President's Message
Fellow SFPE Members:
It is a great honor to serve as your SFPE president for 2008. This promises to be an exceptional year for both the profession and the Society.
We are grateful for the hard work and leadership provided by Ray Grill in 2007. Like other recent SFPE presidents he has helped move the Society forward in a number of different areas while an excellent professional staff and maintaining a solid financial base for operations. Having served on the Board of SFPE with Ray for a number of years, I’ve come to appreciate both his enthusiasm and his common sense, including his clear understanding of the role of the fire protection engineer in the design process. He recognizes that a role for the fire protection engineer is best assured by adding value for both the owner and the general public.
If you attended the very successful Annual Meeting in in October of 2007 I’m sure you were impressed not only by the level of participation and enthusiasm, but also by the report of accomplishments in 2007. The credit goes both to our talented staff and to the many of you who volunteer at the committee level and in chapter leadership positions. The growth in SFPE chapters has been very gratifying, particularly outside our North American base. In 2008 we hope to continue recognition of chapter accomplishments.
In the year ahead, we also hope to continue our efforts toward recognition of the fire protection engineering profession. Strong academic programs are vital to such recognition. Academic programs in turn depend on the next generation of fire protection engineers. We should all reach out to young people and tell them about the many positive aspects of our careers, to interest them in joining that next generation. We also need to ensure that our younger colleagues understand the advantages of belonging to a professional society. Encourage your associates to become members of SFPE.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not thank our Corporate 100 sponsors for their many generous contributions in support of SFPE. We appreciate the interest of these sponsors in our profession and will continue to seek out new ways to cooperate in areas of common goals.
If you have particular concerns about the Society or our profession in general, please feel free to contact me at fleming@nfsa.org. I appreciate hearing from members and will do my best to visit with as many chapters as I can in the year ahead.
Russ Fleming
A member of SFPE since 1977, Fleming has served the Society in a wide number of areas, including the Qualifications Board, Ethics Committee, Technical Steering Committee, and Editorial Advisory Board. In 1995 he was made an SFPE Fellow. SFPE Fellows represent a distinguished group of members who have attained significant stature and accomplishment in engineering. He also served as President of the SFPE New York Metropolitan Chapter in 1982-83 and was recognized by that chapter as its Engineer of the Year for 1992-93.
Fleming holds bachelors and masters degrees in civil engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He served six years on the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) Standards Council as a member and an additional six years as chairman. He was awarded the NFPA Standards Medal in 1998 and the Paul Lamb Award in 2006. He has contributed to each edition of the SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering and recently served as an adjunct professor in the graduate fire protection engineering program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute