Episode 255: Building Resilience with 'One Voice' in Fire Service with James Mullins & Dan Cotter

Published 2025-01-02

Episode notes

Here’s how research leads to solutions for real-world challenges:

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

In this episode:

Why collaboration is essential for advancing emergency services

How universities can bridge the gap between research and practical solutions for local emergency managers

How the 'one voice' concept promotes unity and problem-solving in the fire service community

Hear from James Mullins - the Director of Defence and Security at Deakin University - and Dan Cotter - the Principal Director of the Office of Science and Engineering for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

James and Dan explore the power of collaboration and innovation in emergency services. They discuss how research and technology can address the evolving challenges that first responders and their communities face, emphasizing the need for solutions that align with the unique needs of local emergency managers.

The conversation dives into the role of universities in bridging the gap between research and practical application, making new ideas more accessible to those on the front lines. They also highlight the concept of speaking with "one voice" within the fire service community, advocating for a unified approach to problem-solving and knowledge sharing. The episode underscores the Institute of Fire Engineers ' role in bringing together experts and fostering this collaborative spirit.

So take a listen to hear what they have to share!

Episode Resources:

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Chapters

0:00 Intro from the IFE booth at AFAC 2024
1:06 James Mullins and Dan Cotter join
2:01 Who are James and Dan
3:54 Examples of helping first responders on the ground
5:51 Organizational change is hard
7:00 Action items and knowledge sharing
8:41 Technology areas and challenges
11:45 Research that reaches the community
14:09 The university lens
16:25 Transitioning technology and success stories
17:56 Boots on the ground
18:40 How to collaborate with DHS and Deakin
21:01 Fire Service One Voice
22:37 Parting words: innovation is key
23:49 What the IFE means to them
24:31 Wrap

Questions answered in this episode

What is the DHS First Responder Resource Group?

Dan Cotter describes it as a couple hundred state, local, federal, and private sector first responders across all disciplines and emergency managers. The group provides feedback to help understand gaps where research dollars should be invested.

Hear it at 7:35

What percentage of firefighter fatalities are cardiac related?

James Mullins says he thinks it's 60% of firefighter fatalities in the US and even in Australia are cardiac related, and he thinks we can do something about that using technology in the first instance and education in the second instance.

Hear it at 10:07

How does DHS work with private sector companies on new technology?

Dan Cotter explains that DHS has a Silicon Valley Innovation Program that can make awards up to $500,000 for six months and do four rounds, totaling up to $2 million. They also accept white papers through Long Range Broad Agency Announcements, and offer grants, prize competitions, and traditional contracts.

Hear it at 19:04

What does James Mullins mean by one voice in the fire service?

He says it means looking outside your organization rather than inside, recognizing that everyone has the same problems and someone else is working on them too. A problem shared is a problem halved, and collectively with friends across the ocean we can make a difference.

Hear it at 21:51

What is Dan Cotter's advice on getting new technology accepted by first responders?

He says you need to show that you understand the dangerous environment first responders work in, that you have listened to them, and that products have been tested to keep them safe. You cannot just show up once; you have to come back repeatedly and demonstrate commitment.

Hear it at 17:00

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 255 transcript

Building Resilience with 'One Voice' in Fire Service with James Mullins & Dan Cotter

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Dan Cotter, James Mullins

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to a mini Smart Firefighting podcast series, recorded live at the Institute of Fire Engineers booth during the 2024 AFAC Show Down Under in Sydney, Australia. Throughout these conversations, we dive into critical issues like fire safety, emerging technologies, diversity in the fire service, and innovative solutions for emergency response. his fascinating insights from leaders around the world on how we can build a safer and more resilient future. James Mullins, the head of research at the University of Melbourne, and Dan Cotter, the principal director of the Office of Science and Engineering, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, discuss how collaboration and innovation can help emergency services tackle evolving challenges. They cover the role of research and technology in supporting first responders and how universities bridge the gap between research and real-world application. They also explore the concept of speaking with one voice in the fire service, highlighting the importance of unified problem solving and the Institute of Fire Engineers role in fostering collaboration. We are officially live and I am grateful to be sitting alongside two guys that I've looked up to and just had the fortune of collaborating with in different capacities over the past couple years, James Mullins and Dan Cotter. Welcome to Sydney and welcome to Australia. What brings you guys to AFAC?

[1:21] Dan Cotter: a lot. Okay, down to see what's going on down here, see what we can learn about the technologies that are being developed that can help our firefighters or emergency management services and to share some ideas that we have as well.

[1:34] James Mullins: Yeah, and thanks for having us, Kevin. Look, I guess I'm here at AFAC because this is where the conversations happen. This is where we can make a difference in the emergency services sector. I've moved into a new role within the university looking after the defence sector and the emergency services sector, and I see a lot a lot of parallels between those two sectors and a lot of opportunities for the people to really share their stories and innovate and move the dial on both first respond safety and into the defense space as well.

[2:01] Kevin Sofen: And for those that maybe are living under a rock to dig in a little bit more, tell me more about who are you guys? The high level, who's James, who's Dan?

[2:09] Dan Cotter: So I worked with Department of Homeland Security and the Science and Challenger Directorate. In that Directorate, I lead the Office of Science and Engineering. Within that, we have pretty broad responsibilities for doing research for the mission, DHS, everything from border security to trying to detect dangerous things like fentanyl coming into the country to supporting FEMA in disaster response. And one of the big issues we're looking at right now is what type of research are we doing to really help prepare the local emergency manager for the future and even for what's overwhelming them today.

[2:45] James Mullins: And look Kevin, I'm a third generation firefighter. I grew up on the fire truck with dad and I'm a robotics engineer. So I went away to university, followed the engineering pathway, ended up doing a PhD in simulation and medical robotics. But like most PhDs really developed a passion for specific domains. And that was in the robotics space. So counter ID, bomb disposal, hostage negotiation robots that evolved to training simulation and eventually combining my passions of firefighting and technology and created a spin out, a startup called Flame Systems. that's evolved over the years and that technology is in, I think, just under 50 countries now. It's growing quite significantly to support emergency response and defence personnel in their training. And yeah, just move back into the defence sector because, as I said, I see a lot of synergies between what we do in emergency response and defence and a lot of opportunities to translate technologies between the two domains. And I perhaps don't see enough of that happening. I don't see enough of that knowledge share. But for me, it's about teaching academics how to work in these sectors and also helping to educate the sectors about working with academia to really move the dial.

[3:54] Kevin Sofen: One word that you alluded to, and I think it's something that Dan is doing well, is taking research and translating it into something that's commercially relevant or operationally relevant for public safety. Dan, from your perspective of what some past research or even current research where you're really, you know, diving into first responder needs and ultimately translating that into something that's helping first responders on the ground?

[4:18] Dan Cotter: Yeah, sure. There are a couple of examples here. For example, one of the booths over here is a company called FloodMap, and they've got some technologies that we're doing, trying to do real-time flood estimation, flood boundaries, and things like that to help emergency management. They actually came over our Silicon Valley Innovation Program, RSV IABP program. For those of you who may have been listening to Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell's speech this morning, the US Fire Administrator, she talked about some of the things that we're doing with wildfire sensors, chemical sensors, very sensitive, you know, trying to get early detection, early detection gives early suppression and those are being successfully commercialized. We've done other things with sensors. I think Kevin, we met in Germany first, we were prototyping our low cost flood sensors and since then they're out in the market pretty broadly. So there's a lot of stuff out there, but you know, how you develop a technology and then get it moved to mission use, remains something I think that we struggle with. We don't really have the answers on it. Our best path usually seems to be doing some type of low rate production, the opportunity to really get it in the field and get it used by practitioners, give the company a chance that we're working with, a chance to really learn a lot about what's really needed. And that often can lead to success, but it's a tough path to get new technology out there, particularly in supporting the first responder market, it's, you know, it's just so fragmented. A lot of small companies just struggle a lot with, you know, just the costs of doing business with a lot of small government agencies.

[5:51] James Mullins: Yeah, organizational change is hard. And often the technology is probably the simple, the simple part. It's, there's, there's really, there's not a lot we can't do with the right, the right people in the room and the right collaboration. And I think that's why it's so important that we have people like Dan here at our shows here in Australia and yourself, Kevin, because, you know, we aren't alone. We all have the same problems. We all think we probably have the same problems, but we don't share resources enough. And I think the relationships that we build at shows like this through the collaboration partners that we have here is ultimately what's going to make a difference in our industry. And that's why I encourage people to come along, get involved with organisations like the IFE and AFAC to try and understand how we can share what we have. Everyone has as knowledge in specific domains, and we really aren't alone. I've been very fortunate in my career to be able to travel around the world, meet some amazing people, and I generally tend to surround myself, I think I've said this before to you, Kevin, surround myself with people smarter than I am. And that's not hard to do, but it's very gratifying to understand a different perspective on life and bring some of that knowledge back into the country and share it ultimately, and that's what we have to do.

[7:00] Kevin Sofen: Well, I think this often happens, but usually all roads and conversations somehow lead back to Dr. Laurie's ongoing vision, particularly with what happened with the World Fire Congress in May, not only having the Fire Service One voice, but World Fire Service One voice, and even in the round table we had just yesterday about the challenges with PPE for women and some of the pitfalls and challenges, and then it ultimately led to Laurie having a couple of action items for you, Dan.

[7:27] Dan Cotter: Absolutely.

[7:29] Kevin Sofen: You're on the to-do list. Yeah. What was some of the feedback, or what happened from that yesterday, What are you going to do with it?

[7:35] Dan Cotter: Well, one of the things that we have in the US is something called the First Responder Resource Group. And it's a couple hundred state, local, federal, private sector first responders across all disciplines, emergency managers. And we use that group to kind of get feedback and try to understand what gaps are out there that we ought to invest research dollars in. And with Dr. Laurie Zinkarjian, we'll be setting up a working group under that to really look at this issue of female personal protective equipment and what we might do there to invest and help improve research in that area. Another one of the areas that we work a lot with is a group called the International Association to Advance First Responder Innovation, the FAFRI, and there's 16 or 17 countries there, European Commission participates. We'll be having a meeting over in the Netherlands in October and we'll bring this up with that group as well and see if we can get kind of a wider conversation going. But you know, it's a requirement. We'd like to do research. We'll break it down and we'll see if we can invest and see if we can make some progress against the problem.

[8:41] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, and I mean, I'm looking here at this DHS strategic priority research areas, couple different bullet points here. I mean, I think we could spend an hour, we could probably, we should have a two hour round table on all these items. When you look at these from advanced sensing to cybersecurity, to climate change, biotechnology, I would love both of you to riff on like, what's an area that you're, you know, really kind of perked your interest that you maybe are thinking about when you're out for a walk and what excites you about it or the challenges with it?

[9:12] James Mullins: Just before this, we caught up, Kevin, we had a conversation about resilience and what does resilience mean? And, you know, I think the Australian perspective on resilience is the ability for the citizen to really be able to understand what they need to do to be able to protect themselves in the first instance. But for me, you know, as a firefighter myself, about protecting my brothers and sisters in the service and understanding what we need to do to better train and protect them, whether that's PPE, whether that's an understanding of the environments that we're operating in. I lost my mother to cancer a couple of years ago, so that really resonates with me as to how much of an impact the exposures that we face have on us as individuals. I'm still challenged by the fact that certainly in the US and even here in Australia I think it's 60% of fire-fighter fatalities are cardiac related and I think that's something. we can do. I think we can do something a little about that. Using technology in the first instance, but education in the second instance.

[10:07] Dan Cotter: And when you look across these areas, you know, there's technology areas that we invest in and some of these things are threats like climate change, you know, for example. So trying to understand that. And things like artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, and James you would know more, they're dual, right? You know, they can help us a lot, but also they're giving a lot of power to our adversaries. These non-experts can now do things that they couldn't 20 years ago that have become enormous threats to us. You know, transnational crime organizations with ransomware attacks and things like that can cause a lot of damage. I mean, we saw that with Colonial Pipeline right in the U.S. You know, it's really a lot of concern, you know, how we identify and mitigate these things. For me personally, thinking about, you know, the impacts of climate change in extreme weather, just from my background as a hydrologist and working natural disaster response for FEMA in many years is one of the things that I think I'm probably most focused on. You know, we're certainly seeing an extreme uptick in the U.S. of extreme weather events. But I think also we're really not capturing the difference between those acute events, you know, the hurricane, the earthquake, you know, it starts and stops. But we're seeing these things that are chronic now, particularly around heat. You know, the number of heat injuries is going up every year. Agricultural lands are changing their characters. You know, invasive species and pests have longer growing seasons. And in places like Alaska, you know, we're losing our tundras, collapsing the ice no longer binds to the shoreline. We're seeing erosion that's destroying villages and things like that up there. So I think for me personally, that's one of the top areas I'm really thinking about and concerned about.

[11:45] Kevin Sofen: Well I want to then take both your comments and kind of to this other card that's emergency management of tomorrow research that sort of these are all identified problems even in the roundtable we spent a lot of time defining the problems let's just assume problems are defined we for the most part we have a pretty good idea of these problems exist how are both of you and then you're within your framework or what you're doing Dan particularly like how can we I take these unidentified problems really start to drive forward or tangible solutions that can help first responders and the community at large.

[12:17] Dan Cotter: Right, yeah. So maybe I'll take a stab at that and then hand it off to James. So we're really looking at, particularly the local emergency manager in the US, you know, often that's a function that's not well resourced, it's not well understood. And we're asking these people though to do more and more, you know, 20, 30 years ago, you know, a little bit of civil defense and, you know, the occasional tornado, but now again, you know, extreme weather events, ransomware attacks, cybersecurity issues they face, attacks on critical infrastructure. There's just so much more they're dealing with, fentanyl, immigration issues, homelessness. It's really becoming a much different job, much higher expectations. So we're trying to understand what type of research we can do to kind of help them at the local level in particular. We're not at the point where we can just keep throwing people at problems. We really have to understand how we use technology to address some of these key problems that they're facing. So we've done a couple of things in this emergency management by our research program. First off, we've just done a landscape analysis to figure out who's doing what, right? Because it's not coordinated, and you find out there's a lot of people doing a lot of things. And we've published a report trying to document that. And then we've also taken a look at what should emergency operations set into the future look like in 2030, 40, 50, all these new amazing technologies when James is virtual reality stuff, right? Do we even need bricks and mortar anymore? And what's the role of artificial intelligence going to be, you know, the AI agents supporting the 911 call center or, you know, the EOC person or making, you know, resource management calls, you know, it's, it's just tremendous. So our initial products anyway, are the landscape assessment. We've got the report on AI applications for emergency management, and we've got an EOC recommendation paper out there, and those are all discoverable in public on the web.

[14:09] James Mullins: Fantastic. And look, I probably have a slightly different lens from the university perspective in that we're really trying to understand what our strategic focus needs to be. We've got some amazing researchers and some amazing capabilities. And for us, it's about helping work with them and supporting them to support organisations like DANS. And really, for me, it's about, as I mentioned before, technology is not necessarily the challenge. It's the organisational change that goes alongside of that. It's the social change. So many of the areas that Dan is talking about as strategic priority areas for the DHS are really the strategic areas that are mapped into the university sector. So the universities need to realign and are realigning to support the needs of the strategic, the strategic needs of the governments that we're supporting now and really strictly the universities work for the people. We need to work with industries, we need to work with government to really understand the challenges. And sometimes we need to be in front and pull the organizations and government along with us. And sometimes we just really need to step back and focus on the things that we are really good at. And as I said before, it's really about collaboration. We're working very closely with universities around the world, in the US, for example. And it's really interesting to understand the engineering mindset in my instance or the scientific mindset. It really, we do have different perspectives and getting people in the same room with those different perspectives. You don't want to get into group think, really helps move the dial forward as I said before.

[15:38] Dan Cotter: Talked a little bit earlier about, you know, the issues of getting the technology transitioned and trying to work with, you know, university partners to make that happen. The last couple of years are very interesting. I just think I've come to understand these investment funds out there that may be linked to universities and it can provide a great place that we can and figure out how to make those connections. I ran into a very interesting group, the Spin Global Mitigation Investment Fund, and they're looking for ways to make $100 million type of investments in mitigation projects. And that's another place that I think could really change the paradigm. There just aren't enough government resources. Can we find ways to really leverage some of these investment funds, both get the technology out there, but also do the mitigation we need to do?

[16:25] Kevin Sofen: One thing that you both alluded to and throughout the past couple of comments is the just like change management aspect of, again, the tech may be great. We may agree on the problem, but there's that phrase, you know, mentioned in the fire service, you know, two things we hate are change and the way things are or whatever, but from a change management perspective, again, let's even assume, assuming the technology works, we have all the technology solved there. What are some insights or experiences that you've had from how to approach change management and first responders in terms of what's the wrong way to do it, what's the right way to do it, and any sort of success stories that you can spotlight.

[17:00] Dan Cotter: Well, I'd say my experience is it's very difficult to show up and say, I'm from the federal government and I'm here to help and this is what you should do. You know, to have credibility, you really need to show up and demonstrate that you understand, you know, the environment that these first responders work in, that you understand it's dangerous. You know, they have to trust that you've listened to them. They have to trust that the products that you've developed have been tested, you know, and that they can be used keep them safe. So I think our biggest hurdle really is just getting out there, you know, in the field, working with people, understanding what they're doing. And you can't just show up once, you know, you got to come back. You know, it can't be, I just showed up in town today and said, hi, and, you know, spend four hours with you know, you got to come back and you really get to show that you're committed to improving that. And it's, you know, it's a lot of effort. That's, you know, you talked about Dr. Lori, that's one of the things that I think she's doing very well right now is really just staying on message and visiting so many people and getting there repeatedly.

[17:56] James Mullins: Yeah, I agree. It's boots on ground. It's being out there with the people that you're serving and we are serving these people. And I think it helps to have that credibility of having worn the shoes, I guess, sometimes. Having people that speak the lingo is very important. But as Dad said, it really is key that you're spending time out there. And realistically, everyone is stereotyped, whether it's a firefighter, whether it's a military person, whether it's a scientist, not all of us scientists wear lab coats and have pens in our pockets. Not all of us, some of us do. Or tweed jackets with leather patches as academics. But you know, if you're out there in the in the cold weather or the hot weather and working alongside really trying to understand the problem, you'll gain a mutual respect.

[18:40] Kevin Sofen: And both of you are kind of like Swiss Army knives in your own ways in terms of how you are operating within your organizations and have ways that different entities can work with you, whether you're a .gov, .org, a startup, from your both your own sort of pillars that you work in, what are ways that different entities can get involved and collaborate and build on again this exciting work that's already in front of you?

[19:04] Dan Cotter: Yeah sure, so at DHS Science and Technology we do have probably more flexibility than some government agencies and our ability to award contracts to the private sector. We do have our Silicon Valley Innovation program, and they can make awards of up to $500,000 for six months and do four. So it'd be $2 million. And again, FloodMap, you know, is an example of a success and they're, they're out here on the floor today. We also have something called our Long Range Broad Agency Announcements, and they're out there continuously. And really they're just an invitation for anyone, you know, to send us a two, three page white paper, give us a general idea of scope, the impact you think you have, the outcomes, an idea, schedule and budget, and we'll take a look at those things and we'll send you back a thank you. We really like this. Send us a full proposal or thank you. We like it but it's not something we get fun right now. We appreciate your interest and know thank you. We also do prize competitions. We've done some prize competitions around heat cooling, flood mitigation, things like that. And we also do a lot of grants. So we do grants to universities and other types of organizations. We have traditional contracts as well, but we do have a number of ways so we can work with industry. And if you check out DHS's SST website, you'll get the detail you need.

[20:25] James Mullins: And Kevin, I'm really lucky enough to represent thousands of really talented scientists, engineers, researchers, academics that are everyday making a difference. I think Deakin University is fairly well known globally even for being a really applied university that takes technology through to high TRL. I think we're the number one university in Australia for start-ups and spin-outs and our investment in start-ups and spin-outs which shows our focus to really translate that research into the applied domain and working with people in the real world.

[21:01] Kevin Sofen: So two other things kind of before we round out here is I brought up earlier the World Fire Congress and this one voice concept and I want to just continue to beat the drum kudos to you Laurie but in your words you know what is one voice and again how can people embrace this one voice fire service one voice mentality?

[21:21] Dan Cotter: Yeah for me I think it's about bringing the community together and if we could understand the top two or three things everybody's worried about and prioritize them and just focus on trying to knock some of them off. These are incredibly complex landscapes of problems, but we don't have to have to do it all at once. I mean, if we can pick a couple and knock them off. And I think with the communities of practices that are coming out of the World Fire Congress, we're probably going to find a path forward to identify some things that we can make some real global progress on.

[21:51] James Mullins: Yeah, look, I think this is one voice right here. The fact that we've got, you know, two Americans and an Australian without a translator being able to communicate effectively, that's a good start, right? I think we just need to encourage our people to look outside rather than inside to understand that we all do have the same problems and that someone else is also working on that. And a problem shared is a problem halved, really. And, you know, collectively with our friends across the ocean, we're gonna make a difference.

[22:18] Kevin Sofen: would that be us? That is your friend. Yeah. I mean, one other thing that I'm kind of interested in, this is again, the kind of a wild card at the end of, but any sort of, quotes or inspiration or any sort of thing that whether you live by or something that kind of relates to the organization that you work for, but whether it's a quote, words of wisdom, any sort of parting words that you could leave us with here today.

[22:40] Dan Cotter: I think we've reached the point globally where we cannot afford not to invest in this research to address some of these problems that are coming our way. The cost that we're going to pay in human lives, the cost that we're going to pay in damage to our infrastructure, our homes, our businesses, it's going to be too much to accept. We have to start investing in research so that we can start trying to at least mitigate these problems. It's too late to solve them, but we can try to bend that damage curve, that fatality curve down, and we need to start doing that now.

[23:15] James Mullins: I think innovation is key. If you in your organisation aren't having at least one conversation outside your organisation a week, I think you're probably doing your organisation a disservice and I'd suspect that you probably should be having one conversation internationally a week as well to try and understand what others are doing, what others are doing well and perhaps what we're good at as well, what you as an organisation are doing well. So yeah, I'd just say that communication is key in everything that we do. It helps with our internal stakeholders. It helps with that organizational change that we spoke about before, but it helps in our own personal development.

[23:48] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, well said. And I guess I would be remiss. Final thing is we are here under the Institute of Fire Engineers' little oval office here, almost. In both your kind of opinions, what does the Institute of Fire Engineers and, you know, why is it again an important member of this kind of one-voice community around the world?

[24:06] Dan Cotter: Well, first off, I wouldn't be here without you guys. I think the collaboration that you're trying to accomplish here is just key in addition to the technical services that you offer.

[24:16] James Mullins: And for me, it's a network. It's an amazing network to enable us to have those conversations around the world. It's amazing the quality and caliber of people that are brought together through this affiliation. And yeah, I think it's going from strength to strength.

[24:31] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. Well, shout out to Ryan Cleggett and the entire team that continue to pull us all together. there he is, the young lad outside and just smiling, giggling, putting on a good show last night. It was really a fun time. But yeah, Dan and James, I feel like we could have a two-hour roundtable on all these different items on the DHS strategic priority research area, but just excited to continue to collaborate and cross paths. Dan, one of these days we're going to see each other in America, you know, from Germany to Australia.

[24:57] Dan Cotter: Not if I see you first, Kevin.

[24:58] Kevin Sofen: Thanks for listening to this episode recorded alongside the Institute of Fire Engineers during the AFAC Show. If you found value in the conversation or learned something new, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out, share your thoughts, and let's keep the discussion going on how we can shape the future of smart firefighting.