Shamim Rashid-Sumar, PE, FSFPE, Named 2026 President of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers

Shamim Rashid-Sumar, PE, FSFPE, Named 2026 President of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers; Shaun Kelly, Peng, CEng, MIEI, PMSFPE, Elected President-Elect  

Jimmy Jönsson, FSFPE, elected Secretary-Treasurer; Virginia Charter, PhD, PE, FSFPE, John Frank, PE, CFPS, FSFPE, Craig Vesely, PE, CET, PMSFPE, and Karl Wallasch CEng, PMSFPE elected as Directors on the SFPE Board of Directors.

January 20, 2026: GAITHERSBURG, Maryland – The Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), the world’s leading professional society for fire protection and fire safety engineering, has named Shamim Rashid-Sumar, PE, FSFPE, its 2026 President, and Shaun Kelly, Peng, CEng, MIEI, PMSFPE, its President-Elect. 

Shamim Rashid-Sumar, PE, FSFPE is Senior Vice President, Fire Codes and Standards at the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA). In her current role, Shamim works with National Model Building Codes and International Standards Organizations to advocate for resilience and sustainability in the built environment. She also provides technical support regarding codes, standards, regulations and legislation at the national, state, and local level. She is a member of the ICC Performance Code Committee, ICC Multi-Hazard Resiliency for Residential Construction Committee, ASTM E05 Fire Standards Technical Committee, Associate Member of ACI 216 Committee on Fire Resistance and Fire Protection of Structures and ACI 560 Design and Construction with Insulating Concrete Forms, and a Principal Member of NFPA Technical Committees on Fire Tests, Building Construction, Fire Protection Features, Residential Occupancies, and Structures, Construction and Materials, among others.

Shaun Kelly is a senior fire protection engineer with more than two decades of international experience, beginning in Ireland in 2003 after earning a BSc in Fire Technology from Atlantic Technological University. After leading a fire engineering consultancy in Ireland as a director and senior consultant, he relocated to Canada in 2010 and joined ARENCON INC., where he progressed to Managing Principal and Partner. His expertise spans compliance reviews, code consulting, fire protection systems, hazardous processes, and performance-based design, with project experience across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. He is actively engaged in the profession through leadership and service with SFPE and the Institute of Fire Engineers, and holds multiple professional engineering credentials in Ireland, Canada, Europe, and internationally.

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