Date: Tuesday, April 28
Time: 1 p.m. ET | 12 p.m. CT | 10 a.m. PT
Register now using the “Register for this FireRescue1 Webinar” box on this page!
Can’t make the date? Register anyway and we’ll send you a recording after the event. *
Over the next several years, fire and police hazmat teams will be asked to protect more: More venues, more public gathering spaces, more special events and more everyday “soft targets” that were never designed with chemical risk in mind. While fixed assets and high-profile sites remain priorities, the operational reality is shifting toward dynamic environments: Districts, transit hubs, schools, houses of worship, festivals and open-air spaces where crowds move, conditions change and decisions must be made fast.
This session brings together two complementary perspectives. Doug Huffmaster will share practical lessons learned from large-scale protection planning and execution in Las Vegas, showing how effective chemical-incident readiness is built as a system, not a checkpoint, through venue / district segmentation, unified command design, layered deterrence and pre-scripted actions.
John Johnson will translate today’s preparedness requirements into a repeatable funding approach, showing how to build an “approvable” capability package that maps operational gaps to measurable outcomes and aligns with common federal, state and event-driven funding pathways. Attendees will leave with a scalable playbook to plan, train, equip and fund chemical threat readiness for crowded places without slowing public life or overwhelming small-city resources.
By joining this webinar, you will be able to:
- Explain the shift from protecting fixed assets to protecting dynamic environments and why it changes hazmat readiness for crowded places and soft targets.
- Apply a scalable operating model for chemical-incident preparedness (roles, unified command / ICS integration, decision triggers and playbooks) adaptable from small jurisdictions to major metros.
- Design a layered protection approach around people-flow and venue / district segmentation, integrating deterrence, detection / screening, rapid response pathways and operational communications.
- Translate capability gaps into fundable requirements using a repeatable structure (gap → operational impact / risk → outcomes → metrics → procurement readiness).
- Build a practical funding roadmap and checklist that aligns hazmat preparedness needs to common grant / program “lanes,” timing logic and internal approval workflows.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
- Hazmat teams
- Emergency management directors
- Fire service leadership
- Special event safety and security planners
- Public safety planners
* Please note the Q and A portion of the webinar will only be available for live event attendees.
MEET THE SPEAKERS:
LVMPD Police Sergeant Douglas G. Huffmaster (retired) has over 30 years of operational experience in coordinating, performing and commanding multi-agency operations to sample, survey, mitigate and investigate chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) incidents. Doug is a combat veteran who served 11 years in the U.S. Army as a nuclear, biological and chemical non-commissioned officer, serving in the units of the 82nd Airborne Division and the 1st Ranger Battalion. Along with being a HAZMAT technician and a confined space rescue technician he was also a tactical explosive breacher and an FBI certified bomb technician. Doug served in the ARMOR task force as a detective and retired as the sergeant of the team in 2017.
John Johnson is vice president, product marketing and enablement at 908 Devices, where he leads product marketing, market development and commercial enablement for the company’s handheld mass spectrometry and FTIR product lines. Over a 30-year career in public safety he has launched 17 products in 61 countries and worked with more than 400 public safety organizations. His work has helped accelerate adoption of advanced field technologies for explosives, chemical and narcotics identification.