NOTE: The schedule is subject to change and any changes will be updated on the website and in the conference app.
2022 Excellence Conference Keynote Speaker
Lori Moore-Merrell, DrPH, MPH
U.S. Fire Administrator
Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell was appointed by President Joseph Biden as the U.S. Fire Administrator on October 25, 2021. Prior to her appointment, Lori served nearly 3 years as the President and CEO of the International Public Safety Data Institute (IPSDI), which she founded after retiring from a 26-year tenure as a senior executive in the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF). She began her fire service career in 1987 as a fire department paramedic in the City of Memphis Fire Department, Memphis Tennessee.
Today, as a Doctor of Public Health and data scientist, Lori is an award-winning international speaker, presenter, and author. She is considered an expert in executive leadership, community risk assessment, emergency response system evaluation, public safety resource deployment, and generational differences in the workplace.
Technology Solutions Track
The Deccan Advantage: Next-level Analytics for Your CRA-SOC –
In this session we highlight the advantages of working with Deccan on your accreditation journey and beyond. We’ll show you not only how Deccan helps you confidently navigate accreditation requirements but also how to establish best-practice planning strategies and ensure you’re making the best data-driven decisions for your community.
GIS Solutions to Support Your Fire Accreditation Process –
Agencies can leverage mobile applications, visual products, and geospatial analysis of risk to optimize their accreditation process. Attendees will learn how to leverage GIS to collect field data, identify at risk populations, and discover trends in risk within a community. These actions allow for the efficient focus of resources to provide the appropriate service to those in need.
Real-time Stress Management and Resilience –
The pandemic is taking a toll on all of us. Our teammates need real-time stress management skills and resilience now more than ever. You can easily help your teammates build these skills using cutting-edge educational technology. In this session, we will show you how.
Finding the “Easy Button” for Fire Department Reporting & Analytics –
If reporting & analytics feels overwhelming and intensely time consuming, this session is for you! You’ll learn how almost any size department can tackle tough questions like ERF, Stacked Calls, Reliability & Committed Units, NFIRS and Municipality Reporting with affordable firefighter friendly near real time tools.
Using Decision Support in Dispatch to Improve Mobilization Times and Coverage –
Can your CAD provide real-time recommendations for station selection and apparatus staffing that ensure the maximum availability of units and the shortest possible mobilization time? This session will discuss how automated staffing recommendations and station selection can help ensure the optimal mix of skills on both dispatched and available apparatus, as well as use your on-call staff more efficiently.
Leveraging Technology to Increase Engagement with Your Community and Promote First Responder Wellness
As culture is a critical issue facing fire organizations, this session will explore ways in which technology can assist in the execution of a two-sided culture strategy. Aligning feedback from the community and other stakeholders with the morale and wellness of fire service professionals is a huge first step in creating a new culture. We’ll explore how automated, public safety-initiated text messaging can keep community members informed, gather, and measure feedback, and improve the morale of the department, while providing valuable insights and data.
A Data with Destiny: Predictive Modeling Paves the Way for Zero-Cost Response Time Improvements
The Charlotte Fire Department (CFD) began using predictive emergency incident modeling software in 2018. The department’s Strategic Planning Division has used this software to run several analyses to predict impacts of relocating and/or adding units and made several recommendations to improve response times and unit utilization. CFD followed those recommendations and relocated two units in October 2020. This presentation discusses the process involved in making those recommendations, how our predictions measured up against the real-world impacts since October 2020, and how CFD has improved service delivery without needing additional units, staff, or stations.
A First Good Impression Can Work Wonders!
An agency’s preparation and presentation of its self-study documents is the key to preparing for a successful site visit. This session will focus on the steps taken to best prepare for and participate in the accreditation site visit process as seen through the eyes of two accreditation managers from multi-cycle accredited agencies that also serve as peer assessors. Lessons learned from previous site visits will be explored and presented to assist your agency in providing a great first impression and overcoming any obstacles that might arise during the process.
A Wellness Program for the Fire Service
South Metro Fire Rescue (SMFR) has leveraged a near miss event in 2012 into an industry leading Wellness Program. SMFR Wellness began as a one employee shop in 2014 to 12 full-time employees and a network of professional relationships. SMFR Wellness is a sports medicine-based program with influences from the Military. We believe in looking over the fence to see what other industries are doing in the field and integrate those concepts into our programs. This presentation is a look into our journey and application of our best practices.
Bad Guys, Benchmarks, & Briefings
As the world recovers from Covid 19, hazmat incidents are increasing, and hackers continue to hold organizations hostage. Communities face new “bad guys” every day. This presentation is delivered in fire station “Roll Call” style. Presenters will discuss trends and near misses in the fire service and hold a discussion about world events and predictions.
Becoming a 21st Century Change Agent
Proposing new initiatives, implementing new programs, or just changing the status quo can lead to conflict, fear, and hesitation among the members of any organization. Understanding the history, the workforce, and the current culture before proposing or implementing significant change will develop trust, establish “why”, and articulate the need to change. Additionally, taking the time to prepare for change through communication, transparency, education, and data driven assessments will reduce back sliding, improve support, and create opportunity for actionable change. This presentation will highlight and discuss various preparation strategies that I have used throughout my career to make change successful.
Between Two Forms: A Conversation About CRR in the Accreditation Process
Conducting a community risk assessment (CRA) is an important part of CPSE’s accreditation process and a valuable process for progressive fire departments. A common challenge with any emerging topic is knowing where to start and which resources to rely on. This session will discuss how departments can use NFPA 1300 as a guide to help meet accreditation requirements. It will explain how NFPA’s requirements overlap with CPSE’s and how to combine and leverage any differences between the two documents to drive efficiency within the department and make the surrounding community a safer and healthier place to live, work, learn, and play.
Bringing Digital Transformation to Fire Service Accreditation
The key to a successful digital transformation lies in taking a broader strategic view that requires mobilizing the necessary digital technologies and securing organization-wide stakeholder buy-in. Agencies are faced with significant obstacles while on their accreditation journey. How are we performing risk assessments focused on specific hazards? How do we communicate those risks to decision makers? How do we understand the community we are serving, where are gaps in service delivery, and focus efforts to those in greatest need? Agencies can integrate analysis that use GIS to understand what the risk is, analyze performance, and identify needed resources. These workflows allow for an efficient accreditation program, appropriate deployment of resources, and improved decision making. Agencies that leverage GIS to support accreditation activities will have a more effective formative evaluation for performance and risk.
Building Resilient Organizations in the Face of Emerging Threats
The fire service is rapidly approaching a tipping point in its efforts to sustain emergency response capabilities in dealing with emerging threats. This interactive presentation offers relevant case studies of fire service organizations who are struggling to maintain appropriate staffing and response capabilities while offering key elements that could shape future success or failure. The outcome will be the identification of processes and solutions for consideration, which will be associated and aligned with the CFAI accreditation process-in implementing strategies for building and sustaining resilient fire service organizations.
Building your Case for Accreditation Panel
Panel discussion on justifying internally and externally why to obtain and retain accredited status. Various perspectives to be discussed from the views of an agency undergoing the process for the first time to a department that has faced changes in leadership teams.
Courage Under Fire Leadership – 5 Keys for Success!
This session is intended for fire service professionals of all ranks (especially current and future fire officers) who are open to suggestions for improvement and best practices. Attendees will be exposed to 5 keys to success for anyone in today’s fire service that is willing and able to be the best they can be for those they are fortunate to lead and serve. Areas discussed include but are not limited to firehouse activities, emergency responses, team building, training, and administrative duties. Regardless of your current or future rank, there will be numerous key takeaways that can be applied both on and off the job!
Creating a Career Development Action Plan for Success!
This session will offer numerous resources to assist personnel of all ranks and from all types of fire departments with creating a personal and career development road map and action plan for today’s fire service. Too many members wait for or expect their department to give them all the necessary tools and resources for success, when in fact they should be taking charge of their own destiny. Unfortunately, most fire departments are not able to successfully prepare every member with the necessary tools or provide the necessary resources for the individual of any rank to be 100% successful in their personal and career development aspirations. Attendees will be provided with a copy of a document that has successfully been used to assist others with creating a personal and career development plan. Whether you are responsible for assisting personnel with their personal and career development, or you want to focus on your own development, this session will offer numerous key points for success!
Credentialing Why Does It Matter
Why does credentialing matter? Credentialing should be the baseline for any organization who is striving for excellence. As administrators want more efficiency it is more important than ever to have a workforce that trained and educated to meet those needs of the organization as well as the community. Raising the bar for excellence creates strong organizations.
Data, Charts, Graphs, and Numbers are Good…But What Do They Mean?
We are surrounded by data and information but lack understanding. This quick hitting presentation will look behind your charts, graphs, and tools to provide understanding of what the information is saying. This will include the impact to firefighter wellness, health and safety, operations, as well as the most important: how it can drive service improvements to our citizens.
Demystifying the Insurance Industry: Q&A for Fire service Leaders
Fire marks, plug uglies, and salvage companies you’ve likely heard the folklore about how the insurance industry and the fire service share a similar origin story. In the centuries since the fire service and the insurance industry have largely grown apart. For those coming up in the fire service there are often a number of questions about how the insurance industry works, how the various roles and organizations fit in, and how the fire service can close the loop with the insurance industry in our shared goal of making communities safer and reducing loss. This engaging session will mix a bit of history, a bit of didactic lecture, and a whole lot of Q&A, so come prepared with your burning questions.
East Meets West – Reinventing Resiliency Health
This session, presented by IAFF labor leadership & IAFC fire chief leadership, will be impactful in highlighting best practices from accredited agencies and credentialed leaders on both sides of the Country that are addressing the resiliency of their firefighters and survival of them through proactive systems approaches.
Fight or Flight? Resolving Conflict in the Workplace
Conflict is an inevitable part of human existence, whether it comes in the form of a simple disagreement or escalates into a world war. In either scenario, one side has something that he or she wants to own, obtain, adopt, or otherwise receive from the other, but the other side is unwilling or unable to fulfill the desire. When two people in the workplace stop communicating effectively, the result may be a disagreement that can significantly disrupt the workplace and possibly escalate to violence. The supervisor dealing with two quarreling employees is often in the most difficult position, particularly when emotions run high. This presentation will provide insight into the conflict process and provide guidance on effective measures to resolve workplace conflict.
Forward Looking, Data-Driven Analytics for Long Term Fleet Solution
The American Fire Service has allowed their fleet to operate outside of their economic life dues to lack of strategic vision in repair and replacement. Taking a long tern data-driven approach to have replacement cycles drive budget proposals so that elected officials and the community can make informed decisions with an understanding of the impact of shortfalls.
From CRA to CRR B-Plan: A Roadmap to Strategy
Strong foundational work is necessary to reshape the culture of an agency. Culture is key to an organization’s ability to pivot and drive execution of its goals and objectives particularly critical in times of significant change. The recent CPSE/ICMA 21st Century Fire and Emergency White Paper directly indicates and supports the evolutionary actions required of agencies to “remain viable”.
Changing a culture can take anywhere from several months to several years to take hold. It is not something that can be delegated. It needs to be a top priority embraced by senior leadership. The desired culture needs to be modeled from the top.
How can you determine the shift in culture and the adoption of an integrated risk management, CRR, perspective throughout the agency? How can you demonstrate that you are embracing a culture of proactive risk mitigation?
This session will walk through a case-study of moving from the development of our CRA to an adopted and signed a formal CRR Business Plan. This documented 5-yr strategic plan is verification that we have made the culture shift as our process will be able to survive beyond the signatures contained within the document. The formality of a documented approach will drive a data-driven, best practices method to incorporate a station-based approach to CRR.
How Do You Measure Resilience?
A motto of continuous quality improvement is, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” What, exactly, does resilience mean? How can it be measured, in the fire/EMS world? We examine analytic methods used to assess and improve resilience by two very different fire/EMS agencies –Palo Alto Fire Department and San Antonio Fire Department. These methods range from sophisticated historical data analysis, through simulation and modeling to advanced machine learning techniques, and have been used to address issues ranging from internal CQI through contract negotiation and staffing, to sophisticated deployment and traffic optimization.
How to Get Your Entire Team Through the Credentialing Process
This session will discuss ways to encourage your Fire Officer, Fire Marshal, Chief Training Officer, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Officers through the credentialing process in order to have all appropriate members designated with the right credential. A step-by-step guideline will be provided to ease the anxiety of the application process and help to prevent any challenges the process may cause.
How to Take a Punch -Developing an Effective Emergency Operations Plan for When Things Go Wrong
The great philosopher Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Does your organization have an emergency operations plan that can take a punch? This course will discuss the key components of an effective emergency operations plan (EOP). Utilizing tools such as FEMA’s CPG 101, the attendee will learn the key components of an effective EOP, understand the differences between strategic, operational, and tactical plans, and be able to address all five phases of emergency management. This knowledge will allow the attendee to build organizational resiliency by developing and maintaining an EOP that meets the 5D.1 core competency found in the 10thedition of the CFAI Accreditation Model.
Human-Centered Design Thinking
Too often we jump to solving a problem without fully understanding it. Even if we identify the problem correctly, it can be difficult to develop novel solutions and implement them successfully. This session will introduce you to concepts to address these pain points.
Human-centered design thinking is an iterative process of identifying stakeholders, deeply understanding their needs, defining their problems, generating solutions, choosing the best solution, and ultimately gaining buy-in for the solution.
Improving Response Times with Data
In the ear of every fire service leader across the world is a voice that says, “you cannot improve travel times without adding stations, trucks, and staff”. While this is true to a certain extent, there are many common-sense action items to ensure you organization is firing on all cylinders before you ask for more resources. To be successful in today’s political environment, fire service leaders must be able to articulate the efficiencies of the current deployment of resources to argue the need for future public safety infrastructure and staffing
Institutionalizing the Process: Involving Rank and File in Accreditation
This presentation will describe how increasing personnel engagement could not only help institutionalize accreditation but also facilitate organizational development. Case studies will be provided on how to introduce fundamentals, eliminate misconceptions, and set realistic expectations about accreditation to rank-and-file personnel. Examples will be given on how to involve personnel in every step of the accreditation process. Discussion will include testimonials on how this approach has been beneficial and what challenges were faced.
Intentional Leadership and Succession Planning for the Organization
Resilient organizations intentionally plan for the future and use all opportunities and situations to build their infrastructure. This presentation focuses on the importance of being intentional when it comes to succession planning. It also provides examples on how every situation, challenge, and experience can be used positively to build your agency.
Intoxicated Leadership: Thinking Strategically vs. Reacting Emotionally
The Center for Creative Leadership estimates that 75% of careers are derailed for reasons related to emotional competencies, including the inability to handle interpersonal problems, unsatisfactory team leadership during times of difficulty or conflict, or the inability to adapt to change or elicit trust. The Intoxicated Leadership program takes the distinctive approach of helping participants understand the role human emotions play in the raiding or undermining our leadership efforts–including a review of emotional intelligence, common communication mistakes, conflict management, and executive functioning.
Know Who You Are Leading: The Generational Gap
This session will explain generational differences and their impact on the modern workforce; describe the factors that influence and help determine where one generation stops and another begins; explain the values of each generation and experiences common to each group’s members; and identify and incorporate communication strategies to work better with members of difference generations.
As the fire service evolves to engage new and dynamic threats, leaders are challenged with guiding their organizations through turbulent waters. Leadership in the new normal requires critical thinking that is both strategic and innovative. Panelists can provide insight into how their organizations have evolved and continue to respond to the changing landscape in our communities.
Making a Resilient Firefighter
Resiliency is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. In the fire service, “difficulties” is our middle name. From emergency response and other work-related stressors to our physical and mental health. How do you make your organization resilient? This presentation provides processes and resources that the North Charleston Fire Department has developed to maintain and build resiliency in our personnel.
Making the Case for Accreditation Panel
Panel discussion on justifying internally and externally why to obtain and retain accredited status. Various perspectives to be discussed from the views of an agency undergoing the process for the first time to a department that has faced changes in leadership teams.
Mentoring Through Role Modeling: How to transcend the ‘lead by example’ cliché
As fire service leaders, we all want to set a positive example for our members to follow. We want to demonstrate through our actions the behavior we want them to exhibit. Oftentimes, this is not enough if the follower is not inspired to follow the leader. We can display competence and positive behavior forever, but an uninspired follower still will not follow. They will simply do what you tell them as their superior, but you will wield no real influence over them. Leadership by role modeling begins with inspiring the member to want to follow. Members will be inspired by their leader knowing, going and showing the way, as well as investing in their development and success.
Moneyball for the Fire Service
The movie Moneyball wasn’t just a study of the fallacies of baseball scout’s intuition; it was a study into behavioral economics. Many of the same concepts of behavioral economics can be used for the fire service as well. We all exhibit the same irrational behaviors, but we continually apply a rational methodology when developing new policies and fixing problems (or missing the undervalued players who get on base). Applying the study of behavioral economics, fire service leaders will understand how and why vision statements work, how principles like conformity and relativity can reduce turnout times, and how to use choice architecture for increased participation in community risk reduction measures. These concepts are a proven and relativity new way to improve your leadership abilities, create efficiencies in your department and affect change in your organization.
This session will highlight industry and differential data relative to community threats and how fire and medical agencies can build more integrated systems to create safer communities. Where does this data exist? Is there alignment with NFIRS and other community RMS information? What does that mean for more global community risk reduction initiatives? The presenters will provide several examples and opportunities for agencies to consider, while also opening the discussion to other community experiences and outcomes.
Next Level Professional Development – Developing Innovative Professional Development Plans Through Professional Credentialing Data
Creating, structuring, and implementing effective and relevant professional development plans can be a challenge. Specifically, plans that can be looked at as the gold standard in content, quality, and diversity. Collecting aggregate data from credentialed officers across the county I was able to identify numerous training and educational opportunities that many may have never heard of and recognize trends that assist in creating a professional development road map that everyone can benefit from. This presentation will highlight my findings and discuss professional development plans that encompass education, training, and certification.
NFPA 1700 – The Bridge Between Fire Dynamics Research and the Application to Structural Firefighting
NFPA 1700 was released in 2020 to provide fire departments with proven strategies and tactics supported by fire dynamics research to control structural fire incidents. Using this science-based guideline, these best practices were developed for implementation by fire departments for safe and effective operations. This informative session will introduce the standard describing the background and content of the document and focus on how organizations can use this proven information.
Operationalizing Program Performance Appraisals
This program will look at how using annual appraisals can be used to track the progress of the strategic plan as it relates to managing the plan with the organization. The program will also identify how to implement achievable goals for continuous improvement.
Path to Excellence Through Process Improvement
Process improvement is what each organization must perform to accomplish excellence. This process is a development of new methods and procedures to improve the efficiency of the People, Processes, Assets, and Time consumption within the organization. Successful identification and implementation of such program ensures cost reduction, increases efficiency, reliability/availability, eliminates redundancy and risks, and enhances safety and environmental measures.
The task of the modern fire service leader is to navigate the new normal in a changing landscape. Fire service leaders need to be able to sell their membership, their elected leaders and their community on paradigm shifts if they are to remain relevant in the modern age. This session will discuss opportunities, challenges and proven strategies that will allow departments to pivot their service models to meet ever changing demands.
Discover the latest data sources for Community Risk Assessment. Discussion will include data available from: USFA, FEMA, Census and others and will include examples of how the data is being used by communities to learn more about the hazards they face and how they might best apply limited resources to best mitigate risk.
Respect and Inclusion in the Calgary Fire Department
This session will illustrate Calgary’s commitment to becoming a more respectful, inclusive, diverse, and equitable fire department and the journey the department has taken to get there. The presentation will describe strategies the department took to begin the journey and how organizational culture created change resistance creating additional obstacles to navigate. Chief Dongworth will explain that these challenges altered the path but created necessary learning and growth along the way. Chief Dongworth will share qualitative and quantitative measures of success illustrating the growth the Calgary Fire Department has seen through the journey. Lastly, the presentation will showcase the continued path forward to ensure aligned leadership, a focus on organizational culture and systems and a commitment to public service.
Dr. Sara Jahnke shares information on the new health and wellness alliance created to foster collaboration and communication between subject matter experts and frontline personnel to translate and disseminate evidence informed health and wellness interventions for tactical occupations.
Social media has reshaped the way that the world communicates and shares information. For fire and emergency service agencies, social media can be used as a public relations tool and to spread important messages to the public. On the other hand, improper use of social media has resulted in severe consequences, including lawsuits, disciplinary actions, and terminations of employment. This presentation will discuss both sides of the social media coin and provide each participant with ten (10) pearls and pitfalls related to this communication mechanism.
Stretching Thin and Snapping Back -Resilient Professionals Make Resilient Organizations
Over the past decade, there has been a rise in awareness and understanding in the relationship of response-related psychological trauma and first responder mental health. Now is the time for the conversation to shift beyond recognition and reactive strategies to proactive mindsets that focus on creating and maintaining stress-resistant and capable response forces made of healthy and adaptable individuals. This session will highlight how the U.S. military’s “four pillar” structure can be successfully integrated into Fire/Rescue and EMS and examine how facing adversity can become an asset for high-performing organizations. The bottom line is that this career field does not have to destroy the health and wellbeing of the professionals who serve in it.
Individuals that seem indispensable to an organization eventually move on. Any organization, however, is bigger than any one individual. New leadership may bring different strategies and approaches, but the goal remains constant for accredited departments – providing continuously improving service to the community.
The Annual Program Appraisal…Los Alamos’s Journey of Continuous Improvement
In this session, the participants will follow along the journey of this five-time accredited agency and how we have utilized and evolved the annual performance appraisal in decision making over the years. Our model of continuous improvement has evolved from simple program updates to management action points with budget ramifications and strategic action planning. Participants will be given examples and illustrations of actual appraised case studies and scenarios of trial and error. Open discussion will review strengths and challenges that Los Alamos County has encountered through our effort of continuous improvement.
The Art of Critical Decision Making
This session will prepare fire service leaders to make decisions. The closest distance between two points is a straight line. Achievement is not arriving at the solution; it is the journey and overcoming the obstacles to achieve a successful outcome. In the fire service, getting from point “A” to point “B” is a challenge on some emergency incident scenes, especial critical incidents. Firefighters are faced with challenges around the fire station and challenges in the administrative arena, like development of a succession plan or team. Point to point leadership provides fundamental principles that identify the challenges that fire service leader’s encounters; offer a step-by-step process to get through difficult situations and incidents. Leaders possess the ability to get to the point to point in the most expeditious route, but not necessarily in a straight line. Obstacles, variables, and predictable influences are ever present. This session will teach you to understand, predict, and manage the obstacles on the emergency incident scene.
The Economic Benefits of Fire Prevention and Emergency Operations
How much is preventing fires and other emergencies worth? There have been studies in the past decade attempting to determine the economic value of fire departments. Many of these studies have focused primarily upon fire department operations. The presenters have conducted a series of economic impact studies in six fire departments across Quebec, Canada since 2015. Their latest study attempts to quantify the economic and social benefit of investing in fire prevention and inspection activities in fire departments. This presentation will review and highlight the previous studies conducted by the presenters (and others) on economic impacts of fire department operations.
The Millennial Fire Marshal and the Future of CRR
Is your Community Risk Reduction program READY to make a positive influence – STEADY to stay the course – and known to provide EXTRAORDINARY service to the community each step of the way?
Hosted by two current millennial fire marshals from California, this presentation highlights real-world examples of how fire marshals from agencies implementing or updating a Community Risk Reduction (CRR) program can apply strategies found in CPES’s 21st Century Fire and Emergency Services white paper.
Morale is a word that is often used to gauge the health of an organization. As such, it is closely tied to leadership because it measures the positive (or negative) influence on a group. It is a fluid concept with ebbs and flows; leaders have to monitor progress over time. This session is about the topic of morale and how leaders can best have a positive, long-term influence on the organization.
USFA National Fire Programs: Did You Know?
The National Fire Programs Division leads the USFA work in Data Collection & Analysis, Research, Prevention, and Information Sharing. Join us to learn more about activities, projects, and resources to assist your departments efforts to reduce loss of life and property from fire, and community risk reduction. We will discuss fire research, studies on firefighter and paramedic health and safety, data from the National Fire Incident Reporting System, the National Emergency Training Center Library, among a plethora of other services.
In the fire service today, we are seeing a critical need for resiliency. Mental health, PTSD, and the increase of high velocity incidents are derailing our workforce. For years, we have innovated peer support programs to try to address these issues. But what if we could keep the “train on the right track” by operating a simple “switchgear” in our mental railyard? EMDR is such a switch. We will explore how this simple, innovative technique accomplishes what was thought impossible!
- Open only to members of currently accredited agencies. Registered conference attendees will be given an opportunity to sign-up to attend the Exchange one-month prior to conference.
- The goal of CPSE Exchange is to gather a diverse set of organizations and be a big tent for attendees regardless of rank. Ideal attendees are higher performing, organizational leaders, solutions-minded, and forward-focused. The dialogue during CPSE Exchange will be open and honest.
- CPSE Exchange will be an attendee-driven program.
- Prior to the event, attendees will pose questions on a given topic.
- Those questions will be collated into a comprehensive agenda.
- A moderator will establish ground rules for the session to ensure productive discussion.
- A moderator will ask the attendee that posed the question to restate it and the other attendees will provide input.
- A recorder will document the discussion and collect any sample documents referenced during the discussion.
- A report will be produced after the session and shared with the attendees. The report will include the discussion notes, the sample document, and a roster.
- CPSE Exchange will be limited to 40 attendees and will be split up into a morning and afternoon session. Attendees may attend either or both sessions.
- The morning session will be:
- Securing Our Success for the Next 30 Years – We work within an industry of competing priorities and constant change. Join us to share your thoughts on how the eight critical issues outlined in the 21st Century Fire & Emergency Services whitepaper can focus our progress and help us better prioritize our initiatives.
- The afternoon session will be:
- Afternoon R&R – Since our last in-person conference, we all experienced changes for which few of us were prepared. Join us to share your successes and challenges in achieving “resiliency and reinvention” in the fire service. What are our next steps, and how can we solidify our future?
- The morning session will be: