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Chief John M. Buckman III served 35 years as fire chief for the German Township (Indiana) Volunteer Fire Department, and 15 years as director of the fire and public safety academy for the Indiana State Fire Marshal Office. He is the Director of Government and Regional Outreach for IamResponding.com. Buckman is a past president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and a co-founder of the IAFC Volunteer and Combination Officers Section. In 1996, Fire Chief Magazine named Buckman Volunteer Fire Chief of the Year. Buckman is an accomplished photographer, a co-author of the Lesson Learned from Fire-Rescue Leaders, and the editor of the Chief Officers Desk Reference. He is also the owner of Wildfire Productions. Buckman is a member of the Fire Chief/FireRescue1 Editorial Advisory Board. Connect with Chief Buckman on LinkedIn or via email.

Louis N. Molino, Sr. is a 27-year veteran emergency services provider. He has served in suburban, rural and urban environments in varied capacities from field provider to chief officer. He has been published in a number of national trade magazines and has been a contributor, reviewer and editor for a number of texts. In 2006 his textbook Emergency Incident Management Systems: Fundamentals and Applications was published by John Wiley and Son’s. He is currently a fire protection, homeland security and EMS consultant and an emergency services instructor based in Bryan, Texas where he resides with his four adult children and a very special lady who puts up with him. He can be reached at Louis.N.Molino@FireRescue1.com and welcomes your input.

Michael Fraley has over 25 years of experience in EMS in a wide range of roles, including flight paramedic, EMS coordinator, service director and educator. Fraley began his career in EMS while earning a bachelor’s degree at Texas A&M University. He also earned a BA in business administration from Lakeland College. When not working as a paramedic or the coordinator of a regional trauma advisory council, Michael serves as a public safety diver and SCUBA instructor in northern Wisconsin.

Adam Parkhurst works as a firefighter/field training paramedic for the Euless (Texas) Fire Department. He has a master’s degree in sociology, works as a medical specialist for a FEMA USAR team, and as an adjunct EMS instructor for Tarrant County College. His research interests are disaster and organizational sociology, human performance and adult education.

John Rukavina is the director of Public Fire Safety Services, an executive consulting and teaching service. Rukavina started his fire service career in Minnesota. In 1984, he was appointed fire chief of St. Joseph, Missouri (and served as Interim City Manager in St. Joseph for seven months), became chief in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1986, and then director of public safety in Wake County, North Carolina. Rukavina holds a law degree from the University of Minnesota School of Law, was selected as a charter member of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer program, was named a FEMA Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and is designated as a Chief Fire Officer by the Center for Public Safety Excellence. He has served as a resident and field instructor for the National Fire Academy; taught for the universities of Minnesota, Georgia, North Carolina and Maryland; and has served as an instructor for the International Association of Fire Chiefs Chief Officer Leadership Symposium. Rukavina is also an elected a fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers.

Chris Goessl is a lieutenant for the Union Township Fire Department in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a GIS technician for the City of Kettering. Goessl has 29 years of fire and EMS service knowledge and 15 years of GIS experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in fire and safety engineering technologies from the University of Cincinnati.

John Metzger is the public information officer for the Norwood Fire Protection District in southwestern Colorado’s remote but well-protected San Miguel and Montrose counties.

Blaize Levitan was a volunteer firefighter and cadet advisor in Ellington, Conn., for 10 years, and served as an emergency manager for the University of Connecticut. He has a master’s degree in public administration and currently works in government management. He writes the firefighting blog www.fdhacks.com.

Brian Brown is the assistant chief and public information officer for the Council Grove Fire Department in Kansas. He previously served for 31 years with South Metro Fire Rescue in Colorado, retiring in 2019 as a bureau chief of Fleet Services. During his time with the department, Brown developed an enterprise fund that provides cost efficiency with quality service for the fleet, maintaining the same level of service to other fire agencies that were included during several mergers. Brown served as chair of South Metro’s 5 module Apparatus Committee and instructed an apparatus module for the annual engineer’s academy. He is a subject-matter expert with the FDSOA Board of Directors and reviews and performs workshops during the FDSOA Apparatus Conference. He also played a key part in the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) fire department accreditation process for multiple agencies in Colorado. Brown now serves as a consultant for the firm he created, Fire Service Solutions, which is focused on fire department apparatus inspections, replacement, fleet operations, specifications, apparatus training/testing, and more. Connect with Brown by email.

Jim Schwartz retired in 2021 after five years as the deputy county manager for public safety and technology in Arlington, Virginia. Prior to that, he served in the Arlington County Fire Department for 32 years, the last 11 as chief of department. The ACFD was the lead agency for the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack at the Pentagon. Chief Schwartz led the unified command effort for the Pentagon incident.

Schwartz is a senior fellow with the Program on Crisis Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and teaches in the Executive Education programs, including Leadership in Crises, the General and Flag Officer Homeland Security Executive Seminar, and Leadership in Homeland Security.

Schwartz provides frequent lectures on crisis leadership for organizations, such as U.S. State Department, FBI, several universities and numerous international audiences. He also lectured as part of the Joint Counterterrorism Awareness Workshop Series (JCTAWS) on complex coordinated attack preparedness provided by FEMA from 2014 to 2018.

Schwartz is a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs Committee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, which he chaired from 2008 to 2014. He previously served on the Advisory Council for the Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group (ITACG) and subsequently the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team (JCAT) at the National Counter-Terrorism Center. He also served on the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee and was a member of the Advisory Committee for the Department of Homeland Security’s first Quadrennial Review in 2010.

Schwartz is a founder of the Northern Virginia Emergency Response System an inter-disciplinary, multi-jurisdictional organization that works to support and enhance regional preparedness.