The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) U.S. Fire Administration’s (USFA) National Fire Academy (NFA) announced that North Charleston Fire Department Deputy Chief Joseph Munn successfully completed the Executive Fire Officer Program (EFOP).
“The intensive EFOP is designed to provide senior fire officers with a broad perspective on various facets of fire administration,” according to U.S. Fire Administrator Ernest Mitchell, Jr. “This program provides fire service officers with the expertise they need to succeed in today’s challenging environment.”
Each of the four courses required a written Applied Research Project (ARP) to demonstrate application of course theory and concepts to real life situations within the student’s own organization. Each of these projects was evaluated through a formal process, and progression through the program was contingent on achieving each of these milestones.
Mitchell also stated, “It is important that these senior fire executives apply what they have learned in the classroom to existing situations in their own communities. This makes completion of the EFOP and the Applied Research Projects particularly valuable to these fire service leaders.”
Six months after completion of each of the courses, the EFOP participants were required to complete an ARP in their own organization. The required executive-level courses are:
Executive Development, the entry-level course, emphasizes team development and consensus decision-making to enhance organizational effectiveness.
The next course in the sequence, Executive Analysis of Community Risk Reduction, is a mixture of philosophy and application–the value of the community risk reduction and the process of applying risk reduction to the community. It involves developing partnerships with the community to implement programs, initiatives, and services that prevent and/or mitigate the risk of human made or natural disasters. Traditional fire prevention programs are addressed.
For the third year, participants complete Executive Analysis of Fire Service Operations in Emergency Management course. This course is a very critical curriculum in today’s incident response environment. The administration of incident response in light of the Federal Response Plan, the Integrated Emergency Management System, emergency operations center functions, planning, documentation, are some of the topics covered.
The final course, Executive Leadership, examines all aspects of executive-level leadership and ties together the educational experiences of the three previous years.
NFA offers a wide array of programs and courses for fire service and allied professions. Courses are delivered on campus as well as throughout the Nation in coordination with State and local fire training officials and local colleges and universities.