SCFA Top News
Society of Fire Service Instructors Annual Instructor Improvement Conference a Success
The South Carolina Society of Fire Service Instructors held its annual Instructor Improvement Conference at the South Carolina Fire Academy in Columbia Feb. 2-4, 2007. The conference is a weekend training seminar for fire instructors. Instructors presenting programs at this year’s conference were Carolyn Smith-Clark, Adjunct Instructor, National Fire Academy; Scott Taylor, Mount Pleasant Fire Department; and Dean Brouillette, Radiation Emergency Management Consultants.
The mission of the Instructors Society is to encourage safety, promote quality and professionalism, and help develop, deliver and maintain effective fire service training to fire and emergency services organizations in South Carolina.
The annual awards banquet was held Saturday afternoon at the Fire Academy cafeteria. Newberry Fire Chief Joe Palmer, President of the South Carolina Firefighter’s Association, gave the keynote address. His message focused on “What is an instructor.”
The Frank Ballentine Award for Excellence was presented at the banquet by Chief Karl Ristow, St Johns Fire Department, to Chris Waters, a long time S.C. Fire Academy and National Fire Academy instructor, who recently retired as the Charleston County EMD director. Chris retired from FDNY before moving to South Carolina and has been a national leader in hazardous materials training in South Carolina and around the country.
S.C. Fire Academy Superintendent Ed Roper presented the Paul W. Risher Academy Certified Instructor of the Year Award to Larry Gore, Captain and training officer of the Florence Fire Department. Gore has been in the fire service for 35 years and is responsible for training . He also is the department’s Safety Officer. As Fire Academy certified instructor, he teaches courses to members of his fire department.
The Instructor’s Society elected new officers for 2007-2008. They are , Past President, Mike Branch, SCE&G VC Summer Nuclear Plant; President Arthur Sattler, Ashley River Fire Department; 1st Vice President Skip Hannon, Fairfield County; 2nd Vice President Chief John L. Melton of the Cheraw Fire Department,;3rd Vice President, Larry Gore, Florence Fire Department; and Secretary-Treasurer Darrell Hood, volunteer York County Fire Service, Correll Insurance Group.
The annual conference is a joint effort between the Instructor’s Society and the S.C.Fire Academy. The Fire Academy full-time staff is supported by more than 700 part-time instructors from around the state, who teach programs at the Fire Academy and deliver programs to the fire service in their own departments and for industries around the state.Many of these instructors are members of the association. Most instructors work or volunteer for a fire department or industrial fire or emergency team and teach part time for the Fire Academy on their days off.
The South Carolina Fire Academy is the premier fire-training academy in America today. The Fire Academy provides emergency services training to municipal fire service, both paid and volunteers, airport fire departments and industrial fire brigades and emergency teams from around the state and the southeast. The Fire Academy’s main office is located in Columbia and has five regional offices, Florence, Charleston, Greenville, Rock Hill and Newberry that support fire service training. The Fire Academy and the State Fire Marshal’s Office make up the Division of Fire and Life Safety, which is a division of the S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.