Richard B. Gasaway entered the fire service in 1979 and has served as firefighter, paramedic, lieutenant, captain, assistant chief and fire chief in 6 fire and EMS agencies in West Virginia, Ohio and Minnesota. After completing his 30-year fire service career, Chief Gasaway founded the Center for the Advancement of Situation Awareness and Decision Making, an organization dedicated to improving how individuals, teams and organizations make decisions in stressful environments.
Chief Gasaway holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in finance, economics, business administration and leadership. He is a resident faculty member at the National Fire Academy and is an instructor in the Executive Development Program for the Maryland Fire & Rescue Institute. He is a graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program and is a Credentialed Chief Fire Officer through the Center for Public Safety Excellence.
As a professional speaker and author, Dr. Gasaway has contributed to more than 130 books, book chapters and journal articles on topics related to leadership, safety and decision making. His best selling book, Fireground Command Decision Making, serves as an essential training guide for developing and experienced incident decision makers. His high-energy, humor filled presentations are a favorite with emergency service providers and have earned him over 500 program and keynote address invitations throughout the United States, Canada, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Australia and Borneo.
Dr. Gasaway has been the recipient of several prestigious honors including the American Heart Association’s Phoenix Award, the C. B. Shingleton Academic Scholarship, the William J. Litzinger Outstanding Instructor Award, and the British Fire Journal – W.L. Gore Research Excellence Award.
Chief Gasaway hosts the Leader’s Toolbox on Firehouse.com – a monthly podcast radio program that addresses leadership challenges in emergency services. The program has enjoyed more than 125,000 downloads making it one of the most popular fire service leadership podcast shows on the Internet.
Ronny J. Coleman is the retired State Fire Marshal for the State of California.
He possesses a Masters of Arts Degree in Vocational Education from Cal State Long Beach, a Bachelors of Science Degree in Political Science from Cal State Fullerton and an Associate of Arts Degree in Fire Science from Rancho Santiago College.
He has served in many elected positions in professional organizations, including President, International Association of Fire Chiefs, Vice President, International Committee for Prevention and Control of Fire (CTIF), and President, California League of Cities, Fire Chiefs Department. He served on the Public Safety Committee for the League of California Cities for almost 20 years. He served as Chairman of the Commission on Fire Accreditation International from 1984 – 2005.
He has held professional memberships in many other organizations, such as the International Association of Fire Chiefs, International Fire Code Institute, Conference of Building Officials, International Code Council, National Fire Protection Association, and the Institution of Fire Engineers, USA Branch. He was elected as a Fellow of the IFE by the British Chapter.
In the past he has served as a panel member on the re-constituted “America Burning” panel and was a member of the US Fire Administrations “Stakeholder Committee. He serves on the Fireman’s Fund National Committee and was recently elected as the first president of a new fire organization called The National Fire Heritage Center. This organization is dedicated to preserving the written history of the Fire Profession in the United States. He is also the Chair of the International Accreditation Services, Technical Advisory Committee on the Accreditation of Fire Prevention Bureaus for the International Code Council.
He is a columnist for Fire Chief Magazine and Sprinkler Age Magazine. He has authored over 19 textbooks for the fire community. His latest endeavor is to co-author a text entitled “Fire Marshal” for Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Charles A. “Chad” Weinstein is president of Ethical Leaders in Action, LLC. Ethical Leaders in Action (ELA) provides leadership development, ethics education, and strategic consulting services to public safety agencies, health care organizations, and selected businesses. Weinstein’s approach to ethics is positive, focused not on avoiding wrongoing, but on helping leaders at all levels of an agency to work together in pursuit of mission and excellence.
Weinstein’s formal education is in ethics, but his experience – and orientation – purely practical. He recognized early on that while most of professional ethics is concerned with constraining bad behavior, its failures in that respect continue to make headlines. He believes that our ethical traditions are much broader, teaching and urging us to work and live in ways that are both meaningful and productive. Ethical leadership is the critical factor. Weinstein’s work is primarily oriented toward helping leaders foster that broader sense of ethics and effectiveness in their work, in pursuit of ELA’s mission: Empower ethical leaders to achieve extraordinary results.
Weinstein has been an educator, consultant and manager for over 20 years. Prior to forming Ethical Leaders in Action, Weinstein founded and led the Hill Center for Ethical Business Leadership, a division of the James J. Hill Reference Library. In that capacity, Weinstein developed and implemented contemporary approaches to leadership development, using classical concepts drawn from multiple ethical traditions. Earlier in his career, Weinstein led engagements and client relationships in the areas of market and technology research and information management, most recently as Vice President of Client Services at Guideline, Inc. His prior experience was in information technology management and consulting.
Weinstein has led teams and business units, serving clients in many industries, including:
• Public Safety (fire service, law enforcement, and EMS)
• Health care delivery
• Financial and professional services
• Medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer products
• Automotive and heavy equipment manufacturing
• Mining, energy, and mineral extraction
Weinstein holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in ethics (philosophy) from the University of Minnesota, and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin.
Eric Powell has spent 26 years in the Public safety profession and is currently the Fire Science and Paramedic program Director at the East Tennessee Regional Public Safety center of Walters State Community College in Morristown, Tennessee. The institutional mission has him covering eighteen counties in the eastern part of the state. He is a firefighter/paramedic as well as a deputy sheriff.
The majority of Powell’s work involves curriculum development and instruction in Homeland Security and Disaster Management for all applications of the center. His efforts apart from curriculum development focus on working with the Tennessee Commission on Firefighting, the Tennessee Department of Health’s Division of EMS, the Tennessee peace Officers standards and Training Commission and the Tennessee EMS for Children’s Committee for Pediatric Emergency Care.
Powell is currently attending the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Support Facility in Monterey, California. He received a Doctor of Philosophy in Education – Curriculum, Educational Research, Evaluation and Educational Psychology from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 2008. He received a Master of Science in Health Professions Education from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2000. He holds two graduate certificates in Disaster Management from the University of South Florida in 2011 and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007. Powell received Bachelor of Science degrees from Western Carolina University in Emergency Medical Care in 1991 and Colorado State University in Fire and Emergency Services Administration in 2011.
Brian Schaeffer is the Assistant Chief for the Spokane Fire Department. Prior to coming to Spokane, he also held the rank of Deputy Chief of the City of Yakima Fire Department, Fire Chief at Wright City Fire District, MO and held numerous field ranks at the Central Jackson County Fire Protection District over his 22 year career.
Chief Schaeffer has earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Fire Science and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from University in Missouri-KC and holds multiple certifications and qualifications in diverse fields including All-Risk Incident Management, Paramedicine and Criminal Intelligence. He remains an adjunct instructor for the University of Missouri’s Fire and Rescue Training Institute as well as Yakima Valley Community College. He serves on numerous local and state public safety and health-related committees and has lectured on issues such as Firefighter Safety and Survival, Leadership, Incident Management in Urban Settings and Geographic Information Systems.
Mark Emery recently retired as an Operations Battalion Chief with Woodinville Fire & Rescue District to pursue his passion for writing, teaching, program development, and innovating. Mark is a regular contributor to Firehouse magazine, including articles on tactical accountability, leadership, building construction, and incident management. BC Emery developed the popular ITAC Command Competency Clinic, the Ten Command-ments of Intelligent and Safe Fireground Operations, and the 13 Fireground Indiscretions.
Mark is recognized internationally as co‐developer of the Integrated Tactical Accountability System (ITAC). Mark also designs ITAC incident management hardware for IMS Alliance (
www.imsalliance.com/ITAC). A multi‐generation career fire fighter, Mark graduated from California State University at Long Beach, is a National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer Program graduate, and serves as the Region 10 Director for the National Fire Academy Alumni Association.
Patrick Harper is a 14-year veteran of the fire service, who joined the Indianapolis Fire Department in 2003 after having previously served on both volunteer and career departments. Patrick also serves as a District Training Coordinator for the State of Indiana.
