Celebrate with us all year long as we commemorate 140 years of Fire Engineering magazine. Look out for exclusive archival content and features leading up to our November 17, 2017 anniversary. Above, Ray McCormack discusses the magazine’s anniversary.
John Norman, Deputy Assistant Chief (Ret.), FDNY: I’d like to say that reaching such an amazing milestone, as publishing a world-class magazine is something to truly be proud of. As a youngster hanging around my father’s firehouse, I would always pick up the latest edition of Fire Engineering and devour the information in it, since it to me was one of the most important ways to get closer to the thing I loved most–the fire service. I was way too young to go near a burning building, but I could read (or at least look at the pictures) and try to absorb the words of people like Jim Casey, Tom Brennan, Ray Downey, and so many others. 140 years is way beyond the scope of even such legendary firefighters, writers, and editors to create in their lifetime. That is what makes this achievement so remarkable. The continuous flow of world-leading fire service education is astounding. The magazine has been in great hands all along, and that tradition continues with Bobby Halton, Diane Rothschild, and the rest of the amazing staff. Congratulations. Keep it going for at least another 140 years!
Ron Kanterman, Chief, Wilton (CT) Fire Department: I went to my first FDIC in 1990. FDIC International 2017 will be the 27th time I walk through the doors. The first few conferences I went to we were in Cincinnati, Ohio. I remember it well. Dining at Mike Fink’s Keel boat under a fake Brooklyn Bridge and hanging out at Caddie’s for the night, Cincinnati’s “Ike and Jonsey’s.” By the way, when you flew in the Greater Cincinnati Airport, you landed in Kentucky. Don’t ask me. It was my first real experience going to a national conference. I had just gotten the job as the Asst. Chief for the Merck Fire Department and was granted permission to go to an external training conference. So there I was, walking the halls, going to classes, meeting people from around the U.S. and starting to realize that this thing called FDIC wasn’t just a conference but a place to learn, share and make life-long friends. I forgot to mention that you could meet fire service icons, up close and personal. I remember meeting Francis (Frank) Brannigan, the “Godfather of Building Construction” for the first time. How could this be? He’s the guy in the magazine I read every month. How can we possibly be standing together in the hallway having a chat like he was my long lost uncle. I think Frank was everyone’s long lost uncle! But he was talking and I was hanging on every word. (Frank was from The Bronx so as kid from Brooklyn, I was able to follow his speed and wit.) Every time I spoke with Frank as the years went on, he took me to school. So for a few years, I ran to “Cincy,” to recharge my batteries, and return to work, sharing what I learned and looking forward to next year. You go once, you just gotta go back.
I met Bill Manning the former Editor of Fire Engineering in the early 1990s at an FRI conference along with Diane Rothschild (Feldman at the time) and Glenn Corbett who I actually met previously in the 1980s during my time at the FDNY Fire Prevention Bureau. Glenn introduced me to Bill and Diane, who asked me to write for “Industrial Fire Safety” magazine, a spinoff of FE (It lasted only a year but we had fun doing it.) I told them OK but that I had published my first article in 1987 with Tom Brennan and would like to resume writing for FE as well. It’s been a great ride ever since, thanks to people like Diane, Mary Jane (and others), and their editing talents. My phone rang in the mid 1990s. Bill Manning asked me to lunch and dropped the old atom bomb on me telling me that Pennwell had bought FDIC from the ISFSI and that he needed help and was about to amass a group of people to run the conference. I pinched myself all the way down the Garden State Parkway and back to the firehouse thinking “could this be? Working on the FDIC staff?” He also said that he understood I taught fire science at a few colleges (Middlesex County and John Jay Colleges) and would I teach something at FDIC? So, by the time I get back to Rahway (about a 40-minute ride) my arms were black and blue from all the pinching going on. I taught my first class in 1997 (hard to believe it’s been 20 years) and never looked back. I worked 7 years on staff helping to produce the main program, opening ceremonies etc. including the 9/11 tribute we did in April of 2002. Somehow, I also managed to land a cameo appearance in a few vignettes during those main programs and even led a band on the stage the year Bill thought we’d try a Letterman/Leno late-night type of program. We played the speakers on and off the stage. It was different. Some liked it, some didn’t but we promised we’d try different things in order to keep the interest and send the message a little different each year. I remember we played the theme from “Rocky” when Don Manno came out to speak. He thought we were going to play the theme from the TV show “Taxi” because, for those of you who never met Donnie, he was the spitting image of Louie DePalma (Danny Devito). We bantered for a moment or two on the mic in front of the audience and I told him I picked Rocky because he was a champion in our business. And he was. Donnie passed away suddenly, not too long after that FDIC.
So, working the shows and being back stage allowed full access to the stars for seven years: Manno, Downey, Brennan, Brannigan, Stapleton, Eversole, Dunn, Coleman and so it went. Then I got to see the next generation come to the mic: Goldfeder, Lasky, Fredericks, and so forth. Having a conversation, exchanging ideas and constantly going to school. You’re in school in the classrooms, the hallways, the main rooms, the back rooms, and yes the bathroom, the restaurants and the taverns for even in the taverns at night, you can walk by any table and hear a strategy and tactics discussion going on. That’s FDIC.
No matter who you speak to or what the subject is, you go to school at FDIC. If you’re not, then you’re not getting the full effect of the conference. I’ve made friends and acquaintances over my 27 years attending and some I only get see annually in Indianapolis. I am fortunate to see others more often (Not sure if they feel fortunate when they see me but that’s the way it goes!) I realized about five years ago that going to Indy each year is my “family reunion.” It’s our family reunion. FDIC is the center of the universe for one week a year. I’ve met the best and brightest in our business in those long convention center halls halls and hope to be doing so for a long time to come. Happy 90th birthday FDIC. Long may you wave.
Hope see you at our next family reunion in Indy in April of 2017.
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