This week I am in class every day taking a National Fire Academy course. The course is a “Train the Trainer” class for handling complex emergency scenes. The two instructors from the National Fire Academy are top notch professionals and have been around since the original Incident Command System now in use was developed, impressive. Both gentlemen have some incredible experiences to share and make their experiences relevant to the topic. While being in class 8 hours a day for a week is not normally on the top of my list, this has been a great class so far, and I expect it to continue.
My classmates for the week are mostly other Fire Chiefs and Emergency Management types from around the metro and the state. Also from Eden Prairie are Assistant Chiefs, Scott Taylor and Steve Koering and Lieutenant Jay O’Connell. Jay is a volunteer with Eden Prairie but is a full-time Fire Inspector with Lakeville Fire. The person getting the most attention in the class is Eden Prairie’s very own Police Chief, Rob Reynolds. Why all the attention, because normally police and fire don’t attend the same conferences on handling large scale events, but Rob is all over this kind of training as being highly valuable. Despite the required good natured ribbing from his fire counter-parts his presence is truly appreciated and shows his vision as a public safety leader.
Hard-working classmates in action.
