to be. Depended upon, do you have enough oxygen? Well, very quickly fires in today's structures, which have never been tighter in terms of energy efficiency, uh, weather tinting, or, uh, weather stripping and, uh, Thermo pain windows. The fire reaches a ventilation limited or an oxygen deprived state very quickly to the point where there might not be anything showing in terms of smoke, pushing out of that.

Because why? Because the fire is diminished in intensity and when it diminished in intensity, it diminished in temperature and what's forcing the smoke out of a building is the pressure differential based upon the, the temperature. So it is not uncommon today for fire apparatus to pull up on, uh, any type of structure and have nothing showing.

But on closer examination, you got a dragon sleeping inside that building, just waiting for a good Gulf of oxygen. Our next segment is about codes and standards development, and the importance of being involved in the process and promoting the process in general. Hope you enjoyed these next couple clips because I sure have learned a lot about codes and standards development.

Since I started fire code. In this first clip, Aaron Johnson talks about what he's learned from being involved in the codes and standards process and the value it brings to you professionally. Yeah. So I mean, like I said, I kind of, I preach it to my people at my department and pretty much anytime someone will listen that, you know, it's really the most important thing that you can do for the industry.

And it's also, you know, not just not in a selfish way, but also for the career, your career as a whole, I mean, um, it's good for the industry cuz you're contributing to it. You're actually. If you're on the ground, you're seeing what goes on from whatever perspective, whether you're an engineer, a designer, a firefighter, or an inspector, you're seeing a different perspective of how this code's applied and being on those committees and being able to, or not even if, even if you're not on the committee can still provide input.

So providing those inputs and taking part in that process, um, it, it goes a long way and it makes a big difference. It's very important and, and it's great for your. Professional development, I guess I should say rather than for your career, but for your professional development as well, you're you go to these meetings and you're with, you know, some of the people that have, they've been doing this for a long time and, um, they have a, there's a wealth of knowledge on these committees.

It's like a great, like they, you know, they pull all the knowledge in this subject is all sitting in this one room. And, um, so you get to kind of, it's a great learning experience as well to learn from and talk to these people. But. Yeah. I mean, so with the, you know, the, the NFPA and the ICC, they have kind of different process and, um, I'm, I'm, I'm a little bit more involved with the N FPA side.

They have more, more committees and more codes and standards and things like that. That require committee work. So I I'm PRI I'm on several committees, but I'm primarily involved with the, um, the aircraft facilities committee, which is 4 0 9, 4 15 and 4 23, and also the RF operations, um, committees as well.

Which that includes things like an FP 4 0 2 and all the operational sides of the aircraft rescue industry, all the codes that apply to that. It was really interesting talking to Aaron about his work on the codes and standards development process, his knowledge as an aircraft rescue firefighter, and as someone who was involved in many of the 400 series aircraft related NFPAs is fascinating.

This last clip about codes and standards is chase Browning. And I discussing how people benefit from the standards and codes. Getting more detailed each code revision cycle. Take a listen. One of the upsides to the codes and standards, getting. You know, thicker and bigger, every three or four years, whenever they come out is a lot of the interpretive stuff gets addressed through the standards and codes development process.

I remember years ago there was, you know, when like NFTA 13, the installation standard for fire sprinklers was half the size it is now, or even less. And you know, people in its opinions vary about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, you know? The, the codes and standards now address tons of stuff that they don't have to some will say, and others will say, Hey, these standards, you know, now finally address these gaps that lived in these codes for years, where it would, you know, cover basic stuff.

And there would be invariably, there would be pieces that the codes wouldn't address. And then of course it comes out during the design. You know, during, even during the bidding, uh, and into design and into the installation phase of these fire protection systems that these codes don't address X, Y, and Z.

So let's, let's fix it in the codes and then you get a new chapter or you get a new section that has, you know, that addressed whatever gap that was there. So I'm always encouraged by the people being involved in the code development process, because it's, you know, it, it hopefully is a vehicle to, to deal with the concerns that show up when there's just something missing from the, from the codes and standards.

I think it's a good thing that they keep getting denser and. Explaining more about. You know, the process, there's so many different situations that you could run into with the building, just an infinite amount of ways that you could, uh, construct the same wet pipe sprinkler system. And so I think that more information is usually a good thing, you know, that does raise the.

Barrier to entry for those not as well versed in the code books, but I think it's a good thing. The last segment of this clips episode for 2020 highlights is going to be about trending topics in the industry. I like to keep abreast of the knowledge that is currently being, um, promulgated and studied in fire and life safety.

Here are a couple clips of some topics that I saw trending in 20. This first clip in the segment is Aaron Johnson talking about flooring, free foams in the hangar fire protection industry and how that people are working around trying to use these, uh, more environmentally friendly and less hazardous materials.

No, I mean, I mean, kind of to on the tail of what you were just say saying, I mean, that's the biggest, the biggest thing right now, the biggest change or the trending topic is you the. PFOS and PFO free foams and, um, making sure they're not carcinogenic and they're safe for people in the environment. So that's the big, the big thing kind of in the industry.

And, you know, if you think about the reason that we require foam and hangers anyways, is for the large, the, the risk or hazard of large fuel fuel spills and large fuel fires. Um, and you know, the, the industry at large, isn't really seeing a huge number of those and, you know, and sometimes your, your hangar size can.

How's a certain size of an aircraft anyway, no matter what, and you know, you're not gonna have the same, you're not gonna have that, that risk of a large fuel spill and fuel spill ignition, isn't gonna be as great. So I think those are the changes we're seeing and, and happening. So I think it's a combination of both of those, you know, a lack of seeing the large fuel spill fires and the, and also wanting to go to.

You know, the, the carcinogenic free and environmentally friendly type of foam type of product as well. The last clip in this episode is going to be Mike Snyder, discussing the tragedy in Beirut with the ammonium nitrate explosion. Oh, a absolutely. So, you know, let's, let's preface this by the fact that there's a lot of details that still have to come forth and, and, you know, While I think there are some things that are very obvious as we look at this, I am sure some of the details may change the view exactly.

Of the scenario and how it played out. But the, and I'm gonna call it frustrating part about this is ammonium. Nitrate has been involved in large loss incidents for more than a hundred years. The basic premise, uh, and causal factors that are involved have not changed. Right? So basically ammonium nitrate is classified as an oxidizer, which means when exposed to fire, it will accentuate the fire by essentially giving it more and using in quotation marks, oxygen, uh, but more oxidant so that, uh, you can enhance combustion.

So ammonium nitrate, normally as a solid, which is oftentimes in pearls or flakes, as it's stored. Is all by itself is fairly stable and you don't worry about it. It is when you expose it to heat or contamination and store it in large quantities, that piles that are put together, um, and a fire occurs. Um, the, the, the results are cataclysmic, right?

It's it's the outcome is literally predictable, right? And, and a person, uh, that I mentor with a gentleman by the name of Gordon. Graham always says, if it's predictable, it's preventable, right. You can, you can put controls in place. And so. All of the things that we need to be working on are how do you isolate the material?

So contamination cannot occur. And if there's going to be a fire, ammonium, nitrate is generally not gonna be the start of the fire. It will be some other combustible commodity. How do we end up, uh, Putting that fire out or controlling or preventing the fire from occurring. You know, it appears in Beirut that this warehouse where the ammonium nitrate was also had other commodities, particularly fireworks and probably some other combustible commodities.

And so the fire likely started. By an area that, you know, something that was not ammonium nitrate, but then once the fire got going, um, and you look at these historical events that have occurred usually within 30 minutes to 90 minutes, uh, with the fire that, uh, continues to burn you, you get a ferocious fire because of the presence of an oxidizer and you progress to detonation.

And these detonations are horrific, um, in the us, you know, our most horrific, um, ammonium nitrate, uh, detonation was back in 1947 in Texas city. Um, and that was a, a boat, a ship that had ammonium nitrate fertilizer that caught fire, uh, in the, in the, uh, Texas city ship channel. Uh, and there, I think like about 580 people were killed, including the entire Texas city fire department.

So these types of outcomes, um, are predictable. And, and so, you know, obviously there's a focus on our building and fire code in how we manage those right in how we control the hazard and in making sure from an emergency response standpoint, We, um, we address these hazards and know that generally speaking, that fires get into these stores, um, it it's, it's something that we have to isolate and evacuate quickly.

This brings back memories, for example, of, you know, BLE in, um, liquified petroleum gas, right in the 1970s, the fire service went through a large epiphany about, you know, fires, exposing propane tanks are ones that if you can't immediately get water on, you have to. Else there's gonna be ABL and people are gonna be killed, uh, and, and property is gonna be damaged.

I'll just say one other quick thing here. Um, and we can explore a bit further if you'd like, you know, in the us, we, we recently, and I mean, in 2013 in west Texas at an agricultural supply house, uh, we, we ended up having, um, a, a fire and in about 30 minutes, uh, a detonation. Killed, I believe 15 people and the us chemical safety board has done a comprehensive, uh, investigation that you can go to the chemical safety board website, uh, and bring that, uh, bring that investigation down and look at it for free.

Um, I would encourage you to read that the, the frustrating part about that is there were two items in that investigation that were highlighted and one was. What appears to be an oversight in the us process? Safety management regulation was to not include ammonium nitrate as one of the chemicals covered by the standard that has not yet been resolved.

And then the other one is that OSHA 19 10, 1 0 9, which is titled. Explosives and blasting agents, right? So people kind of immediately go, well, I'm using ammonium nitrate. Uh, I'm not an explosive or a blasting agent, but that has application for the storage of ammonium nitrate, paragraph I, of that standard.

His requirements. And so, you know, I don't think necessarily that there's gonna be a lot of new requirements. The science is pretty battle tested. I think it's our application of, of this science and our awareness of the hazard that has to change. Thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

Lynne Kilpatrick has spent over 30 years in hazardous materials compliance and code enforcement. In this episode of Fire Code Tech, we discuss how to bring stakeholders together for a unified approach to hazardous materials compliance. Lynne also introduces her latest endeavor, which includes developing a web application to streamline material classification.

https://hmexassistant.com/

Would you talk about the genesis of your career and education? 2:30 How did you get into your career in fire and life safety? 4:20 Would you speak about some of the reports that you would write in your first role? 7:30 Tell me a little about how you got started in your role with hazardous materials? 9:30 What qualifies something as a hazardous material? 14:40 What all codes and standards have you worked with in your career with compliance? 17:50 Would you speak about the dialogue between hazardous materials professionals and the authority having jurisdiction? 22:15 Can you speak about your take on Energy Storage Systems and how they are being addressed? 28:00 Do you have some pro tips for addressing hazardous materials in the built environment? 31:35 Would you tell me about your HMEx Assistant and what you are doing with the program? 34:45 What trends in the fire and life safety industry do you see? 40:15 You spoke about remote fueling as a developing hazard, would you elaborate upon that? 43:10 What resources would you recommend to professionals who want to learn more about fire and life safety? 46:45

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Hello. All welcome to episode 19 of fire code tech. In this episode, we have Lynn KPA. Lynn is a fire and life safety professional who has spent her career in code enforcement. Lynn's career specialty is in hazardous materials. In this interview, we get into some different pro tips for people who are in the business of dealing with hazardous materials, Lynn discusses her career and how she has been involved.

Addressing regulations from a wide variety of codes and standards as well as department of transportation considerations, Lynn and I also talk about her most recent endeavor. With her work with HME X assistant, a hazardous materials database that she has integrated into a web-based application. Lynn is very insightful and has a lot of great information for those who are involved in chemical and life safety.

If you are a fan of the show, do me a huge favor and lets somebody you know, who is interested in fire and life safety about the podcast. Also be sure to subscribe. So you never miss an episode wherever you find your podcasts and follow us on social media for all of the content that we release for fire protection and life safety.

Well, hello, Lynn, welcome to this show. I'm so happy to have you on how are you doing today? Hi, I'm good. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Cool. Cool. So usually how I like to get started is, um, let the listeners know a little bit. Background on your career. Uh, I understand that you have, uh, a history in chemical engineering and, um, uh, being a fire marshal and some other works, uh, in and around that sort of, uh, engineering.

Uh, I'd love to hear about that. okay. Well, um, I guess just broadly, uh, yeah, in college, I, uh, took a, you know, organic chemistry class found. I liked it. I was pretty good at it. And, uh, obviously like anyone else in college wanted to make sure I was. Employable with whatever degree I, I got. So, uh, I decided to, uh, take on chemical engineering and, uh, it was a really great decision in the end.

Yeah. I could see that, uh, I have an affinity for, um, chemistry and yeah. So I understand that draw towards. You know, uh, chemical engineering, uh, did you always have an affinity for, um, the science and math and things like that? not at all. that's, that's, what's so funny about it is that I don't think I really, you know, felt like I had an affinity in that area when I was in high school.

It wasn't until I kind of got to college and really explored with different classes and, you know, took a few math classes, took a few chemistry classes and, you know, all of a sudden I sort of realized, uh, I did have an affinity for that. So yeah. Very interesting. You picked a, one of the most difficult engineering disciplines out there, so that's a kind of unique one to stumble into I agree.

I agree. Huh? Very interesting. Awesome. So, uh, you went to college for chemical engineering and then, uh, yeah. So how did you find your way into, uh, fire protection and life safety? Did you have internships or yeah. What was the path that kind of led you. . Yeah, I can, I can explain that. So, uh, I, I didn't have any internships right.

Outta college. Uh, I was hired by an environmental consulting firm, uh, in the Seattle area. And, uh, so I started there as a very, you know, very junior employee in the, in the business. Um, and I was there about a year and a half and I learned some amazing, uh, skills. They had a lot of government contracts and there was a lot of.

Um, a lot of writing of reports by multiple authors. So I got exposed to technical editors, um, and learned some pretty amazing skills that I carried with me. But after about a year and a half, they started to have some financial difficulties and thought they might be laying off some folks. So, uh, I assumed I would be one of the first ones to go since I was one of the most recently hired.

So I started looking around for new employment and, um, found a. Advertisement, uh, in those days, uh, in the newspaper , um, the Seattle fire department was, uh, looking for a chemical engineer, uh, or chemist, I guess either one of those degrees would've sat, satisfied their, their request. Um, but anyway, I applied for a position with the Seattle fire department, uh, never having seen a fire code, uh, you know, N not really understanding very well what a fire.

Code was and what I would be doing for that department. Um, but it turns out I just, you know, really got lucky. I feel like I got very lucky, uh, landing that position. Um, it was, uh, when the, uh, article the, then article 80 in the international or the uniform fire code. Went from about five pages to 55 pages.

So the Seattle fire department was contemplating how they were going to deal with that. Um, and so they wanted to start a new program in their fire prevention division that. Focused on hazardous materials and would give them the, you know, the, the resources to enforce those new provisions. Uh, so they were, uh, out looking for, uh, someone who could provide that technical expertise.

Uh, and I got very lucky at that time. So that's how it all began. wow, that's fascinating. Yeah. I'm not aware of article 80. Um, and what that means as far as the fire code, but that's very fascinating. You're speaking of, um, your origin story and how you made your way into fire and life safety. I find that really interesting.

I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah. Um, so yeah, so you had your first job and you were speaking about these reports that kind of piqued my interest. So what kind of regulations or. Uh, things. Were you basing these reports on when you were writing these, uh, reports initially for this environmental, uh, engineering, um, consulting firm that you were working for or.

So, so primarily, uh, that consulting firm had, um, a lot of government contracts and, uh, they were working on some Superfund sites. Um, and my role in responsibilities, uh, there was a Superfund site, uh, in the Seattle area on Harbor island. Uh, and we were essentially evaluating the previous. Facilities on that, uh, site that had either, you know, used or handled hazardous materials and evaluating, uh, whether or not they.

Might have contributed, uh, to the contamination that was at the Superfund site. And so we would, you know, basically be looking at, uh, their operations or their past operations. Most of them had, you know, long been out of business. Um, but we would look at what they were handling and then we were ranking.

each one with respect to, uh, they were considered potentially responsible parties and we would sort of rank them with respect to, you know, what the likelihood was that they had contributed. Um, so those reports were, um, you know, just kind of ongoing and yeah, so it was, it was, it was interesting work that's for sure.

Oh, wow. I like hearing about that. That's fascinating. Yeah. I don't have any personal experience. Super fun sites are things of that nature. So, yeah, it's a fascinating role. It sounds like you had, so I wanted to transition, um, a little bit and, uh, talk about, um, yeah, your role at the Seattle fire department and you know, what kind of your job looked like in being employed with the Seattle fire department and how you.

Kind of got incorporated into your work with hazardous materials and, and what that looked like. Uh, yeah, I'd love to hear about. Okay. So, like I said, the Seattle fire department at that time, uh, most jurisdictions and, um, many states, uh, in the west had adopted the uniform fire code, uh, and the uniform building code that sort of go hand in hand, uh, and in the fire code, there's, uh, a chapter, there was a chapter that dealt with hazardous materials and, uh, at that time the chapter had been.

Uh, significantly revised. Um, and this was all around the time when, uh, in Silicon valley, there was a lot of high tech, there was a lot of semiconductor work starting. There was sort of some, you know, new hazardous materials, uh, that were. Uh, being handled and used, uh, prevalently in many jurisdictions, uh, and there was a need to update those regulations in the fire code.

So they expanded that chapter tremendously and most fire departments, including Seattle, um, really didn't know, or, you know, even have, they, weren't just, weren't equipped to deal with those regulations and how, if they were going to be responsible for enforcing them, how they were going to do that. Um, so.

Role at the Seattle fire department initially, uh, was really to develop a program. Um, everything, I mean, from all of the resources that we might need, the staffing requirements, um, the training requirements, um, and I. Pulled together. It was, it was really quite fun. Cuz I got to essentially develop a program, uh, from ground zero.

Um, and you know, we presented it to city council and said, you know, if you are going to expect us to enforce these regulations here in the city, then you know, we need resources to do that. Um, and so we were successful and uh, we hired. I shouldn't say we hired, we drafted, um, a couple of lieutenants and about seven, um, firefighters because the Seattle fire department at that time, uh, we were using sworn personnel to basically do those, uh, hazardous material inspections.

Uh, so, um, Yeah. So I started, uh, a program and was fortunate enough to be able to, you know, basically be the supervisor of that, of that group, of, uh, individuals. And, uh, it was everything from, you know, code enforcement, uh, to permitting, you know, designing a permit program. Temporary and annual permits, uh, training the inspectors, um, you know, deciding how our enforcement program would go.

Um, as well as, um, in some jurisdictions and in Seattle, uh, they amend the, uh, State adopted code and add local amendments. Uh, so at that time we had a fire code advisory board. It was about a 15 member board, um, of, you know, that represented the community different business, um, segments as well as the public, uh, and any local amendments that we'd.

Wanted to adopt and, and draft and incorporate into the, into the state code. Uh, we had to first get clearance from the fire code advisory board. So I would liaison with the fire code advisory board, and then we would, um, bring those local amendments, um, to the city council for adoption. Um, so there was a lot of code development work, uh, associated with that as well.

And then obviously, you know, we would liaison with the operation side of the house, uh, if there were. Hazardous material incidents. Um, and they needed some technical support. Um, there was also the, you know, whole, um, I wanna say, you know, plan, review and, um, Predesigned conferences with developers and architects and folks who wanted to, you know, build new buildings, uh, where hazardous materials were going to be involved.

Uh, so the role was very, very broad , um, lots of activity and, you know, lots of, uh, different things to do, uh, just related to hazardous materials. That's remarkable. Yeah. It sounds like you really got to experience the full gamut. Uh, hazardous materials and interacting with those in the built environment and also, um, in more of a hazardous materials, incident capacity.

And so, yeah, that's extremely fascinating to hear about, um, you speak about your career and your role in being a part of a program and building a program from the bottom up. So, wow. That's fascinating. I love hearing about that. Yeah, maybe just for the, the layperson or somebody who's not, um, extremely aware of hazardous materials and what all that encompasses.

Maybe you could go over, uh, kind of. What qualifies something as a hazardous material or, you know, what does that look like in the context of, uh, your role that you had with the Seattle fire department? Yeah, sure. So hazardous materials can be, you know, that that term is used can be just extremely broad.

Uh, in the context of the fire and building code and the enforcement of, you know, those rules and regulations, um, essentially you can break them down into sort of two broad categories, those hazardous materials that have physical, that present a physical hazard. Like they are flammable. Or they are water reactive or they are explosive, or they have oxidizing capabilities, things that can, you know, um, a hazard that would present a physical hazard.

Um, and then there are health hazards, um, materials that qualify as health hazards. And that can be very broad. Uh, the, the fire code currently, um, focuses on the more. Health hazards like something that is toxic or highly toxic and corrosive. Um, the code used to actually go into regulating some of the more chronic hazards like.

Carcinogens and, uh, you know, irritants and sensitizers and radioactives it no longer covers those types of materials. It has narrowed its focus on the more acute health hazards. Um, so right now the fire and building code really do, you know, sort of narrow the field in terms of hazardous materials. With respect to things that can either present a physical or health hazard, uh, an immediate physical or health hazard.

That's great. I love that explanation. Yeah. Um, it's always like, uh, hearing from the experts about the description of these things, because, you know, even though there are definitions in the building code, sometimes I can find that it's a little bit hard to, uh, get the idea of how to define these chemicals.

There can. You know, sometimes it's difficult, you know, of course when with the flammable and combustible, liquid there's clear and defined thresholds for these chemicals, but with something, um, like a oxidizer or a corrosive or a caustic material, sometimes it can be a little bit more difficult to suss out if you have a problem.

I guess it's just comes from some of the testing methods and how these get tested and verified for how these chemicals are hazardous or not. And yeah, I don't know. It's just a comment on, um, the difficulty of dealing with these materials. It is it is a challenge. That's no, no doubt. So, yeah, I know that we've talked about the building code a little bit.

Also, I just wanted to ask about if you had experience, um, during your role dealing with, um, hazardous materials, transportation, or any of those other, uh, like OSHA related, uh, federal standards or was it mostly just a built environment? That you were concerned with a little of all of that. Um, so the department of transportation, obviously, you know, regulates commerce, you know, interstate commerce.

Um, but there's also transportation, you know, within a facility. Uh, and I had a lot of experience with that in Seattle. Uh, it being a. Um, you know, a, having a Marine terminals and a port city. Um, so we dealt with hazardous materials coming across the Marine terminals, um, very frequently. And we had a, a Lieutenant who was dedicated just to dealing with the hazardous materials, uh, at the Marine terminals.

Um, and so we would regulate, you know, where the materials could be stored on the terminal itself. So the department of transportation, uh, certainly was involved in, uh, those activities, um, as well as, you know, some of the regulations in the fire code relate to, uh, tank vehicles and transportation and loading and unloading of tank vehicles.

Um, so some of that would come into play as well. Uh, when you were regulating, um, You know, a bulk, uh, petroleum facility, for instance, that had loading and unloading facilities. Um, and some of those tank vehicle regulations. Uh, so the transportation, even though it's, you know, regulated by D O T uh, you still did as a part of our.

We still did as a part of our role, you know, have to be very cognizant of those regulations and how they sort of played into the fire and building code regulations as well. Um, so yeah, and obviously, um, any of these other federal regulations, you know, the OSHA regulations, the, you know, most of these facilities.

Had to comply with all of these other federal regulations. Uh, and in my role in Sunnyvale, um, the state of California has a very unique program, uh, where local jurisdictions, uh, can essentially, um, agree to enforce some of those environmental rules, uh, as a part of their. Program. Uh, so we were, you know, partly responsible for, uh, enforcing, uh, some of the sort of local waste regulations, uh, some of the local clean air type regulations for accidental releases from these, from these facilities.

Um, So, yes. So you do have to, you know, incorporate and at least have some familiarity and be aware of all of these other federal regulations that are impacting the facilities, um, and, and might sort of overlap, uh, with the fire and building code rules. That's fascinating. Yeah. I don't get into as much of the.

Uh, transportation side of things, although is a part of the program that I graduated from. We did speak to, uh, hazardous materials in their, um, treatment and response in a transportation capacity. Of course, the hazard, um, diamonds and different, uh, ways that they are classified in the transportation means and how those.

Different from the way that they're classified in the built environment, as far as, uh, nomenclature, just, uh, hazardous design, right? Um, yeah, but anyways, for my personal interest, since I deal with the, the built environment and I am really interested to hear you talk about how you have experience in like, sort of the meetings with architects and engineers.

I find it to be a exceedingly difficult task to, um, compile these, uh, hazardous materials and the requirements for them. So, yeah. I just wanted to ask you about, um, you know, what one of these meetings with the architect or engineer would look like if you were going to, uh, if they had questions about their hazardous materials compliance or.

Um, you know, what form would it, what form does compliance look like for, uh, architects and engineers for the built environment? Let's say for, uh, a new construction building, you know, if, if somebody wants to be straightforward and, um, code compliant, . Yeah. So, um, often, you know, uh, outside of the general pre-designed conferences, uh, you know, you would meet with the, a group of architects and designers and, and hopefully, um, you know, facility representatives.

So the people who are actually going to be the end users and, and know exactly how the materials are gonna be, um, used and in what quantities. So the starting point for any of this is really know. What you have, how much of it you're going to have and you know, where it's going to be and how it's going to be stored or used.

Um, and, and once you can capture that information, um, then you can really start to navigate through the fire and building code and identify, you know, The fire protection controls are, are going to be needed. Um, so you know, the meetings often, uh, we just have, you know, conversations about exactly. What's going to, um, take place, how they're going to use the materials, how the materials are received, where they're stored, um, how they're handled.

What type of equipment and systems, um, they're planning. Um, and, and most of the time, you know, the facilities that are really serious about this have, have hired, um, consulting firms who have some familiarity. You know, with the requirements. So you're often not having to explain everything from the ground up, but you know, one of the starting points for sure is really capturing, you know, everything that's going to be used and, and being, and understanding all of its hazards, all of the hazards, because many of the materials will present multiple hazards.

So, so that's kind of the starting point. And, um, what's fascinating about some of it is obviously, you know, the code is limited with respect to, um, you know, what it contains. Uh, obviously it's, it, it speaks and directs you very broadly with respect to, um, you know, how to manage hazardous materials by category, but there's often times, you know, no roadmap in the fire code for what it is the facility wants to.

Um, and so, uh, that's when it gets really interesting, that's when it gets really fun, um, to, you know, sort of identify, uh, outside of the context of the code, you know, what, what needs to be in place and what kind of controls are necessary, uh, and reasonable with respect to, you know, what they plan to be doing.

Uh, and a good example of that right now is, you know, um, lithium batter. Um, you know, there's nothing in the fire and building code right now that gives us guidance with respect to what to do with lithium batteries. Um, so every jurisdiction is really, you know, faced with, uh, How they're gonna handle it, you know, coming up with some, some guidelines on, um, you know, the storage and, um, you know, I guess the use as well, these energy storage systems, there is stuff in the 2018 code that's coming out, um, with respect to energy storage systems.

But, uh, when you've got, um, You know, lithium batteries in storage either, uh, you know, newly manufactured or, uh, if you can think of the end of life batteries after these, uh, devices, you know, after we've finished using the devices and the batteries have to be recycled, there's a, you know, there's a, a whole.

Activity going on about, you know, removing the batteries and storing the, the spent batteries, um, and trying to get rid of those. Um, so it's, it's, it's very fascinating. And, you know, like I said, not every activity that the facilities wanna do is really captured in the code currently. Yeah. That's a great point.

I love that point about, um, you know, there are. Portions of the code, which are gray to the point of ambiguity as far as specific, uh, combinations or, uh, types of hazardous materials. And it's been really interesting to see, uh, energy storage systems and the new research that's been put out about energy storage systems and the hazards that they, uh, pose.

Uh, yeah, I, I think I saw you, uh, link the article recently, uh, Energy storage systems that look pretty comprehensive, but yeah, I have a personal fascination about them as well. Uh, I think I was reading something about FM had a new paper or recently about, um, energy storage systems and some of the fire protection and life safety measures for, uh, these different, um, batteries or, uh, batteries.

Isn't the word? Um, assemblies of batteries and how they store energy storage systems is the correct term. But yeah, I find that extremely fascinating. And anyways, yeah, I wanted to ask, what do you see as the future of these, uh, sort of a tangent, but I, it sounds like you've been reading about, um, energy storage systems.

So I I'd love to hear. What you see as the future for these things. And as the building code gets these more fleshed out, what do you see as the likely conclusion or the next steps for defining the hazards for these energy storage systems and. how do we move forward? Well, like I said, um, the 2018 addition to the code has a new chapter, uh, dealing with these energy storage systems.

And, and like you mentioned, there's still ongoing research with respect to how to properly, um, You know, protect these systems. Um, and you know, we're learning stuff new every day. Obviously there was a, you know, there was a fairly recent incident in 2019 outside of Phoenix that, you know, resulted in an explosion and there's, um, and this may be the article that you're referring to, you know, there's.

Uh, some lessons learned, uh, from, from that incident that injured some firefighters. Um, so you know, these technologies, the new emerging technologies obviously present, you know, some, some issues that we don't always have a firm grasp on initially. Um, but with respect to the energy storage systems, like I said, there's, there's some good guidance that's going to be in the 2018 addition of the code.

If you know, if it's not already been adopted. In your local jurisdictions. Uh, and then there's ongoing, um, activity, uh, behind the scenes with the fire code, um, action committees, um, who are dealing with this very topic and, you know, getting together and having work group meetings, uh, regularly to try to, you know, develop the.

What will be the new code, uh, proposals to, uh, modify chapter 12 and update it and improve it. Um, so there's, you know, there's constant activity, uh, going on and, uh, trying to, you know, stay abreast of all of it is, is often challenging for most of us, cuz we've got other things we're doing at the same time.

Um, but yeah, there's, you know, uh, there is just a tremendous amount of work in this area going on, uh, behind the. Hmm. Definitely. Definitely. I understand what you're saying. It's, it's neat to keep up with these new and emerging technologies, but yeah, it's hard to, you can't really stay focused on cause that they're changing so quickly.

Um, yeah. You said something earlier and I, I really thought it was great. A great quote you said was asking you about, um, how do you define these. These meetings or these hazardous materials. And you said, um, knowing what you have, knowing how much of it you have and knowing how it's going to be stored and used.

And I thought that that was a, a wonderful, um, little ha capturing of how to deal with hazardous materials as it, uh, regards to the, the building code. But yeah, I just wanted to. Get back to our talk about hazardous materials and just speak a little bit more about, um, yeah, I don't know. I just, uh, been dealing with hazardous materials a lot recently, and I just want to get some, if you have tips or I know that, uh, the obvious one is to try to capture these qualifications or requirements as early as possible.

But I see, you know, we talked about consultants or professionals who have experience with this, so you're not having to start from ground zero, but yeah, I didn't know if you had any, uh, tips for how to capture these requirements or how to, um, properly deal with these hazards. And I don't know. Yeah. Maybe that's too nebulous, but, well, I do, I do think that, you know, if you put some framework around it and, and this is what I've always had to do, um, at least from my vantage point for a code official to, you know, be able to evaluate what's being proposed.

Um, you know, I can't tell you how many times I've had to turn away plans at the counter or turn away. Um, you know, consultants who were there to, to get over the counter permits, uh, because there just wasn't sufficient information being provided with respect to the materials, uh, that were going to be used and you know, their hazards.

So it really is, you know, the obligation of the, um, you know, the. The user to be providing the proper information to the jurisdiction so that they can, you know, give the guidance that's needed. Um, but you know, that is the starting point. And like I said, I've, I've had to turn many folks away just because there's just not enough information to do the evaluation.

Um, so, uh, you know, the, the sooner that becomes something that they do at the, at the onset of a project, um, you know, the more likely it is that, you know, that will go smoothly. um, yeah, so, so that's one of my biggest tips is really just, you know, uh, um, and I did say that before, just understanding, you know, what exactly it is that's, uh, going to be used and, and how it's gonna be.

Yeah, that's a good tip. Yeah. It's, uh, it can sometimes be difficult to, um, extract that knowledge of the quantities and the specific chemicals and, um, material, data sheets. But, uh, I find that the larger client, um, as far as employees or the size of the, the company, the more likely it is that they'll have somebody whose position is dedicated to this sort of role of knowing what.

Hazardous materials registry looks like and getting this list of, um, quantities and, uh, compatibility or incompatibility for their register of materials. So, yeah, I think that's a good point. That's always, usually the biggest struggle is trying to find out what it is, what it is that we're storing you. I understand from our conversation before that, um, if you're comfortable with talking about it, That you're working on, um, putting together a tool, a hazardous materials, um, data tool or database, and that you had used in your career, uh, several times or throughout your career.

Um, I'd love to hear more about that. I was really interested when you were telling me. the database and its use and kind of how you're refurbishing it. Um, if you'd tell me about that. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, sure. So, um, we were just talking about how it is such a struggle to really identify, uh, how to classify the materials based on the fire and building code definitions, which do differ from transportation, uh, definitions.

And it, it does also differ from, um, any of the OSHA or GS, you know, regulations. We've got with classifying materials. Um, and so for many years, and that's been true for, you know, a very long time. And so most all of my career, uh, I used a, essentially it was a CD that was available. Uh, through ICC the international code council and it was, uh, Hm, E X assistant was the name of the software.

Um, and it was a, like I said, it was a CD. You loaded it on your computer and, um, you know, one time and, and. You were off to the races. Um, but it did classify. You could look up in the database, um, you know, the classification of the materials, you could easily identify whether it was a class two oxidizer, you know, a corrosive, a toxic, a highly toxic.

Uh, water reactive three. Um, like you said, some of the definitions are very prescriptive and they're easy to, you know, use the safety data sheets to sort of find out what the classification is. Um, but some of the definitions are very. Um, you know, they're not prescriptive, they're very subjective. Um, and, uh, trying to figure out, you know, exactly where the material fits into those hazard classes is a challenge.

So this piece of software that I used for 25 years, um, was, uh, you know, um, something I relied on every. Pretty much. Um, and, uh, when I found out that the founder, uh, was no longer, um, going to be updating the information, um, I sort of saw an opportunity , um, to, I didn't want to essentially just fade away to nothing.

Um, so I, I, I purchased, uh, the soft. And I have been, uh, since the end of last year, uh, working to make it a cloud based system, um, and expanding it so that, um, the users not only can look up hazardous materials in the database to find the classifications, but you can actually manage your inventory in there as well.

Um, inventories, as you know, the, to determine whether or not they're over the maximum allowable quantity. That's allowed by the code. Um, you know, you have to know your inventory by control area. Uh, so this software enables the user to essentially evaluate their inventory, uh, and compare with the maximum mobile quantities and see if they're over for control areas, which as, you know, then sort of guides whether or not the occupancy, uh, needs to.

Hazardous group H occupancy or not. Yeah, that's great. I love hearing about that. I'm such a big fan of, uh, technology and even better is where code code nerd. The code nerd to me meets technology. And we can see the advancement of the field through, um, kind of pairing these two things together. So I'm endlessly fascinated with that.

And it sounds like I, a tool that I would love to use. Yeah, I'm really fascinated with that. That's that's pretty interesting. Yeah. It's, you know, it's, it should be useful to code officials. Uh, as I used it for many years, uh, just to, you know, verify and validate, uh, what the, uh, architects designers and, you know, facilities were submitting, um, just verifying and validating that, you know, they had properly classified things.

Um, but yeah, it's a, it can be used by architects and consultants and facilities. Very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. I talked to another, uh, chemical engineer recently and we were talking about the caveats of, uh, H occupancies and when you need 'em and when you don't and sort of what the different, um, variances are for the different levels of occupancy.

yeah, they can be a pretty costly endeavor. If you happen to exceed maximum allowable quantities for your control areas and find yourself in a situation in which you need to provide a occupancy or a detached structure for your H occupancy. So it sounds like a good thing to know,

but, um, yeah, I think that's very interesting. I'd love to keep in touch about that and. Um, no, as it progresses and, you know, uh, maybe when it comes out, we can let everybody know and I'm sure people will be interested in taking a look at it, but yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah. Great. Um, so I wanted to get into some couple different professional development topics, but, um, I know we.

We just recently talked about, um, energy storage systems, but I wanted to, um, pick your brain on whether, what other trends in the industry you see right now for fire protection and life safety. Well, the trends, um, You know, in terms of, I don't know that there's any, uh, are you talking about emerging emerging technologies or, uh, trends?

Sorry. It really, it could be nebulous really. I just mean like things that you see in the industry as, um, new topics that are gaining popularity. Like when I think of this, I think of. I see a lot for timber. You know, how buildings are tolerant, Toler buildings are being built with timber or energy storage systems, or just some of the new hazards we're seeing as an industry and fire protection and life safety, or I have a special interest in, um, technology or the system side of things.

Yeah. Yeah. So that sort of thing, but yeah, well, well clearly the batteries and the energy storage systems is probably, you know, the, the biggest one, uh, for sure. Um, the, you know, an another one that's been an issue for folks dealing with hazardous materials lately has been, um, Mobile fueling essentially.

um, this has been a, a challenging and debated topic. Um, and there are some relatively new regulations related to, um, mobile fueling using class one liquids. So gasoline, uh, we've we've had for many years in the code, you know, regulations that, that deal with. You know, fueling of class two and three liquids, diesels, and, um, but the mobile fueling, uh, using class one liquids is, is relatively new.

And like I said, fairly controversial, uh, I dealt with the topic, um, as the fire marshal in Sunnyvale. Um, and you know, so the industry is obviously wanting to expand. Maybe what the current regulations allow, which is, you know, allowing that in, um, you know, large sort of parking lots, um, as opposed to, uh, street fueling.

Um, so, so that's probably a topic, um, of interest to most folks that are, you know, sort of involved in hazardous materials. Um, but clearly the, the bad, the battery issue. Um, first and foremost, you know, um, taking center stage. Definitely. Definitely. I agree with that. So when you say mobile fueling, I guess I just don't have a real good picture in my mind of what that is.

Is this like a. A truck or something that's providing gasoline to other vehicles or what is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. It is essentially, um, you know, fueling from a, from a truck to, uh, your personal vehicle basically. Um, and there's a different models of this there's um, you know, a model that might include, uh, what looks like, uh, a mini tank vehicle, right.

Um, You know, very small and maneuverable through parking lots and built to tank vehicle standards. Um, but there's also the model, which includes, um, you know, they're not even portable tanks, but they're just, uh, containers in the back of a pickup truck, um, that, you know, will. Move around the city and, and essentially, um, and you, you know, there, it, it's very technology driven, right?

You download the app on your phone, you order up the gas and while you're, you know, working during the day, um, you know, they, they come by the parking lot where you may have your car parked and, um, you know, fill your, fill your fuel tank. Um, so, so. Issue and that topic, um, was first addressed, um, in, I believe the 2000 and, um, Oh, it may have been in the 2015 addition to the code, but, uh, the, you know, it's, it's obviously, um, a topic where the industry wants to expand its footprint with respect to, uh, that activity.

So, um, there's task groups and, you know, ongoing work in terms of. You know, what are the safety precautions that need to be taken? And, and, and how can we best allow for sort of that, I guess, emerging, it's not really an emerging technology, but it's sort of an emerging activity. Interesting. Yeah. I've never heard of that.

It sounds like it could be pretty hazardous though. Was, yeah. I just read a good article recently about the hazard, the hazardous nature of, uh, intermediate. Bolt containers or composite IBCs, um, right. How they can, it sounds like one of these vessels that somebody could have in the back of their car and, or in the back of their truck, I should say.

And so you could easily get several hundred gallons of. Class one flammable liquids. And that sounds like, uh, unique. Yeah, they're actually, um, they're actually not using the IBCs, but they're using container sizes, uh, somewhere below about 109 gallons, which is just below the threshold that, um, you know, they actually end up being, uh, regulated.

So, um, and they'll put maybe three or. Possibly four in the back of a pickup. And, um, yeah, so it's, like I said, you know, the, the code is starting to address that. Um, and you know, some jurisdictions may not have actually seen it yet. Um, but I, you know, like I said, it is, it is certainly a, an area of the, um, the code that's, um, expanding with respect to, um, that activity.

Interesting. Well, I appreciate you bringing it up. I hadn't heard of that. Um, So another topic I always like to ask professionals is, uh, are what resources would you recommend to somebody who wants to learn more about, uh, hazardous materials or maybe just fire protection or life safety in general? Well, uh, you know, my biggest resource has always been, um, you know, Getting and staying involved with, um, you know, whatever local organizations you can, uh, if there are local, you know, fire communities, if you're, you know, if you're a code official, um, trying to stay connected, um, with, you know, the training and, and outreach to your other jurisdictions, your counterparts and other jurisdictions.

Um, I have found that to be the, the most. You know, the most amazing resource throughout my career, um, is, is making the connections with other people. I can tell you how many times I've, you know, I've, I've just connected with what I consider to be experts that I respect and just continued to ask questions.

Um, you know, you don't be shy, don't be bashful, but, you know, um, so, so for me, uh, staying involved with. You know, the, the organizations that are sort of dealing with the topics, um, is just, is just the best, you know, resource of all. Um, and it, you know, it can be, uh, lifelong essentially. Yeah, that's wonderful.

I, uh, resonate with that a lot. Um, it feels like to me, that fire protection is a very close knit, fire protection, less safety is a very close. Field and that people are always very willing to share their knowledge and their expertise. Um, if you have a question or topic that you don't know about, and yeah, it seems like also with the authorities, having jurisdiction is even a, a tighter knit group of individuals in that.

Between jurisdictions. There's a lot of cross pollination as far as, uh, policy and procedure, uh, in regards to life safety. So, yeah, I think that's a great tip people, uh, for people to stay connected through groups and organizations. Yeah, I, you know, I think there's a, obviously a lot that you can learn from, from books and, you know, periodicals and, and whatnot, but, um, you know, talking with someone about their experiences and you know, what they learned and, and what they went through and what went right.

What went wrong. Um, it's just, it's invaluable and it's really hard to get that same kind of information from, um, books or online. Sources so, um, you know, I, I am quick to pick up a phone and, and chat with folks who, you know, I, I feel can, can share information with me. Um, and I just encourage others to do the same.

It's it's it's been an invaluable tool. Yeah. It's remarkable. How much time you can spend Googling something or searching through code books or standard books. If you are able to just spend two minutes with somebody who's an expert in the field or has conquered that problem before it can just save you hours of time.

So I think that's a great point anyways. Well, I wanted to, uh, end Lynn with, uh, I wanted to ask you, uh, what do you wish you would've known when you got started at the beginning of your career? Uh, what's one piece of advice that you would give somebody getting into fire protection and life safety right now?

Well, it's almost the same thing, you know, ask people questions and get to know people. Um, if I had to look back, um, obviously I wished I would have known more about. Career in general. Um, you know, from, from the beginning, I, I happened to just sort of stumble across the topic. Um, and it, it certainly was my experience as the fire marshal, that one of our biggest challenges was just finding, uh, folks to hire.

Um, it's just not a field that is, um, you. Uh, well known or well advertised, unfortunately. Um, and I would say it's, you know, as a, as a new person starting out, um, you know, for me, 30 years down the road, uh, honestly it was so fascinating and there was. Barely a day that I didn't learn something new. Um, there are so many topics and so many areas where you can focus and, you know, learn, um, that it just is.

It is just an endless learning experience. Yeah. I agree with you, Lynn. I think that, uh, fire protection and life safety doesn't get the PR it deserves. I think that if people only knew about what a fascinating career and what kind of rich and fulfilling work that, uh, we get to do on a daily basis, I think that people would be flocking to, um, join the end.

But, yeah, I totally agree with you. Well, anyways, I just want to thank you again so much, Lynn, for coming on and talking with me. I really appreciate it. And, uh, I, yeah, I got to learn a lot. Great. By talking to you. Thank you. Yeah. So thanks. It's been fun. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next.

Josh Bracket, P.E., is a fire protection engineer who specializes in facilities maintenance as it relates to healthcare occupancies. On this episode, we break down some of the challenges associated with healthcare facilities and how the fire protection and life safety for these buildings differs from traditional business occupancies. Listen to hear Josh's two big takeaways for how the pandemic has changed healthcare occupancies ITM irrevocably.

https://legacy-fm.com/

Josh's LinkedIn

Informal Discussion 1:45 Tell me about how you got into the fire protection space? 7:20 Would you speak about SASHE and CHFM? 20:35 What is ITM and what does that mean in the context of health care facilities? 24:55 Tell me about what Legacy FM and what kind of work you are involved with? 34:30 Can you speak about your work on NFPA codes and standards development? 41:40 Would you speak about the informational videos that you have been involved with? 49:35 How has the pandemic had impact on the healthcare industry and the way healthcare occupancies do business? 55:50

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the.

You're in the right place. Hello. All welcome to episode 18 of fire code tech. On this episode of fire code tech, we have Josh bracket. Josh is a fire protection engineer who specializes in healthcare, occupancies and facilities maintenance on this episode of fire code tech, we get into, what does it look like to perform inspection, testing, and maintenance for a campus of healthcare facilities.

Josh gives us a look at what are the differences between healthcare occupancies and your standard commercial business occupancy. In episode 18 of fire code tech, we talk about Josh's company legacy FM, a company where he specializes in how to train your facilities, maintenance, technicians, and staff, the best practices and codes and standards for the industry.

We go over Josh's involvement in the codes and standards creation process. Then we break down. Josh's two big takeaways from how the pandemic has changed, the way healthcare occupancies operate. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on social media. Let's get into the show.

I've been watching your videos for a while, and, um, it's been great seeing somebody who knows what they're talking about, get into, uh, fire protection. And it's remarkable to me that there are just not very many resources out there on YouTube, or just in general for people describing fire protection systems or just, you know, especially even more niche I think is, uh, inspection, testing and maintenance.

So yeah, it's, it's kinda, it's kinda wild to see you in that space and just. Realize how wide open that space is for information and content, but it seems like you've been a lot of people have been responded positively to, um, what you've been thrown out there. Yeah. They have been, um, and it's, it's been a lot of fun, honestly.

It's, um, I've really enjoyed it. Um, and, uh, , you know, there's always, I, I think, I think there's always, uh, a few people that, that disagree are kind of the naysayers, but, but yeah, you're right. The majority of people are, are very excited about it and, um, it's really cool to kind see it just keep growing and seeing other people.

Share it or be involved in it or, um, you know, I'm starting to see a couple of other people who are starting to do videos, which is great. That's what I want. I mean, let's, let's share our knowledge and, and get the information out there. The more people that we get talking about it, the, the better our industry is going to be.

Yeah. Without a doubt. I mean, you know, to stimulate the conversation and, uh, distribute the information and lower the barrier to entry for professionals, I think is the ethical thing to do. Uh, you know, sometimes I, I feel like our industry, it likes to have this, uh, Like knowledge barrier or expertise barrier for people to get involved with fire protection and life safety work.

And, and, uh, I was talking with somebody recently was saying, uh, you know, this is like the, the law and the, and life safety, you know, the whole idea of what we do is to make safer buildings. So yeah, I think that's a, a noble pursuit to push for, uh, safer buildings and better information for professionals.

So that's pretty neat. So I saw, I don't know if it was this week, but I saw you at that, uh, ashy conference and this, you had a talk going, was that this week? Yeah, that was, uh, last week. Yeah, I had one on, uh, one on Monday and then one on Wednesday. That's awesome. That's awesome. Have you had a lot of experience speaking at conferences and stuff?

Um, I have, um, uh, I don't know. I've probably done, you know, a dozen or so, um, live presentations and probably about another dozen or so, uh, web webcasts or, uh, webinars. Yeah. It's, uh, that's not an easy thing to do. I was trying to, uh, for our local SFP chapter this year do a, uh, a presentation over a webinar.

And I thought I had plenty of content and I was struggling after like, uh, and I'm not afraid of, uh, like presenting or whatever, but I was like, how about halfway through? I was like, man, I needed more slides and more bullet points. It's, uh, it's definitely a skill and it's not easy. So it is not, no, it's, it's, it's very difficult.

Um, webinars are very hard to, because you're, you're, there's very little feedback, um, during them, you know? I mean, so, especially, especially if it's just a webinar, you know, and you can't see, see everybody and you see, oh, I'm, I'm talking to 3, 4, 500 people and I have no idea if number one, they can hear me or any kind of response back.

So , yeah, you could be having connectivity issues or, you know, maybe you're breaking up and you didn't know. And there's like, uh, there's no feedback from people's faces. A lot of times people will have their video off and yeah, that's kind of bizarre. It is. But, uh, but anyways, yeah, I, uh, I'm excited to have you on the show.

I'm excited to get into some areas. I haven't had the opportunity to talk with anybody about on fire code tech. Talked about ITAM a little bit, but I'm excited to talk to you about, um, healthcare and, uh, just your background in healthcare. It seems, I think, uh, you know, fire protection is already so niche and, uh, just a very, um, specialized thing, but, uh, I'm always interested in drilling down into further, uh, more specialized categories of fire protection.

So I think it's, I'm excited to talk to you about, um, healthcare and your background, because I think healthcare is a really interesting and complex niche within fire protection, which is already a pretty, uh, obscure niche topic in itself. But definitely. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, so I just wanted to, uh, Kick the interview off and get started with yeah.

Letting the listeners know a little bit about your background and how you've got into the fire protection space and what you're doing now. Sure, absolutely. Um, so I, uh, I actually started out all I wanted to be, my whole life was a firefighter and I think a lot of fire protection engineers kind of start out that way secretly or, or openly.

Right. But, um, and, uh, that's what I wanted to do. And I graduated, uh, right at the end of the, the 2008 financial crisis. Um, and I was just applying left and right to fire departments, uh, and got to the, the final interview, um, several times the chief interview several times at several departments and just kept being rejected, man.

And, um, you know, the last one that I. That I, uh, got to that chief interview with, I, you know, we had some, some sort of, I remember it, like it was yesterday, had a, had a, um, hose coupling assembly, you know, that you had to do in front of him. Uh, they showed you a picture for a couple of seconds and, and you had to do it from memory.

And I sat down, um, afterwards and, um, he looked through my packet and he said, I'm not gonna hire you. And I was like, well, I have another 58 minutes. Can I , you know, this is continuing to happen to me. What's going on? Like why? And he said, he said, man, he's like, you're, you're already, you've already graduated with your fire protection engineering degree.

Why is this what you wanna do? You know? And, uh, kind of took, took me aback, you know? So two days later I got a phone call from a, a company I had interviewed with two years before. Um, and they said, Hey, we want to, you, you. Your wife's now graduated, um, from college, uh, which was the reason I, I didn't take the job before and he's like, Hey, do you wanna, you wanna come and interview again?

And I was like, you know what, why not? Um, clearly, clearly the firefighting route wasn't, wasn't meant to be. Uh, so I'll, I'll take a stab at this and ended up getting the job. Um, and, uh, kind of the rest is rest is history from there. and then it's been a pretty diverse career since then, then, you know, I, I really kind of, before that, it's, it's been several things that have shaped my career.

Um, it's been even, even before college, right? If we take a step back before that, I, um, I actually, co-owned a, uh, an appliance repair company with my, my stepdad, and it was a, a good chunk of what put me through college gave me, gave me the funding to, to get through college. Um, And had a couple of different internships figured out what I liked, what I didn't like worked at Conico Phillips on the safety side for a little bit.

Um, not really, not really what I was feeling, you know, it's, didn't, didn't align with kind of my passions and what I was thinking. Um, did, uh, I, I actually helped, um, help do the, the build out of half the half dome of the OSU stadium with, uh, a sprinkler company, um, found out that that sling and pipe around was really hard work.

Uh and decided that wasn't what I wanted to do. Um, spent a little bit of time on an ambulance service doing and did some volunteer firefighting. Um, and then, you know, so, so, and that kind of all led me to, to this, that engineering, uh, company, you know, I got there and, and I already had, you know, a good idea of, of what I didn't want to do, um, and started doing fire protection engineering started out on the, the sprinkler side.

Um, Solely. Uh, and, and at that company that I was at the, the electrical engineers actually did all the fire alarm design and, and things like that. And, and like most companies, it it's it's, Hey, you know, very minimal, um, design, both, both on sprinkler or on fire alarm. It's kind of hatch jobs is what I call 'em.

Right. And, and more of, uh, the governance of having the engineers, um, to be able to look through some middles and things like that. And man, I really started pushing the boundaries on that. And I said, so we can grow this. I said, there's fire protection engineering companies out there, and we could keep growing this.

And, you know, and, and there was this kind of innate desire. I'm not like a normal engineer in the, the sense where when most people think of engineers as kind of generalized. To the li they like to keep to themselves and they're not very outgoing and, and they're great at calculations and stuff like that.

And, um, that, that actually, you know, I, that was more of my weakness, I would say, uh, more than anything I really enjoy, um, talking to people, poking holes and things, redlining drawings, um, working with the contractors, figuring out better ways of doing stuff, you know? So, um, we actually had a, that, that the company had a whole bunch of electrical engineers leave, um, all at one time.

And, and I said, Hey, you know, I took a fire fire alarm design class in school. Surely I can do that. Um, and , that's kind where my love of, of fire alarm started. Uh, and, and it was a blast. I, I loved, I loved learning, just dug in deep into, um, I was one thing that I've always enjoyed is when, when I get something new, I just read and I dig and I find, find as much as I can on it.

And, uh, you know, just. Just the, the kind of, the love for learning, you know, um, some people, you know, live to, to learn and others like learn to live or whatever. And, uh, but I really enjoy it. Um, and, uh, so I kept growing in that role. Um, and I actually took a business case to, I was the first well first engineer to, to bridge the gap between what I would call mechanical fire protection and electrical fire protection.

Right. And so, um, and I was doing both, both roles on these projects. Um, and I loved it because there was less, less coordination was less, you know, that's one of the downsides of, of, of having so many disciplines is, is you gotta, there's a lot of coordination that has to go into it, but I saw this opportunity to really grow this.

So I, I presented a business plan to the, uh, to the board of directors at the engineering firm and, and. It wasn't the next day, but that's kinda like the story that I tell I, the next day they made me director of business development. So , um, and, uh, you know, and, and that just opened up so many doors, so many opportunities.

It taught me a lot about the public speaking and, and dealing with clients and, uh, learning what clients need, um, more so than just the engineering. Right. And, um, and, but my love for that for fire protection engineering never went away. Um, and so I was, I was working on, you know, growing the whole engineering firm holistically, uh, and the engineering firm did, they kept growing, um, ended up, uh, becoming a, they were already national to begin with, but, uh, ended up becoming even larger that, that went through a big, um, merger.

And, you know, it was kind of at that time that I, that, um, my wife and I. We're starting to, to start a family and, and all of that. She actually worked at the engineering firm as well. And I was like, nah, you know, I'm not gonna, , I'm tired of sleeping in a hotel every night. So, um, ended up finding a local job, working for, uh, fire alarm and sprinkler contractor, uh, doing business development and client growth there, um, as their, their chief chief business development officer.

And I learned a lot about the contracting side and I learned a lot about the issues between engineered drawings and contractor drawings and, and going through it and trying to figure out, and I, and it, man, I realized it's a very, very broken process. I, I also realized that the contractor's world was not where I wanted to be.

Um, it wasn't a good fit because, uh, I, I very much have a very, very strong, ethical view of. Of fire protection and life safety. Um, and I, I've never been one to cut corners, and I'm not saying that the company did, I'm just saying that, um, you know, it, it, the owners, especially, it's hard to convince somebody on a low bid, you know, how to do the right thing.

Um, and it's just, there was this huge educational gap, um, on, on what the right thing was. So I decided to leave that, that company and I was like, I'm gonna start, start my own thing. And, and, uh, that was kind of in my brain. And, but I was doing a lot of work at that time for, um, the, the place I currently work Baptist health hospital, uh, and I was actually managing, they, we, there were some issues that we were having with, uh, their joint commission, uh, reporting.

So I got really, really heavily into, to the ITM side then, and, and developing the processes, uh, and procedures. For that, because I saw it as an opportunity. You know, I started doing a lot of, uh, of market research and found that, that there really wasn't a company out there doing it. Right. So I saw this huge opportunity to like, develop this and take it and, and take our small local contracting company national.

And I've always, I've always tried to bite it off more than I can chew. So so Baptist calls me though, when I said, I, when I decided to leave, they said, Hey, we got this position. We want you to join our team. Um, we'll figure every we'll figure out all the details. Let's go. You know? So I applied, they interviewed me, I got the job and that's as, uh, special projects manager there and special project manager does, you know, initially it was really, um, Hey, we need to sprinkler our high rise building and we need to develop this ITM program.

And our fire alarm systems are starting to fail. And so, but that, that quickly grew into, Hey, we're gonna insource a construction team. Hey, we're starting. To handle energy management, which was another thing that I did for the engineering firm, uh, previously. So it's just kind of just kept growing, um, and growing.

And, um, I love, I love every aspect of it. Um, and then decided to start my own, uh, company with my wife co-founded legacy FM. Uh, and it goes back to that, that kind of holistic view of, of what we do is develop custom training programs for healthcare facilities teams, um, realizing that there's a gap in the industry, um, from a learning perspective, you know, the skilled trades, um, there's not a whole lot of education and training out there for 'em, uh, especially the, on the job side of it.

So, um, you know, learning, learning how to do refrigeration or, or run a central plant or, um, whatever that, you know, those, those kind of courses exist. But, uh, there's a whole lot that goes into to healthcare facilities management. That, that there's just no training for the, the technicians on man. What a remarkable story of your experience you've really run the gamut on, uh, on, uh, the different, uh, avenues of the career that you could pursue as a, as a fire protection professional.

I mean, uh, you said you had some experience with safety and, you know, your initial experience with the, uh, with engineering and, you know, fire suppression and fire alarm design. That's, uh, remarkable man. You have a pretty diverse background. I'm sure that's a big help for you now. Um, knowing what it's like to sling pipe and, you know, also, uh, being on the construction or the design side of things.

So that's pretty remarkable. It is it, I mean, I've been very blessed, um, you know, and that, that's how I look at it is that. I haven't had a whole lot of career changes over my career, but the ones that I have, you know, I've, I've taken, I've learned so much from them and I've had had some really great mentors and, and, and really have been able to explore my passion and, and hone in on my passion.

Not everybody can say that. So I just consider myself very blessed. Yeah. I really like also what you're saying about, you know, uh, being a constant learner and trying to, uh, you know, keep professionally developing and seeking new challenges and new, uh, pursuits is in your career. That's something that I resonate with and, you know, uh, like would like to think about myself as well, but, uh, yeah, that's awesome.

So you gave a pretty comprehensive. you know, outlook on your background. I it's really interesting. Yeah. I wanted to get a little bit more into healthcare, but before, you know, I was really interested, uh, when I was taking a look at your profile, I saw that you had, um, some different certifications that I wasn't real aware of.

I didn't know if you would, uh, speak about, um, Sahi. Is that how you say it and yeah. Your SA your C H FM certification. That's right. Yeah, definitely. So, um, Sahi and, and CHF M are both, uh, designations from the, from Ashi, uh, which is the American society for healthcare engineering. Uh, and they're, they're a professional membership group of the American hospital Associa.

So, um, and it's a, it's, it's an organization that I am heavily, heavily, deeply involved in from, from multiple different aspects. Um, and I, I love, I love them. I love everything that they do. Uh, but it's actually, that's our, um, organization for healthcare engineers. Um, and it's a big, big chunk of how, how facilities managers get their continuing education and stuff like that.

So, and the Sashi designation is, is very similar to, to like, you know, the S F P E side, you have your, you have fasci or, I mean, you have. Uh, the fellows, you know, for, for S F P E. So, um, there's a, there's a step here in Ashi before you get your fellow, you become, uh, a senior, which is what the S stands for and to, to be a senior, um, you have to have, I think it's like five years, uh, of membership experience and you have to have some pretty, uh, great contributions through, they have three, three kind of sec segments, uh, leadership, education, and publishing.

Um, the education could be through, you know, webinars or through in person presentations, delivering presentations, things like that. So, um, and I'm one of the youngest, uh, youngest members to ever get, get his, uh, Sashi. Um, I heard at one point I was the youngest. I don't, you know, unverified, so, but, uh, and then the CHF M is the, um, certified healthcare facilities manager.

Designation. And it's a, uh, it's, um, kind of the, the, the benchmark for knowledge of, of facilities managers. Um, and they, it, there's five different pillars to that. There's, there's compliance, uh, planning, design, and construction, maintenance, and operations, uh, finance, and then administration. And, uh, it's a very difficult, you have to, you have to have number one, you have to, I think it's like three years or so of experience, uh, to take, take the exam.

But then, um, it's also, it's a very difficult exam to pass because it's such a broad, uh, topic of knowledge and it's closed book. Um, and I mean, you really, especially once we get to talking a little bit more about healthcare, I think think the audience will understand like the complexities associated with it.

Um, and it's got a very low pass rate, so , yeah, so, so much so that I actually wrote a, a LinkedIn article about like what I did to study for it. Um, and. I I passed, but I barely passed. So man. Yeah. And the fire protection PE, which you're also a PE has a pretty low pass rate too. It has the, like the third lowest of any PE exams.

So it does, it does. And I, I kinda looked at it like when I took my PE, you know, I like to joke with people about, uh, my, my, uh, my boss, uh, at the hospital's actually a mechanical engineer. And so he and I kind of joked back and forth a lot. And I asked him, I was like, how many books did you take to the exam?

And he's like 13. And I was like, I took like 30. So , you know, but I like to, I like to joke that, you know, fire protection engineering is as, as niche as it is, is still so there's, it's so broad, you know, there's so much that we cover. Um, so. For sure. Without a doubt. Yeah. It's, it's, it's pretty weird when you, you know, tell people who maybe aren't so equated with the PE that you had to take like crates worth of books to the exam.

Yeah. But, uh, it's, uh, it's kind of wild that, that all stops, uh, with this exam coming up and it'd be the, the last paper exam was last year, so that's kind of crazy, but, um, yeah, I wanted to get into more of, uh, maybe for those who don't know or, you know, just to expand upon it a little bit. I wanted to hear from you like your perspective on, uh, what ITM is and what facilities engineering, you know, means in the context of what you do now and, uh, healthcare facilities.

Absolutely. Um, so ITM, you know, is, is clearly for those listening, you know, uh, fi um, inspection, testing, and maintenance, right. And, uh, and that's a very broad. Term, uh, that actually applies throughout all, all of, uh, facilities engineering, uh, but is especially referenced in, in the codes, um, in FPA codes, which is, which is, you know, our primary go to, um, and , oh boy.

So healthcare facilities engineering in general, just the facilities management facilities engineering, I'll use those terms interchangeably. Uh, but is I heard, I have heard numerous times. Um, and, and again, unverified, but I've heard numerous times that, um, healthcare is the second most regulated industry.

Second only to nuclear. Right. And, um, man, I'm telling you, I, I can tell you if it's, if. Based on, based on I've never worked in nuclear fire protection. I know, you know, I know several people who have, and, and it's, it's very heavily regulated clearly for a great reason. Uh, but I mean, healthcare is we have hundreds, hundreds of codes that we have to monitor and, and keep up with.

And that's just on the facility side. Um, that's not including, you know, the, the medical side, the clinician side, uh, the infection prevention side, the, I mean, there's, there's so many, so many aspects that, that goes into healthcare. Um, it's incredible. It really is. Um, so the inspection testing and maintenance of it, you know, when is, um, Is critical because the biggest difference in healthcare, I think this is important to note, um, is, you know, we, aren't a standard occupancy, you know, in, in a business occupancy, you know, and I, I like to, I like to go back to kinda like the school kid reference, right?

When you, when the fire alarmer goes off, you exit out of the building, uh, and you all stand out in the parking lot because that's what you do, you know? Um, and that's how it is with most occupancies, but healthcare is a defendant place, occupancy. Um, and what that means is that once, once you enter a hospital, you're now ward under our care.

Um, and that goes for patients that goes for visitors that goes for everybody, we are responsible for the occupants of that building. Um, and we have every floor is required to have a minimum of at least two smoke compartments for us to, um, evacuate horizontally. Uh, within that building, you know, and, and I have only ever heard of a hospital evacuating, like personally in the last few years, at least one time, you know, and it was, it was, um, uh, I won't get into why, but, you know, so we just, we don't evacuate hospitals.

Um, and for just about any reason, the reason why is, is because of the potential increase of harm to the patient. Um, both from an, an infection perspective or just from a, from, uh, for medical reasons, you know, they're in there because they're sick, you know? So, um, everything that we do revolves around, uh, protecting the occupants of the building, um, And because of that though, there's, there's all of these, uh, inspection testing and maintenance requirements that go, that go into managing our buildings and making sure that they remain safe.

And it's everything from, uh, fire door testing to damper testing, to fire, alarm, sprinkler, um, special hazards, you name it. I mean, like, uh, I I've seen all kinds smoke control systems. Um, so all, all kinds of stuff. Um, and it's, it's a blast and it's everything from, you know, passive fire protection. So, you know, using, using, uh, using and training, um, your team and contractors, how to properly use fires stop, which is by the way, one of the like very commonly misapplied, um, you know, uh, so we get to work in the passive fire protection and active fire protection, uh, realms as well.

Um, so I it's a blast. It really is. It's a lot of fun. Um, but it's, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of knowledge. It's a lot of, of. Going back and having to gut check, you know, because, um, there's just, there's, there's so much to remember that it's impossible to remember everything, you know, so, so just knowing where to check stuff.

Oh man. That's that sounds like, uh, that sounds like a lot. I was listening to one of your VI videos recently. I, I think it was the one about standpipes and you were, uh, naming off some additional standards that I'd never heard of. And I can only imagine that those are, uh, standards or inspection testing and maintenance provisions that are from the healthcare specific codes and standards that you're referencing.

So it's pretty remarkable because it's already a complex enough, uh, equation if you're just working with the standard set of building codes and regulations and how that all gets applied. So that's pretty remarkable. I didn't know that about, I mean, it makes intuitive sense that, you know, there are additional healthcare regulations and.

Yeah. I don't know. That's really interesting. Absolutely. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean like, I'm, I just opened up, you know, since I'm here at my computer, I just opened up my resource library that I have, and I, you know, I've got over 200, 200 codes and standards in there, so, um, and it's just one of those.

You gotta know where to go. You gotta know you, you, because you just can't, you can't remember everything. Um, but one of the big things that also separates hospitals, uh, from standard business occupancies, is that, or, or just really any occupancy is that we're audited. So we are audited by, um, either CMS, which is the center for Medicaid, uh, and Medicare and Medicaid services, uh, or one of the accrediting organizations, D and V uh, joint commission.

Um, there's HVA Clea. There's a few, there's only four, but, um, and. You know, we're audited, um, regularly, depending on, depending on which one you follow depends on how often you're audited, but, uh, and it's, it's brutal. It really is. I mean, they, they go through the, the, the gamut of, um, like for, for our largest hospital, it's a, um, three day life safety survey.

It's they go, they poke their head above ceiling. They go through all of our records it's um, and we have to have every, all of our I dotted or Ts crossed. And, and if we don't then, um, you know, almost always, uh, you know, we're able to resolve it. Uh, but I've heard of, I've heard of several hospitals and, and, and reports and stuff where, uh, funding has been reduced from, from government resources because, uh, CMS actually is, is the, the deemed authority that authorizes, you know, uh, payment for Medicare and Medicaid services, which depending on, on, um, On where your, where hospitals located can be up to 80% of the funding for the hospital, you know?

So, uh, it's significant, you know, it's, it's, uh, we're talking, you know, healthcare's a multi-billion dollar industry, um, and you know, making sure that we have those re and we operate with very, very small margin. So us keeping our hospitals in check and up to the protective standards of the codes, right.

They, all of the, all of the organizations all just tie back in some way or another to a code or standard somewhere. So as long as you're, you're maintaining your equipment properly, then you're okay. Yeah. That's, that's uh, interesting. The auditing aspect of it. I, I didn't know about that, but it seems like it adds a, a different, um, factor into the mix for having to ensure that you're not only code compliant, but the record keeping and some of those things that in standard commercial occupancies are not, you know, you might have trouble finding to.

Uh, traditional business buildings, you know, records of their fire suppression or fire alarm or their, you know, whatever smoke and fire partitions. But, uh, I imagine that that's not something that happens in healthcare and that you guys are very on top of, um, record keeping and just the whole process of, uh, management of change and, uh, those type of things.

But that's pretty fascinating. It is. Yeah. And it's, we are, you know, we're better, I would say we're better than, than, um, standard occupancies of course, but we still have a long way to go, you know, and that's, that's a lot of what the videos and stuff are for, you know, I gear them, uh, towards other hel healthcare facilities because, because of the auditing and the compliance and, and the importance and, um, so yeah, yeah, that's, that's really fascinating.

So I wanted to hear a little bit more about, I, I. I think I get a little bit of, you know, uh, what your role is as a, you know, kind of somebody who develops programs for ITM and healthcare compliance. But yeah, I just wanted to, I'm fascinated by professionals who are, you know, have found their own way to, to make their own business and fire protection and be successful.

So, yeah. I just wanted to hear a little bit more about what you're doing at legacy FM and, uh, yeah. Where you guys are, are going with the business. That's really cool. Yeah. Awesome. Very cool. Um, it's, it's my, uh, it's my, um, my other passion. So fire protection is, is, is one of my passions, right? And my other passion is education and training.

Um, and I, my, my wife, my, and co-founder, uh, started the company. Um, she came to me and said, Hey, you know, She's was heavily plugged into healthcare and to facilities management as well. And, um, and she's like, I wanna do this. This is, this is something that, that needs to happen in the industry. Um, passionate about it.

She's developed training and education programs before. Um, and I, you know, I was like, yeah, let's do it. You know, we've, we've talked about it a couple of times and, and just pulled the trigger and said, let's go. Um, so, and what we do is we, we go into hospitals, uh, and, and Mo well, step back. So most of the education and training within, within hospitals, uh, is geared towards the clinical side.

Um, oh, almost all of it. Right. So, and, uh, and for a good reason, um, you know, if you, if you had a doctor or a nurse, uh, you know, that was taking care of you would, you would expect that, that they are, um, highly educated and, and continuously trained to make sure that they're doing the right things. Right.

That's, it's very important. um, and then the level of facilities, managers, or directors of facilities, um, you know, they get a lot of their education through, through Ashe, um, or through other organizations in FPA. There's a, you know, and there's a few others, but, uh, but the facilities technicians are, it's very difficult to reach them because you know, their number one facilities management is a cost center.

All, all, all we are is a cost to the hospital. We don't generate any income. Right. Um, which makes it very difficult. We are an operations center. Um, but we are just as critical and important as the doctors and nurses within the hospital, because we keep the building running. We keep the lights on. We there's a lot of regulations geared, geared towards like temperature and humidity and operating rooms that we have to maintain and, and, and take care of, which is completely unrelated to fire protection, but there's, uh, there's a whole, there's a whole gamut of stuff that, that we have to verify, uh, to make sure that the atmosphere that we are providing for, uh, patients is, is a, is a healing one and it's geared towards their healing.

Right. So, um, and, but reaching that level of technician from an education perspective is very difficult. Um, the average technician is over 50 years old. Uh, we don't have a whole lot of people entering technical trades. Um, and, and I'm a huge, huge proponent because of my, uh, trade background and, and what it's done for me.

Um, you know, I look at things differently because of that. Um, if I, if I didn't ever work in a trade, then, then I'm, I'm not sure that I would be where I am today. Um, and, and I take that, I take that very serious. And I love giving back, um, giving back to the trades. I love, I mean, they're, those guys are good as gold and girls are good as gold.

Um, and they'll do just about anything for you and, and, you know, it's amazing to, to see how they can walk up to something and, and figure out and solve, solve an issue. Uh, you know, in a matter of seconds that would take an average person, you know, normally calling a technician to come and do it, you know, but yeah.

Uh, so, but, so we, we develop these training programs though for these hospitals, um, to reach the technicians because it's very difficult, uh, to maintain a level of compliance. Like I'm the only fire protection engineer at Baptist. There's only one of me, there's other people that are, that are knowledgeable in fire protection, of course, but, you know, I can't be everywhere at all.

Um, 11 of our hospitals over nine campuses at any given time. And that's how it is with all facilities managers, you know, um, the, our technicians are our eyes and our ears. Um, they're the ones that are out there talking to nurses. They're the ones that, you know, the more that we can train them on, on code issues and compliance issues and, and why it's important and how, uh, infection prevention is critical in hospitals, you know, from that's, that's a whole nother topic, but, um, you know, the more that we can train them on that and, and help them understand and see the importance of it, um, it, then the better our hospital's going to be.

Um, and that's what, that's what our company does is we actually develop these, these training and education programs. We. Um, align it to their, uh, job descriptions specifically, um, come up with what we call a competency matrix. So that way all training is tied back to a core competency on their job descriptions, um, help develop succession planning mechanisms with HR departments develop the actual training, uh, for the hospital system.

Uh, our goal, we offer online training, uh, as well. Um, but our goal is to do, uh, train the trainer. You know, we want this to be a sustainable model for the hospital for years to come. Um, and then we do, uh pre-assessment and, and post assessment and recurring assessments to make sure that knowledge is retained, you know?

And, and, um, one of the things I like to say is that we, you know, we're, we're, we don't really care about the education and training. We care about the retention and the results and what we've seen though, you know, it's, it's funny, you know's. We tell people all the time, we're actually not a, uh, education and training company at all.

Um, and we are an empowerment company. Um, we believe in empowering people through education and training. It just, it just so happens. That's our vessel to do it. Right. Um, we want people to do their, to, to have the knowledge, so they're able to do their best and give back to, um, society and to their hospitals and facilities and all of that.

Yeah. That's, uh, I like that piece about retention and, you know, uh, keeping this knowledge base and having a succession plan because, uh, you know, it's, it's, I'm sure it's hard. It sounds like already, it's hard enough to get these technicians who are qualified and the work is very technical and difficult.

And then also, you know, needing to keep this knowledge base. Keep your technicians, um, up to date on their training. And yeah, that's really interesting. I didn't, uh, I didn't realize that all that's all that some of the services that you guys are involved with with legacy FM, that's very interesting. I wanted to hear a little bit about, I see that you're on a couple different committees for, um, the NFPA, um, standards or codes and standards, uh, specifically applying to, uh, healthcare.

Yeah. I'm really fascinated about the codes and standards development process. Yeah. I'd love to hear about that. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I love it. I love, I absolutely love codes and standards development. Um, I think that, that, and it's, it's even, it's gotten me to the point where I actually now, um, uh, read the federal, uh, registrar, you know, for submission to, to CMS as well, because what drives, um, But I'll get into that.

So , uh, it's, it's a, I actually sit on, um, I think five NFPA committees. Um, and I also sit on the healthcare codes and standards review committee, uh, which, which is basically kind of, uh, I think, I think the phrase is like where the watchdog of, of healthcare codes and standards. And, um, we, we keep an eye out for, uh, changes that are coming and looming.

Um, and man, some, I, I was very blessed. Somebody got me involved in this and, and I just, I dug right in, you know, and it just really, um, when they, when they heard kind of like my story and, and, and background of why, why I love this, you know, I, I hate, I hate when, uh, codes and standards are developed because of a tragedy.

I mean, we've had, we've had so many, um, fires, you know, they're all over, all over the news, uh, you know, um, Beirut and, and Notre Dame and, and, um, all of these, all these terrible tragedies where, uh, you know, we implement, um, codes and standards after the fact, um, because of those and some of 'em are UN unpreventable, you know, but, um, you know, many of them, uh, you know, we sacrifice human life before we take it seriously.

And, um, you know, that's codes and standards development is that's our chance to change it. You know, that's, that's where, that's where we can stand up and every single person can make a difference. Um, you know, any member of the public, uh, it, it doesn't have to be a fire protection engineer. It doesn't, you don't have to be on a committee.

You can submit public input and you can drive. Um, and, and that's what I love about it is that everybody has a voice in, in that you can be heard. Um, and you know, I just love the whole history of it. Like I, I got, I was fascinated, um, and did a ton of research on how, um, the safety to life committee was formed, uh, after, after the, um, the triangle shirt waste fire in New York.

Um, and that's what really got me like, like loving all of this was, was, you know, in the beginning, um, you know, I, I like to say, like, there are a whole bunch of people way smarter than me that decided to form this committee, um, to save lives, you know, and, and man that, I got a ton of respect for that. I do.

Um, but. Not everything that that was input in the code had scientific reasoning behind it. Um, some of it is there's no scientific basis, uh, to it. And a great example that that I like to use is, is, um, the smoke compartment change, uh, in an FPA 1 0 1. You know, we, we used to, uh, only be able to do, um, 22,500 square feet, uh, for smoke compartments and, and in the, the, the 2018 edition of code, um, we are now able to do 40,000 square feet.

Um, , you know, do you know where the, the 22,500 square foot comes from? No idea. Yeah. So, uh, the committee, and I don't know when it was, you know, but it was, it was years ago, the committee, uh, back then was made up of, of, uh, primarily men. And what they did was they said, well, we need to separate out these smoke compartments and well, what size should we use?

So what they did was they, um, took every, every man of the committee and made them hold their breath and walk as far as they could. Well, the average was, uh, 125 feet. So we used a smoke compartment size of 125 feet by 125 feet, which was 22,500 square. So, and, uh, yeah, and you know, there's no scientific evidence there clearly at all.

Right. So, um, that doesn't mean that it's not a great idea. Right. But now we have scientific evidence and now we have, you know, so one of the big things that, that I try to push, um, when we're, when people are proposing changes is okay, what, what's the scientific reasoning behind that? Um, unfortunately there's a lot of manufacturers, uh, that really take advantage of this from a profit perspective, you know, they'll go out and put things in there.

Um, that don't make any sense. Um, but it's just, and, and it's kind of this, this, and luckily, you know, w people are getting smarter, um, and, and kind of wing up to it, but, you know, they'll put it in there, um, and make it specific. Like somebody will say, oh, well, we have to do this, this specific UL system, you know, has to be UL listed to this.

And there's only one, one manufacturer that makes it right. Well, , you know, we can't do that. I, I, I don't, I mean, it's. Sometimes things like that get voted in. Right. But, uh, you know, it's, it's what takes people putting up a fight for what's right. Um, and, and that's what, that's, what I love about the codes and development process is that anybody can do it.

Anybody can, anybody can say this doesn't make any sense and it needs to be different. Yeah, I think that's a good point having stuff that's so sourced through one UL listed process is, uh, it sounds like not a, uh, not a good thing, not a competitive environment, not that's right. An environment for, you know, systems and technology that is sustainable and, uh, you know, has life safety first and foremost.

But, uh, yeah, that's, that's interesting. It's a lot of fun. It is. I mean, and, and luckily I'm able to be heavily involved. I sit on Ashe's regulatory affairs committee as well. Um, and I'm able to be heavily involved in kind of like the research processes, uh, at, on how we're doing this. And, and because I have such a large healthcare system that, that I do life safety for, I'm able to provide a lot of data as well.

And, um, so a good example of that is like, you know, something that doesn't make any sense to, to healthcare specific is monthly fire extinguisher checks. Um, in, in five years, I've had eight failures on my fire extinguishers and that's it eight and it's taken me, uh, an entire FTE over five years. Not, not each year, but you know, a fifth of his time is dedicated to checking fire extinguishers for eight failures.

Right. Well, if we're in an industrial environment or a more corrosive environment, then yeah. You know, I may need to do monthly or even weekly, but code says that bare, like the minimum I, I can go is, is monthly. Well, I'm spending a ton of time and effort to check extinguishers that, um, it doesn't make, it doesn't make any sense for us to check, right?

Because now we have scientific evidence backing it. So that was actually proposed for the most current current edition, uh, of N F P a 10, um, is, Hey, we wanna, we want to make some changes to this specific for, for healthcare. So, um, it's really fun being involved in that, that whole process though. And I highly encourage others to.

To, to jump in and do it. Yeah. It's cool that we live in a time where we can make data driven decisions about fire protection and life safety. And we don't just have to have anecdotal, uh, rule of thumb knowledge, uh, guide what is right for codes and standards, but that's, uh, that's really interesting. So I wanted to, I know we talked about it a little bit in the beginning of the interview, but I wanted to talk more about, um, your instructional videos that you've been doing, uh, for those who don't know about the kind of videos that you've been putting out, you know, uh, yeah.

Maybe give some people an idea of what you've been doing on, on social media and kind of the, the goal or, or what's been going on with your videos. I've been really enjoying them well, that's awesome. Thanks. Thank you. Um, so yeah, I just, I started, I don't even know like really when it started, um, but.

Somebody said, Hey, you should do a video on that. You know? And it was something, it was something, I don't remember what my first one was to tell you the truth. Um, but , and it, it started out, you know, they started out pretty rough and, and I've learned a lot, uh, since then, but, um, you know, it's everything that all the videos that I'm doing are all, are all related either to fire protection or towards healthcare facilities management.

Uh, and it's, it's like day to day stuff that, um, somebody may not know. And it's something, you know, a big part of it is, is things that I've learned, uh, as I go along or things that, you know, somebody sends me questions now. Uh, and I love, I love helping other people research and find the right answer. Um, you know, so, and I'm like, look, if, if somebody's asking or if I'm asking right, then there's gotta be others out there who are asking or need to know this.

Uh, and it it's been, some of 'em have been kind of simple. Um, you know, and some have been more complex, you know, but I love taking complex topics of what people think are, are these big, scary, like fire alarm program is a great example. You know, like, so many people think this it's just this kind of like terrifying, uh it's oh, it's the fire alarm program.

And it's just, no, it's really, really simple. It's just if then equations, right. That's all it is. It's if this happens, then these things need to happen downstream to make sure that we've got a, a protective atmosphere. Um, but you know, just taking these, these, these topics and, and kind of breaking it down and showing people, you know, code doesn't, isn't always the best at like this kind of visual representation.

Right. Of, of understanding, um, how to do it, you know, they're great at writing out the steps. Um, so are manufacturers, but, but the visual component of that, you know, some people. Some people need to see it in action and see that it's not this daunting task and see that, you know, here's, here's how you can do it.

And I love, and I love taking those, those opportunities. Um, and a big part of it came from developing our ITM program for our hospital system. Um, you know, we're, we are, as far as I know, at least we're the only hospital system in, in the nation right now that does integrated, um, system testing, uh, which is required, um, by, uh, for high rise buildings, uh, by one once adopted at least by NFPA 1 0 1 20 18 and the newer edition coming out to the 2021, um, and integrated system testing is, you know, in the past, ITM has always just been individual systems.

You know, we're going to test, we, we send out somebody to test, uh, sprinkler systems to NFPA 25. We send out somebody to test, um, uh, Portable extinguishers to NFPA 10 fire alarm systems to NFPA 72 fire doors to NF P 80, so on and so forth. Right? Well, integrated system testing is, is where the fire alarm system really comes in.

You know, it's the web that connects everything together. Um, you know, if, if I need to close these smoke doors, when this smoke detector goes off, then I've got a fire alarm relay downstream, um, you know, tying all of that together. So, you know, kind of breaking all of this down in these videos and showing people, um, how to like how to do it, the proper ways to do it.

Um, common, common issues that, that I've seen, or that I've heard of, um, in the industry, sometimes we're talking about the contracts, uh, the contract language. Um, sometimes we're talking about, uh, generator testing. Sometimes we're talking about, um, stand pipe, testing it, you know, just kind of it's all over the.

Um, so, but it's just one of those that, that I know that I, you know, some, somebody, somebody in, in college, one of our, one of our professors at OSU, uh, taught me, um, and it was actually professor pat Brock. I don't know if you, you ever got the chance to know him or not. Yeah. I, I know pat Brock, I didn't have him as a professor, but, uh, I did know him.

He's a, he's a legend at okay. State. He is, he is. And he is the, the godfather of sprinkler hydraulics. Um, you know, so, but he taught me, um, you know, if, if you have a question about it, then it's highly likely that somebody else does. Right. And, and I really took that to heart. And I, I, I try to live that, you know, of, of, uh, you know, and, and the thing is, is that so many people comment on my videos and, and improve them, right?

It's not, this is not just me, uh, me out there trying to, to, to do it. There's, there's a ton of. People that comment and say stuff. And I think every single video I've learned something new, either through the research process or through somebody commenting me saying, Hey, think about this. And that's really what it's about.

Yeah, that's awesome. I feel, I feel very similarly about, uh, fire code tech and it's, uh, of course it's awesome. I get to highlight, uh, different individuals and different topics and fire protection and life safety. But yeah, it's a chance for me through every interview, I always get to learn something. And even when I'm, uh, going back and editing the episode, I usually learn something else that I even missed, even though I was the one interviewing at the time.

There's, uh, a lot of wheels spinning. So it's, uh, it's fun to, uh, be a part of putting resources out into the, um, space for professionals. Uh, I think it's as much about individual development and professional development for the one producing the content as those who are getting benefit out of just watching the content as well.

That's pretty special. So I wanted to talk to you about, I think I'd be kicking myself in the pants. If I didn't ask you. About, um, what's been how you guys have been doing in COVID and how, uh, like the pandemic has, has changed things for you in facilities management. I feel like, uh, I, you know, I try to stay away it from COVID as much as possible cuz I'm sure people hear about it every day, but, uh, yeah.

I feel like it has had to have had impact on you in some regard. Right? Huge. Yeah. It's, it's hit the healthcare industry. Um, very hard. I mean, you know, some luckily our hospital system is, is, is, was very financially secure. Um, and, and we're not having issues that some other hospitals are, you know, I've seen, uh, news news stories and things like that, of hospitals shutting down or converting to, um, psychiatric hospitals or converting to, uh, you know, you name it.

And, um, man, it's been very difficult and, and I'm very, you know, we're also very blessed here in Arkansas that we didn't have, uh, we weren't overrun. Like, you know, I've got a really close. Um, who's, who's also a fire protection engineer, uh, up in New York. Um, and his hospital system, he, I mean, he, he was averaging like four hours of sleep a night for like six weeks.

I mean, it was, it was really hard. It was really hard up there. And, um, you know, so, so luckily we didn't have that, that peak here. Uh, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't changed things forever. Right. And, and we're gonna see, we are gonna see, uh, the ripple effects of this, not only just, you know, economically or in all of this, but from codes and standards and all of it for years to come.

Right. And, um, and which is why one of the reasons I I'm advocating so hard for codes because, uh, I mean, I think everybody's seen just a great example is everybody now sells masks, right? Everybody, everybody produces masks and sells masks and sells this, this PPE stuff. Right. And it's, it's become this, uh, financial, this lucrative way for people to.

Money. Well, it's gonna be the same, um, for filters, for air handling units for, um, all kinds of stuff, you name it, right. UV people are gonna try to, to there, there UN there are unfortunately people out there who see this as an opportunity to profit. Um, and they're gonna try to use the codes and standards as that as a way, and a mechanism for them to do that.

Um, and again, if there's scientific evidence and research, then fine, let's, let's do it. But, uh, let's not just do it just because somebody says it's the right thing to do. Um, so yeah, we, we have, there's been, uh, one of the biggest changes in, in healthcare. There's two actually, there's two that, um, uh, well, there's a lot, but there's, there's a few that I like to focus on.

Um, when I'm talking to people, uh, clearly the negative pressure issue, right? One of the things that, that I think is gonna be coming in the codes, um, is the conflict between, um, having. Smoke dampers on at, at all of our shaft locations and things like that. Smoke and fire dampers. When, you know, we have like an active what we'll call pandemic or COVID unit or whatever, right.

It could be the next COVID, um, who knows, but, um, there's this, there's this conflict between the fire side, where we have, uh, a potential for like a faulty alarm closing down, um, air resources, right. Um, for exhaust purposes, uh, and then, or shutting down the air handling unit and keeping that, keeping that going.

The last thing that we want to do is, is contribute to spreading, right? So, um, one thing that we were actually able to do from an ITM perspective, it's called an 1135 waiver from CMS. Um, which means basically that we don't have to follow the code, uh, as long as we properly properly document and do a risk assessment of why.

Right. So we continued actually doing all of our testing and maintenance. For our hospital, except for anything tied to, um, air handling units, serving our COVID areas. Right. So, and the reason why is it's just not worth it. It's not worth taking that chance and that risk, um, knowing that I know that the, uh, the, um, devices were working a year ago.

Right. So, um, and then there's also been a huge, huge increase in, uh, plexiglass in hospitals and hospitals are PRI primarily, you know, um, non combustible or required to be non combustible construction. Um, and so we've had this, this huge increase of, of plexiglass, which, you know, doesn't, it's very hard to find a plexiglass that meets the smoke development, um, or.

Fire fire development, index ratings, right. Uh, flame, flame spread index. And I'm curious how that's going to, to, to change in the codes as well. Uh, and there's several other factors. Of course, you know, we have a lot more vacant spaces. Um, you know, I don't, I think, I think design specifically will forever change for hospitals.

Um, I think these elaborate, uh, lobbies and atriums that, that we're used to seeing in hospitals, the hospitals five years from now. I, I, I highly doubt that we'll see that. Yeah. That's fascinating about the, some of the different, uh, ITM things with the air handling units. I know that we've been, uh, in the process of buildings that I'm designing currently, we're looking at, you know, uh, different.

Like, uh, vestibule slash entry, um, configurations in order to facilitate testing and like, uh, like a room maybe that might be for individuals that could be experiencing symptoms. And so, yeah, it's definitely changing the, the industry irrevocably. It's, uh, it's pretty interesting to hear you talk about, um, some of the impacts you've been seeing, um, for healthcare facilities, but, uh, Josh, I wanna be mindful of your time.

And, uh, I just wanna say thanks so much for coming on the podcast and talking to me about, uh, what you're doing. I think that the work you're doing's, uh, endlessly fascinating and yeah, I hope you keep up the, the videos and the good work, but yeah, I just wanna say thanks, sir. Absolutely. No, thank you for having me.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional.

If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

Kyle MacKenzie, P.E. is an electrical engineer registered in the state of New York. Kyle works in construction and more specifically, high-rise occupancies. In this episode of Fire Code Tech, we discuss emergency power requirements for a number of difficult subjects, including fire alarm systems, fire pumps, elevators and high-rise occupancies.

Informal Discussion How did you get started in the field 8:30 How is the perspective on installation valuable as an engineer? 11:20 What kind of work are you involved in your current role? 14:00 Would you give a high level overview of NFPA 70? 21:00 How does the National Electrical Code work in concert with the international family of codes? 23:00 Can you speak about the emergency power complexities with high-rise occupancies? 31:20 What are the emergency power requirements of fire pumps? 37:00 What are the emergency power requirements for fire alarm systems and those systems that are integrated with the system? 45:50 What are some trends in the industry? 49:00 Where do you see the industry heading in the future 52:30 What resources what you recommend to professionals 54:30

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place on today's episode of fire code tech, we have Kyle McKenzie.

Kyle is an electrical engineer. And in this episode of fire code tech, we get into emergency power requirements and some of their complexities. In this episode of fire code tech, we address a couple of difficult design topics, including fire pump design, emergency power requirements for elevators in the intricacies of Highrise occupancies.

It's clear to see that Kyle has a great passion for electrical engineering and the codes and standards process. If you're looking to buff up on your emergency power requirements, knowledge, this episode is a deep dive on episode 17, a fire code tech. Kyle gives us a little bit of insight into his career and some learning moments that he's had.

Don't forget to subscribe to this show. So you never miss an episode and follow us on social. If you wanna reach out and talk about podcast, guest topics or sponsoring an episode of fire code tech, you can reach [email protected]. Let's dive into this show. No, it's, it's, it's unfortunate. We didn't hit record before and we're talking about podcasting and about how that me, that medium is really helpful, especially to busy people, busy parents, uh, busy working professionals.

Yeah, I think it's, uh, I just love your point about, it's easier to shoehorn it into the commute or the workout or folded laundry, or, you know, what, whatever it is you're doing, uh, Uh, yeah, I'm a, I'm a huge fan too, of the medium. So I just really resonate with that. I consume a lot of podcasts and I consider myself I don't have any kids, but I consider myself fair, fairly busy.

So yeah. I like what you're saying about that, but that's pretty interesting. So yeah. How did you, how did you find out about the podcast, sir? You know, what brought you, what brought you to it? Well, um, Chris Logan has a podcast and drew locum has a podcast that, that I was listening to before, uh, before.

Your podcast came online. So, um, while searching for their podcasts, I, I noticed your podcast and you had a lot of great content. And, um, now it's been one of the regular, your podcasts been one of the regular podcasts that I listened to. Wow. That's incredible that I, you know, it's, uh, I mean, that's the goal always, but you know, I don't always get to speak with individuals who are actually listening to the content.

So that's a little bit surreal for me. Um, you know, obvious how'd you get started how'd you get started into podcasting. So, uh, it's funny is like, I talk a little bit about this on. On drew slow Cub's episode. We just released for, uh, fire prevention week. But yeah, basically I was working like in the beginning.

Of 2019. And I was thinking, man, I really want to, I wanna do more with fire protection. I wanna create a resource. I want to, you know, help create content online about fire protection, because you know, getting into the industry I've been in, in the engineering specifically in fire protection for about three years and it's been.

It's been hard to reconcile the gaps in, you know, I, I was formally went to school for fire protection, but of course, uh, as any professional knows school and the job are two different things, so, right. Yeah. Just in the process of wanting to create some sort of content piece online and, you know, trying to fill the gaps between school and, you know, becoming a professional and learning how to be an engineer.

And that's kind of the Genesis of, uh, what was the, uh, start of the podcast. So yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of wild. Well, there's so much depth into our field, right? Where, you know, I'll listen to, I'll listen to, uh, architecture podcast and I listen to real estate podcast. I listen to podcasts from the fire service because when.

With everything I read and I listen to that is sort of out of the realm of electrical system design and fire alarm system design, but is necessary for me to understand. Yeah, I think it's interesting. And I use podcasts in a simpler, in a similar fashion, you know, in what I'm interested in and also the peripheral areas of, you know, what I'm interested in to contextualize and to provide nuance in what you're interested in.

So, you know, the architect's gonna have a different perspective or light on things than the engineer would. And yeah, I, I use them in a similar fashion and I think. And, uh, another one of the big reasons I wanted to do podcast is cuz I know that anybody who loves podcasts, doesn't just listen to one. They listen to a bunch of them, right.

Because you know, even one a week is not enough to say somebody who, you know, spends a lot of time in the car or, you know, like that's their preferred method of unwinding or finding entertainment. I think that was another, like part of it too. Well, we, my, my company is, is a mid-size company, right? We're about 25 people.

So, um, we all wear many hats, right? So in addition to electrical and fire alarm system design, I run multidisciplinary groups for. Large projects. We're pro uh, we're in the progress of designing. So in terms of mechanical systems, plumbing systems, um, fire protection. And so, and also in terms of business development and in terms of business in general.

So because of that, um, It's really important that I have a very large, uh, I think the words, breadth of knowledge, a breadth of knowledge base. And, um, if I all, if all I did was focus on learning about. Electrical engineering and not learning about all these other aspects of, of what, what I need to do in my occupation.

Um, I'd be missing out even soft skills too. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of great podcast content and also other types of content on, um, really focusing on your soft skills. Yeah. I think that's a great point. I think your story is a, is. One that is not uncommon in the industry. You know, it firms from small to mid, to even at large size, there can be a real diverse role for, um, engineers or fire protection engineers in specific have a.

Really broad range of capabilities and types of systems that they're involved with. So yeah, I understand what you're saying. Yeah. My company is, uh, it's fairly large as far as architecture and engineering firms go, uh, you know, like 170 people, but you know, we still only have, you know, Three fire protection engineers in the, or four fire protection engineers in the company.

So, I mean, that's still not a huge amount of places to go for, you know, excess stuff or different stuff, or, you know, varying perspective. So I understand what you're saying about being a part of a small shop and needing to broaden your horizons as far as, uh, what you need to be knowledgeable about. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good point for the people who don't know.

Can we get a little bit about your background and how you got into, uh, You know, the construction field at engineering Kyle? Sure, sure. Well, when I was in college, um, I first worked a couple summers for a general contractor, and then I was introduced to an electrician who needed a helper. And I worked during the day for this electrical contractor while I was going school at night.

And while I was working for the electrical electrical contractor, I was really, really interested in what I was doing. So, um, I quickly declared my major. Uh, think about sophomore year to be an electrical engineer and actually still keep in contact with, uh, the electrical con the electrical contractor, Bruce knighted from metropolitan electric.

You know, we'll, we'll talk every now and again. And, um, we'll bounce ideas off each other. We'll discuss electrical code sections and design and install problems. So I I've worked for, for Bruce for about a. And then, um, I then worked for a friend's father who was a mechanical contractor for two and a half years.

And I was doing a lot of, uh, H V a C controls and wiring and, and troubleshooting. Um, In that effort, uh, still while pursuing my electrical engineering degree at night. So about the middle of my senior year of college, I was hired by police chief consulting engineers as the construction administrator, because of my background, working for an electrician and a mechanical contractor.

Basically my main duties were. Site observations, punch list, reviewing shop drawings, answering RFIs, conducting surveys, that kind of stuff. Um, so while I was working construction administration, I was also pursuing a master's degree. And then after my master's degree, my professional engineering license, um, while.

In the construction admin effort. Uh, I noticed some mistakes made by, uh, one of the, by the, the electrical engineer for the company at the time. Um, at the time we were a small firm, so we had an electrical engineer and. And I brought that to the attention of the company president and, uh, long story short, that person was let go.

And my, myself and my boss took on that role of, uh, designing the electoral systems because, you know, for, for us quality control is of utmost important. So, um, even the smallest of era, you know, just, just doesn't cut it. So. The first, first job that, um, me and Thomas police, he sat down to design together. He says to me, by the end of this project project, you better be a freaking brain surgeon.

So , so I, I took that to heart and, um, you know, it, it was really important for me to, uh, fully learn and comprehend fire alarm and, uh, electrical systems. And. Yeah. Interesting. Very interesting. So the it's, uh, it's cool to hear about your, you know, your origin story and how you got to, uh, get a taste of, uh, how contracting works and, you know, get involved with the actual installation.

I, but that's a valuable perspective now that you are, um, working on the engineer. Engineering side of things and more the design side of things. I'm sure that, uh, paints a better picture for what the role looks like. You know, uh, now that you're on the architects and engineers side of the table, Yeah, it's been, it's been really, really helpful to understand, um, how to service and maintain equipment, uh, what the, what the process is for the actual installation.

When I, when I design I'm, I'm really able to, uh, fully visualize what, what I'm designing because of, of my history as an install. Yeah, that's awesome. I think it's, you know, I, I had a similar, uh, fortune of working for a fire suppression contractor right. Outta college. And I'm extremely thankful for that experience because, um, while I don't have as much knowledge as somebody who does it, you know, full time and has been doing it for.

You know, a decade or, or what, whatever amount of time, an extreme amount of time, I have a better idea of the physical constraints of the construction of that type of system. So I think it's a extremely valuable insight into the design process and, you know, realizing that, um, everything looks good in the model.

But, yeah. So, yeah, it sounds like you have an interesting role now at police consulting. Um, it'd be interesting for maybe those who aren't as aware of, you know, what the construction and, uh, the architects and engineering role is. Yeah. Maybe could you go a little bit deeper into. what's your work looks like, or, you know, uh, the kind of jobs that you're involved in.

Yeah, sure, sure. So, um, our company designs, the mechanical electrical plumbing, sprinkler, and firearm systems for commercial re and residential buildings, uh, mostly in the New York and New Jersey area, but we're licensed all over and. Uh, have done a ton of work all over the Eastern seaboard. Um, do the relationships we've fostered over the years.

A good majority of our work is buildings that just meet high-rise thresholds or a group of buildings that form a small sort of campus environment. So, um, we do quite a bit of work that is involved in, uh, emergency and standby power system design. Because we're, we're doing a lot of these, uh, smaller Highrise buildings or, or campus infrastructure that requires that knowledge base.

Um, we've also done quite a bit of residential MEP system design. You know, we've done some exciting work. Like I've worked on Goldman Sachs, executive offices, Ralph Loren apartment, uh, we've rebuilt the Nicker Nicker Boer hotel. But to be honest with you, I personally gravitate to projects that, um, Where there's different, different, interesting systems and problems involved.

Like I recently, uh, designed a balance power, isolated grounding system for a small 2,500 square foot recording studio. It was, uh, it was probably one of the most, um, interesting projects I've done to date. Interesting. So when you're saying like a balance power, isolated grounding system for, you know, what makes that project so interesting since it's so small, you know, as compared to, you know, some of the probably larger Highrise buildings that you've been involved with, why is that, uh, system or project, um, more.

Of a, uh, interest for you? Well, so well not to get too far into the technical details of a balanced power system, but your standard power system, um, your standard say 15:00 AM. Sepal right. You have, you have a hot and a neutral, you have. 120 volts go into your hot and your neutral is your return, right? And you have an equipment, equipment, ground as well, but a balanced power system is different.

So a balanced power system is a very specific system where you have an isolation transformer that, that spits out 62, 60 volt, um, two 60 volt phases. And so each year receptacles, instead of having, uh, a. Ungrounded conductor and a neutral, which will also call the grounded conductor. You have 60 volts going to, um, to each of those receptacles.

And so the, the design requirements are much, much different. So, um, The electrical code has very specific voltage drop requirements for those systems and very specific, uh, receptible installation requirements for those systems. So, uh, there's a whole, whole section of the NEC just, uh, set for that type of system and, um, to.

Apply that to a recording studio. Um, it was a gratifying experience. Interesting. So basically it sounds like since it's an alternative, um, type of, uh, electrical system in that, it sounds like there's also some added complexities. Um, In comparison to your conventional, um, electrical system or receptacle.

So yeah, that sounds interesting. Well, uh, sounds like you have, uh, a big, uh, emphasis or focus in your career on, uh, electrical systems and like emergency power, I think. Uh, yeah, that's something that I'm not as, as well, um, versed in as a, you know, a, more of a. Um, a fire protection, solely fire protection, uh, engineer, but it's interesting, um, to hear about your, your specialty in work.

And it seems like a fairly common thing to run into electrical engineers who, uh, are involved with fire alarm work well, in, in addition to my work at FEI, I'm also, uh, working with New York city. Um, On a voluntary effort to write amendments to the 2014 national electrical code and the specific articles of the code that, um, myself and a, and a team of engineers and electricians that that are working on is 707 0 1 7 0 2.

So those, so those areas of the code that. Specifically deal with emergency power. Interesting. Very interesting. That's cool that you're involved in like, uh, is it like a code committee or how would you describe the, the, uh, the group you're working with to write these amendments? Yeah, we're, we're a code, right?

We're a code, an appointed code writing committee. And then I also attend, um, code interpretation meetings for, for New York city as well, where, uh, electrical, contractors and electrical. Engineers will submit questions and, or sign off reconsiderations and stuff like that. And we will, uh, we'll review and we'll provide direction based on the electrical code.

I've I've always, um, ever since I got involved in this industry, you know, I've really consider myself, uh, um, An electrical code person. That's, that's probably what, uh, my strong suit is. And what I'm most interested in is, and when I'm, when I'm on a job site or I'm in a meeting and someone says this is up to code or this doesn't meet code.

And then, and then they don't say, well, the section I'm referencing is XX X of XXX. Um, When they don't say that I end up spending all night long, uh, trying to find that specific code section and fully understand what they meant by this is this is up to code or that doesn't meet code. And, and to be honest, my wife doesn't really like those appreciate those kind of nights.

So. Yeah, that seems to be a catch phrase in the industry in general that's code or it's code. And so that's, that's funny that you say that. Yeah. I resonate with the somebody who is, uh, concerned with the code and. I'm a self profess code nerd myself. So awesome. I understand, for sure. Yeah. For I'm sure most people are aware of what the NEC is, but yeah, maybe for those who don't know or are only marginally aware of what the national electric code is.

Yeah. Would you give like a high level overview of what that document is? All right. So NFPA 70 now in the 2020 version is, uh, is a model code created by the national fire protection association. That's referenced by, uh, referenced and written into law by all 50 states. Um, A lot of the states amend the code like here in New York city.

Um, we're in the process of, of making amendments to the code cycle that we reference, which is NEC 2014. So actually right now we're on 2008 and we're blasting off into the future if, uh, all the way to 2014, um, the NEC is very much an installation, um, installation. Requirement document, whereas something like NFPA one 10 NFPA, one 11 is more performance based so that the, the way that an engineer or an installer accomplishes a goal is.

Is to meet a performance requirement or that type of standard or NFPA 20 is similar, but the NEC is, is much more of a, a very black and white installation, uh, requirement standard. Huh? That's very interesting. Appreciate that definition. Yeah. I was thinking about it recently. You know how there's of course there's requirements in I B C I C and IM C for, um, you know, electrical requirements.

But yeah, I guess if it feels kind of strange to me is there's no, like there's no. Is there an international electrical code as well? I guess I've just never had to look in that or does. N FPA 70, really more of the, the go to when it comes to the installation or, yeah. How does that code structure work above, uh, the national electric code.

Okay. All right. Um, well I think, I think it's, it'd be easiest because we're talking about, uh, emergency power and standby, standby systems that I delve into how all those, all those codes interate right. So. Um, I was actually before our interview, I spent a lot of time trying to find a good resource for what a good process would be for determining what the emergency and standby requirements, uh, for a property would be.

And I didn't really find anything that, that gave a step by step process. So, um, In to answer your question, but also to provide my, to provide my process. What, what I first do, um, would be to look at the type of structure, uh, from the international building code. So, and then building types, such as high rise buildings, underground buildings, buildings with atriums have specific emergency and standby power requirements or.

Require equipment that then requires emergency or standby power. Um, also if the municipality adopts NFP 1 0 1, the life safety code, then I'll also have to look at the requirements, the article associated with that, with the property, for that document, because they, they may be, um, different. And in, in addition to the I B C requirements, Then I would go over to chapter chapter 27 of IBC, which is the emergency and standby power requirements of the international building code.

And which states that emergency systems shall automatically provide secondary power within 10 seconds and provide for a two hour duration, unless otherwise not. And standby systems automatically provide power within 60 seconds and provide for a two hour duration unless otherwise noted. And the unless otherwise noted is really important because, um, There because that's not the, the end.

There's a lot more to figuring out what their emergency and standby power requirements are based on, um, other codes and standards. So. We next then have to look at the systems that we are providing for the property and see what the emergency and standby power requirements are because several of those systems have emergency and standby power requirements that exceed chapter 20, 27 of IBC.

You know, several areas of IBC and several areas of N F P standards for each systems such as NFP 20 NFP, 72 indicate the level, the type and the class of the alternate source. And also if indicate if the alternate source is to be treated as. An emergency or standby power source. So where it states that, um, in the NFPA standards and the IBC is it's a direct reference to NFPA one 10 and NFPA one 11 NFPA one 10, and one 10 is emergency and standby requirements for, um, for basically generators and NFPA.

One 11 is the emergency and standby requirements for basically battery systems. So level describes the. Performance requirements of system, such as, um, type of enunciation type of reliability of the fuel source. For example, um, level one requires remote enunciation while level two does not, or, and level one systems.

Uh, if it's a generator require, uh, a reliable fuel source type describes how quickly the secondary power source will power the. For instance, a typo, um, type is a ups system with absolutely no downtime. And then, uh, a type M is manual class is the duration of the fuel, um, or battery set, battery source.

Class X means to that. You have to look at the applicable code standard. For instance, N FPA 20, um, is a class is fire pump to class X and they require eight hours. Now it's important to note though, that that N FPA 20 N FPA one 10 also requires an 133% safety factor. To be taken when calculating these fuel supplies.

So it takes into account fuel for testing fuel sitting at the bottom of the tank. That's not gonna be used. So an eight. So an eight hour fuel source is really 10 and a half hours when you're actually sizing that, uh, fuel oil tank. Now. Emergence when, where emergency and standby are stated in applicable codes and standards.

This is a direct reference to NFPA 70 wire requirements. Emergency systems are wired in accordance with any C seven C article 700 and standby systems in accordance with N C 7 0 1, unless modified by the applicable standard, such as, uh, NFPA 20 has very specific. Wiring and installation requirements and NFPA 72 does as well.

Um, I think there's a lot of MIS information out there regarding what a level one and level two system is. I've I've seen a lot of references, um, in articles I've read that says that level one is article 700 and level two is article is article 7 1 7 0 1. And, um, That's not fully correct. For instance, uh, fire service elevators require type 60 class two level one, standby power.

Um, in addition level two systems do not require a reliable fuel source where, whereas. Article 7 0 1 specifically indicates 7 0 1, which is legally required. Standby systems. And if NFPA 70 specifically indicates that a reliable fuel source is required, um, for a generator. Yeah. I think it's really interesting for me to hear you describe the process of navigating the I B C and how that relates to, uh, reference codes and standards.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting. These are the kind of, you know, sort of formulaic approaches that, uh, I find really interesting. And you know, why I'm surprised that, uh, you know, I, I think, uh, it kind of blows me away that there wouldn't be an article out there stating what you just, you know, kind of laid down as a.

Basically, uh, a formula for how to approach the building code and how to evaluate emergency power systems, um, as a component of the building code investigation. And yeah, I like what you're talking about. You know how chapter 27 is specifically about emergency power, but also in the same way that you evaluate other buildings.

There are special occupancy requirements in, uh, chapter four. And, uh, yeah, it's interesting, but yeah, I've never heard it described like that before. Yeah, it'd be nice. If there was some sort of checklist, maybe we could create one gust. we should, we should, for sure. Yeah. at very time be twist in your arm after this to, you know, break down that, break down that again, or maybe I'll just transcribe it, but, uh, yeah, no, that was awesome.

But, uh, you know, we've talked about, uh, high rise a couple times, but, um, yeah, there's also some interesting, um, Different emergency power requirements and complexities with Highrise. Uh, yeah. Would you mind speaking a little bit about that? Yeah, sure. You know, Highrise buildings operate different than non Highrise buildings.

Since the fire service cannot access the upper floors of a property by using, um, The integral ladders in the fire trucks and the pumping apparatus, the fire of the fire engine may, might not have the capacity for really tall buildings to pump to the upper floors of the property. Power must be present so that the fire service can navigate through elevators and they could use the, the fire pump for, um, to flow through the sandpit.

Um, in addition, Additional emergency power is needed for the fire alarm system in a Highrise building because, uh, Highrise buildings use partially VA partially evacuation voice communication systems while as small smaller buildings, um, have full evacuation. So, so for a fire alarm system, where only. A portion of the building is, is being evacuated.

It's important that additional power is, is there to, um, notify everyone in the building what's going on. Um, it's also imperative for a system such as stair pressurization to allow safe, safe egress out of, you know, an extremely strong, tall structure that. That may may lose power in the event of a catastrophe.

Interesting. Yeah. It's uh, so high rise is, uh, chapter in the IBC and for those who don't know, I think it's, you know, it probably depends on what version that the IBC have adopted, but I think it's like chapter 4 0 3 and yeah, 4 0 3. You're right. That's right. Yeah. And then once you get into chapter 4 0 3, the building code, you.

It immediately starts to escalate the amount of, uh, fire protection and life safety measures that are required for the building. So egress true, right? Yeah. Egress, um, will have what fire protection systems are required. So then you have a voice system required as compared to, uh, just a horn and STR system.

Right? The stairwell pressurization you mentioned before. Um, yeah. There's. So smoke control requirements. Uh, sometimes if you have atria or there's some kind of nebulous, um, smoke evacuation requirements, but yeah, here in New York here in New York city, um, if you have a high rise, you also, you also require what's, what's called an auxiliary rate of communication system, which is, which is your equivalent of an emergency responder radio coverage system.

So, yeah, so that's like, And amplify our system for the emergency radio coverage. And so, yeah, it's interesting because depending on where you're working, you could be working in jurisdiction. Like you just referenced that, uh, directly requires that sort of system. And then in other jurisdictions you may be able to, uh, get a waiver or maybe they're not, they don't, they have good enough coverage from there.

Emergency radio, uh, antennas where they won't need an amplifier system for the building. So yeah, that's something to be aware of for sure. It's a costly endeavor to retrofit one of those systems into a building most, most certainly but yeah, so, uh, on the, in the same vein of, uh, Vein of the, you know, emergency power requirements.

I, I loved hearing you talk about it in chapter 27, how the, the secondary power within 10 re second requirement, I was recently just at a fire pump, um, initiation test, or a preliminary acceptance test for a fire pump. And we were having, uh, you know, some trouble, they had to modify the delay in the, uh, transfer from.

Uh, fire pump controller to the, to the generator in order to get that time under 10 seconds. Yeah, they had, they had, they had to, they had to modify the, um, settings on the automatic voltage regulator. Yeah. So they there's some parameter within the controller that they had to, um, adjust in order to meet that requirement.

But I wasn't it's, it's actually, it's, it's three parameters. It's it's time, speed and force and torque. So the, the generator, the generators and motor and the ultimate automatic voltage regulator, the technician's able to go in there and, um, Mess around with those three variables till to make sure that it, it lines up with, uh, With the, the way that the fire pump controllers starting the fire pump, but it's also important that it's, that that correspondence is set up in a way that, um, the fire pump could also start in, uh, emergency runs, starting mode.

That's awesome. Yeah, we just wanted to, you know, expand upon the, uh, the requirements for fire pump and fire pump design. I know. um, whenever you have, uh, a fire pump, you're getting into NFPA 20, which kind of goes in line with what you were talking about earlier. You are getting into some different NFPA standards that have additional, um, power and, uh, emergency power implications.

So, yeah. I didn't know if you had any more, uh, food for thought on that topic. Yeah, sure. Um, fire pumps are required per NFPA. 20 fire pumps are required to have level one type 10 class X power. Um, When the utility source either the utility source is not reliable. The building is either a high rise or an underground building as per IC.

Um, or the pumping apparatus, the fire engine cannot reach occupied floors, which as per NFPA, 20 is, is, uh, NPA. Twentys appendix says that, um, that's typically 200 to 300 feet for most fire services. So, uh, Properties would require emergency power anyways, due to the Highrise building requirement. Um, so in terms of the reliability of the utility, uh, NFPA 20 requires that if the power plant has been down for more than, um, 10 continuous hours, which recently was Chan, it used to be, uh, moisture.

It used to be be four hours in the year prior to the. Uh, submittal of the plants to the building department or power outages have plagued that area of the protected facil facility or, or if the utility infrastructure is an overhead, um, power line, like a, a radial type distribution, which would not allow the fire services, fire trucks to perform their, um, Aerial operations from my, my understanding is that most fire services try to maintain a 10 foot distance from over overhead lines.

And in a, in a worst case scenario, uh, they would have the utility shut down the power, um, to that radial network. And they'd then physically cut the lines so they could access the upper floors of the building and get in there. Um, In also in terms of reliability, NFPA one 10 requires that level one power systems, which as I just said, uh, the generator for the fire pump has to be a level one power system.

Um, must be fed from a reliable, uh, off must be fed from a, a reliable offsite fuel source or onsite fuels and NFP. One 10 states that unreliable sources are sources that. Don't tra traverse through an area of high seismic activity or an area flow to flooding or an area that's been deemed reliable by, by the serving utility.

So when we design, um, to determine if a, uh, if the power source and the fuel is reliable, um, We need to get that information from the serving utility. So, uh, a couple years ago I really ate some Crow and I really put my foot in my mouth about seven, eight years ago. Um, I was working for a new university that had a campus of, uh, several buildings most with.

Uh, natural gas generators. And I was walking through the campus with a head facility as an engineer, and I noted to him that, um, natural gas was not a permitted fuel source for emergency lighting in the fire pumps. And that I think most of his buildings didn't meet code. And, uh, boy was I incorrect. So the municipalities I worked in.

Before, uh, before dealing with this property, uh, did not consider natural gas, reliable, fuel source, but both the both NEC and NFPA one 10 allow natural gas when, um, It's it's improbable that interruption of both the gas and the electric utility will occur occur simultaneously. So three days later, he sends me two letters.

One from the utility saying that gas is reliable and has not been UN interrupted in over 10 years. And one from the local do B uh, approving the letter from the, uh, locally from the utility. That was a learning experience. Yeah, that's a good one. It's interesting. You, you get in these, uh, jurisdictions that have a high amount of specific amendments or requirements you can get used to providing this, uh, very specific level of coverage and system.

Uh, yeah. I don't know. I I'm working with somebody now. Who's. Done a lot of work in Clark county and Las Vegas. And you know, when you get into these jurisdictions that have, you know, it's almost like you're, you're doing work in a, in a different country. There's so much amendments. So it's easy to do what you're just saying.

When you, you get used to these, uh, specific jurisdictional requirements, but, uh, yeah. So, uh, we talked about it a little bit. Yeah, I know this, not on the script, but I thought I'd ask about, uh, yeah. What, what about, um, what's your take on. Elevators and the, you know, um, what's required for elevators or shunt tripping of, of elevators and yeah, the electrical design for that, it seems like the complexities associated with elevators is always a point of.

Uh, contention or consternation on my part, um, trying to nail down the work associated with, uh, providing the sprinkler coverage slash uh, all the, uh, fire alarm devices necessary in order to, um, accomplish, uh, fully designing the. Electrical and fire protection systems for an elevator. Well, it depends on if you have a attraction elevator or hydraulic elevator, right?

When you have a hydraulic elevator, um, the hydraulic fluid could be, could be flammable. So in, in some cases, based on the, the makeup of the hydraulic hydraulic fluid, you need sprinkler protection in that elevator shaft. And then, um, when you have sprinkler protection in that elevator shaft, you need, you need to, uh, You need to be able to, when the sprinkler sprinkler heads activate to protect that elevator shaft, um, you need to be able to sh you need to be able to, to turn off the elevator.

So you're not having water and electricity at the same time. Um, it's usually done through a heat detector at the top of the shaft. Yeah, it's just, uh, yeah, that's a, that's a great synopsis. It's, uh, just always a pain trying to navigate the, uh, elevator code and, you know, go through the, uh, order of operations for, you know, is it hydraulic or is it electrical traction, you know, are the belts combustible, you know, Is, you know, if it's got hydraulic fluid, you know, is there a sprinkler in the, in the pit and the up high, you know, and right then, you know, what's in the, what devices are in the shaft.

Is it smoke and heat or is it just smoke or heat, but yeah, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's quite the GABA, but yeah, I appreciate your, uh, synopsis on it because it's just, uh, it's always something that I, I could never remember. Some stuff is real easy to remember. Like, you know, whether. Require, uh, duct detectors or not for, you know, uh, IMC buildings, but uh, other stuff.

It just seems like every time you gotta go back and look at the notes and look at the code. Well, the other, other, other big requirement is, is the allowance that, um, when you have, when you have an elevator bank in these large buildings, New York city has a different, has more stringent requirement, but IBC, if you have a large building with, uh, six elevators in one bank controlled by a common operating system that, uh, you would you'd size your gen generator based on only one of those, one of those elevators in that bank.

And that. Um, in the case with power failure, all those, all those elevators would, would return down to the ground floor or the sky sky lobby level. If, if the ground floor wasn't the true ground floor. And, um, then. At the elevator control panel, you'd have the option of toggling back and forth between, uh, which elevator would be the elevator to be provided with, um, standby power.

Interesting. I didn't know that. Um, so I wanted to touch a little bit about touch on a little bit of requirements for integrated Sy system seems to be a big topic in the industry, right? and, um, yeah, but are there any, um, emergency power requirements for integrated systems or, you know, systems that are associated.

With the systems like the, the fire alarm system? Well, the there's very, there's very, very specific, uh, emergency power requirements for fire alarm systems and for, uh, and four systems that are interconnected with the, um, with the fire alarm system, uh, N FPA 72 has a couple different options for, um, emergency power.

One of the options is. Using a ups type energy storage system, which would be, um, NFPA 1 10, 1 11 type O class 24 level one, um, or using the same, the same, um, the same ups, but with class four. So there's only, uh, four hours of battery with a, uh, a level one class 24 generator. So the generator, um, has. 24 hours has 24 hours of fuel.

Um, the. Other option would be a storage battery with the ability to operate the system under a non alarm condition for 24 hours. Then after that, uh, a period of either five minutes or 15 minutes in alarm mode, depending on the system type, like, uh, voice communication. Systems, as we said before, had, um, need more power.

They need to be on for 15 minutes after that alarm, uh, non alarm condition. So after those 24 hours of not being an alarm, the system has to still be able to function for that, that 15 minutes. And, uh, here, here in New York city, um, we've amended that to be 45 minutes. And then the other option is the same storage battery with the ability to operate the system under, uh, but under non alarm conditions for only four hours.

But to be backed up by a, uh, type 10 class, 24, um, level one generator. So. The fuel requirements for the generator are also very specific to fire alarm systems. So in addition to this 24 hour requirement, the fuel supply also needs to include, um, six months of testing reserve and, uh, onsite. However, onsite fuel is not required.

If the, if natural gas is considered reliable and the seismic Rick's category of the property is not, um, zone three or greater. So because of the difficulties meeting the above requirements for a system, using a generator with an onsite fuel source, because you're getting into a very, very large, large tank to meet that 24 hour fuel requirement.

What, what would, uh, what would happen is you'd either work with your, uh, generator vendor and discuss control methods for load shed, or, um, You'd ha you'd use the, the 24 hour battery. Awesome. Well, I wanted to get into some professional development topics before I let you go. But yeah, I just want to always love asking people, um, what they view as a, a trend in the industry.

You know, I, I know we've talked about, uh, a lot of different topics on, uh, our emergency power, but yeah, I just wanted to hear a little bit about that from. Well, you know, the biggest hate to state the obvious, but the biggest, uh, I guess the biggest trend in the industry right now in consulting engineering is probably working from home.

You know, we, right now we have pro program. We use programs such as bin 360 VPN Microsoft teams. It's, it's so much easier to, uh, work remotely than it ever has been before. And, um, you know, we're finding that. Our employees are just as efficient or in some case, even more efficient when working from home.

Uh, one thing I'm really nervous about that I see happening in all this is that the rift between construction teams and design teams is growing deeper. So with all the construction meetings becoming remote, whereas, you know, we're calling in or we're, um, We're doing ver we're doing, uh, virtual meetings for construction.

Um, we have, we have less of a chance to interface with, uh, the contractors and then. It, it seems that one of my concerns is that it's going to become more of a us versus them scenario, especially on a project that, um, is your standard design bid, build construction agreement, you know, like that stuff like, um, integrated project delivery or, uh, Or, um, design assist is a little different, but, uh, most, most of the projects that I work on are design bid build.

Yeah. It's, it's interesting. Uh, Seems like, uh, in the, maybe it's just the projects that my companies work on. It seems like we're, uh, more and more projects that are designed build in instead of the conventional design bid build, but oh, right. Yeah. I, I like that commentary about, uh, You know, um, how communication and just like keeping the, the team consolidated and you know, of the same mindset of being we're on a team, let's get this, you know, project delivered, um, well is, can be a, a challenge.

Yeah. I, I per I personally try to go outta my way to, to get on site and, and to meet with the contractors and, and, uh, to, to meet with the construction manager, if there is one, um, Just to, just to have some FaceTime, to show that, you know, I, I didn't just put out this set of documents and now you have to, you have to build it that, um, you know, here's the, here's the reason that we, we show what we show on paper and, um, And also to hear, uh, the contractors' input.

Definitely. I think that's a good, I think that's a good deal. You know, I, it's easy to get into the mindset of us versus them and, you know, not being in a collaborative, uh, a team role, you know, Even in design build, I design bid build. I think it's important. So that's a good point. So, so yeah. So another topic that, uh, I find interesting is just looking at fire protection and the construction industry and fire and life safety as a whole, and just, you know, thinking about where it's gonna go in the future.

You know, five, 10 years from now. Um, but yeah, I didn't know if you had any thoughts on that. I'm really hoping that they, they make the change to wireless fire alarm systems that they've made to wireless lighting control systems. So wireless lighting control systems have this 10 year battery. Right? So, uh, And most of the wireless lighting control products on the market.

Have it now, so that if, if you design say a lighting control system for an office building, then the, the batteries within those devices, uh, Can wait 10 years or maybe eight years to be swapped out because at least from the products I've researched for, uh, wireless fire alarm systems, the everything I've seen, all the swift wireless fire alarm systems have two year batteries.

So it it'd be, it'd be nice if that, if a ch, if that change gets made, where they then have that 10 year battery, and then you're. You're not having that savings, that capital expenditure sta savings, which then becomes, uh, an operational expenditure every, every two years, which quickly adds up. Interesting.

I've never, I've never heard about that. That's uh, That's an interest interesting trend. I, would've never known about that. Um, colleges want to end with, uh, one question, um, and just ask, you know, what resources would you recommend to professionals, um, in the industry or just in fire and life safety in general?

Yeah. Where, where would people go if they wanted to learn more about, um, emergency power requirements or, uh, Engineering or life safety in general? Yeah. Sure, sure. Um, I've really liked Paul Abernathy's podcast and his articles for, uh, comprehensive reviews of specific, um, code requirements. He delves into.

He'll he'll state the code section and then he'll give, uh, a whole dialogue about that specific code section. I also think, um, for electrical engineers, sore is grounding and bonding and the IAAA, uh, gray book, or really must haves. I read 'em both, um, cover to cover. Uh, I think one of the best probably the best resource one could have is to grow yourself in a network of, um, Experts outside of your organization who have, uh, the expertise, certain expertise that, that you, you personally don't have, you know, and it's, it's really a give and take, um, relationship that you have to build because, uh, you don't wanna just reach out to someone to ask them questions.

You want to reach out to them to ask them questions and then have the, have you have them ask you questions back and by. By you providing insight to their problems. You you're, you're building this rapport that, um, that you're there for them. And they're there for you. Um, one of the, probably one of the best things that has happened to me, um, in my career is, is, uh, I befriended a, um, An electrical contractor.

Who's, um, been in the business for, you know, over 40 years and, uh, has a high standing in, um, the co-development process in New York city. And we. Uh, we both talk fairly regularly, um, about codes and standards and, um, bouncing ideas off each other, and even sometimes just trading more stories. And I think we've really grown our, uh, expertise because of it.

That's a great tip. Yeah. I appreciate the resources. And as always, I think that making connections within the industry is always important and that collaborative, uh, Education and growth is it's, uh, it's unparalleled. It can't be beat. So that's awesome. Well, Kyle, I wanna thank you so much for your time and coming on the show and just say, yeah, thanks.

Thanks for coming. And I really enjoyed it. Gus. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having, having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation.

Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next.

Kelsey Longmoore is a fire and life safety professional with over a 5 years of experience in code enforcement. In this episode of Fire Code Tech, we discuss model building codes and standards and how they work in Canada. Kelsey also shares the origin story of the Kilo Lima Code Community. Informal introduction: 0:00 Tell me about your origin in life safety and engineering? 7:48 Did your origin and the difficulties in learning the building code play a part in your foundation of Kilo Lima? 8:10 Would you speak about being a certified professional and your other certifications? 18:12 How do the model building codes and standards work in Canada? 21:10 Would you speak more on your role at Celerity? 27:38 What is Kilo Lima Code Community (KLCC) for those who don't know? 31:51 How do people reach out and contact you about participating in KLCC? 40:51 What do you see as a trend in the industry? 48:38

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Welcome to episode 16 of fire code tech with Kelsey Longmore. Kelsey is a building code and life safety professional with over a decade of experience in code enforcement and more recently experienced as a consultant in fire and life safety. I was really interested to speak with Kelsey about how codes and standards work outside of the us.

More specifically in Canada, where Kelsey has had all of her experience. Kelsey is the co-founder of the Kelo Lima code community. Kelsey breaks down the origin story of Kelo Lima code community. In the episode, we talk about the different facets of Kela Lima code community and Kelsey's career. We get into the blog posts and.

The importance of being able to have forums online for fire and land safety. In addition, Kelsey talks about the new courses that she's launched about the Canadian model codes that can be [email protected]. Right now, if you're curious about how model building codes work in Canada and. Where you can go to learn more about this topic.

I think you're gonna really like this episode, don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss an episode and follow us on social media. If you would like to talk to me about fire protection, life safety, or if you have an idea for a topic. Or an interesting guest, you can drop me a [email protected].

I wanted to try to give the interview some context and perspective. So I started the recording before we actually got into the interview. Check out the show notes. If you want to skip the informal, beginning to the podcast and skip straight to the questions. Uh, yeah, just, it's interesting for me kind of straddling this line between, of course I want to.

You know, uh, in interesting technical information out of people and, you know, we kind of explore these topics that, uh, are not as well recorded or, you know, don't have as much, uh, online presence or, you know, uh, information online. But then also, I don't wanna be just like some very dry interview that is just, people are answering and then stopping and, and waiting for me to, you know, proceed with the next question.

Of course, sometimes it is just time to go to the next question, but yeah, I don't know. I don't want it to feel like forced, like people feel trapped that they have to just answer the question and stick to the question and be done with it, you know? Yeah. Cause I think there's a lot of interesting information in between those spaces.

No, I, uh, I, I can talk loud and ramble, so , we'll, we'll see how it goes, but I'm, I'm completely the same. I'm more, um, I'm not very formal. I'm formal when I need to be, but, but a lot of times I, I just really value the real conversations. So. Um, mm-hmm well that's well, that's good. You know, I, I think that in my experience, the Ramblers, as long as they also have the ability to hear what you're saying to 'em are the best kind of people to have on podcasts.

You just need to siphon through, through the information bit more. But yeah, there's some people that, you know, it seems like there's a fountain erupting out of them. Then it's like a torrent of information that just has a will of its. And, and that's definitely an interesting type of guest, but , it also is, uh, it's hard because you're like, uh, I want to, there's kind of a theme here.

Of course. the theme. The theme is you. So you can do, you can talk about what you like, but yeah. So it's interesting. Yeah. I'm working on being more, more concise. My one, my one son. Pretty similar. And so we have a book called my mouth is a volcano. So I'm working on it with him to to really hone in and get, get things more concise.

It's it's hard though, when you're really excited about something you just, um, like with ke Lima, I just can talk and talk and talk and talk. And so. Yeah, I feel you. I have to meter myself when I speak with other people who ask and, you know, like people will ask you sometimes like, sometimes people will ask you, like, how are you doing?

And they don't really want to hear like the whole spiel. Sometimes people will also ask how the podcast's going. And I have to tell myself they don't always really want to know, you know, like the delude of information that's coming for anybody who asked me about it. Yeah. And so , I know, I understand. Yeah.

I usually, when I've been meeting with people, um, to kind of see what they think about Kela Lim or get them involved, um, you know, I always start with, do you really only have half an hour and kinda put it out there before that a lot of times, um, like a Kelsey five minutes, isn't really five minutes. It, it tends to go longer.

So , I feel that, I feel that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm so excited about having you on. I felt like. I feel, uh, I, I don't know if this is strange to say, but like a kindred spirit in what you're doing at, at Kelo limo. And so I was just really excited and I feel like, you know, not that this has any, you know, says anything about me, but I just was really excited.

Cause I feel like I found you really early in what you launched and also you launched ke Lima. Like probably down to like days off of when I started fire code tech. So yeah. So yeah, I felt like a strange, I was like, whoa, this is neat that you're entering this kind of publicly open space at the same time that, you know, I'm kind of throwing myself into the, into the process as well.

Yeah. And it's. , it has been a weird time because like, you know, thoughts of this were bring before. And then around that time, like, I think it was early April when we finally, you know, I finally got it up there. It's when the world started going crazy with the pandemic. So it's, you know, is this really a good time to take on something new, but it's, um, it's kind of the best time to really realize that you have something you wanna do and, and just go for it.

So, yeah, and I think I saw. My episode 23 for you. So I've recorded a, uh, like 23 episodes. Wow. Some, some episodes, uh, due to like, uh, audio quality or maybe like the first couple episodes I, I, uh, recorded, you know, their practice and, and obviously I had getting my reps in with getting guests and just finding my.

Ability to interview people and, you know, understanding the technology that I'm using. So there's a couple duds in there and some of them I'll be able to salvage maybe like two or three, but yeah, I have, um, this will, this is probably pretty close to, um, the 20th full. I think you. I could look, I have the folder on this laptop, but yeah, I think you're number 20 and maybe yeah, it's been awesome.

It's been so much fun. Yeah. All the people I've gotten to speak with and I feel like it's, uh, been just a huge learning experience for me and just propelling me forward for my ability to just talk with people and also. My, you know, fire protection and life safety knowledge. I've just getting to have the.

Fortune to be able to pick people's brains. So it's been just awesome. I've loved it. I absolutely loved it. I just wanna say thanks again for coming on. And I just wanted to get started with talking about a little bit about your origin and, um, life safety and engineering, and yeah, I'd love to hear about how you found your.

Into fire and life safety and yeah, a little bit about your background, um, right on. So, yes, again, thanks for having me. This is very, very excited. I never would've thought I'd be recording a podcast, but here we are. Uh, so I found fire, um, protection, life safety, probably different than, than a lot of people in the field.

So I, you know, I went into engineering as any. Um, 17, 18 year old, probably not really knowing what it was all about, but I was good at math and science. So, um, it's what I started with. I loved kind of the challenge and pro problem solving side of it. So I kept with it. I actually studied environmental systems engineering.

Um, so not like the building code is never what I thought I would end up in, um, shortly after. After graduating, um, did a bit of traveling and then came back, um, and got on with the city. Um, so the municipality where I lived in some roadways in a roadways position, um, And then, you know, after a while, it just, it wasn't challenging.

And there was an opening in the building branch. Um, at that point I had probably never really looked at the building code. Um so it was a pretty steep learning curve. Um, once I got there, but, um, I loved it. I loved the challenge of learning the code and reviewing drawings and, you know, seeing, seeing all the new stuff going on in the city and, um, and kind of working with all the groups involved in it.

So it was, yeah, it was, it was good. So that's kind of how by chance I happened, I happened to fall into the building code and, and here we are starting. A website for, for building code knowledge. So that's interesting. That's very interesting. So does that, does that origin in not knowing about the building code and, and the steep learning curve, do you think that, uh, that played a role into, into what you're, you know, trying to do now for ke Lima and that struggle.

To find your way to that knowledge. Did that play a part? Yeah, so it definitely, it definitely led me to Kela Lima, so where I I'm from Saskatchewan. So it's kind of in the prairies, in the middle of Canada. Um, and you know, as a, a municipality and a court code enforcer there, um, It was a pretty, um, it's a, it was a bit behind there and a bit, um, the culture was kind of anti, anti compliance.

Should I say? So when I started, um, You know, I was new to it and a lot of I'd be reviewing plans and a lot of the code requirements I was enforcing, um, just hadn't been enforced or done. I understand what you're saying too about, you know, code enforcement and how it's, it's a struggle because you get into these situations in which.

You know, there's a lot of pressures from different, um, the different people and different stakeholders for, you know, code enforcers, you know, it's not just, Hey, enforce this to the letter of the law and you're done. And so I think that's really interesting. I'd love to keep hearing you describe that a little bit.

So yeah, so Kela Lima. So I like from Saskatchewan and, and that's always learning the code actually within, I mean, I had started. Not really knowing anything about the building code. And then with within nine months I had written my building officials exams, um, and there were some changes in the branch and I was, you know, I was the lead and only actually plan reviewer, um, for for kind of complex buildings there.

And so it, it was really challenging. There was, um, kind of this perception that, um, you know, I was the expert when really, um, I had just learned, but. There. Yeah. Like in Canada, there seems to be a lot of, um, code consultants and knowledge, um, kind of in the Toronto area, there's a lot of firms. And then again, in Vancouver and surrounding areas.

Um, so when I had started at is an HJ, um, In Saskatchewan, I didn't even know that code consulting was a thing. Um, not a lot of the projects I worked on there had someone, um, specifically doing the code review. And so, yeah, really, it was just, it was. A struggle to find good information on building code, to know where to find it, to just have conversations.

Like I had, I had some context in other cities in Saskatchewan or, um, kind of the province building standards there, but it was, it just, it wasn't. An easy process. And now being where I am knowing that there is a lot of companies, there is, um, you know, some resources tucked on tucked away on the internet.

Like, you know, if I knew then what I knew now of what was available, it just things would've gone so much more smoothly. And I, I don't want that to, you know, I don't want that to be a struggle for anyone else cuz it shouldn't be, um, the building. It's minimum requirements and it should just be, it should be a lot easier, um, to have these conversations and find good information.

So, yeah, I guess my background with the municipality is definitely. Um, the main reason for Kelo Lima. Yeah. That's fascinating. I agree. A hundred percent. I worked for a fire suppression contractor right outta college. And, you know, I was working in the middle of the United States on small, like very small jobs to, to medium size jobs, you know, like.

Huge jobs. And so, you know, if you're working in middle America and you're working in small jurisdictions and you are, you know, a lot of times these jobs don't have the budget to have, um, dedicated life safety or fire protection consulting or engineering. So you may not even see, uh, dedicated construction documents that are.

You know, designed to these fire protection and life safety sheets in the set. So yeah, I understand what you're saying, how I could see how you could spend a significant portion of your career and, you know, not deal with one of these, uh, monolithic jobs that, you know, absolutely needs a dedicat. Uh, fire protection and life safety engineer.

And, and so how that could, uh, just that it not having that exposure could limit the knowledge of what even the scope of the role is because, uh, yeah, like I said, there would be times where there would be maybe a couple fire protection notes on a drawing mm-hmm and that, that would be all I would see.

And maybe some of it was. And so, yeah, I understand what you're saying. And I resonate with that for sure. About not having the information and just. Not just not knowing the, you know, it's and you mentioned some places in Canada. And I loved hearing that because for me, it's like, I'm thinking of, of course Oklahoma is not a, a Boston or New York city or a, you know, Los Angeles or Chicago.

It's, we're not these, it's not the same, of course, in these big towns, it's, it's a different, uh, way to do business, but yeah. Yeah. And. It's really, I guess. And because I, I, you know, worked as a building, we call them building officials in Saskatchewan, but I've just seen like all these smaller jurisdictions and municipalities, like they're all having the same challenges of, you know, getting, getting education for their, their building officials, keeping them up to date.

Um, Putting processes in place to make sure they have a good plan review process. And all these jurisdic jurisdictions are just struggling with the same things. Um, and to me, it's just like, there, there has to be a better way. It's a national code. Um, like how do we get things in place so that, you know, the it's not so hard for the municipality to, to enforce.

It's not so hard for, you know, designers to. The building code knowledge, they need to, to design safe buildings. Like the it's the end goal is safe building. So it's how do we make the entire process easier for everyone? Um, that's a wonderful point. You're, that's a wonderful point. I love how you articulated that.

Yeah. The end goal is safe buildings. How do we grease the wheels for everybody involved for contractors, for authorities having jurisdiction for consultants? You know, how do we level the playing field and make this, uh, a more approachable process to end up at safer buildings? So, yeah, I completely agree with you.

So, um, yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about, you mentioned some of your, uh, certifications and, or, um, just some of your exams you've sat for. I always love to ask people, um, when they come on the show that they have a certification exam that maybe I'm aware of, but. Exactly sure of what it is. I, I like to ask people, um, to tell me about their certifications, cuz I'm endlessly, uh, fascinated by, um, qualifications and uh, professional certifications.

I'm sure that's not a. Cool thing to say about David . I mean, different, different strokes for different folks. Um, so I, yeah, I guess I have, I mentioned my building officials license. Um, so it's called something different across different provinces. Um, but so essentially our, our Canadian code is broken up into parts.

Um, there's kind of a smaller, simpler part for, um, Smaller buildings or certain occupancies. And then, um, what we call part three for more complex buildings, um, specific occupancies that, you know, need more professional design. So the exams are based on, there's kind of three different classes of exams. Um, and then, so once you get your class three, um, license, you, you can review and inspect, um, all buildings in the code.

So I worked through the various exams for that. when I was with, um, with the city to be able to, um, be a building official and work on behalf of the city for that. So that's, um, what kind of, what the building officials, um, Exams are all about they're based on, based on the building code, obviously. And then the other, my more recent designation I got, it's called, um, a certified professional.

So in British Columbia here, we have, uh, the certified professional program. And so it's, I guess it's an alternative to the conventional building permit process. Um, so it's an optional way of doing, of doing the building. Permit application. Um, and it's adopted in some jurisdictions in the province. So it's actually been in the city of Vancouver since the eighties.

Um, and most major projects in the city of Vancouver now will go through this process. So the company I work with, um, I'm, I'm not in Vancouver, I'm more in interior, BC, but a lot of our work is through this program. So essentially what it is, it's. It's a course, um, a lot of work and then, um, two full day exams to be able to practice as, as a certified professional.

But with that designation, you're essentially a representative of. Of the city. So you're, you're involved in projects right from the beginning and you're doing kind of the city, um, like the full city review for the building code throughout the process. Um, and then, uh, the benefit of that is that, um, permits go through, can go through a lot faster because, um, the city, you know, it's this level of trust where the city knows you have the knowledge to be able to.

Um, to do that review and, and make sure that happens. And so there's a lot less oversight from the building department at the city throughout that. I'm pretty excited about, um, having passed that it was, it was pretty tough and got a bit pushed back because of COVID. But, um, finished that up I guess a month and a half ago now.

So, wow. That's interesting. That sounds like a pretty useful certification. If you can, you know, bypass certain points of, uh, permit application, or basically streamline certain, um, instances of the permitting process. . Yeah, I don't, it sounds interesting. I, I don't think I fully understand like how, um, so for a second, I was thinking that you guys were somehow, uh, uh, in an arm of the, uh, the city or some something of that nature, but yeah, I don't think I fully understand that, but that sounds really, really.

Yeah. Yeah. It's essentially just, if you have, you know, if a project has a certified professional, it's just because in, I mean, everywhere is different back when I was in Saskatche when a permit a permit review, time of two months was atrocious. Um, and industry was not happy, but it, whereas in Vancouver, like it's months and months, um, to go through kind of the building review process, whereas when you have this certified professional, um, like.

You know, we're, we're saying that we are, we're bringing these permit drawings into the city and they are code compliant. Um, so because of that, there's a lot less oversight by the city and things go a lot quicker. Um, so it is, it is kind of like an arm of the city, like we're separate. Um, but we're really representing them and acting on behalf of them for.

For the building code compliance. So I liked hearing you speak a little bit about how the codes and standards or the model building codes, uh, work in Canada. I, one of the things that I have such trouble finding information about, you know, I, I feel like it should be pretty straightforward, right? You, I feel like it should be easy Google to say, how does the model building codes work in Canada, but, uh, a quick review.

Of, uh, what you can initially find on the internet, uh, proves that that's a, not a very easy thing to do. even if you go read some articles and scholarly journal journals, you probably still don't know how to you design a building or perform a life safety or code review for Canada. So, yeah, I just, uh, I would love to hear about.

Um, how the model building codes in Canada work and you know, how codes and standards work in Canada as a code nerd, I would love to hear about, you know, how does this process work in other countries? Because I feel like it was so hard to learn how it works in the us. And I feel like there's an abundance of, uh, you know, or not an, I don't know if I'd say abundance, but just there.

There's a lot of people in there's a fair amount of resources, but yeah. Um, yeah. So in Canada, I guess we have, um, there's five national model code, so there's the building code, fire code, plumbing code, the energy code, um, and the farm building code, which has some relaxations for farm buildings, but essentially.

It's a it's committees, um, who kind of work on changes to the codes, um, from across Canada and they develop, um, and then, and then national codes are published. Um, Every, I think every five years now is the, is the intent. Um, and then, so, so there's a national code, but a jurisdiction has to, has to adopt it.

So what'll happen is that each province either adopts the, the national building code with, um, some amendments. So in Saskatchewan, we worked off of the national building code and a couple pages of amendments that, um, We're, you know, kind of address the regional needs and then other provinces, um, will kind of take the national code and make a lot more changes to it in additions to suit their needs.

And then they're actually published as provincial code. So when I worked in Saskatchewan, I worked off of the national code with a few amendments. And now here in British Columbia, we have our own British Columbia building code. So it's, um, the. Iteration to the provincial code, um, is very similar to the national code.

And I think actually a lot of the provinces are working towards more streamlining streamlining that. So it isn't, you know, there isn't so much difference from province to province. And then the other, the other weird thing is that the city of Vancouver, um, they, they have their own code. So, so they don't use the British Columbia building code.

They have, um, The Vancouver building bylaw, which they take, they take the code, but then also kind of their city bylaw requirements and they publish their own specific building code. So there is, there's a national code and then each province kind of takes it in and, uh, changes what they need to, and then it's adopted as a province other than Vancouver, which has its own city code.

So. Does that answer it? Yeah, definitely. and so, I mean, you know, intuitive that all makes, you know, great sense and intuitively that all makes, uh, complete sense. And, you know, in the us it's much the same with, you know, the international building code. Everybody adopts some version, you know, whether that's 2015, 2013, and then there's.

Regional, um, amendments or mm-hmm, different, uh, statutes that are appended to these model building codes. And then, like you mentioned, at the end, of course, there are exceptional cases in large cities, like, uh, Boston or. Or I don't know about, I don't know why I said Boston, but, uh, Chicago, definitely New York and California all have like their own version of the building code.

Mm-hmm like, it's not that it's the California building code. It's not that international building code. And, and there are, uh, definitely a lot of differences for some of these big, um, larger population mm-hmm cities or states. but yeah, that's interesting. So I, yeah, I wanted to ask, so does the model building codes for Canada?

Do they use NFPA 13 or how do you guys establish, uh, sprinkler criteria or fire alarm criteria? Yeah, they do the sprinklers. We use NFP 13, um, or R D depending on the building, um, for sprinklers, um, NFP 14 for stand pipes. Um, but for our, our alarm standards are Canadian standards, so, um, oh, what is it? 72. Is that the mm-hmm yeah, so we don't use 72.

Um, it's um, Some U can U L C S I dunno, cut that out. Cause I'd have to go back and take that's fine. Specific standard. Um, but, but yeah, we have, um, Canadian standards for our alarm. Interesting. Our alarm design and verification and yeah. Yeah, that's cool. I like to hear that. I'm sure some technologist out there would've, uh, been shaking his phone and screaming if, uh, no.

Yeah. A question for that. How do we know what, uh, you know, what, what to do for the sprinklers or fire alarms? So cool. Um, so yeah, so I just wanted to, uh, touch a little bit more about you talked. Your, um, role as a authority, having jurisdiction a lot. I just wanted to, um, get a little bit more information about your role now at Celerity and kind of what your role is and what you're doing now to give people a picture of your experience.

Yeah. So I've been, um, I've been a co consultant with Celerity for about a year now. Um, so typically we, I, I typically work with architects, um, and engineers on working through their building code review throughout the, throughout their design. So, you know, focusing on the nitty gritty details so that they, they don't have to know all.

The specifics of the code and they can focus more on their design. So we'll work with them and do kind of reviews like I would do at the city. Um, but kind of in a more helpful way than, than a city has time for. And, and from the beginning. So really when they get to their, their permit application or time to submit to the city, they don't have the big surprises of a code, something in the code they miss that really, really affects their design.

So. That's what I'm doing now. I actually, um, I love my celebrity team, but I've actually decided to take a big step back, um, starting, uh, right in it way actually to, to really focus on Helo, Lima. Um, so I'm still, I'm still supporting them a bit. Um, but you know, there's so much potential, um, and opportunity with.

My dreams are for ke Lima. So, and it's, it's been hard to, um, you know, do it on the side. So I'm really, I'm just taking a risk and jumping into it. So, you know, I'm kind of weaning out my, my code consulting role and focusing more on, on Kema here. Wow. That's fascinating. I'm. That's really incredible that you're, you know, taking the, the bold step into, you know, full commitment into being a entrepreneur and man, that's awesome.

I'm so excited for you. I know that you just got started with it, but I think that's a, I think you're making the right decision. And not that you asked for my opinion, but well, thank you. I think that you're making the right decision and, um, and I'm glad that you. You know, doubling down on your investment and your belief and what you're doing is the right thing and something you believe in.

So, yeah, I'm super excited to hear about that. That's that's cool. Yeah, it is. It's a time it's really, you know, it's just, it's a good time for me to try it. We, we moved, um, actually just this January, so. We were on Saskatchewan moved to British Columbia. So we, we sold our house and right now, um, well we're kind of settling in, we're just renting.

So, um, you know, it's, it might not be the best financial decision to to, uh, you know, to step away from a, a paid job for one that's not paid yet, but it. You know, this is kind of the only time that, um, you know, I don't have a mortgage to focus on, I mean, rent obviously, but it's, um, we just kind of have that safety net right now.

And, and to me, it's, um, I'm so passionate about it right now that, um, You know, I'm just going for it. Yeah. So for the people who haven't already paused this and Googled it yet, or Googled it while they're listening, where's Saskatchewan no, but that's funny. I like that you went there. Where's Saskatchewan is no, I was gonna say, what is Kema code community and tell the listeners about okay.

Um, what it is and what you're doing. Yeah, where do you wanna go with it? Okay. So it, um, it's a lot of things it's kind of, , it's my brain child kind of put into a website, so, you know, I could kind of break it down into four, four main parts. Um, the blog, the four, um, what I call the Wiki, um, and then the school.

So, so the blog is, um, it's made up of. Um, different different code users across different. Um, disciplines in the country. Um, and we, we put out weekly blogs. So, you know, I always thought I love, I love to talk and I love the building code and I thought it'd be great to run a building code blog. Um, and I quickly realized that I can talk at phenomenal speeds by getting those ideas down onto paper into a concise way.

Is, uh, not my strong suit. So, um, yeah, I got, I got a group of people together and we do weekly blogs, um, and they range from kind of general code information to technical posts on specific items. Um, and they're really meant to be kind of thought provoking and helpful conversation starters and really. um, you know, people don't know what they don't know.

Um, so one of our recent articles was on kind of a new standard in the national codes. That's required where I know from experience a lot of, you know, it's not being enforced because the. The jurisdictional knowledge isn't there and the industry knowledge isn't there. So really just get, um, information out in kind of a quick, quick read format.

Um, so we've had the blog going for five months now, which is crazy. Um, and it's starting to gain some traction. Um, we actually had. Big news at Ken limo was NFPA actually tweeted, um, one of our articles on podcasts, uh, last week, I think, or a couple weeks ago, which was, which was super cool. So the blog is made up, um, of different contributors across, across the country.

Um, The other thing, uh, we have right now on the site with Olima is, is the forum. So we we've titled it. Good questions cuz to me there's just so many questions. Uh, so the forum, uh, which on the site we call good questions, um, is. It's I take questions submitted to the site are ones I've had myself and I post them.

And it's really a platform for, uh, these items where things are a bit gray or there's various different interpretations, or it's not quite worded. Good that, you know, what does that really mean? And a, and a place online for people to really have those conversations and see how other people are applying it.

Um, so we, we do have some users I can see I can see from the site, people are going to it, but we're, we don't quite have an engaged audience yet. Um, For that. I think, you know, it's kind of the fear of answering something wrong or, you know, asking a silly question. So I'm really trying to break that down with that part of the site and just really start having these.

These code chats, um, across different companies and different user groups. So that's the, the forum part of it. Um, yeah, no, it does. And that's all great. And I totally agree that, you know, there's so many parts of the code that's ambiguous and it's just, you get into spots that are, you know, there's an infinite.

Of ways to construct a building. So mm-hmm, , there's just so many different little nooks and crannies of the building code. You know, you can't and always tell a story of how thankful I am for online forums and discussion boards, because I, I can't tell you how many times I've spent hours trying to find something in the code or trying to find a specific use case for some piece of fire protection or life safety technology, and just toiled over it for half a day.

And then, you know, I'll find some obscure forum from 2007 mm-hmm and where a guy will describe the exact thing that I'm looking for. You know, I, I had this one project I was working on and the interior designer wanted to. Wanted to use a specific open grid type ceiling. And they wanted to know, is that a obstruction to the sprinkler's discharge?

And so I was, you know, it wasn't, they didn't use the term open grid ceiling, but it was this baffle sort of thing. Anyways, all this to say strange ceiling, strange use case mm-hmm , uh, you know, it ends up being some forum from 2007, helps me out and gets me out of a bind. Tells me. No, it's not an obstruction if you follow these construction guidelines.

Mm-hmm . Yeah. So yeah, I think there's a great value in these places for the community to band together and to share resources and to, you know, answer these questions that are just burying people, um, and making it, not able to provide, you know, uh, safe buildings. Mm-hmm and I, like, I know from working, you know, working with the municipality, um, To being a co consultant.

Now, like these conversations happen in pockets, like multiple times a day everywhere. And so it's, it's crazy to me that, you know, there isn't something, I mean, there is, you know, certain building officials associations will have, um, maybe a forum or a big long email chain, but there's nothing right now set.

Um, kind of nationally to, to have these conversations. So that's what I'm trying to build there and, and really linking it to, um, you know, you can do great things with the website now where, you know, you tag it to specific hold articles. So it's, you know, in the future, if someone is kind of looking at that, not sure.

Not sure how to read it. They can come to ke Lima and click the code article and it'll pull up if you know, there's ever been a conversation about that or what other people think. So it's, um, there's, you know, it's just, it's slowly getting started that part of it, but, um, it's gonna be a really awesome tool once.

Um, we build our kind of build our engagement there and people start contributing, um, and getting involved. So it's gonna be pretty. Definitely. Yeah. And I forgot to mention, yeah, I appreciate the, I was super excited for you guys too. When I saw N FPA, uh, share the post, I was, you know, as far as fire protection goes, I think it's like N F, P and S F P E are pretty much the two biggest, uh, associations and fire protection are fire and life safety.

That I'm aware of. So I was pretty excited about that post and also pretty excited that fire code tech was on the podcast post. Yeah. From Jim burns. Yeah. Jim, I think I can't, I can't remember if I think Jim invited me first on LinkedIn or something and maybe he's how I found you. I forget he had, uh, liked something or was engaged with something and then.

I think I was looking at his profile and then I, and then I found you and I was like, whoa, this here's this kilo Lima thing. And I think you had like, Less than 30 followers on Kema. And I was like, man, I'm getting in at the ground floor of this. So yeah. Yeah, Jennifer. I was so I was so happy that that was tweeted.

Yeah. So Jim wrote, Jim wrote that podcast article. Um, so he is, um, I worked with Jim at, um, back in Saskatchewan and he's a fire inspector, but also, um, A building code guru. And he, you know, it was really him who at the beginnings, like we had kind of talked about a blog and, and so he's been, um, you know, really our number one supporter.

So I couldn't be happier that, you know, he wrote that article and an FPA tweeted it and yeah. So he's been, he's been spreading the word, he'll go, he'll go to sites and kind of put. Leave a, leave a comment or ask a question and just let people know about Kela Lima. So he's, he's great. that's awesome. So for, for people out there who are maybe for my interest and for, uh, other people's interests also, so how do you find these.

Great professionals to, you know, that are involved with Kela Lima. And then also as a secondary question to that, uh, if people want to get involved and write an article for Kela Lima, where, how do they find you? How do they reach out and talk to you about it? Yeah, a lot of the, I guess a lot of the current contributors are people who I have, um, you know, worked with personally or work with now.

Um, and then. and then a couple are, um, I guess one main one, um, Jerry with code next, um, early, you know, early, when I was starting this, I was, you know, we're heavily I'm, I'm the most Western province and sketch ones in the middle. And so I really, I really needed some Eastern input. Um, And from my Google search of code consulting companies in Toronto, um, code nexts really stood out at me.

Um, they seemed to really kind of value the same things and they had this cute little video on their website about how to work with them. Um, I shouldn't say cute, um, interesting little video on video and there sort of how to work with them, but they seem very Jerry probably wouldn't like the word cute.

Um, they just seem very, very approachable. So I reached out, I reached out to code next, um, and. You know, this, this was early, this was probably back in like March. Um, and I, you know, I didn't, I didn't even have a website then I just had all these crazy ideas in my head. And, you know, I rambled for probably like an hour about my vision and what I think it could be.

And, you know, by the end of that meeting, he was, he was in and super supportive and, and saw the value in it. So, um, and then from there, you know, he recommended someone from another company. Out east too. Um, who's you know, who joined the team as well? Um, one of our, one of our newest villagers who hasn't done any, um, and also don't know if I mentioned I called them villagers, uh, cause it takes a village to run a blog.

Um, But he is an architect who just inquired through the site and, and loved the vision of knowledge sharing. So, um, if people are interested, we have, it's actually one of our drop down options, um, on our contact us page is that, you know, I think I've got what it takes to be a villager. Um, or I wanna share a guest post cuz that's.

We're very open to that. That's what we want. We think that, you know, the different, everyone has a unique perspective and they have, um, their niche and what they know a lot about. And we wanna be kind of a hub and a platform to really get that information out. Cuz it. It's hard. If you're, if you're very specific about what, you know, you don't, you know, it's hard to write a blog for, um, for one specific thing, but at Kela Lima, we want, um, we wanna kind of find those gems and share them with everybody.

So, um, yeah, we find, we find contributors in various ways. Um, I'm not, I'm not shy about just reaching out to people. To tell them about Keila, Lima. Um, so that's been, that's been a lot of it just kind of reaching out. Um, sometimes people say, no, I'm too busy, but sometimes they get it and they wanna be a part of it.

So that's fascinating. Yeah. I see, uh, a lot of similarities and you know, that fire code tech has been a similar scenario for me and, you know, people. Fire protection is very tight knit and people understand, you know, if you are trying to do something good for the community, and generally if you reach out and explain to people, you know what you're trying to do, and it is a, a positive force for, uh, fire protection, life safety, they get it, and people are excited to be involved.

Mm-hmm so very cool. Well, uh, yeah, I just wanted to, so what do you see as a, as the future of keel Lima? Or where do you want to go next? I know you've talked to me before about, um, that you'd like to put on some classes or, uh, develop the community in that way. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something we're, um, we're launching in September here.

So I'm personally working. Um, I guess my expertise is. The, the code, like the code requirements. Um, so I'm putting together a course, an online course for, um, what it's called part three of the building code. Um, so it's part three is kind of focused on the fire protection, life safety, um, and accessibility is lumped in their requirements.

And so putting that together, um, and just breaking it down. Digestible pieces that, um, people can work through at their own pace, um, and provide cheat sheets and kind of, kind of the way that, um, I think a lot of people like to learn, um, right now, I mean, when I took my first part three course, it was, it was when it strolled into town once a year.

And it was, you know, I had to be available those five full days and. Eight hour days of, of learning. And it's, it's hard to take in all that information and really understand it in that type of setting. Um, and, and I mean now with COVID, it's, it's kind of, I think the way a lot of education is moving, um, to be a lot more flexible.

So I'm working on some courses for general code information, and then we have, um, Another company involved right now, who is putting together more specific courses on certain, on certain items. That are related to the code. So I guess the goal, the goal of the, um, as I mentioned, the one part of Kema is the school.

So the, really the goal is to be a hub, um, for building code and building code related courses by by different contributors. So, um, You know, just having, finding people specific knowledge and, and hosting a course for them. So when I, I mean, when I took, um, the certified professional course recently, one of the, one of the sections was on, um, elevators.

So. There was this passionate individual who spoke for like an hour and a half on the code, require the building code requirements of elevators, the elevator code requirements, um, the electrical code and, and it was just engaging. And those were the kind of people who, you know, they know their staff, their, they like to teach.

Um, And, you know, he shouldn't just be available to that one. That one course like he should, that knowledge needs to be spread to everyone who will listen. Um, so really finding people who want to, um, share their knowledge and having, you know, hosting, hosting, um, a school really, um, For all code code courses.

So that's, um, that's what we're up to right now. cool. Well, that's so fascinating. I, I know that you're gonna do good things and that people are gonna catch to this idea. I think it's absolutely something that's, um, worth doing. So I'm happy that you're. But, um, yeah, I wanted to get into just one or two, uh, professional development topics to, um, in the interview in traditional fire code tech fashion.

But, uh, yeah, I'm sure since you are steeped in, uh, You know, um, fire protection and life safety topics, and you're part of a community that writes posts about what's trending in the industry. You have, uh, some thoughts on what a trend in the industry is right now, in your opinion. I think a trend that I'm seeing a lot is just, um, more available education and resources.

So say, I mean, since I started this, um, keel Lima, you know, it's just, it's really opened me up to, um, seeing and finding people who are, who are trying to do a lot of the same stuff. Um, and kind of shifting more work online and getting that education and resources out there and really trying to build, um, like here.

I guess there just really isn't that building code community and knowledge sharing right now. But I think it's, it's something that people want and people are open to. So I think that, uh, COVID has been such a, it's just poured gasoline on the fire. That is, you know, people being able to provide resources online.

I've seen more webinars than I've ever seen before in my life. I, you know, there's been a couple. People starting blogs or online content, um, more new podcasts than ever. I mean, it's kind of exploding right now. I feel like we're, we're at a point at which we're seeing, uh, you know, us trying to catch up to.

Technology and other, other industries that are more well developed. And I completely agree with you. And I also resonate with the thought of, you know, like the more you get into this space of trying to find resources and trying to promote people who are developing good content. You see that just how much is out there.

And it just kind of opens your eyes to. To this. And I don't know, I remember I've said so many times before I started fire code tech. You know, there's not enough resources, there's not enough resources. There's nobody out there doing it. And then like the more I am involved with fire code tech and the more that I look, the more that I just see that if you can just scour the internet and just, you know, look for all these people and everything, it's, there's more out there than you would think.

But yeah, I think it just needs a better light. On that is that another thing we have planned in Kele in the future is really, um, kind of like, I call it the future Wiki. Um, so right now on our site, like, and it's slow going. Um, but we have a resources page where we do try to put the stuff that we have found online that is, is really great.

Um, and we wanna tell people about, so I guess eventually what I, what. What I dream of, um, is a type of, kind of database and tools where it's, you know, all these, all these gems from online can be found easily. It's like, you know, you put in your, your code. Article or whatever subject you want. And then it's like, bam, bam, bam.

Here's all the great things that we've like filtered from the internet and made it easy for people to find, because there, there is good stuff out there. It's just, it is, you know, it takes a lot of time to dig for it and, and it just doesn't make sense to me for every, you know, we all, we're all using the same code.

It doesn't make sense for, you know, different people everywhere to be spending that time. Scouring the internet, like. Let's come together and make something that just makes it easier for everybody. So, and it's yeah, so I've been, I was actually working remotely, um, with my company since September. So for, you know, and it, it takes a groove to get into.

Um, but, um, by the time COVID hit, we, that kind of wasn't a change for us, but we, so I, even before the COVID, I. I just really realized how important it is to be able to share information, um, online and more digitally, um, and meet like that. So, um, yeah, it's just, it's very interesting how. um, I think things are just really gonna explode and just, there's gonna be a lot of good innovation, um, in making things better, um, because people not by choice, but, but it's the way we just really have to move ahead now.

So definitely no, I a hundred percent agree and yeah, it'll be interesting. I think that. There's a lot of promising innovation and just development of resources in store for the field. So I'm excited about it. Mm-hmm well, anyways, Kelsey, I just wanna thank you so much for coming on the show and I wanna stay in touch and keep checking up on Keila, Lima, and I'll be sure to, um, put a link to the website in the show notes.

Um, if. And also, if you just Google kilo, K I L O Lima, L I M a code community it'll come up. I'm sure. Um, but yeah, I just wanna thank you so much for coming on. I really enjoyed talking to you and I hope we can do it again. One day. Yeah, thank you so much. This has been it's, uh, it's been great and very excited and, um, yeah.

Thank you so much for seeing kind of the value in what we're doing and, and hosting us. It's it's pretty exciting. So it is exciting. Hmm. Thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codess and standards interpretation.

Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next.

Mike Snyder is a chemical engineer with a number of professional certifications including his P.E., CSP and CFPS. With more than 30 years in loss prevention and process safety, Mike is no slouch when it comes to hazardous materials. In this episode of Fire Code Tech, we discuss hazardous materials and their impact on the built environment. Mike discusses his history in fire protection and life safety and gives insight to the complex problem of navigating the codes and standards associated with the storage and use of hazardous materials.

Mike's LinkedIn Group H Occupancy Webinar by Mike CSB West Texas Investigation Composite IBC Article by Mike

I would love to hear about your work history and how you became involved in fire protection and life safety? Can you speak on your professional certifications and more specifically your CSP? How would you describe how you found yourself dealing with hazardous materials? What are hazardous materials and how do we define them? How do we define occupancy classifications and what does that mean in the context of hazardous materials? Would you speak about how one would go through and determine if they have prohibitive amounts of hazardous materials? How does one begin to evaluate the hazards of combustible dusts? Do you have any comments or analysis for the tragedy of the recent explosion in Beirut? What do you see as a trend in the industry right now? What resources would you recommend to professionals that want to learn more about chemical safety?

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Welcome to episode 15 of fire code tech. On this episode, we have Mike Snyder. Mike is a chemical engineer with the host of professional certifications, like his professional engineering license, and he is a certified safety practitioner as well as a certified fire protection specialist. In today's episode of fire code tech, we talk about group H occupancies and hazardous materials.

Mike is the real deal when it comes to chemical safety and hazardous materials with an over 30 year career in process safety and chemical engineering. Mike really knows this stuff. I had the good fortune of finding a presentation by Mike on group H occupancies. When I was working on a job that was dealing with, as Mike would say, appreciable amounts of hazardous materials in excess of the maximum allowable quantities defined in the international building code.

And I was just ecstatic to find such a good resource. If you're a little unsure. On what hazardous materials are or what are some of the implications in the built environment for hazardous materials? You're gonna love this episode. If you wanna reach out and have a conversation about fire protection, or if you have an idea for a podcast guest or a topic, you can reach [email protected].

Don't forget to follow us on social media and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Let's get into the show. Hello, Mike, thanks for coming on the show. Hey, I appreciate it. Well, thank you very much for having me and I look forward to, uh, a robust conversation about, uh, my background and also, uh, hazardous materials and their impact in the fire protection community.

Definitely. Wonderful. Yeah. I wanted to just get started with, uh, you know, broadly on your career and a little bit about your history and, um, how you have found yourself in life safety and, uh, engineering. If you wouldn't mind Mike? Oh, absolutely. As I explained my career to people, I always have to start with three formative experiences.

I've had very early in my, my life. And that was, I had a grandfather who was a, essentially a safety engineer in a zinc manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania. And through him at a very early age, like nine or 10, I could see the impact on him and to his colleagues when an accident happened. And the joy that would be received when hazards were identified and people were protected.

So that was kind of a Sentinel, uh, experience in, in, in my upbringing. And then. Advanced to age 16. And I, I had the honor of, uh, joining, uh, a volunteer fire company, the Aquacel volunteer fire company, where I was able to see in emergency situations when preplanning and good design took play, how effective and safe emergency response could be.

And unfortunately you would see outcomes that were bad when uh, emergency response was not considered in, in building or facility design. Um, and then in my senior year in high school, I had an instructor, uh, who developed a passion for me in chemistry. And so those three things together drove me into the field of chemical engineering.

Um, and really that was what started my, my interest in this area of trying to blend engineering. Code issues and chemistry. Um, and probably one other important event in the beginning of my career was I, I interned in between my junior and senior year of college for the Dow chemical company and spent that summer doing fire protection and loss control engineering projects.

And at the end of that session, uh, a couple of senior, um, members of the engineering team took me aside and said, Mike, we. Appreciate the passion you bring to this loss control in fire protection engineering. But if you're ever going to be effective in this field, you need to walk a season in the shoes of the manufacturing engineers that you're gonna be guiding in the future so that, you know, the first.

Piece of assignment professionally would be to get in the trenches, slug it out and understand the challenges that that people are facing there. And so, you know, at that time, that day, that was a very demotivational comment. But yet in retrospect, it was probably one, one of the most Sage pieces of advice I got and I followed it.

And so I did spend, uh, the first part of my career in chemical manufacturing and to see the challenges, uh, that face people, not that they don't care about loss control, but it has to be blended and prioritized with a lot of other things that, uh, that are involved. And from that first assignment for about nearly five years in manufacturing, I then progressed through the chemical industry in a number of occupational and process safety roles and end it my career in the industry, uh, the last eight years.

Working as the global director for both occupational and process safety for Dow Corning corporation. The other piece during that experience, I volunteered in the municipal volunteer fire service and ultimately became the chief fire officer and fire marshal, uh, for a fairly busy and active, uh, company here in Michigan.

Um, responding about 500 times a year and also getting involved in, in code compliance reviews. And then I retired in 2016 and since then have joined DECRA, uh, and DECRA process safety is a chemical process safety consulting group that looks at all of these different aspects of chemical, uh, evaluation, chemical classification, and then the controls in industry and in use and in transportation, uh, that get deployed, um, when you're handling these materials.

And so there's been kind of that continuum of chemistry through my life, but looking at it in, in different applications, That's uh, extremely fascinating. Um, so glad to hear your description of your career. Yeah. I've have, uh, I've found you through. Uh, beautiful presentation on, uh, hazardous materials, but, uh, it, uh, paints a even more vivid picture to hear you, uh, uh, fill in, uh, the arc of your, uh, career so far.

So that's really, that's really fascinating. Oh, well, no, thank you. And, you know, I guess maybe the other part is, and we'll talk about this, I think a bit further, obviously the first time anyone is exposed to chemistry in kind of a training or an academic setting, right. It can be, it can be daunting. Uh, and, and, you know, the standpoint here stay the course, you can learn the principles that are necessary to be successful.

You can think about it and distill it down to easy components and it will make a difference in your professional career. So, you know, sometimes people go, oh my God, it's chemistry. It's okay. You will get through it. And you will learn important things for your career. Yeah, I think that's a great point, Mike.

Uh, the degree program that I came out of, uh, at Oklahoma state university has recently put more emphasis on chemistry and added some more chemistry classes to the degree plan. And I think that's, uh, a sound thing to do because, you know, as we keep advancing in material science and keep having different and new hazards, it's just, uh, it's a, uh, a component of life safety.

That's not going anywhere. And you have to have that understanding of, uh, properties and their chemical properties materials in their chemical and physical properties. So. That's great. Excellent. Anyways, well, I wanted to move on. Um, I see you have, uh, several professional certifications and I just wanted to get a little bit more about, um, your professional certifications and maybe, uh, you, how you acquired 'em.

Uh, I haven't had a, uh, certified, uh, safety professional on the show yet, so I'd be especially interested to hear more about that certification in particular, if oh, sure. Maybe in the broadest context, professional certifications and credentials are really important in your core areas of focus to have really an independent let's call it good housekeeping seal of approval in the technology area, uh, that you have.

I had a plant manager many years ago that I worked for, who really encouraged me in this space. And it started the conversation with something like Mike. We know you are an expert in certain areas. Occupational and process safety. And we respect that. However, as you have to represent our company outside to our neighbors, to the regulators, they don't have that background.

They don't have the relationship with you and these credentials, at least in, in a starting conversation say, Hey, there's been a third party body. That's looked at your, um, credentials and you have taken a test or two to validate your knowledge. And, and I think you have to kind of keep that in the back of your mind that it is oftentimes a competency door opener, uh, particularly as you're dealing with public bodies.

Um, and that was kind of how this, this came to be. My first credential was professional engineer, and that was really to be licensed in, in the state of Michigan, uh, in the area of fire protection and chemical engineer. Um, subsequently I, I worked on the certified fire protection specialist through the NFPA.

And that really is that you have a broad based set of knowledge in the application of N FPA codes and standards. And then I finished with certified safety professional, which looks at a wide variety of issues from, you know, industrial hygiene applications to ergonomics, to just, you know, some basic scientific calculations in the workplace to reduce employee exposure.

Um, the, the, the CSP one I did late in my career. And that was when I was the global director of both occupational and process safety in do Corning, because I truly believe that as part of a career development plan, you need to find one or two of the gold standard certifications to work through. And that's, you know, there's no place in your career where you can't say, geez, I'm gonna, uh, you know, I'm too old, or I don't have enough experience in background.

You can build that. And you can do that. And I wanted to role model that for the people in our organization that okay, even a old guy late in his career could, could do that. And I had to work at it, right. It was not a simple, uh, piece. I had to do a fair amount of studying in preparation for it. Uh, but ultimately was successful.

The other thing I'll just briefly go back to is early in my career. Um, we had a lot of people in our organization that were called loss prevention officers, which were basically, uh, fire protection technicians. And early in that process, we used a credentialing program through NFPA called certified fire inspector.

And it was really a fascinating experience because here you had people with a variety of backgrounds, uh, oftentimes without any type of advanced degrees to begin with. And we studied and we worked and we did projects and they went through the certification process and it was a first of all, it was a great raise, the bar exercise where people really built their capability.

Secondly, they were very proud of the cred. Credential and a number of them took that as kind of the catalyst to work on other credentials. And in several cases, degrees that have really helped them achieve professional success. And so, you know, credentialing not to hold the certificate on your wall, but really as a vehicle to grow your capability and hopefully advance further in this technology area, that's really what it's all about.

That's a wonderful sentiment. Yeah. I appreciate that. Uh, insight as somebody who is looking, you know, into getting, working on getting my professional engineering certification and the application process, and, you know, I looked into, uh, CSP and see the value of that and the broad, uh, safety that it covers.

And the, like you said, previously, the implications of obtaining these certifications and what that says about you as a professional and, um, To, uh, your employer about your passion for your job. So I think those are all great points. Oh, no. Great. And, and again, I think both personally and professionally, it, it's not the, again, it's not the certificate or the letters, but it's the fact that you've gotten that third party review, uh, that builds that, that professional, uh, credibility.

Right. And, and that's at the end of the day, particularly in, you know, matters of life and property safety, that credibility is extremely important. Definitely. Definitely. That's awesome. So I wanted to, uh, get into a little bit of the meat of your specialty and just some topics that I've had some definite interest in lately through, um, project work and through just, um, being in, uh, uh, career in which I'm presented with different chemical hazards on a daily basis.

But, uh, yeah, I just wanted to speak with you more about, uh, your experience with hazardous materials and get into that subject a little bit more with you and, uh, how you got, uh, yeah, just, uh, I know you have the chemical engineering and the, uh, safety piece and you've worked for a chemical company, but the hazard hazardous materials specifically.

Yeah. I'd like to hear more about your experience with that. Sure. So, you know, obviously, um, and, and, and I'll start with, I'll call it the academic side and then we'll step back. And I think, talk about how we, how you can frame this, that it's applicable really, to anybody who is gonna be touching, uh, has just materials in our, in our work process.

So, you know, most programs in chemical engineering and chemistry are looking at the normal routes. Of of basically how you, how you take chemistry or chemicals and move them from kind of condition one to condition two, very seldom. And, and even today, uh, in the academic environment is there are a lot of discussion about unanticipated consequences, contamination, or undesired reactions.

Um, and that probably is from a personal mission standpoint, getting that more robustly into our academic, uh, curriculum is still something that we need to do a, a greater deal of, of work on. Right. And if you think about our practice in fire safety, loss control and process safety, most of what we're really trying to do is can you identify the, the potential unanticipated outcomes?

And do you have proper Le levels of protection to, to deal with that? Oftentimes, as we talked about, right. Chemistry can be daunting. And so the things that as I reflected upon this in preparation for our discussion here, that I have found to be very effective in dealing with clients, in dealing with regulators, in dealing with community members is we have to take complex topics and frame them very straightforward and as simple as we can.

And that doesn't mean gloss over important facts, but you need to be able to distill down what is the exposure. What is the risk and how are we gonna control that? And I always kind of joked, right. If I could explain it to my mother and she could understand it, then I probably got it to the point that it was appropriate, uh, that I've, I've, I've distilled it down to its most simple element because oftentimes we love to talk in acronyms.

We love to talk in, in technical detail and there's a forum for that, right. With colleagues. And when people are doing technical review, but many times when you're dealing with a client or you're dealing with an owner or a authority having jurisdiction without, again, trying to, you know, say, well, you can't understand this, but simplify the problem.

And uh, all of a sudden people get on your, on your same page. And then I think you also have to think about the work process and, and you know, that. You're doing some type of work here with this hazardous chemical or with the code compliance there. How does it fit into the broader picture? And the way that I do that is I, in as simple as this sounds, it is the root of many problems in chemistry.

It starts with what is the problem we're trying to solve? And I, again, it's a very simple question, but I ask it three or four times a week. When we get into places where, oh, the client doesn't understand it, or the authority having jurisdiction is being unrealistic in this. I, I really come back and I ask that Sentinel question.

And when we have a dialogue there, it's like, oh, we're missing, we're missing the point or we're missing the, the understanding or the resistance of what we're doing. Um, and then, you know, obviously as, as you look at that, you need to make sure that you do have that background data. Uh, that's gonna be necessary to support the simplification and the discussion that you have there.

Again, if you, if you can kind of frame the issue or the hazards simp. You can think about it in the workflow, uh, and how it fits into the work process. And again, start with, you know, uh, what is the problem we're trying to solve? You will be much more successful. Uh, and I would say much more satisfied, uh, when you're dealing with these hazardous chemical challenges in your work.

Definitely. I think it's so easy to get, like you mentioned, lost in jargon and, you know, it's, we get so used to being technical, um, subject matter, you know, experts on fire protection or life safety and writing in a language that, uh, makes sense to you and properly defines the hazard. But I love that point about know your audience and.

Distill it down, make it simple, you know, don't it try. It's, it's much harder to, um, distill it down to the absolutely necessary facts than to write a novel about hazard analysis. Um, it's, it's easier to do. Honestly to be exhaustive and, and use, um, language that's, uh, jargon or just overly, uh, technical. So yeah, I love that point.

Right. And just, you know, as, as maybe a quick example of this, you know, I do a lot of work today, uh, with clients on combustible dust and the way that I get people calibrated about this is any material that's not made out of rock that has a particle size, less than 500 microns will. I can predict that to about 99% accuracy and, and the purist would kind of say, well, there's a couple of things on the periphery that, you know, don't quite fit into that, but things that are not fully oxidized, um, will burn.

And if the particle's small enough, you have a combustible dust hazard, and it's amazing how you take something that can be very complicated. And if you can get people to say, oh, well, we have a lot of that kind of stuff. All of a sudden you get somebody who's maybe resistive to the fact of, oh, that combustible dust doesn't apply here to something that says, oh, we may have a hazard, let's have an additional conversation.

Those are the kind of things you just need to kind of think about building in your toolbox to be able to break, you know, broker those conversations. I like that. Yeah. It seems like when I speak with a, a professional who has had, uh, success, they will oftentimes peel off a piece of this great, uh, Tactics or toolbox way to say, to bring.

The technical code in standards down to a level that's understandable for somebody who is, you know, in business development or they are, you know, an owner, you know, O oftentimes these people aren't technically savvy and it's not their job to be on fire protection and life safety. So you, you have to bridge the gap.

So that's a great point. But, um, anyways, I wanted to, um, just speak a little bit more about, you know, um, what are hazardous materials, you know, it's, I found it even difficult in my entry into, um, learning how to address these hazards is how do we know, you know, what is a toxic material and, or what is a caustic material, or, you know, what is a flammable liquid, and how do we know about what those are and the criteria for those.

But yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. So that is right. The quintessential challenge. Um, as you're starting to look at either an existing facility or a, a, a new design. And so, you know, there are two model programs or methods, uh, that are available to us to, to classify hazardous materials or any chemical to see if it fits into the hazardous material definition.

And there is the U United nations department of transportation, U N D O T, which will take materials into one of nine hazard classes. Um, and those are the oness that are used predominantly for transportation. I'll say this again, but you know, part of this is oftentimes you'll have a material that will meet the qualifications for more than one of those classifications.

And you have to make sure that you're thinking about the hazards that are in both. So for example, you could have a material that's both a poison and a flammable gas or a gas and you, you right. You have to kind of, it's not just one or the other in transportation rules. You have to just be very careful because when you placard to load, uh, some of these are what I would call primary and others are secondary, and there's all kinds of unique rules.

You need to just make sure that you open up the safety data sheet or the N D O T um, uh, book classification book, and make sure that you understand which of those are there. But let me advance to where I think most of us touch this and that is in the building, in the fire code. The building and the fire code is a bit more granular in how this is done.

And it basically looks at any chemical, uh, and identifies whether it has a physical hazard that is of interest, uh, to the building and fire code or health hazard. There are 17 different physical hazards that are evaluated in three different health hazards. Um, and there are a variety of definitions, uh, that are used to classify materials and again, into one or more.

And I, again will emphasize the or more, uh, buckets that have to be considered. And so, you know, in many cases and, and I'll take the simplest example, right? You could have a material that is a flammable liquid, and the classification of flammable liquid, as we all know is based. Uh, flashpoint and boiling point.

And, um, you know, you can either run a test in a laboratory or get the supplier through the safety data sheet to look at that. And you know, you get a lot of people to focus on that you can come to quick consensus. This is a flammable liquids, combustible liquid, or it is not a, an, an ignitable liquid at all.

When you go down the list to physical hazards and you start to look at things like pyrophoric organic peroxide, these are a little more complicated, uh, and the data is not always available. And you know, what, what I always just tell people is don't go this alone. As far as trying to make this determination, go back to the material supplier.

If it's not on the safety data sheet, call the information line or send an email and probe a bit to see if that data's been determined. And if it has asked to get a copy of that, to try to make a determination. And if that isn't available partner with somebody, and again, this is not a super expensive, uh, proposition, but partner with, um, uh, an advisor in the chemical testing or process safety area to help walk you through the most economic way to make that determination, because this is the gateway determination about whether or not.

Other aspects of the building code or restrictions of the building code apply. And we'll, we'll, we'll walk through in just a moment. You know, I, I spend a lot of time on the speaking circuit talking about group H occupancies for high hazard to make that determination. You need to understand the nature of the hazardous material.

And the code allows certain small amounts of material, depending on what code you're using. That could be called an exempt amount or a maximum allowable quantity or MAQ. And you need to look at every one of the chemicals that are being used and understand what is that threshold. If you can stay below the threshold, you can normally put that into most typical buildings.

There are some restrictions with educational and residential, but for normal commercial buildings. But if you anticipate or have usages above those do minis amounts, your building has to have special features, uh, because it becomes a group H occupancy and you know, the whole reason for that is to ensure safety of the workers to ensure safety of the neighbors to this facility.

And we oftentimes forget to ensure the safety of the emergency responders, right? The last thing you want to have happen is a small fire or other event, uh, happening in a building with hazardous materials. And because of some building deficiency, uh, emergency responders are injured or killed, uh, because the building's not able to withstand that challenge.

So it starts with understanding, um, in the model codes, right? Which again would be NFP 400. If you're using the N FPA series. Or annex E um, of the international fire code to really try to understand the definitions of these 17 physical hazards and three health hazards. And if you have more than the amount of material that's allowed, for example, in the international fire code in chapter 50, uh, that you're building has to have these additional features.

That's a, that's a great point about, um, how to find those definitions. I think this is such a good topic to go over because if you are not, um, effective in classifying your materials to begin with, this is the first step in the hazardous analysis or determining the, um, impact to your facility, whether it be existing or, um, new construction.

So yeah, I think if you are unsure about these factors, then you need to stop. And I like what you said about reaching out to the manufacturer and. Establishing the data through those channels, or usually there's, uh, material safety, data sheets. So those are also a good resource for these, um, different hazard category properties.

Um, you know, yeah. I like what you said about flammable and combustible liquids, and you know, how flashpoint and bullying point are the metrics in which we decide whether things are flammable and combustible. And, you know, as you start looking at these topics, those are some of the more, uh, Straightforward in determining and oftentimes have some of the easiest, uh, data to retrieve so that you can classify these things.

But yeah, no, I, I really like that description. And, and, and, and again, as we start to talk as fire protection and process safety professionals about this issue, um, it is extremely important that we help lead that conversation. Cuz many people who are occupying these facilities, running these facilities or designing these facilities, even say a typical architect, oftentimes don't have all the depth of knowledge and we need to kind of make sure in a simple way, uh, that they understand what's there because there's two really, I.

I'll call 'em milestones, right? When you're designing the building, right? The design features of that building it, you know, it's easier to change on paper than once the building is built. And so you have to have a very Frank conversation with that design team and the owner about, do you want this building to be able to handle in its life, lifespan materials greater than the exempt amount?

Because if you do, you probably want to invest now in the additional features and they, right. They have expense. They, they, they have capital implications. And so there's always kind of this resistance because once you cast that die and you say, okay, I'm not gonna invest in the group of. Each features, they are very complicated and very expensive to add.

And so during the life of the building, you also have to be careful that you manage change correctly. So if all of a sudden a new formulation comes in or a new product line, somebody has to go through this exercise again to say, all right, our building has limits. Let's look at the chemicals and the amount of chemicals that are gonna be there.

And are we exceeding the amounts? Uh, because oftentimes I, you know, in today's world, I get involved with clients who have missed that milestone, right? They, they have an ordinary F1, uh, type of occupancy, a normal manufacturing building they've changed formulations. And all of a sudden they are two or three or more times what's allowable by the, the code before you are in group H occupancies.

And obviously there are a variety of reasons that. Situations where that's discovered. Uh, and then you're under extreme duress, right? Cuz you may already have launched this product and now you have a building that doesn't conform to the requirements. So, you know, management of change, we may talk a little bit about that, uh, later in our discussion today.

But that is an area where I, you know, this is not just a chemical industry thing. This management of change hits all aspects of industry and we need to make sure we're sensitive to that. That's a great point. I like that. Yeah. I've spoken previously with, uh, loss prevention specialist and he was bringing up this term.

I probably haven't heard it since college, but uh, management of change for, uh, a building owner, uh, is a definitely. Important aspect of a building owner's approach to life safety and just, uh, making sure, you know, we see management of change in many industrial processes, but oftentimes it's overlooked as it regards to fire protection and life safety.

So I think that's a great point, but, um, no, I just wanted to, uh, proceed in the discussion with a little bit more information on, you know, we talked a little bit about H occupancies, but you know, for, for maybe those who aren't, um, as familiar with what we're talking about, um, yeah. Would you speak about occupancy classification and, and what that means as it relates to the building code and the, and the model codes in the us, um, as a baseline understanding for our discuss.

Um, leading on about each occupancies. Sure. So in the model codes, um, there every structure or part of a structure is designated normally with a number and a, or a letter and a number classification. So, you know, you'll have something like F one. H two, uh, S one. And that letter in number designation, start to indicate the nature of the operation, um, or the nature of the activities that go on in the building.

And while some people will smile and laugh a little bit about this, uh, it is the, the building code tries to match. The limitations and restrictions of a building with the nature of the hazards that are going on. Some people would say, we're not quite there yet. We're getting better, but it really is trying to make this the loss control and life safety features commensurate with the risk or hazard that exists.

And so in most situations where we have manufacturing, operations and chemicals, the typical occupancies that we will be dealing with are F one S one or S two for storage. And there's some limited operations that can go in there, or the series of H classifications and presently that's H one through H five, which represent high hazard occupancies.

When you cross the threshold from what I would call more low hazard occupancies, F one S one S two to one of the group H occupancies, the building code then has limitations on building height. Building size and other requirements, including emergency power ventilation. Um, and in some cases what they call explosion control, but think about it as explosion venting of the building.

So when you are looking at this, you, you need to kind of say, look, if I have the hazard, which is normally looking at. Material classifications and overlaying that with, do I have more than the allowable amount? Um, you have to really then say, okay, I am then prepared to invest in those protections. And again, it's not today only it's looking at the lifespan of this building.

Uh, because for example, if, if you, you know, if your building is limited in size, um, and now you build a larger building and cross that group H occupancy, it becomes very difficult. You may end up having to put additional firewalls into a building retroactively or explosion venting. And those are just very difficult situations.

So, um, a again, I would say in today's arena, we don't spend enough time, and it's not that it's a, a detailed or, or very difficult study, but, you know, read the definitions in the building in the fire code, spend an hour, um, of what, you know, group a group B group F group H, and they're very well defined and it, you know, Copy photocopy the papers or, you know, kind of write yourself a crib sheet because that's just something that can kind of help guide, uh, where you're going to be.

Um, number of papers that, that I've written for, uh, the global Congress of process safety on this in trying to just educate the broader community from architects to chemical process safety engineers, because it's just something we don't spend a lot of time doing, but crossing that I would say today, one of the biggest challenges we have in the built community is people who cross over that group H occupancy threshold, and don't recognize it.

We are creating unintended risk for, uh, the communities I talked about, the employees, the neighbors, and the emergency responders. And obviously that's not people's intention. It's just an oversight that creates that exposure. Definitely. Yeah. I find that people are not aware of, uh, high hazard storage, um, or high hazard commodities, oftentimes.

So, you know, sometimes these thresholds. Can be not, um, exorbitant amounts of these materials. So you might. Um, cross one of these thresholds without even realizing it, if you have something that's particularly hazardous. So yeah, I think that's a great point, right? People will, you can cross these thresholds, uh, uh, fairly easy if you're dealing with the, uh, nasty material, right.

Right. So, you know, materials that are highly toxic, um, uniquely reactive, like pyrophoric or unstable the thresholds are in the order of a few pounds, right? Where with like flammable liquids, those thresholds start at about 120 gallons. And then there are some additional allowances, uh, in the code. For example, if you're sprinkled you adequately sprinkled you, you end up, uh, being able to get some adders in there.

But again, even with flammable liquids, you're dealing with a couple of hundred gallons. Um, so again, if you're using just a few gallons, probably not a big issue, uh, but it is very easy to get above 200 gallons, right? That's four drums. That's not a lot, or it it's could be one IBC of, of liquid that get you over that threshold.

So it's easy to happen if you're not deliberate and disciplined in your approach. Definitely. I, I agree. Yeah. So that's great. Yeah. I definitely agree. You need to be aware of these chemicals and the thresholds. And so, yeah, that's a wonderful point. Um, I would think I wanted to proceed with, um, yeah, I, we talked a little bit about the impacts of the, the age occupancy, but I just wanted to circle back.

I, I think we talked about it. Yeah. If you touch on the critical factor that pushes an occupancy. Over into H occupancies and then, yeah, maybe more explicitly what I know you said, like at Def liberation, venting or explosion venting and, um, explosion proofing and some of the other, uh, stuff. Okay. So again, the, the at, at a very high level, the strategy that you do is you build an inventory of the chemicals that you're planning to use.

You're going. Figure out. So right. You could do this on a spreadsheet as an example, which of the 17 physical hazard categories and or three health hazard categories apply. And for each one of the boxes that you tick, right? And again, for a chemical, there could be multiple designations. You would go to the applicable tables, either in the, the NFPA fire and building code or into the international fire code, uh, to see what the exempt quantities are.

And if you are going to be above those quantities for any of those line items, that module or part of the building has to be classified accurately as a group H and again, then the numbers, uh, talk H one is an explosives, right? High energy, uh, type of release all the way through, down to H three and four, which are low, uh, lower pressure flammable and combustible liquid scenarios, and H four, uh, is health hazards.

And so those then drive. A number of requirements about the building. So specific to your question on explosion venting, um, when you were dealing with high, high, volatile, and high energy release materials that could result in a Def Def ration. So that would be a high energy flash fire. Um, you wanna make sure that the pressure that's built up in the building or that rum is able to be relieved to a safe location.

And so, for example, if you have very volatile flammable liquids, so like class one, a or one B handled above their boiling point, you can easily in a release, fill a rum completely full of flammable vapor. Right. That could ignite. And when it does, it's gonna release a lot of energy. And so you need to make sure that the walls of the building are able to withstand that pressure, which oftentimes means we put some explosion venting there.

Right? Cause the whole goal is for a life safety application, buildings that collapse obviously are gonna present a huge life safety risk to the occupants. And so you're trying to reduce the pressure, the lateral pressure on the walls by doing explosion venting, um, and the same thing with certain flammable gases, you would end up having to do, uh, some, uh, you would have to do some, uh, explosion venting.

Uh, and there's a section of the international fire code section 9 1 1, which is just interesting because that's our emergency telephone number, but you, it gives you kind of what hazards require you to ration vent or do other types of protections. I'll just also, and again, not that we go down too deep today, but recognize.

Deflations can be vented debt nations cannot. Right. And debt nations just mean that the, the flame speed is faster than the speed of sound. You just aren't able to vent those. You have to do other strategies which could be distancing or building your building to be able to withstand certain aspects of that.

So, you know, as, as, as we talk about detonation energy, that's really a whole different, uh, type of protective strategy. That's a good note. I like that. Yeah. Dealing with some facilities with munitions recently. And so getting into some of those detonation hazards. So I appreciate that qualifier. Um, so I wanted to, I know you spoke a little bit earlier about combustible dust and as another, um, fairly common, but trickier hazard.

That I've come in contact with in my design career. And I just wanted to hear a little bit about, um, how do you, uh, even begin to address this hazard? Um, you know, owner comes to you and says, oh, I want to have, uh, metal grinding with the dust collectors. You know, how do you begin to address this hazard as a safety professional?

I think most people have read a lot of articles recently in the trade press about NFPA 6 52, which is the fundamentals of combustible dust, which really. Provides the overarching framework for the handling of the hazards of combustible dust. And it is the, the document that establishes requirements for conducting what are called dust hazard lyses, which I'm gonna oversimplify it, but basically it's test your materials or use other ways to determine if you have combustible dust.

And if you do look at the hazards, both inside equipment and the fugitives outside equipment, to make sure that you have adequate controls, if you don't have adequate controls, add controls or add protections to do that, the way we basically say is for both the fugitives and for the equipment establish one or more base of safety, if you can't establish a basis of safety to prevent the event from happening, make sure that you have adequate, um, control measures.

Like explosion, uh, venting of equipment, um, isolation or suppression, or a combination of those. Um, you know, in the example that you used about metal, uh, one of the things that NFPA has done is 6 52 is kind of the general document. They have additional. Allowances and requirements in what they call the commodity and industry specific standards.

And so while 6 52 N FPA 6 52 is the, the I'll call it the overarching document. When you're dealing with metals NFPA 44 has certain requirements, particularly for high energy, reactive metals, like. As, as an example, uh, NFP 61, uh, deals with, um, the agricultural, uh, community, um, N FPA 6 54 is more of chemical industry dusts or, or, or areas.

And then there is also NFPA 6 64, which deals with, um, with woodworking in and, and wood dust. So those really kind of provide that, that overarching requirement. I'll just kind of add, you know, and, and again, there's a lot of things going on with the impending deadline in NFPA 6 50, 2 of September 7th, 2020 to do your first dust hazard Lyes and that's important, right.

That people stay focused on that area. But more importantly, as you look at the international fire code, there are two things I always wanna remind people about combustible dust. The first is that since 2012, If you handle combustible dust and any configuration or method that can result in a fire or a Def hazard, um, you by default are a group H occupancy.

And that for many people, even though that requirement's been there since 2012, that's, that's, uh, that's a new piece of information. Um, and I would just encourage you to go to chapter 50 of the international fire code to look at that since 2018 in chapter 22 of the international fire code, um, it there, the, the conduction of a dust hazard analysis or DHA is actually required.

So by regulation, it is the first regulation that requires you to do a DHA. So once your jurisdiction adopts the 2018 edition of the international fire code, if there are no other amendments that change this, you, um, you end up having to do a DHA within three years of the adoption, um, that are there. So those are requirements that are.

I'll call 'em. They don't conflict with NFP 6 52, but they basically bring more teeth, uh, on a regulatory basis to the application of NFP 6 52. Uh, yeah, that's great. I enjoyed your response. I think it illustrates the complex nature of, you know, if you've never dealt with 6 52 or any of the other, um, NFPAs addressing the combustible dust hazard.

It can be quite a, quite a lot to find out which NFPAs apply and how you determine if the scope of the N F B document applies to your particular hazard scenario. So I appreciate that response. Great. So I wanted to speak about, um, a little bit about, uh, the tragedy that recently happened in Beirut. And I know there's been.

A huge buzz in the community about ammonium nitrate. I just wanted, if you had any thoughts on that. Mike. Oh, a absolutely. So, you know, let's, let's preface this by the fact that there's a lot of details that still have to come forth and, and, you know, while I think there are some things that are very obvious as we look at this, I am sure some of the details may change the view exactly.

Of the scenario and how it played out. but the, and I'm gonna call it frustrating part about this is ammonium. Nitrate has been involved in large loss incidents for more than a hundred years. And the basic premise, uh, and causal factors that are involved have not changed. Right? So basically ammonium nitrate is classified as an oxidizer, which means when exposed to fire, it will accentuate the fire by essentially giving it more.

And I'm using in quotation marks, oxygen, uh, but more oxidant so that, uh, you can enhance combustion. So ammonium nitrate, normally as a solid, which is oftentimes in pearls or flakes, as it's stored is all by itself is fairly stable. And you don't worry about. Is when you expose it to heat or contamination and store it in large quantities, that piles that are put together, um, and a fire occurs.

Um, the, the, the results are cataclysmic, right? It's it's, the outcome is literally predictable, right? And, and a person, uh, that I mentor with a gentleman by the name of Gordon. Graham always says, if it's predictable, it's preventable, right. You can, you can put controls in place and. All of the things that we need to be working on are how do you isolate the material?

So contamination cannot occur. And if there's going to be a fire, ammonium, nitrate is generally not gonna be the start of the fire. It will be some other combustible commodity. How do we end up. Uh, putting that fire out or controlling or preventing the fire from occurring. You know, it appears in Beirut that this warehouse where the ammonium nitrate was also had other commodities, particularly fireworks and probably some other combustible commodities.

And so the fire likely started. By an area that, you know, something that was not ammonium nitrate, but then once the fire got going, um, and you look at these historical events that have occurred usually within 30 minutes to 90 minutes, uh, with the fire that, uh, continues to burn you, you get a ferocious fire because of the presence of an oxidizer and you progress to detonation.

And these detonations are horrific, um, in the us, you know, our most horrific, um, ammonium nitrate, uh, detonation was back in 1947 in Texas city. Um, and that was a, a boat, a ship that had ammonium nitrate fertilizer that caught fire, uh, in the, in the, uh, Texas city ship channel. Uh, and their, I think like about 580 people were killed, including the entire Texas city fire department.

So these types of outcomes, um, are predictable. And, and so, you know, obviously there's a focus on our building and fire code in how we manage those, right. And how we control the hazard. And in making sure from an emergency response standpoint, we, um, we address these hazards and know that generally speaking, if fires get into these stores, um, it it's, it's something that we have to isolate and evacuate quickly.

This brings back memories, for example, of, you know, BLE in, um, Liquified petroleum gas, right? In the 1970s, the fire service went through a large epiphany about, you know, fires, exposing propane tanks are ones that if you can't immediately get water on, you have to evacuate else. There's gonna be OBL and people are gonna be killed.

Uh, and, and property is gonna be damaged. I'll just say one other quick thing here. Um, and we can explore a bit further if you'd like, you know, in the us, we, we recently, and I mean, in 2013 in west Texas at an agricultural supply house, uh, we, we ended up having, um, a fire and in about 30 minutes, uh, a detonation that killed, I believe 15 people and the us chemical safety board has done a comprehensive, uh, investigation that you can go to the chemical safety board website, uh, and bring that, uh, bring that investigation down and look at it for free.

Um, I would encourage you to read that the, the frustrating part about that is there were two items in that investigation that were highlighted and one was, um, what appears to be an oversight in the us process. Safety management regulation was to not include ammonium nitrate as one of the chemicals covered by the standard that has not yet been resolved.

And then the other one is that OSHA 19 10, 1 0 9, which is titled. Explosives and, uh, blasting agents, right? So people kind of immediately go, well, I'm using ammonium nitrate. Uh, I'm not an explosive or a blasting agent, but that has application for the storage of ammonium nitrate paragraph. I, of that standard has requirements.

And so, you know, I don't think necessarily that there's gonna be a lot of new requirements. The science is pretty battle tested. I think it's our application of, of this science and our awareness of the hazard that has to change. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I appreciate those extra resources. I will add them in the show notes so people can go and read more if they so choose.

But yeah, I appreciate that. It's a little bit baffling to me to think about, um, an oxidizer as. Something with a detonation hazard. Uh, just for, I guess, just from the fundamental idea of, you know, the Oxid oxidizer speeds, the, uh, reaction of combustion, I guess, but I guess it makes sense. Well, so, so, and again, I, I promise you not to go too far down to rabbit hole, but what really starts to come into play here is it's the contamination.

So for example, once you get a fire and, and the, the Texas city chemical safety board report goes through this in some detail, a lot of fires generate sot. The sot is car it's comprised of carbon based materials. Those can also serve as the source of the contamination. Right? So if you think about, for example, how people would say, um, blow up stumps in the agricultural community, they take, uh, fertilizer grade, ammonium nitrate, they add some diesel fuel, and then they basically have something like a, you know, a small stick of dynamite or something to kick that energy off.

It's that contamination, right? Intentional in that case of diesel fuel, that really provides the fuel. You have the oxidizer and you have the ignition source that ends up in the detonation. One of the things in our current hazard communication, uh, and classification scheme. So these physical hazards and health hazards do not deal very neatly with how do materials when they're contam.

React. Um, and I would just draw people's attention. Uh, the chem safety board is investigating an event right now. Uh, they don't have the report complete, uh, but last year in 2019, there was a terrible explosion at the AB specialty silicons plant in, uh, while Kegan, Illinois. And it appears that a material that nominally would be classified as a combustible liquid got contaminated.

And that contamination is what created the instability and our model codes and standards don't have a real clean way to handle that. So I think that, you know, as we talk about what do we need to do to be successful in the future, looking at how, you know, I'll call it the undesired or unanticipated, um, routes occur.

Um, we have to really try to make sure that we. Even more accurate ways to make that classification. Very nice. Very nice. I appreciate that. Yeah, the, I think the contamination part of it is, is definitely what I didn't understand or fully grasped. So I appreciate that. Well, I just wanted to, uh, put a nice, uh, cap on our interview with some professional development topics, since it sounds like you have, uh, such a good, uh, pulse on what the, uh, industry is doing and professional development and, um, career progression.

So I just would, uh, be kicking myself if I didn't get a chance to ask you about, um, how as a professional, we should be, um, looking forward or looking for new ways to get a leg up. Um, but anyways, I just wanted to start with, um, kind of, what do you see as a, a trend in the industry right now? Okay. So we've already talked about one, right?

And that's professional credentialing. You know, if I go back to the 1980s, when I came out of undergrad, there was not a lot of discussion about professional credentialing today. I think in our community, it's becoming more and more relevant and more and more impactful. And we've explored that the other area that I see as emerging, and there are a lot of reasons for this.

Is, we are moving from our historic view of what I would call prescriptive requirements and prescriptive codes and standards to more risk based and performance oriented standards. Right? So there are drivers where, you know, economics of, I don't wanna put all the protections in place. I don't want to inspect things as frequently.

And if the hazard can be justified that you don't need to do that, right. There's resource and, and financial benefit for that. But you have to be careful that these risk AEs that you do are not just mathematical exercises to justify an outcome. They have to really be pure and ethical to, to make sure that the hazard and risks are accurately classified.

Right? So the opportunity is that I think for many of us, um, we can become more, um, more enriched in the ability to do operational risk management. Um, and really unlock new potential here. Right? Which opens up a whole new way of study. This is something our colleagues in Europe have been doing for 30 years.

Right. And so one of the big debates on a global stage is the European regulatory environment. And the us regulatory environment are very different. So in, in the us, right, we have these prescriptive codes. It's a menu. If you have this, make sure you do this, this, this, this, and you're good. So the E the, the good part of that it's right.

Pretty straightforward. What the requirements are. The problem is in many cases, the requirements, either over overstate, uh, the requirement of what really needs to be done, um, and that can cost you time and money, or sometimes they completely miss the requirement. Right. And we kind of go, I just need to check the box in the European construct.

The owner of the hazard has an obligation to prove its safety. And oftentimes there's not a lot of other regulatory requirements. And so it's, you have to really assess all hazard channels and make sure that you have really good, um, really good controls in place. And so it's a whole different way of liability and regulation.

Um, and, and, you know, again, that will not get resolved immediately, but many of the us standards are starting to allow this, this risk or performance based lyses. And for me, that's exciting. Um, and I think those folks who really embrace that technology and that science are gonna be, uh, a bit ahead in the field.

That's a really interesting note about performance based design, uh, talked to several professionals recently who, uh, have, uh, more knowledge about the subject and yeah, I find it fascinating as. And just the ability to have that as a tool in your engineering toolbox in order to, um, problem solve more effectively and provide solutions for building owners that are a little bit more out of the box, if you will.

So I think that's a great point. Yeah, just, and, and maybe one closing comment on that piece, um, you know, with the internet today, the, the ability to search for incident history and incident data, right? I mean, if I go back 30 years ago, right. You have to kind of do library searches and it was very difficult.

So when you do a performance or risk based design, right there, there's an obligation that the basis of what you're choosing, um, has been, you know, I'll call it battle, test it, uh, with some of the different incidents that are out there and right, the older, the incident, uh, the, the incident record may not be quite complete.

Um, but it is incumbent upon us as professionals to make sure that we're looking at the incident record, uh, to make sure that what we're proposing is not outlandish. Right. And that comes into this professional competence and ethics part of this so that you don't just do a mathematical exercise. So, you know, the, the internet has really enabled that kind of, uh, data searching that we never have really had before.

Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that. Um, uh, Mike, I just wanted to end with, um, if there are any resources in which you would recommend to professionals that wanna know more about hazardous materials or life safety or, uh, process safety or loss prevention, I know that's a tall order, but yeah, I just wanted to get your sense of what resources you find that are quality in, uh, the pursuit of knowledge on these subjects.

so, you know, oftentimes I'll go back to what I would call Sentinel, uh, resources. So, you know, maybe as a, a couple of quick tips, I mean, some of these are simple, but sometimes people overlook them is, you know, N FPA has a, a large number of standards that deal in this area. And you. View for free and see all the changes that are being proposed by simply going to www.nfpa.org/the standard number.

So for example, the hazards chemical code NFPA 400. If you do that, you can bring that information. And without having to buy anything, you can look at proposed changes. You can look at the standard in, in the other areas that are there. For a small fee, you could also buy handbooks that NFA produces, which are more application tips that take a bit of a deeper dive of how people apply there.

And so those are what I would call consensus oriented. So they kind of represent the, the best view of the, the consensus community on these. And they are very, very hopeful the other place, um, that, and again, so that's kind of a us view as maybe a, a simple and low cost option, um, to give you a bit of the, the, um, European view.

I find that the United Kingdom health and safety executive. Also known as HSE has a number of resources. First of all, print it in English. Number two, they're free, um, that you can look at on both the risk analysis and on fundamentals of, uh, of chemical hazard. They also, uh, happen to have a lot of resources on composite I B C fire safety, and you can just search their website.

So the UK health and safety executive think of them as the UK's OSHA. Uh, it's just that they have a very comprehensive set of resources, um, that can help owners of the hazard, uh, properly control those. So. If, if you walk away with those two things, I, I, I think they give you great. Um, a great insight I mentioned before, and I'll, I'll close this question simply was saying that, you know, the United States chemical safety board for 20 years has been investigating events and published thorough reports.

And in most cases generate kind of a 10 to 20 minute, uh, video, uh, vignette that overlooks or oversees the event and the recommendations of the investigation. Those are also great repositories of historic knowledge. And, uh, I, I think for especially educating employees who might be working with similar hazards, again, another free resource that can be very impactful.

That's a great point. I love the tip about the, the European resources. Those are some I'm not as aware of. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I had forgot about the, the videos from the CSB. Uh, I'd watched some of those in, in college, in my, uh, occupational safety classes. So, yeah, those are, I need to try and find some of those.

It'd be great if they had those on YouTube or something like that. Well, and, and, and they do, right. So you, you can go there, you know, one other, just as we're talking here, I I'd be remiss, particularly for those in your audience who are. In college right now. Um, the American Institute of chemical engineers produces a chemical hazard series called S modules, which are really trying to integrate these concepts of chemical process safety into the undergraduate chemistry and chemical engineering area, and undergraduate students get access for free.

So again, as, as you can kind of see here, I try to really be economic in my view of where I point people. Um, but if you just look, um, uh, sash S a C E, um, and, and search that with American Institute chemical engineers, and you're an undergrad student, uh, you can get access to 'em for free. If you're not an undergraduate student, it, they have a small fee, uh, attached with them.

Um, but that, that is kind of another area. And, and I'm sorry, as we're talking here, one other idea that that has come here. Uh, the American Institute of chemical engineers also publish a monthly one page bulletin called the beacon. And the beacon reviews in a very simple. One aspect of chemical process safety each month and they publish it in nearly 40 different languages.

And what I have found very effective about that is you can put it in a control room on a lunch, uh, you know, on a bulletin board, in a lunchroom, in the language that's commonly used, wherever you're gonna go, uh, internationally. And it's one, you can go right onto a I C H E, and subscribe so that you get the email link every month it's free.

Um, and it's quite effective, right? So for example, management of change is featured frequently in that forum, but other types of scenarios to help build your, your mental hard drive with scenarios that you should be looking at. So it's kind of a neat, quick way to kind of, uh, refresh your memory about how chemistry can act in unanticipated fashions.

That's a great. That's a great tip. I appreciate that. I haven't heard of that one either, but, um, Mike, I just wanted to thank you so much for coming on the show and I want to try to be mindful of your time and yeah, I just wanna say I really enjoyed it and thanks again, sir. Great. And, and, and again, right, if people want to advance any of these topics, you know, I'm on LinkedIn, feel free to reach out to me.

This is an area of mission of developing our profession with chemistry, uh, that I, I have a lot of personal passion about. So, you know, anybody who has a, a question or wants to explore these topics and further, uh, detail, I'm more than glad to do so. Great. I can add some links to, um, your work and different articles that they can read from you as that's how I found you.

And I appreciate, uh, all the work that you've done. So I'll add some links so people can find you and give you a shout out if they wanna learn more. Excellent. No, and, and thank you to anybody. Who's, uh, sat through this, cuz again, chemistry can be viewed as a very dry topic. I just think it has a lot of relevance to exposures that we have and that we can successfully control.

Definitely. I agree. A hundred percent. Thanks for listening everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation.

Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

Jake Zlomie is a fire marshal at Montana State University. Jake graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in fire protection and safety technology. In this episode of Fire Code Tech, we discuss the challenges of code enforcement, specifically as it relates to existing construction, historic buildings, documentation and much more.

Tell me about your work history and how you got started as a AHJ? It would be great to hear more about your role as a firefighter? What was some of your favorite parts of your college degree at OSU? What kind of codes and standards do nuclear facilities follow? How do you balance code enforcement with business interruption / other stake holders? Tell me more about your role about being an AHJ for a university? What do you see as a trend in the industry? What piece of advice would you give?

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place on today's episode of fire code tech, we have Jake Slomi.

Jake is a fire marshal at the Montana state university. In this episode, we talk about what it means to be a fire marshal at a university, and some of the interesting challenges that he deals with. Jake is a graduate of the Oklahoma state university degree program in fire protection and safety technology, as well as he holds a number of certifications in plans, examination, and other areas of fire marshal expertise.

In episode 14 of fire code tech, we talk about the challenges of dealing with existing construction and historic buildings. Also, we get into documentation and the difficult task of record keeping for a whole campus of buildings with the myriad of life safety and fire protection systems. Make sure to subscribe.

So you never miss an episode and follow us on social media. If you want to drop me a line and talk about what you'd like to hear about on the show or guest ideas, you can email [email protected]. Let's get into the show. Well, hello, Jake. Thanks for coming on the show. How you doing? Good GU how are you?

Appreciate, um, appreciate you having me on. Yeah, it's awesome. I, uh, glad to have you on glad to have another F P S T grad on. And so, yeah, I just wanted to get started with a little bit about your background and how you have become an authority having jurisdiction and just your, your, uh, professional history in fire protection.

Yeah. So, um, yeah, so my, you know, I, uh, kind of grew up in, uh, grew up in Illinois, um, kind in the, in the Chicago suburbs there. And, uh, you know, I was kind of, I grew up, you know, a lot of, a lot of these kind of these stories kind of sound the same when you talk about talk through with people in fire protection, but, uh, you know, kind of grew up around the fire department.

Um, you know, my. My dad was on the fire department. My uncle was on the fire department. My grandpa was on the fire department and it, it was kind of just the, uh, it was kind of a, a natural, natural thing to kind of be, you know, go hang out at the fire station or, you know, be down there, kind of be around it.

And, um, so really when I was, I was in, in high school, I kind of got, got kind of more involved. Um, our fire department had a cadet program. Um, so I was able to kind join at 16 and kinda get, get some training and learn, learn about kind, what it involves to be kind EMS. Um, You know, I was kind of always trying to figure out, you know, throughout high school, what I really, what I wanted to do, um, where I wanted to study and, um, kind of got, got introduced to the, the, the fire protection program at Oklahoma state.

And, um, my dad was actually kind of the one who, who, uh, introduced me to that. He, he spent a year down in Stillwater, um, and kind of once, once I learned about it and kind of took, it, took the campus tour campus visit, um, I ended up, uh, just kind of, kind of following and following in love with the, with the campus and the program.

Um, and I really, uh, it was OSU was the only school that I applied to, uh, and I got lucky enough to get in. So, um, so it was pretty cool. That it worked out from that aspect. Um, you know, I had had some great, great experiences kind of, kind of getting into the OSU program and, and kinda, you know, met, met some great people along the way and, um, just kind of dove, you know, really just dove in and, and loved the loved the coursework.

And, um, you know, the, the classes were actually, you know, didn't feel like classes, um, and was fortunate with the, kind of the, the strength of the program. And, um, kind of some of, with some of the demand that the program has for graduates had some good internship experiences, um, and was able to pretty much each, each summer that I was there pretty much had a, had an internship, um, was able to kind of get out and, and get into the field, um, and kind of get a, get a firsthand look at what fire protection looked like.

Um, I really kind settled. Into the fire protection realm of the degree program. Um, it's the degree program's really, really pretty vast, but, um, settled into that fire protection side of it. Just kind on kind of what interested me the most and that, that department background. So graduated in December and then, uh, head back to Illinois to work, um, and kind had a couple different roles between between now and then.

And uh, in January of January. Yeah, I think January of 2019 ended up, uh, uh, moving out to Montana. Um, so my, my wife's from Montana, um, and have had the privilege to serve as the fire marshal at Montana state university here in Bozeman. Um, since then, so, um, Yeah, it's kind of, kind of how I got, got into it.

And, um, it's, it's been good to me so far, so that's awesome. That's really interesting to hear about, you know, the Genesis of your career and you starting out with, uh, a lot of your family, uh, in the fire service and that's, that's really special. Yeah. That's interesting to hear about. Yeah. I'd like to hear more about, um, you know, like, uh, I see that you spent some time, you know, as a firefighter and yeah.

I'd like to hear more about that time in your career, if you wouldn't mind going over, um, just kind of that experience and some of the lessons you learned, uh, in that portion of your career. Yeah. So I kinda, um, you know, getting involved with the fire department pretty early made that, uh, you know, create, you know, really, there's kind of a lot of opportunity there.

Um, For basically a, a high school student. Um, and kind of my, my path was I kind of was fairly aggressive in pursuing fire training, um, kind of my, my senior year of high school and that fall, I, I ended up getting my EMT license, um, and then as license in the state of Illinois for that. Um, and then I actually, I graduated high school a semester early, um, which was kind of an interesting adventure in itself, but, um, and then that fall, I kinda, I took a, took a semester at the community college just to get a bunch of transfer credits in.

Um, and at the same time, I, I went through a, through a fire academy, um, and got certified, um, in Illinois as a, as a firefighter. And, um, I kinda, it was kind a cool, kinda a cool summer gig, you know, I, I could, um, You know, work as a firefighter EMT and, um, you know, pickup shifts here and there. And, um, it, you know, the town that has kinda grew, grew up in a smaller town.

So it was a, a combination paid on call fire department. Um, so whenever, you know, it's kind of every, you know, fewer available and the pager went off, um, you know, Hey, there there's some work to do and, uh, kinda, you know, get to the fire station and, and kinda help out where you can. So, um, so it was kind of cool.

Um, you know, it kind of worked, uh, you know, throughout some, you know, breaks when I could, um, when I was home for school. And, uh, it really kind of, kind of gave me some, some great experience to kind of, you know, re respond to fire alarms, responding to fire, responding to, you know, all, all sorts of different event.

Um, but really it kind of was some really valuable experience to, um, especially once I got to OSU and kind of diving into fire code, diving into sprinkler code, um, you know, kind of understanding a bit of these systems and understanding the manual firefighting portion of it. Um, you know, even in, you know, throughout the fire academy, we, you know, we was, we did trench rescue and hazmat and, um, you know, a bunch of kind of specialized rescue classes, which, you know, first, first semester at OSU, you know, you're taking occupational safety and that's pretty much, you know, how do you, how do you work safely in a trench and how do you work safely around chemicals and how do you manage those chemical inventories?

And, um, so a lot of it was kinda, you know, it. A really great introduction, um, to a lot of my coursework kind of right away. Um, but even, you know, down the road to kind of navigating, uh, navigating some of those courses and having kind of some, the perspective of a responder understanding, you know, you know, Hey, how, you know, fire lines kind of can get overlooked at times, but knowing, you know, Hey, you know, we, you know, that fire line's pretty important and, uh, you know, that it was just a huge benefit.

Really. Yeah. It sounds like that's provided some invaluable context to probably, you know, the rest of your career. I mean, your entire career, being able to have that time in the fire service. And just, you know, contextualize all these things that you, um, got to learn later in school. Uh, that's really, that's really awesome that you had that experience.

I'm sure that that made the degree at OSU, which is very hands on and, you know, very technology based, uh, even more, uh, impactful and probably made a lot more of those lectures stick. I'm sure. Um, since it, wasn't your first exposure to the subject. Oh, definitely. You know, you know, and it was a great, you know, it was kind of a great introduction too, just to meet, you know, meet a lot of the friends that I made too.

Cuz you know, there there's, you know, you kind kind of enter, you know, to a new, you know, out of state school and, and you don't really know anyone and, um, kind of to get, you know, the camaraderie yet camaraderie of the fire protection program and kind of meeting people who are firefighters or served as volunteer firemen, you know, volunteer firefighters across the country really it's kinda gives you a common bond right away, which, which is huge to kinda just adjust to that college life.

Definitely. Yeah. And, uh, you know, just more on, uh, your time at OSU. Yeah. Would you, uh, I'd like to hear, you know, since you had that nice experience as a firefighter and kind of grew up in the fire service, you know, what was some of your. Favorite parts about your time at, uh, Oklahoma state university and, you know, what, what were some of your favorite classes and, and what kind of really, uh, hit home for you?

I guess? Yeah, so, um, really I stayed, I, you know, I like to stay pretty busy most of the time. Um, and when I was, when I was at OSU, I kind of, you know, one of the things, you know, right away, I'm like, Hey, I'm a poor college kid. I need to find some part-time work. And, uh, my, you know, my first year I worked for environmental health and safety at, at OSU and we would actually work, uh, football games and, and basketball games, kind of those special events, um, as first responders and, you know, I'm like, and that was awesome in itself, cuz it was like, Hey, you know, cool.

You could kind of be around the football games. You could kind of be around the crowds. You know, you're, you're there to ensure the safety of everyone, but it was kind of a, a cool deal and, and again, kind of getting to meet some people. And then I kind of, you know, really started to get. You know, the clubs were huge, getting involved.

You know, I kind of, I pretty much went to most, all the, the core fire protection clubs that are out there. Um, but kind of getting involved in the fire protection society right away. And, um, the society of fire protection engineers, um, at OSU was a, was a great experience. And, you know, and I had the, the pleasure of serving as the president, um, of our OSU S F P chapter, which was, which was, you know, really just an awesome.

Kind of experience in itself and, you know, class wise, I kind of, you know, there was a lot of them that it was just like, wow, you know, Hey, that's, that's really cool. And you know, I can't wait to get to class and, you know, I can't wait to, you know, it's like not like, oh, I got a three hour lab this week.

It's like, no, cool. I got, I got a three hour lab at the fire lab and we're gonna run a fire pump or, you know, I got a three hour hazmat lab and we're actually gonna go out and, and, uh, get kinda dawned and docked into some hazmat gear and, and go through a couple of incident exercises. And, um, you know, some, some of the classes were, were tough, you know, like, you know, sprinkler design, you know, man, that's a, that was a tough class, you know, trying to kind of get through and, um, kinda understand the S behind it.

And then you're trying to kind of teach yourself and trying to learn, um, you know, the software programs and AutoCAD for it's. You're trying do that all within a semester. Um, You know, realistically, I couldn't, you know, my, my favorite two pro classes that I probably had, um, were really probably fire dynamics.

Um, and also just, um, hazmat incident command. It was just kind of, both of those things were kind of, um, you know, they built upon the, the skills of the earlier classes that you were in, but you could really kind of see the, the fruit of those labor in your, you know, in your earlier classes. And it's kind of, you know, everything kind of started to stick a little bit more for sure.

Yeah. I definitely, for me that fire dynamics was, was probably one of the hardest courses I took at OSU. But when I was taking the, the PE exam, I'd say there's probably not a class that would've helped more. You know, like if I had just gone back through that class notes and everything we learned, cuz it seemed like there were just.

A ton of questions over, you know, fire phenomenon and, uh, that sort of thing. So it's neat to be a part of a program that has classes that are, you know, really, uh, meaningful in a real world context, uh, like F PST. So that's awesome. I'm glad to hear about your time. It sounds like you really enjoyed your time and yeah, I resonate with that idea.

So it's, uh, always good to hear from F P S T grad and somebody who has gone on to do good things. So it's good to hear about that. I like that. So wanted to get into a little bit more into your professional career and talk about, you know, it seems like, uh, from, uh, what little I know about you, that there's a, a through line of, um, in your career of sort of inspections and being an authority, having jurisdictions.

So. Yeah, I just wanted to get into that a little bit more about, you know, what, how has your experience been and, you know, a little bit more on, what does the role of, uh, authority have having jurisdiction look like and, you know, talk about that a little bit, if you wouldn't mind. Oh, sure. Yeah. And you know, and that's kind of, I, you know, I've had a couple different roles since I've graduated and I I've really, you know, kind of have considered myself kind of on that age, J side of it.

Um, really ever since I graduated and, um, you know, my, my first first job outta out of college was kind of, you know, right next to home where I grew up. Um, and it was, it was in a, a nuclear power plant, um, whereas the fire protection program manager. So it was, it was kind of an, a, you know, you were the AHJ, but it was, you know, kind of looked a little bit different, um, you know, working in nuclear power.

It's, uh, it's pretty highly regulated and, um, You know, and it can create quite a bit of headache, but at the same time, it's like, well, Hey, that, you know, that's awesome. You know, there there's a ton of documentation that's out there. There's, there's, you know, all these different entities coming in to inspect you, um, ensuring that what you're doing is safe and not gonna not gonna harm the public.

It kind of started, you know, it was kind of starting in like, you know, a fresh college, college graduate, um, stepping into it and kind of saying, well here, you know, here's some authority and it's like, whoa, you know, that's kind of, kind of terrifying, but you know, OSU prepared me pretty well. Um, technically to handle that.

And I kind, you know, I moved from the, the nuclear plant to a, uh, a national laboratory. Um, and it was, you know, the work wise, it, it was pretty, it was a pretty similar environment. Um, but at the, at the lab, it was kind of a little, you know, it. A little bit different in which we had, you know, we had a, kind of a fire protection team, you know, where you had three other engineers that were working with you and you had a team of fire alarm technicians that, that were, were there to support the lab.

And, you know, you're kind of, to me, it was like, you know, you have, you know, the, the nuclear plant you had, you had one plant and, um, you had a couple different outbuildings and stuff here, but you're, you're using, you know, the codes that the plant was licensed to. Um, so you're using kinda some, some older codes that are out there and there's a, you know, there's not a whole lot that changes inside of those, those plants that you have to kind, you know, worry about too much.

It's little odds and ends here, here and there. But at the, you know, at the laboratory there, you know, we had about a hundred or so buildings built and all, you know, Post Manhattan project to, you know, buildings going up right away and had varying degrees of technology and hazards. And, and so it was a lot of like a building by building assessment, kind of a thing, which, which was interesting and trying to figure out, well, how do we, you know, how do you do this work safely?

But at the same time, that's gonna protect the research and gonna protect the, you know, the client that's, that's working there. And, you know, and it was, that was some, you know, really great experience. And, um, I, I enjoyed the technical challenges that were there, but, um, you know, I kind of had always had kind of a, you know, a desire to get back towards a fire department.

Um, and you know, and most of the time you'll see, you know, those, those fire department, you know, career opportunities don't really come, come around all too often. So I kind of gotta. I was pretty fortunate that it had an opening pop up in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, um, as a fire inspector. And I ended up kind of, kind of moved up there and, and, uh, worked there for a couple years.

And that was kind of that, you know, and that, that was really awesome. It was like, you know, here's a, you know, you're working, working for a fire department, you have a community that you're trying to, you know, do code enforcement on. And, um, and that was completely, completely new to me. You know, I, I knew I knew the code.

I know how to like, navigate the code, but then you kind of learn about how do you physically apply that code and, you know, how do you take the, the code that's adopted in the jurisdiction and how do you apply that to a building is under construction. But at the same time, the building next door is, has been there for 40 or 50 years.

And, you know, it's kind of like, you know, at the, at the same time, it's not just. Coming in with, with the code enforcement hammer to swing around, but to, you know, as you're walking through whatever the business, how do you kinda, how do you find those spots where you can apply your, your education and your knowledge to, to educate, you know, the, the clients that you're walking around with and, you know, Hey, there's, there's a code requirement to do this, but, you know, Hey, this is kind of, this is why that code requirement exists.

And, you know, you know, pretty much all of the, all of that code book that that's out there is, you know, there there's a reason that that code was made. So, um, kind, helping to kind of share that as you're going from place to place. And so, while I was working up in the suburbs up there, I ended up, I get got married.

Um, and my wife was wife was from Helena Montana. So she, uh, she was always kind of wanted to get, get back to Montana. And, um, she attended school here at, at MSU. Um, and you know, we're kind of were sitting there one day and I kind of saw a job posting pop up for, for the MSU fire marshal position and applied and was fortunate to, uh, to move out here and, and to take that, that role.

So it's kind of a, you know, the college campus is completely, completely different than, uh, anywhere else that I worked. It's, it's pretty interesting. Um, but it's really, uh, you know, similar to a city, you know, we're kind. Our own little city in itself, but a lot of, lot of differences here and there. Wow.

That's awesome. It sounds like you've had, uh, uh, interesting career and a couple different, uh, guest people you could think of, uh, AJ as, as one thing, but really all of those, uh, parts of your career apply and are, um, interesting in and of themself. Uh, you had a lot of good points, some stuff I just wanted to circle back on is you're talking about, um, working for the nuclear plant and kind of doing inspections and facility, uh, maintenance slash uh, like looking at codes.

Um, yeah, I was just wondered, uh, what kind of codes are, are these facilities, you know, um, just maintained to, are these like department of energy codes and standards? Are these just your vanilla, like building codes, you know, or. Uh, yeah. What, what does that, uh, yeah, what is, what kind of codes are those, if you remember?

Yeah. So it's kind of, you know, it's really interesting. So when you look at nuclear power as a whole, across the United States, you know, there, there's not that many, uh, you know, it's kind of a fire, protection's a pretty close knit family, but you know, nuclear power is a pretty much a, a close knit family in itself.

Um, you know, I wanna, you know, I used to, you used to be able to know what I remember what the reactor count was in the United States. I wanna say it's probably about a hundred or so now. Um, but you know, it's kind of like one of those things to say, oh, Hey, you know, I work in nuclear power and it's like, oh, well, you work in, you know, you work in Florida.

It's like, oh yeah, well, you know, what plant do you work at? There's only, you know, two or three plants there, but, um, so, uh, you know, nuclear, nuclear power as a whole is regulated by the nuclear regulatory commission. Um, and they've kind of, it's, it's been interesting cuz you know, ever, ever since the inception of commercial nuclear power, it's kinda, you know, you know, fire codes have changed, but at the same time, nuclear safety has changed.

Um, so kind of the plants that the, the initial plants that were built and were licensed were, you know, that those codes that kind of constructed them have kind of changed time and time again. Um, and, you know, as we kind of, we kind of learned more about nuclear safety events, you know sure. Noble or a three mile island, or, um, most recently Fukushima kinda change all of that.

And, um, it's interesting because it's kind of, you know, that was kind of the walking into a nuclear power plant. It, it's kind of like, well, this is the first time that someone's telling you, well, I have a code that's, you know, more important than fire protection. And, you know, ultimately what, you know, nuclear safety that kind of nuclear safety in itself is paramount.

So, um, there's really a bunch of. You know, you could look at, you know, any given risk that could go wrong, um, in a nuclear plant and, and cause a significant event, you know, and fire protection is just one of those. Um, So the plant that I was at was a, you know, it was a relatively newer plant. Um, and so you can, it's, you know, the, the really cool thing about it and the regulatory environment is that it's pretty transparent.

So, um, anyone could go on like the nuclear regulatory website and, and kind of search to say, Hey, what, what is your, the plan's like licensing basis? And that tells you, you know, Hey, it was built to, you know, the sprinklers design was NFPA 13 and it was designed, you know, the 92 edition of the standard. And, you know, the fire alarm system was, you know, 1972, you know, F 72, but it was maybe, you know, the 1976 edition or whatever.

Um, but then it, you know, it gets to a level of detail too, where it says, you know, if you have a kind of a design, a deviation from what that design is, it's called out and. That licensing basis and it's approved, um, by the regulator. So, um, so there, there's really, a lot of, it's kind of cool to me that you have that level of documentation and that level of detail, um, you know, newer plants now are, um, kind shifting to more of a probabilistic approach to, to fire protection and, um, NFPA 8 0 5 is a, a big, a big deal now with, within the industry where there's actually fire modeling and, and it's kinda a more informed, um, basis of fire protection for the plants.

So it's it, the licensing basis overall gets, gets pretty deep. You know, I had some, some pretty thick binders on my desk that were that kind of documented that. And, um, but it was. You know, as kind of being the, the fire protection geek that I am, it's kind of, uh, kind of cool to be able to look and say, Hey, I have an antiquated Halon system, but I can go through.

And I know I have every single manual that I need and every drawing and any change the system is documented. So, um, definitely a lot to appreciate there, man. That sounds awesome. I'm really, uh, impressed about like hearing the level of documentation and detailing. I mean, it's, it sounds intuitive when you're talking about nuclear, uh, facilities that they would need this sort of attention to detail and documentation, but, you know, I always tell people as an engineer, um, my, essentially my whole job is, uh, making sure that, um, construction and fire protection systems and life safety is documented, you know, uh, and just like, you know, specifying these.

Specifying these, um, fire protection systems and just making sure that they are, the owner has proper documentation. And the ability to maintain these systems is, uh, at the core of what a fire protection engineer does for construction. So that's really impressive to hear about, uh, how you had all those manuals for the antiquated halo, Sy halo systems or, uh, whatever it was that was in the facility.

And yeah, I wish more, I wish it was easier to you look up that sort of information for just your everyday building. That would be awesome. I wish that sort of documentation was, uh, Industry standard. Also, another point you touched on was, you know, I really liked, um, when you're talking about your inspection job was, you know, how do the process of applying the code and also, but you know, not be, you know, beating people down with the code or kind of, you know, um, not being just a heavy handed, uh, with code enforcement.

And it seems to me that striking a balance between, you know, uh, encouraging business and. You know, but also being a code enforcer is, is something that's, um, wouldn't be easy. So, yeah, that sounds like a, like an interesting, interesting scenario. Yeah. How did you kind of, um, strike a, strike a balance between, you know, uh, educating people about code and codes and standards and their proper application, but not, you know, kind of cross over the line into just being somebody that is, uh, unreasonable or just wants everything to the exact black and white letter of the code.

Yeah. And, you know, oh, I'm like, and that's, that's tough. And, and it's really, you know, it's really kind of the, the constant struggle. You know, that you're trying to, trying to find maybe, you know, constant balance is probably really more of a, a better way to describe it, but, um, you know, the, the codes, the code and, and it's, it's there for there for a reason.

Um, you know, it's, you know, it should be, and is legally adopted, you know, depending on where your jurisdiction is and you know, how that's actually done might be a little, you know, may vary from place to place. But, um, you know, kind of my biggest couple, you know, my biggest couple things on that is just kind of communication and consistency and, you know, and that's kind of, if I, if I go into, um, you know, any given restaurant, no matter, you know, what that restaurant is, I need to.

Look for those, you know, look and document those same, you know, violations across, you know, across the board if I see them. Um, you know, but the other thing too is just to, you know, kind of communicate and go through and say, you know, Hey, you know, you know, this is what I'm seeing, you know, a lot of times it's, it's kind of a, uh, you know, it's kind of a part-time sales role where you're, uh, trying to explain the benefits and the features of, well, here's what, uh, you know, if you comply with the code, here's kind what it will get you.

Um, other times it's just kind of, you know, Hey, that, that exit signs burnt out, you know, I need, you know, we need a new light bulb or, you know, you need to replace the battery unit. Um, you know, some of them are, are kind of, you know, it's, everyone's kind of unique in where they're at and it, it's kind of a, you know, everyone's kind of on their own, uh, Journey, I guess if you will, to say, you know, here's what you can kind of understand about your building and here's, you know, it's, you know, they're, they're the expert in the operations of their building and, and the operations of whatever business they they're in.

So kind of taking some, taking the time to kind of listen to 'em and, and get to, you know, get to know people too, as you, as you walk around, um, you know, can you, when you, and kind of being, you know, you know, flexible to a degree where it's like, Hey, you know, I, this, uh, you know, you, this, all these boxes are blocking your exit.

Do you have time? You know, do you have someone that can move them? And, uh, just kind of, you know, you're calling it out and you're, you're noting it along the way, but, um, giving them the chance to kind of resolve things right away. Um, Is is huge. And, and a lot of people will kind of, kind of do that right away.

It's kind of, you know, you even at, you know, at home or, you know, at work for me. And, you know, when I, when I walk into work, you're kind of, you kind of do the same patterns every day. So it's like part of, it's kind of a, you know, the, the fire code as a whole is kind of a unique way of thinking. Um, and you're kinda constantly trying to, trying to learn it and trying to understand it, um, to ensure that the safety of everyone that that's in that building, whether they're working or visiting and then kind, you know, if you, if you do kind of find those violations and not, not everyone.

Not, everyone's gonna be super thrilled all the time, but, um, when you give 'em a violation notice, but it's gonna be, it's kind of one of those things where, um, you know, you kind of, you communicate and you, you communicate as, as much as you can to, to assist the situation, you know, you're, you're consistent in your approach.

And, um, you know, if you're in a, you know, community that has a, a strong code enforcement program, they, they have a process and you kinda just, you know, you're, you're sticking to the process every time. It's, you know, Hey, you have 30 days here. You have 30 days there there's no, you don't keeping it consistent for everyone.

Um, and then really trying to. Firm, you know, firm with everyone, but be fair as well, you know? Um, it's kind of, you know, there, there's some things that you can, you can kind of call out when you're walking through a building. Um, and you know, you can kind of get a, you know, where they'll, they'll fix it right then and there, um, you know, and just kinda help to, you know, help, to help them to understand and, uh, kinda know what know what's right and wrong in terms of what, what the code is.

It's, um, it's challenging, but there there's really a bunch of resources that are, that are out there to, to better understand the code and the intent of the code and, um, you know, and kinda networking with, with your peers and whatever the code enforcement agency is, um, is huge too, just to, to understand how, how people kind of learn about things and how they share those messages with others.

Yeah, that's an interesting point about, um, just coordination between other jurisdictions and, and other, uh, communities. As far as, um, enforcement goes. It's interesting to hear, you know, it's very commonplace in the fire service, but I imagine it's commonplace for authorities having jurisdictions too, to share resources, you know, and, um, kind of help each other out in regards to how they are dealing with certain changes in the built environment and just kind of sharing resources with each other and keeping everybody up to date.

You know, there's a real comradery there. And I've seen that. I was just listening to, uh, it was the NF B's podcast and they were talking about, um, the unique challenges that the cannabis industry is bringing to, you know, certain jurisdictions and how Colorado has been, trying to share some of their information with, um, with other jurisdictions about how they've been enforcing and, you know, kind of policing these, uh, extraction processes and the hazards that they present.

So I think that's a really interesting note about, um, coordination between, uh, jurisdictions and just, uh, I think that's valuable. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, and, you know, from a, and that's kind of one of the things, you know, and within, you know, back on the, you know, fire department days that, you know, you have a, you know, you have a big house fire, you're calling for mutual aid, you know, and you're trying to get, you know, you're getting all the help that you can to safely manage and mitigate that incident.

Um, and really that's kind of something that you, you can kinda, you know, is kind of a natural, natural correlation between, you know, the operation side of the fire department and the code enforcement side to say, you know, Hey, you know, whoever the town next door is, you know, Hey, I'm having, you know, having these problems or, you know, Hey, I'm seeing all these, these issues kind of catching up, but what are you seeing?

And, you know, how are, how can we kinda work together to, to help fix that? And, um, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of the time, you know, there's some great professional organizations that are out there, um, You know, like NFPA and ICC and SF P and, and all those, all those other ones that are great to help.

And, um, but it's even just kind of saying, you know, Hey, let's go talk to the fire department next door and, uh, you know, kind of get, kind of make, make the code more locally, you know, to, to try to understand it and, and see what's really going on in the region. But definitely, definitely. That's all good stuff.

Yeah. I wanted to, uh, circle back to, uh, you talking about your, your current role and yeah, I wanted to hear a little bit more about, but, uh, hear a little bit more about how it's different, how the role is different. You were saying it's, it's a lot different than any other, uh, authority having jurisdiction role that you've had before.

So, yeah, I don't know. I thought that was interesting and it makes sense. And really my only. You know, experience with, uh, an AJ or a fire marshal for a university is when I'd be studying at the, at the OSU library. And they'd tell you to like, get your book bag out of the, the egress, uh, pathway so that you wouldn't be blocking it, or you didn't want to be, uh, have your, your, uh, study set up for finals in the, in the way of the path that egress.

So, yeah, I'd like to hear more about that. Yeah. You know, and it's, it's really kinda, you know, the AJ at a university really has a kind of a unique, I mean, it's a unique kind of position and, um, there's really, there's an awesome article about that in the NFPA journal, um, magazine, you know, that's published by NFPA, but.

That article's called school spirit. It was written by Justin Daniels and, um, he is the, the university fire marshal for the university of Oklahoma. Um, and he's also the, the president of the, uh, center for campus fire safety, which is one of those professional networking organizations that I'm involved with.

And, um, you know, he, he wrote article to say, you know, how, how different it, it is between a, a municipal, you know, fire marshal type, your traditional fire marshal role and what it's like to be, you know, within the university. And, um, you know, even kind of, to that extent too, it's, there's, you know, there's a lot of differences between universities too, between, you know, your private, you know, private schools and public schools and you know what, maybe a community college and, um, Montana, state's a land grant university.

So, uh, very similar to Oklahoma state, but, you know, we're, we're state employees and, um, you know, it. The university's been around for, for 130 years. And they're kind of the mission is to, you know, really, to, to go out throughout Montana and educate everybody that you can. And, um, and that kind of comes through to really everything that we do here.

And, um, it's one of the things that I really kind of keep a keen focus on as I'm working just in my, my day to day role. But, um, you know, and it's it kind of, you know, one of the things that I always, um, talk about too with, with folks that work, uh, work around me here is that, um, you know, the HJS not.

Really one person, you know, like if you go through and, and look at any kind of your, your NFPA standards, that your HJ could be a, a variety of people. Um, and you know, I am kind of one of the HJS for, for MSU, but, you know, we're within the city of Bozeman. So the city is also, you know, an, an AJ, but at the same time, the, the state's also an AJ and our insurer is an HJ.

Um, but you know, typically it's, it's kind of, you know, we are kind of our own little town, you know, we're, we're, we kind of have, you know, you know, when you're on campus, you know, we have our own water system and, but we, you know, it's kind of to degree, we, we operate our buildings, um, a lot longer than most, you know, um, uh, what you would typically see in a municipality.

You know, we, we have buildings that are buildings on campus that are over a hundred years old and, um, you know, they're still being, you know, they're still functional and they're still, um, you know, people are working in those spaces every day and, you know, how do you kind of, you know, how, I don't even know if there, there was a fire code in the state a hundred years ago, but how do you ensure that you kind of are managing the safety of the facility, um, year after year?

Um, and then you, you kinda, so you have kind of that, that as a challenge, um, you know, we, we have a lot of special events on campus and, um, we, there's a, there's a team here that that's pretty much their, their prime prime job here is to. Provide that college experience where you're getting, uh, you know, concerts at our, uh, at our football stadium, um, concerts at our field house.

And, you know, and then you're getting, you know, big, big names like Luke Combs and Kenny Cheney and, um, Elton John played here and it's like, how do you, you know, here we have all of these facilities and how do you kinda work the, the special event side of it to make sure that we have a, have a safe facility and have a facility that's gonna ensure a safe event.

And, um, Um, and you know, and kind of the other end of that too, is that you're, you're kind of it's part, part AJ and enforcing the fire code, but also kind of, you know, there's a degree of consulting that I do too, just to, um, help our facility services organization, organization here, kind of understand, um, you know, the facility management side of side of things here where it's, you know, Hey, we have, you know, there's buildings where, Hey, the, this building, the fire alarm system in this building is 60 years old.

You know, we really need to probably make sure we're budgeting for that so that we can make sure that our, our life expectancy of a fire alarm system is, is 20 years. So there's really, there's a lot kind of a lot that goes on. And, um, you know, the other part is that there, you know, you do hit, there is a, a student body here and there's a, you know, there's a research institution here to that, you know, Montana states.

Huge with huge with research. And, um, you know, last year, the, the research, you know, funds coming in to the university were like 130 million. So it was like, you know, an incredible, you know, year after year increases and, and the research that's being generated here. Um, but at the same time, you gotta kind of look at it to say, you know, well, here's a, you know, you have this cutting edge research project, and if they're working with, you know, lithium ion batteries or, or whatever phos, how do you apply the fire code to that and ensure that that protects both the research, the researcher that's working on it, and, you know, the university's property in the university's risk, um, from, you know, just a kind of an institutional standpoint.

So there's really, there's kind of a lot, a lot that goes on, um, And depending on kind of the, you know, a lot of the, you know, a lot of universities operate on kind of a similar framework. Um, but there, you know, some universities operate a little bit differently to, um, with how they, how they provide, how they kind of set up their fire and life safety programs.

That's awesome. That's really interesting. I like hearing about, you know, the intricacies of, you know, being a fire marshal or, you know, being a part of the, uh, entity that is, you know, the fire marshal for, uh, a state run college. That's very interesting, extremely interesting. You touched on, uh, a lot of.

Topics that I think would, we could go, we could probably spend a lot of time on, uh, but yeah, a couple of the ones I thought were were interesting is, you know, that the people use authority having jurisdiction or AJ, but yeah, it's you said, you know, a variety of people can be considered the authority having jurisdiction, you know, the, uh, ensuring agent or the, you know, the, the state or this or the city.

And so I thought that was a, uh, interesting point there. Yeah. A lot of times people just think of like one person or, you know, and like, that's it, but really there's a lot of different stakeholders for, um, a community like a college camp, college campus. And, you know, uh, a lot of people who can be considered as.

The the HJ. So I thought that was a great point. And then, yeah, I mean, about another thing you talked about that I thought was, uh, kind of mind blowing is yeah. Talking about a building that's a hundred years old and you know, I've been doing some research on, you know, the building codes and how long, you know, like your regional building codes have been around and it's like, things start getting real muddy after about 20 or 30 years, you know, it's like ICC has only been around for, you know, not that really, not even a generation.

So it's, uh, it's kind of wild to think about, you know, uh, what kind of, um, local regional code that a building was developed, developed, um, in accordance to, in, uh, yeah, a hundred years ago. So that's a really interesting point. I thought that was awesome. yeah. It's, you know, and it's really, it's kind of interesting, you know, and, and that's kind of where I go back to my, my nuclear days and I miss the documentation side of it cuz uh, you know, you have a building that is, you know, from the fifties and um, you know, even that building from the fifties is not, you know, the way it was designed has been added onto it's been modified, you know, there's been tenant improvements and um, you know, kind of like things to that nature, but, and then it's like, well, how do you, how do you really understand what part of the building, you know, what the code of record is on that?

And um, you know, we have a brand new dorm building opening up this fall and you know, like, Hey, you know, that's something I'm, I'm taking right now and documenting it just to say, you know, Hey, yes, this was built under the 2012. I C it's the, um, 2010 edition of N V 13 and, and 72. And, um, you know, hopefully kind of, kind of just kind of storing that away.

So, um, you know, eventually down the road that information's gonna be needed and, um, you could really kinda kind of understand those things as, as code changes and, uh, you know, cause co code change overall kind of never really slows down. Yeah. And you know, on the, on the note of documentation, just like verifying that you have as-builts that are, you know, worth the paper that they're printed on is such a hard thing to, uh, deal with existing construction.

And so many times there's, uh, uh, not as-builts that are, um, worth much, you know, maybe they were, uh, only good for like the design phase. And then by the time the shop drawings come out, it everything's totally different. So that's a constant struggle too, for, as, as far as documentation goes. Definitely. And, and, uh, you know, just, you know, prime example of that is that, you know, we got, we have, you know, several buildings on camp, you know, with all the buildings that we have.

I mean, we have a, a, a pretty good, good number of buildings that are, were impacted by the central sprinkler, the, the oing recalls, um, that kind of, that happened. And, um, you know, I wanna say there from the documentation that I found, it was, you know, six or 800 heads that were replaced. But, you know, it's kind of like, well, we, we replaced the heads, but then it's like, you still, if you look at the original documentation, you kind of still have a, still have a gap there to, you know, if we can, if we can find the sprinkler drawings for that building, but at the same time, they're they still show a recalled head and, you know, that needs to, that's something that really needs to live with that sprinkler documentation of the building.

Just so that, that part of history is there. Yeah. That's awesome. That's interesting dealing with those kind of challenges. It's, uh, infinitely fascinating to me, but, um, uh, well I wanted to get into some, uh, professional development topics since it sounds like. Really have a passion for fire protection and you are plugged in on some different resources and just like to stay in touch with, uh, the pulse of, uh, fire safety and of a wide variety of topics.

So yeah, I just wanted to get started with, uh, you know, is somebody who is aware, you know, or keeping in touch with, you know, um, Trends in the industry and whatnot, you know, what do you see? As I know we talked about a little bit before the show got started, you know, kind of the, uh, digital impact of COVID, but yeah, I just wanted to pick your brain on what you see as a, a trend in the industry or, you know, kind of, what do you see on the horizon for, uh, fire protection and life safety?

Yeah. So I think, you know, kind of, as we kind of talked about it a little bit earlier, but I'm like, you know, it's really kind of an interesting time, um, to be doing fire protection in a, in a COVID world. And, um, you know, one of the, I think the trends that's gonna really benefit the industry. The, the connectedness of COVID, it's kind of a, a unique connectedness where, you know, you could jump on a, a video chat with someone and, you know, you're, there's probably more people using, you know, instant messaging, you know, Microsoft teams type apps.

Um, and it's kind of a, an acceleration into the digital world, I think. Um, and, you know, that's kind of exciting for me. Um, I kind of kind like that aspect of it. I like to be able to, um, kind of find information and, and find it quick. You know, I keep, you know, all of my files are stored in the cloud. I, I, I kind am completely board that.

Um, but you know, kind of, I think, you know, one of the, the huge trends that, you know, that you're a part of too is just the. You know, and the, the podcast world is, um, kind of seeing what you're doing here with, with the podcast and, um, you know, the fire sprinkler podcast and the expect inspect point podcast.

There's, you know, there's a lot of, lot of awesome podcasts just specifically coming out for, for fire protection. And, um, ICC pulse has a great podcast and NFPA has a podcast out. Um, and it's really, it's kind of a, you know, I, I like podcasts cuz it's, it's a quick, easy com you know, commute kind of a, a deal that you can kind of listen to something.

Um, and you can, you can really learn along the way. Um, and it's kind of, I see, you know, from my perspective, I see a lot of, kind of like an, an entrepreneurial kind of a spirit between, you know, Coming out of a lot of these different, the fire protection podcasts that are out there, the fire protection blogs that are kind of popping up.

Um, and what is, you know, the, the real awesome part to me is that it, it's kind of, it's kind of spreading the word, um, in terms of, you know, here's, you know, here's the fire code, here's, here's true fire protection and, and here's how you can, you know, kind of help to understand that. And you're not, um, you know, I, I still get the, you know, all the NFPA magazines and stuff, but it's, you're not just waiting on the NFPA magazine to come once a month, you know, that you can, you can kind of log in and see, you know, here's an awesome post from, from Myer fire, um, or the building code blog and, and take a lot of that.

And it's like super practical information and, and it helps you understand, um, really some of the pretty complex sections of it. So, um, I think kind of overall. It's kind of increasing that accessibility of, of what fire protection is. And, um, you know, I'm, I'm a huge fan of Oklahoma state. And, um, but to, you know, I also know that the, the OSU grads that are out there, the, you know, the Maryland grads, the WPI grads, um, you know, there's really only so many that are kind of a fire protection grad out there.

And, and, you know, there there's a ton of retirements happening and, um, finding ways that you can, you know, how do you, how do you kind of get some of that legacy knowledge and, and keep on, you know, keep passing it on and keep transferring it. And, um, you know, really to make, make the, the, the nation and even the world, just a, a safer place from fire.

Yeah, I think that's a great point. What you said about accessibility and just, you know, providing, uh, lowering the bar to entry for these complex topics. Um, I, you know, I, I can say from, you know, my relatively, uh, short career that I've seen just an explosion of, um, online availability for, uh, fire safety and fire protection system knowledge and, you know, yeah.

I love the love, the fact that, you know, of course, N F P and S F P have, you know, Beautifully written, you know, gorgeous content, you know, but they only are coming out with this kind of, uh, information, um, you know, whether it's a month or maybe even less, you know, and sometimes it's, you know, not exactly what you wanted to learn about or, you know, it's just not their fault, but, you know, I'm, I'm so happy to see, uh, other people, you know, posting things and, and kind of, uh, cultivating this environment of people wanting to share the, the sticky parts or the, the difficult parts of fire protection and, and just kind of make it easier for people to.

Experts on this stuff, because I think it's, it's so important, but, uh, no, I was just gonna say that. Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, I love listening to podcast too, and I've listened to all those ones you've mentioned. Uh, I think I've at least listened to clips of inspect point and the fire sprinkler podcast.

And, uh, I've listened to, uh, the one I just listened to, I really liked was Viking. Just put out a, they have little like a video series for their, um, deluge valves. And, um, I thought that was really interesting because like a frequently asked question for their delish valves. And, uh, so I thought that was good.

I've, you know, we do a lot of high expansion foam work at the company I work for. So just to understand the different actuation mechanisms and some of the frequently asked questions, I'm like, I love the. there's a video out there where people are talking about this sort of thing, cuz people need to know, you know, these are not easy systems, you know, a daily system with the electric, uh, activation and, you know, flow control, trim, you know, fed by a foam pump is not a simple system.

So, you know, any sort of information on these topics, I'm just like, yes, this is great. I'm all about it. But, uh, yeah. So I totally resonate, obviously with that, uh, with your, uh, kind of statement on about, you know, the trends and the kind of deluge information that's been kind of COVID has definitely helped kick along.

But, uh, yeah. So, um, I think I want to, uh, I think I wanna end it with. Yeah. What if you were getting into fire protection or becoming a authority, having jurisdiction again, uh, what piece of advice would you, would you give yourself or would you give a professional, um, getting into the field? Yeah, no, I mean that, that's definitely, definitely a great question.

And, um, you know, and it's kind of interesting cuz you know, there there's a lot of AJS out there that they've kind of, you know, if you, if you talk to some of the fire department guys, its kinda, everyone has kind of a unique journey on how they, how they got to where they're at and how they, how they became the HJ and um, you know, especially, um, you know, kind of being kind of being a, a younger age J um, kind of, you know, the first thing I would, you know, definitely do is, uh, you know, recommend, find, finding what kind of network, um, You can kind of plug into whether it's, you know, uh, you know, a bigger, you know, national type network.

Um, if it's something that, you know, if your, if your local area has some sort of, um, fire prevention organization or association, um, you know, that that would be a huge, huge help. Um, but even just to say, you know, kind of figuring out, well, how are you gonna, you know, how do you sort your files and how do you kind of build your library and, and understand, you know, um, kind of, you know, retain a lot of what's in the code and, um, you know, just kind of, you could, there's a lot that you could find just from, from scour and Google and, and seeing what's out there, but, um, you know, really it's kind of, you know, kind of plugging.

To the knowledge that's around you, whether it's it's in person, you know, there's Facebook groups, um, a lot of different, uh, you know, kind of age J based Facebook groups, or, you know, even, um, you know, NFPA 25 inspector type groups or, um, ISET type groups on, on Facebook, which are, you know, I'm not, not a fire alarm tech by any means.

I kind of pretty much touch, reset and silent and that's about it. But, um, you know, there's a ton of information that you can kind of glean from, from those, those groups and, and that, you know, and what's out there, but, um, and then really kind, kind of building those relationships, but at the same time, kind of keeping your eyes out and keeping your eyes open to see, um, you know, see what, uh, see who you can kind of help out along the way.

You know, there there's a lot of, lot of folks that are out there that, um, You know, typically I don't, I don't know if you'll you'll really meet any AHJ. That's gonna say they got more, you know, plenty of, of help in their office and can manage their workload. I, you know, I think pretty much every HJ that's out there is kinda kind of overworked and underpaid and, uh, dealing with staffing issues, but, you know, and that, that's kind of, that's kind of part of the part of that challenge, but, um, you know, kind of, kind of plugging in there and, um, seeing what you can do to kind of expand your network and, um, and sharing what you learn along the way.

That's great. I think that being connected and, you know, finded people who can tell you how to build a, you know, uh, a better mouse trap or an R situation, uh, a better documentation system, uh, is something that's invaluable and, you know, So I think that's a great piece of advice. Well, uh, Jake, I just wanna say thank you so much for coming on and, uh, I really appreciate it and, uh, hopefully we can do it again.

Definitely. Yeah, no, thanks for, thanks for having me on and, uh, yeah. Look forward to future episodes and, and learning more. Thanks for listening everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation.

Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.