President’s Spring Message – California Fire Technology Directors

First I want to say I am honored to serve as the President of the CFTDA. I want to recognize and thank our outgoing President, Randy Collins. He embodies the ideal Fire Technology Educator. He has put in countless hours over the last 6 years as the Secretary, Vice President and finally as our President of the CFTDA. I cannot thank Randy enough for the contribution he has given to our association and I can only hope to continue build on what Randy has created.

Next I want to recognize our new Board of Directors:

Vice President – Peter Cacossa from Fresno City College
Secretary – Bob Buell from Chabot College
Treasurer – Scott Jaeggi from Rio Hondo College

They have already committed a substantial amount of time, work and effort into our 2018/2019 goals. Some of the goals include:

• Updating our website and making it mobile friendly.

• Making a list of universities that are working with California Community College Fire Technology Programs for our members to access.

• Providing sample 4-year articulation agreements to share with the membership and post on our website.

• Placing the FF1 Tool Box Kit and the C-ID project of the Course Outline of Records (CORs) for the SFT courses required for the new Company Officer curriculum on our website.

• Continuing to build on the Firefighter I & II CID project and placing it on our website.

• Collecting examples of best practice Strong Workforce Initiative applications / templates which will be housed on our website.

• Creating an online store for member attire linked to our website:

https://www.companycasuals.com/calfiretech/start.jsp

• Creating an electronic payment system for membership dues on our website.

• Obtaining website sponsors to help pay for items related to the CFTDA, i.e. website maintenance, travel to Nat’l Development Symposium, conduct lobbying, pay for social events, etc.

• Creating a list of member assignments/organizational chart including which members are assigned to what and making it available on our website (i.e. standing committees, work groups, projects, Nat. Dev. Symposium, STEAC, Grants, Steering Committees and Fee Committee, etc.)

Needless to say, the Board of Directors and our members are extremely busy working on these goals and I want to thank them for all the work they are doing.

For those who missed our January 19 meeting at Santa Ana College, quite a bit was covered. The meeting started with a SFT update by Kris Rose (Instructor Registration, Course Requests, Certifications – [email protected]) and Chris Fowler (Field Operations, ARTP/ALA – [email protected]). State Fire Training’s report was detailed as usual and addressed the plethora of changes occurring in their universe. Prior to our next meeting, I would encourage you to go to their website (http://osfm.fire.ca.gov/training/training).

We had a presentation by Hope Gottlieb and her staff from Jones & Bartlett covering the changes with their texts and resources. Dave Mattox from the University of Alaska gave a presentation on their internship program and articulation process for their 4-year and graduate programs that are perfect pathways for our ARTP academy graduates. Kurtis Bennett from San Diego F.D. and Jeff Hugh’s from Orange Co. F.A. gave presentations on Cancer & Mental Health Awareness. Much of the discussion circled around how we can include this in our academy curriculum. Bob Buell gave an update from the Firefighter I & II cadre who had their last meeting in January (click here to view the power point). The cadre will be meeting again in March and our representatives from the cadre will be giving an update at our May CFTDA meeting.

We have many exciting and important updates in store for our May 9th & 10th meeting at State Fire Training. This will be our first meeting at their new building.

Meeting location: 2251 Harvard Street #400 Sacramento, CA 95815

Hotel: Hilton Sacramento Arden West (916) 922-4700, Government Rate: $95 Per Night Not Including taxes and Fees (these gov. rate slots are filling up quickly so please make reservations soon)

I am confident you will find it well worth your while to attend our May meeting (click here to view agenda). In addition to our usual standing agenda items, we tentatively have a presentation from John Konrad on IFSTA’s new Essentials book. We hope to have Vice Chancellor of CTE Sheneui Weber to share her vision for CCCCO CTE programs with us, Brian Rice the President of CPF for a Q & A session and Joe Gonzalez from Fireblast who will present his new fire training props. Lunch will be provided and there is a tentative plan for a hosted dinner by one of our vendors, as well.

Do not forget to mark your calendars for our other 2019 meetings which include Monterey (Sept. 19) and Fresno (Nov 21).

I hope to see you all at our May 2019 meetings as it is shaping up to be a very productive and worth-while event.

Respectfully,
Matthew Jewett
President, CFTDA
Fire Technology
Sierra College