Episode 320: He Missed the Hydrant, Then Built the Tool to Ensure No One Else Does. Rapid Response Co with Bobby Banome

Episode notes

Bobby Banome is an FDNY firefighter from Staten Island who got tired of arriving at fires without the information his crew needed. So he built something.

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.

Eleven years ago, Bobby was a probie on a company with a brand-new chauffeur on his first tour driving. They had a fire in a catering hall. They missed the building. Then they missed their closest hydrant. Nobody died, but the delay in water on the fire and the fire spread that followed did not have to happen.

That call became the origin story for Rapid Response Co .

Rapid Response Co is a patented AI-powered situational awareness platform that gives engine companies a 360-degree view of the building, the nearest working hydrants, and a plan of attack before anyone steps off the apparatus. It is deployed in Phoenix, Washington DC, New York City, and volunteer departments across the country.

In this episode, Kevin and Bobby walk through what it actually takes to go from "this should exist" to "this is on fire trucks." Bobby covers the full feature set: hydrant mapping, 360-degree street views, 3D building data, and the EV Rescue integration for electric vehicle incidents. They also get into the AI layer, the SaaS model, and where the platform is heading.

This is a builder story from inside the fire service.

So take a listen to hear what he has to share.

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources.

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn

Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro: missing the hydrant
2. 3:19 The problem in more depth
3. 8:15 Keep it simple
4. 13:15 Demo: hydrant status and data
5. 16:08 Working with the water department
6. 20:37 Pre-plans and 360 views
7. 24:25 Where it lives on the rig
8. 32:09 Shout-outs and influences
9. 37:53 Built-in quality assurance
10. 42:45 Small and large departments
11. 45:57 Getting started and training use
12. 53:15 Words to live by

Questions answered in this episode

What incident led Bobby Banome to create Flint?

Bobby Banome says he was a probie about 11 years ago with a brand new chauffeur on his first tour driving. They had a call for fire in a catering hall, missed the building, and missed their closest hydrant. The hydrant was buried in garbage up to their chest. This led to a significant delay in water on the fire and catastrophic damage that did not need to happen.

Hear it at 1:05

How does Flint show whether a fire hydrant is working?

Flint color-codes hydrants on the map. Green means the hydrant is good to go and works, red means it is out of service, and yellow means the location is known but the working status is unknown. Data comes from the municipality, department, or water department, and firefighters can update hydrant status in seconds through the app.

Hear it at 14:25

How does Flint work without touching the screen?

Bobby Banome explains that Flint provides a contactless rotating 3D view of the building and a street view, both automatically oriented toward the fire building. Firefighters wearing gloves can see the building, hydrants, overhead wires, solar panels, roof type, and means of egress without needing to touch the screen.

Hear it at 18:08

How does artificial intelligence help Flint handle incorrect addresses?

Bobby Banome says when dispatch sends over an oddball address or makes a typo, the AI sits behind the mapping software and takes an educated guess when the regular mapping system cannot find the address. The AI fills that gap about 80 to 90 percent of the time and clearly tells first responders that it is a best guess, not gospel.

Hear it at 35:17

What did a volunteer fire chief say about Flint?

A volunteer chief told Bobby Banome that Flint works better for volunteer departments than career departments because volunteer response areas are so wide that crews are on the rig for a long time. That time used to be wasted, but now firefighters soak in information from the iPad and get off the rig with a plan in their head, requiring less micromanaging from the incident commander.

Hear it at 43:23

Transcript

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

Ep 320 transcript

He Missed the Hydrant, Then Built the Tool to Ensure No One Else Does. Rapid Response Co with Bobby Banome

Speakers: Kevin Sofen (host), Bobby Banome (Rapid Response Co)

Source: Zoom recording transcript found in Kevin's Drive (GMT20260326-172700_Recording.transcript.vtt), with speaker names from Zoom; lightly cleaned. Timestamps are from the raw recording and may be offset from the published episode.

[0:12] Kevin Sofen: Bobby Banome is an FDNY firefighter from Staten Island who got tired of arriving at fires without the information that his crew needed. So, he built something. Flint is a patented AI-powered tool that gives engine companies a 360-degree view of the building, the nearest working hydrants, and a plan of attack before anyone steps off the apparatus. He's not a tech founder who figured out the fire service. He's actually a firefighter who's figured out how to use and deploy technology. So today, on Smart Firefighting, we're talking about what it actually looks like to go from, this should exist, to this is actually now on fire trucks around the country, and what that journey looks like when you're still running calls while you're building it. So, Bobby, stoked to have you here on the Smart Firefighting Pod. Walk me back to that moment on the job that made you think, man, this tool needs to exist. What happened on that call?

[1:05] Bobby Banome: Kev, I really appreciate you having me on, and your kind words during the intro. I really appreciate your whole community. It's really just a great place for people to give useful and exchange, useful feedback. Thank you. where it started, it's not unlike any other invention, where it was just born out of tragedy, right? Similar to what you just said, where it was a compilation of just bad experiences that were directly tied to arriving on scene with little to no information about the emergency that we were responding to. The most notable one, the one that was, I suppose, the straw that broke the camel's back, it was about 11 years ago. I was a probie. We had a brand new chauffeur, it was his first tour driving. We say chauffeur, other departments use the term engineer. And we had a call for fire in a catering hall, we missed the building, we missed our closest hydrant. So, pretty good… Pretty good start to a fire, and it… it truly led… thank God no one died, but it did lead to a significant delay in water on the fire. It did lead to a significant increase in fire spread that did not need to happen. Catastrophic damage that did not need to happen. And I think the best way to quantify that is… there was… There was multiple factors. The first one was the fact that it was his first tour driving, I was still a probie, I was the one in charge of helping him procure that hydrant. We had no experience on the rig. That's out of our control. It was garbage day. The hydrant was buried in hydrant up to our… in garbage up to our chest. So, we had no experience, we weren't able to spot it. These are the things that are out of our control. New York's always gonna be New York. Okay. But we had no look at the building. And we had no prior knowledge as to where that hydrant was. So that is the controllables, that's where we started, right? We knew we could improve on that, it's now 2026, so we knew we could make an impact if we were just arming first responders with just better intel to the quick, important questions.

[3:19] Kevin Sofen: So to continue to dive into the problem a bit more, in terms of… before we get into what you've created. why… why is this still a problem? Why, you know, this dynamic of not knowing where hydrants are, not being able to know what… what's inside the building, what's going on with the 360 size up? And kind of, how is it being done now? So, paint a little picture on kind of how it's being done now, and why that is a problem for the modern 2026 fire service.

[3:47] Bobby Banome: Understood. Yeah, I think there's just a widespread acceptance that The fire service is significantly behind the technology curve of Main Street. Right, and that's always been… that's always going to be, because there is a fair amount of R&D that needs to go into a tool before it's ready for the first responder field. So, there's always going to be that essential lag. Unfortunately, the way a lot of first responders are still responding to fires is, you know, we'll have a map with pencil marks, buy house watch before we leave, of where all the hydrants are in our area. The problem is the information is not made intuitively enough, where Sure, we have to get out the door as quickly as we can. So as you're putting on your gear and thinking of your route, you're not really able to cross-reference that route with your closest hydrant. So, think about all of these public databases that all house fantastic information, but you don't have the time To cross-reference all of these public databases, there are street views that are publicly available, there are 3D views that are publicly available, there are hydrant maps that are publicly available, but they've never been collated and passed through, what I like to call our patented firefighting lens, that when we take all this data. Pull it all in, manipulate it, and collate it in a way where any firefighter, whether he's Brand new to the job, or he's got a thousand years of experience, he'll know exactly how to do this with little to no training, with his gloves on, completely contactless. So, it's just a matter of arming them with the information in the way it needs to be displayed for it to be useful and actionable.

[5:33] Kevin Sofen: man, a lot I want to unpack there from both the touchless side to then the aggregation of public data, and I think one of the best examples of innovation is taking existing data and information that already exists elsewhere, or just repackaging it in a way that makes it useful for someone else. And that's kind of what you've done here with taking a bunch of disparate information and putting it into a way that's useful, and… and now, kind of, again, for a… maybe a probie or a chauffeur arriving on scene for the first time, I mean, you've got your heart rate going, there's just, like, there's a lot going on, but now walk me through that, sort of. Maybe a little bit on the tech side, but also kind of the user experience side to… I now have all this data that's being given to me, and in a way that's not too much data, the right data at the right time, and most importantly, not having to use a screen. Everyone knows that when you've got gloves on, even trying to use your iPhone, when you've got your winter gloves on, you're like. I can't… this can't work, and then you're taking your gloves off, and then you're cold, and then obviously with the fire service, you… you just have your gear on when you're in the truck, and having to take your gloves on and off is… is a… is a showstopper. So, yeah, talk… talk me through a little bit of that, of the aggregation of the data, and now kind of that touchless interface. How does that… How does that show up for the firefighter?

[6:53] Bobby Banome: Right. Simply put, Kev, it's a race against time. Okay? Right? Like we said, there's a… we know there's an immense amount of data out there, but it's a race against time, given how quickly can I get you the most useful information in less than 2 minutes, right? If the average response time is 4.5 minutes countrywide, we still… we have to beat that, right? We want to make sure you're leaving the rig. With everything you need to win, to keep you and your team as safe and efficient as possible. So then it breaks down to very simple but very important questions, right? If me and you are going to a job right now, what do we want to know? Where's our closest hydrant? Does it work? Right? What kind of building are we going to? Right? Because that's going to significantly change our operations. If it's a high-rise, a low-rise, fireproof building, non-fireproof building, private dwelling, what are the ways in and out of that building? Right? Our means of egress. Is there a rear fire escape? Is there a pool in the rear? What does this perimeter survey look like? What's on the roof? We have solar panels, right? All of these rising issues that are either going to significantly help and or impede our operation. So, it starts with those very basic but important questions.

[8:15] Kevin Sofen: as you were talking, it reminded me of a book that I'm actively reading, and one of the probably most… influential fire service minds on me in the past 5 years, and maybe you've heard of him, Dr. Richard Gassaway, he has the whole Situational Awareness Matters, Sam, and I remember him talking about, at trade shows sometimes, there was this one vendor that was talking about, hey. This tool gives you situational awareness, and it was like, well, okay, well, what does that actually mean? How does it… gives you, and he's kind of… this… this sales rep, you know, poor soul, just kind of kept repeating features and nuances, but nothing necessarily gives you situational awareness. It's sort of these different tools and what you're talking about. gives you spoon-fed different types of data in a way that allows you, as the end user, to start to develop situational awareness. And I'm curious in your take on that, of sort of. from what Dr. Richard Gassaway says, in that it's not necessarily giving you situational awareness, it's helping you develop situational awareness. So, what are your thoughts in terms of how Flint is sort of a tool that's helping the firefighter responding to a call start to develop the situation awareness in that… in that 2 to 4 minutes while they're responding to a call.

[9:30] Bobby Banome: My senior guys in my firehouse, I was blessed with great senior firefighters. And they always preach to size up. And they always said, size up does not begin when the ticket comes over. It begins when you're driving in that morning for your tour. and you're checking the weather, and you're seeing what kind of condition, right? It starts with sizing up even the day. He's like, it starts when you wake up in the morning. Not when you receive the ticket. So they've always preached the importance of size up. With that being said, you need to operate off of the KISS principle. That was the other thing they always taught me, right? Keep it simple, stupid. Or keep it super simple, stupid, right?

[10:16] Kevin Sofen: Keep it stupid simple, whatever.

[10:17] Bobby Banome: That's it.

[10:17] Kevin Sofen: It's, it's spot on.

[10:19] Bobby Banome: And… To clearly illustrate that point. We both agree. That there is no lack of information these days. Great information, right? And if I was to print out everything on this building that we're about to go to. And it was 2 pages typed, and we go, we get a call for fire at that address, and I say, hey, Kev, here. You're gonna say, whoa…

[10:47] Kevin Sofen: That means… that means nothing to me. It could be.

[10:49] Bobby Banome: the best information, right? And it's just multiple paragraphs. It's useless. It's fantastic, and it's useless, and more importantly, it's not actionable. So, I think you're right. I mean, situational awareness, it's such a broad term. It's such a wide array of factors. But you do need to… that's why we kind of had to step all the way back and say, okay, but what actually are the important questions? What quick answers do we need to feed these guys, and in what way, through what lens. To ensure that they can look up. while getting their PPE on, and still effectively digest everything. And that comes down to, even on a 3D view, how quickly we can rotate around that building, that race against time, versus that race against being able to digest and, digest the information. If I rotate around that building so quick, I beat the clock, but you actually… don't even know what you're looking at, because it's moving around so quickly. So, it's all these things that you micromanage until you hit… you thread the needle of that race against time, but that KISS principle as well.

[12:00] Kevin Sofen: I mean, it's a hundred little things, and as I've been into my journey of developing software myself, you realize it's… a hundred little things. Like, you've got a good base platform, but on top of the security and the hardening, there's all these little nuances that need to make it purpose-built, and I can't think of a better person to develop the software than you, an active firefighter wearing a few hats, and experiencing the pain, and deploying it, and tinkering with it. But what I'd love to know now is, again, like you said, that piece of paper you showed me and us talking a bunch of words, it's all great, and thank you for ever still listening, but… I'd love to see it, like, and show me and talk, like, let's walk through a demo. Can we do that?

[12:39] Bobby Banome: Absolutely, let's dive right in. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show you exactly the way this exists for first responders on the rig. In current… in current day. And without much explaining, I think you're gonna be able to see the difference of that piece of paper I was handing you versus instant information.

[13:01] Kevin Sofen: delete.

[13:05] Bobby Banome: Alright… Let me know when you see the share request.

[13:15] Kevin Sofen: Alright, I am seeing the screen of the iPad.

[13:21] Bobby Banome: Alright, fantastic. So, what we're looking at on screen. Is simulating, basically, a run coming through. Right now, right? So, if me and you had a call for fire. And we just revisit the same questions you and I just talked about. Where is my closest hydrant, and does it work? Right? Well, let's look at that upper right-hand screen. You see how there are… there's a beacon that shows clearly the fire building, that blue line which shows our best route to that fire building. And then you have all the hydrants. And lastly, you see that those hydrants are color-coded, right? So we can quickly identify where those hydrants are, and what does the colors mean? Green, we know it's good to go, we know it works. Red, we know it's out of service. Yellow means we don't know the working status of it, but we know the location of it. Right? In the bottom right hand… I'm sorry, go ahead, please, interrupt.

[14:25] Kevin Sofen: How do you know… how are you getting that data to know if the hydrant is working or not? Where is that data coming from, and how are you validating that?

[14:33] Bobby Banome: So we would procure that information from either the municipality, the department, or their water department, depending on which way they prefer to relay the information to us, right? Furthermore, it's further verified I'll use the way New York operates, is that the fire department does the inspections, but we do not do the maintenance and the servicing. So this tool puts the power in our hands, where, let's just say, Kev, you and I went to a motor vehicle accident, or we were doing simple hydrant inspection, and we see that a hydrant is out. Or we go to a motor vehicle accident, and we didn't intend to inspect this hydrant, but we saw that these two cars crashed into the hydrant. So we know, obviously, that it's out. We've made it so simple, where… A firefighter can just click the hydrant. They could click this drop-down. And within seconds, they can update the status of this. Working, not working, unknown. Right? So if I was to say this hydrant now works. This is instantly going to communicate to the entire field that this hydrant is now back in service. So… or conversely, out of service. So we just did that simple step, took a couple of seconds, and now if the guys working the night tour go to a fire tonight at that corner, they are working with the most up-to-date information. They'll know…

[16:08] Kevin Sofen: From your platform, in terms of communicating with the water department and other shareholders that are actively maintaining and making sure that these hydrants are working. that information, is that coming into Flint on a daily basis, weekly basis, and sort of… I imagine it's kind of an always a constant battle to sort of update this, but this seems to be a really important thing, just of… not only knowing, again, the location. But then you, the platform, giving you the best available information within the past 24 hours, or the last week. On top of, then, it's sort of the crowdsourced information from firefighters to know that, hey, actually, this hydrant said it was working, it's not, or vice versa.

[16:54] Bobby Banome: That's correct. This is partly why we're seeing not just success in the firefighting field. But these second use cases, where you're absolutely right, that is a struggle for water departments and other managed city resources that are looking to get hold of the most current information. So. Because we have made it so convenient for firefighters and first responders to stay in the app that they're already using, quickly communicate this information, adoption, even of this simple feature, has been widespread, and it allows Work orders, and it streamlines the communication between arms of the same city.

[17:40] Kevin Sofen: Love it. Okay, let's keep clicking around and diving in. I love what I'm seeing, and yeah, keep clicking around, and I also… tell me about the touchless dynamic. I mean, obviously, I see… the 360 going around, it's, you know, seems to be a solid pace. I know, we are recording this on Zoom, not Riverside, which we normally record on, so there might be a little more latency. But yeah, talk to me about the… the touchless dynamic, and then let's also click around to some of these other features that are on the platform.

[18:08] Bobby Banome: Absolutely. So, we'll… let's go right into that bottom right-hand view, right? What were some of the other questions that we asked? What kind of building is that fire in, right? So, me and you, again, we're on the rig. We have our gloves on. I'm not able to touch anything, and you're not able to touch anything. So, in that bottom right-hand view is a version of Street View, but layered the way we want to see it, right? The user's head is always turned towards the fire building. For sake of clarity, there's, again, that fire beacon dropped directly on that building. So, if it's a row of buildings in Brooklyn and row frames, we know exactly which building is the fire building because of that beacon. Furthermore, we can see, okay, so we're dealing with what looks like a private dwelling, a private house. We also are able to see from here, hey, we have overhead wires. That are gonna be… that's gonna affect the way we operate, right? So now we know that, bucket or stick, right, the tower ladder, the aerial ladder, those are out for this type of fire. We're not gonna be able to use those, we're gonna be going with portables. Okay, very good. Now let's go to what I feel is my favorite, feature keynote feature of our software is this contactless rotating 3D view. Now, from here, I can see every way in and out of that building. I can see we have a peaked roof, I can see we have solar panels on this building as well, which, again, is gonna affect our ventilation tactics. So… and we're doing this within seconds, Kev, right? I've never trained you before this call on our software, and all these important pieces of information we're able to quickly digest. So, I think it's time… to put you to the test, Kev, alright? No pressure.

[19:58] Kevin Sofen: Oh, let's do it.

[20:00] Bobby Banome: But don't mess this up, no. Okay. So, I'm just gonna send over a run. Right? And again, I'm not touching the screen. We're gonna go through the contactless, features here. Okay. This isn't gonna come over.

[20:21] Unlabeled (Zoom "Audio shared by iPad"): And I would love for you to just…

[20:23] Bobby Banome: Tell me what you see on screen, what you think might be relevant to us if we were responding to a fire in this building right now. You could just jot out different points of information that you're seeing here.

[20:37] Kevin Sofen: Alright, I see solar panels on the roof, consideration for ventilation. I see that there are cars parked in front, directly in front of the building, at least from when this image was taken. I see there's a garage in the backyard, with some unknown, persons or materials inside. Seems to be a multi-story building, and There are… there is a working hydrant right directly across the street.

[21:05] Bobby Banome: Excellent. I mean, you're showing up more prepared than, I would say, 95% of firefighters out there, which is a shame, but it's also beautiful how simple it is to arm us with powerful information. Even here, I'll even raise it a little bit so I can give it to you, right? We have overhead wires here on this building as well, so we know that.

[21:26] Kevin Sofen: You know, I didn't even look at the bottom right. I was just focused on the 360, but yeah, these… there's the wires there on the right, you know, you've got the fence there and the steps on the entryway. But yeah, the wires there is a big… is a big piece of data that is going to impact which type of truck and, how to approach getting into and addressing the fire.

[21:45] Bobby Banome: Exactly. And honestly, that's case in point. That's how simple it is, and the miraculous stories that are coming out of just arming firefighters with better information, the testimonials we get from the field, where brand new chauffeurs are able to find hydrants that are Buried in garbage, blocked by food trucks, you know, buried in snow. It's just unbelievable.

[22:09] Kevin Sofen: Bye. Bobby, questions now, too. I mean, frankly, I see this right now as… it could also be a… some… if you're using this for operations, but you could also use this for training, I imagine, based on the fact that… Absolutely. just, you know, if you are a probe or someone new on the job, just kind of doing exactly what you did with me, and just sort of say, what do you see? And how should you approach it? And just doing that in the free time. Is that… is there a training element here, and how has that been something that… yeah, what's the training angle here?

[22:38] Bobby Banome: You're spot on, Kev. Some of the best drills I've ever had in my career was just a senior guy doing what we call a kitchen table drill with me, right? Where we come back from a run. And he's trying to explain something about an oddball building that we went to. And maybe, even if he's a great senior guy that wants to take it a step further, he's gonna jot on the whiteboard, try and draw this building for me, and he's trying to explain to me that you know, our response area might be on a hill, on a grade, so the building is maybe 2 stories in the front, but 3 stories in the rear, right? And… I'm… as a new guy, I'm yesing him to death, but am I truly understanding what he is trying to tell me? Now, they say, yeah, you know what, grab the iPad. And they can actually just click a prior run that they've gotten, and when he's trying to explain a particular building to me, right? Let me, let me go with maybe something… Oh, excuse me. I'm gonna try and get us something that's maybe a little bit more of an oddball… Building. Alright. I was trying to… perfect. Maybe an I-type or an O-type building, right? Now, you're brand new, you don't have experience, and I'm trying to explain to you this building, and the throats that this building has, and the different ways we need to make the rear, and all these new tactics, but I don't understand the building you're talking about, and you just click it. You just click the run, and now that's being displayed. And now, with very little explanations, you can show me exactly where the fire escapes are, and how that changed tactics, and things like that. So, it just makes those… it compounds the effect of those simple kitchen table drills. So yes, huge training element to the tool.

[24:25] Kevin Sofen: And then, from when this is… I imagine, is this, sitting on the MDT or a dedicated iPad in the truck? Question one, and then question two is… how is this being ported into the actual call? And I mean, the all things CAD and all the routing, is this something, once you get the ticket, once a ticket comes in from whatever department's CAD they're using. Is that… is there an API integration there to where it's sort of directly, hey, 1234 Candy Lane pops directly into Flint? How's that work?

[25:00] Bobby Banome: Correct. So, the tool that you're looking at right now does require a CAD integration with dispatchers. And when the address comes over, it does exactly what you're seeing on screen, right? It's gonna take you to the address, it's gonna give you a rotating 3D view of it's gonna give you a street view of that building. And then, obviously, this is a demo, so all you're seeing in the upper left-hand corner is EMS, but it would have the call details listed there as well, as well as any pivotal information regarding that call. Now, I apologize, there was other parts to that question.

[25:38] Kevin Sofen: The first part, so it's a dedicated iPad, or kind of sitting in the MDT, or kind of where… can there be other softwares on the iPad? Like, does it have to be a dedicated iPad, or kind of… talk me through the, kind of, the actual physical experience and what that physical requirements are for the firefighter on the fire truck.

[25:59] Bobby Banome: Okay, so yes, the way this works in its best state is we have iPads up front for the front cab, where the boss and the chauffeur are, typically in front of the boss, because the chauffeur's gotta drive, and then in the rear cab. that's all the guys that are gonna be making the roof, grabbing the hydrants, everything like that, so there's an iPad back there that's also disseminating this information. And what's interesting and also useful for people to realize is that this also exists on cell phones. And the miracle stories that are coming out of. users' cell phones. I mean, you're literally surrounding and drowning them with the information, right? Where we've had stories where the MDTs are down, the house watch tones are down, and everyone's cell phones are still pinging. with the information. So these guys are able to get out the door 30 to 45 seconds faster than the tools that are there. So there's nothing we love more in the first responder industry like redundancy, and making sure there's nothing that is going to stop us from getting us the best information available. And on an iPhone, probably worth taking a second to walk through this is, on iPhones. What you're seeing here is great. for an iPad. A nice big screen that can display 3 views. On an iPhone, the way we recommend it is, Kev, if you're working in the truck tonight, you're working in a ladder company tonight. So, you're less worried about hydrants, you're more worried about building views, right? This view gets a little messy on an iPhone. So, it's very simple. I could just, from the settings screen, I can turn off my hydrant map, because I don't think we need it right now, right? We're in ladder company, we're worried about the building. So… If now… I was to use a cell phone. Again, it's all about just getting me the information that I need. Everything I need, nothing that I don't. It's a much cleaner image on a cell phone if we start operating off of two views. So, when it's on a cell phone, you tinker the use a little bit, but still the same dynamic information. And the beautiful part about this is, you find what you like. Once. And then you never worry about it again. And… as… More runs come through? It will just… it knows your preference.

[28:28] Unlabeled (Zoom "Audio shared by iPad"): fixes now.

[28:29] Bobby Banome: And it's just gonna continue to shoot those runs over exactly in the format that you prefer, Kev.

[28:36] Kevin Sofen: Wait. So, click to talk me through these other buttons there at the bottom. I mean, you showed me just some of the settings there. But what about the hydrants button and the EV rescue button? Let's talk through those. Yeah.

[28:49] Bobby Banome: So, the hydrant button, again, is more of, let's think we're going out and we're gonna do some, hydrant inspections, right? It's a very simple way where, as we walk around, we can just pinpoint what hydrants, maybe not the fire building is next to, but where we are next to. Correct? So, that's pretty straightforward. That's more for, hydrant inspections and hydrant maintenance. Now, EV Rescue is an interesting partnership that we struck up, and again, no different than just being born out of, Tragedy is that the fire departments around the country are now being expected to respond to an immense amount of motor vehicle accidents, motor vehicle fires, that are involved… where EVs are involved. And, without going immensely into this, there is no… structure to where these low-voltage shutoffs… you have to shut these down in a very specific way from low-voltage shutoffs. And that is not… there's no common operating protocol that every EV works under, right? If I pop the hood of every gas vehicle, I'm gonna see the engine, I'm gonna see the battery. That is not the case with EVs, right? If I need to shut down a Tesla Cybertruck. Or I need to shut down a Jeep hybrid. Those shutoffs are gonna be in two completely different areas. And we found that this company, EV Rescue, did a great job of bringing in collating all of this information. They're called ERGs, Emergency Response Guides. Think of them as, like, one-page response guides that show me and you exactly where to safely shut down this cyber truck. But the problem is that it wasn't actually getting to the field, right? For someone like me, if I don't take my phone on runs. I drop my pants, I jump into my bunker pants. So this was great information, but it was living on people's cell phones and not necessarily making it to the scene. of the incident, but our iPads are always making it there, because they're mounted within the… they're mounted within the responding apparatuses. So, very simple. If you… if we approach a motor vehicle accident, Kev, I'm driving you, so I'm blocking traffic with the rig, you're the boss, you're getting off and you're approaching the motor vehicle accident, and you just radio over to me, and you say, hey, Bobby. We have a motor vehicle… we have one of those Cybertrucks involved with this. How do we cut power? And I could just… go here, and again, this is not contactless, and not even that it neces… we want to make it more intuitive as time goes on, and that's part of our R&D pipeline. But, at least in the interim. I can quickly just say, okay, Tesla, submit. I don't really know trucks, so it's nice to have thumbnails of exactly what I'm looking at. Cybertruck. And it's just a one-pager, like I said. So, for the sake of this, we can see that cable cut is this icon here. and I could quickly say, okay, Kev, On the front, Passenger side. right above the tire, you should see the low voltage shutoff. So, very straightforward.

[32:09] Kevin Sofen: Wow, yeah, and, I met… What's the founder's name of this? I've met him once or twice. It's set up as a 501c3, I believe, correct?

[32:19] Bobby Banome: Yes. Phil Scarfy is the developer, and he's just a dynamite guy, and he's… he's also obsessed with solving problems out there like I am. Great guy, I love what he's doing.

[32:31] Kevin Sofen: Well, I want to get to Phil in a second, but there was another gentleman I thought, besides Phil.

[32:35] Bobby Banome: Oh my god. partner.

[32:36] Kevin Sofen: Yeah.

[32:37] Bobby Banome: partner.

[32:38] Kevin Sofen: I'm blanking out, but…

[32:39] Bobby Banome: Trust me, yeah.

[32:40] Kevin Sofen: But shout out to Phil for being a great… not only a great guy, and a great firefighter and a great dad, but a great software developer. It has continued to open my eyes to how to build software and how to scale software. And, yeah, maybe a little shout to your partnership with Phil and your relationship with Phil in the sense of, like, you know, what's it been like working with Phil to develop software? I know you've kind of had him work with you on different things and whatnot, but, yeah, what could you say about Phil and his company?

[33:15] Bobby Banome: There are times… you know, I'm so happy to have reached the point where we are now, and I think… I think that… I think there's so many wonderful things in the future, but when people say, well, what got you here? And I say, you know, you have to surround yourself with people who are so much smarter than you know, and Phil's one of those people. I couldn't be more grateful to have Phil and his development team, as… as a partner, and someone who's just the backbone of products like this, because it's just… When you can surround yourself with a panel and high-quality individuals who are motivated and capable. And every morning, I just check my ego, I stay coachable, and I just listen to the feedback that guys like Phil give me. you know, the sky's the limit. I could say so many things about Phil, but that is how I can frame it in a 30-second lens. It's just, I'm so grateful to be surrounded with guys like him.

[34:18] Kevin Sofen: Well said, yeah, I stumbled upon him a few months ago, and likewise, just enjoy surrounding myself with smart individuals like him that are elevating the game. So, shout out, Phil. So, back to a couple other couple… a couple other questions I want to dive into is, just the… We talked about AI, and I had maybe seen, or I wasn't sure, exact nuance about how ChatGBT or some level of LLM is built into the stack. Could you elaborate on… again, AI in a lot of ways, it makes some people barf, just in the sense of the buzzword… buzzwordsiness of it, just the dynamic of some people, again, being very anti-AI, I am a very big proponent of AI in the right way, being tasteful, and maintaining human the loop, and there's a lot of ways that AI can continue to create efficiency gains. But tell me about your, sort of, deep dive into AI, and how AI is currently in the product, and then also in your product roadmap.

[35:17] Bobby Banome: Absolutely. And we share a vision for that. You know, I think it could really help drive safety and efficiency forward when we learn how to leverage these AI tools that are out there. One clear example, one that's already in place with our product. Is two problems that happened with frequency in the first responder field is, one, when dispatch sends over oddball addresses, right? Let's say we have a few oddball addresses in our response area, a lot of times when that gets fed directly into our mapping software, the mapping softwares get confused, right? And I'm sure everyone at some point has seen it, whether there's any sort of mapping that they're using within their fire department, there's just times where there's holes, and the mapping software does not know where to go. Well. our AI sits behind there, policing things, and when it detects a problem, and our mapping software Shrugs their shoulders because they don't really understand what address this is. The large language model goes in there. and guesses. It takes an educated guess, right? So it gives us a second shot at finding this address, and let's just say… 80% of the time, 90% of the time, we get a straightforward address, and the system can work with no problems. And then there's 10% of the time that it's an oddball address, and a straight mapping software is not going to be able to find it. ChatGPT fills in that gap, right? Things like ChatGPT can fill that gap. And it could say, I understand that's not a real address, but it's probably this, right? When else does that happen? Well, there's human error in the human dispatching, life cycle. And there are times when, like everyone else, they'll thumb an address. And all of a sudden, it's gonna take us to the wrong spot. Whereas, again, an AI can sit behind there and say, that's not a real address, but what they probably meant was this. So let's go with that. And it will tell you, hey, this is not the address that was relayed. This is a best guesstimate, right? And it clearly lets the first responders know that… to allow them to know this is not gospel. It's a tool like everything else. It could fail, and it will fail, but it's just… and it's been so fantastic with that, Kev. I mean, it's brought… if you're just measuring the times that your regular systems would miss, and now they don't, it's fantastic. It's fantastic.

[37:53] Kevin Sofen: So, a level of quality assurance that's kind of built in, which I love, but then what else… what else are you looking at in regards to how… AI is a tool that can be integrated within Flint and the future roadmap. Are you thinking about I mean, whether it's a real-time chat agent or some other means of bringing in data, validating the data, further populating, and making your database more robust, anything else on the roadmap that you're willing to share?

[38:22] Bobby Banome: Yeah, absolutely. So there's a ton of things that we're currently building in our pipeline. One, even if we were to touch on the EV rescue, right? Like I said, don't love how manual that is. So… but if you're walking over, and you're just gonna… you're close enough to this car where you can scan the barcode, the VIN number, and it can automatically pull this thing up instead of me having to do anything for you, where you can quickly redirect, if it is a wrong address, you can quickly give this thing a redirect and give it the right address. Predictive analysis, where the AI can now start pulling in all of this open source data. And saying, okay, Kev, Your closest hydrant works, it is in service, but it doesn't drain, right? And the weather right now has been less than 32 degrees for the past 5 days. So it's likely, although it works, it's frozen. It's not… so it could start thinking about all of these things that maybe a human brain can't factor in all the time, but now.

[39:28] Kevin Sofen: You can start.

[39:29] Bobby Banome: raising these indicators of saying, hey, Kev, you're going lights and sirens to this Intersection. And another rig is going lights and sirens in a perpendicular direction, in the same intersection, in a perpendicular… from a perpendicular direction. Just want to give everyone an alert, a collision alert, that, you know, you guys are both going lights and sirens, you both think you have the right of way. let's not have an accident here, right? Rig collisions are a big thing, and that's also something that's already in place with our tool. that it's just, you know, a rig collision is as bad as it gets, right? Because now we're not even getting to the emergency we're trying to get to, and we've now just created a new emergency that we need to pull resources in from further out. So, it's all of these nuances that it could just help us be so strategic, and as time goes on, and more data is collected. Now, think about not just using this on the way to a fire, but… but your chief self in now, and you're in front of this building. And this fire's been going for more than 20 minutes. And now the Flint app's starting to say, hey. you really need to start thinking about X, Y, and Z, because it's likely that the fire has spread from here to here. There's a 85% chance that it's here, and you should start thinking about this. And maybe you were thinking about that, and just… it confirmed what you were thinking, or maybe, like, oh. I completely forgot about that, right? We have an open cock loft. We gotta make sure that these exposures are not… Also. burning with fire, right? And you pull in the drone footage and the heat signatures that it can pull in. I mean, it really… it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun, and you probably need a brain… not better than the human brain, but just more capable to pull in the real-time data and update probabilities. And I can just.

[41:23] Kevin Sofen: It's really a…

[41:24] Bobby Banome: abilities.

[41:25] Kevin Sofen: It's a second brain, in a sense, to help you see the unknowns, and because our first brain, which is the most powerful brain, is sometimes overloaded and focused on the job at hand, it's nice to be able to have a secondary system. It could be surfacing something in different types of alert and new notifications, and I think that makes a heck of a lot of sense, and I'm excited to see some of those other features and nuances roll out in the product.

[41:52] Bobby Banome: Yeah. Even displaying things like gallons per minute, right, which we already do in our app. It's good to realize, oh, and main sizes, right? So if we're stretching a first line off of this dead-end block, no problem. Second line, okay. A third line off of a dead-end block that maybe has a smaller main, right? We might have to maybe get up to the avenue, or a more commercial main, and just maybe something sitting in the background where maybe we're not all immediately thinking it, but it's saying, hey. Kev, stop the rig here. You're on a commercial main. They're gonna need that, right? So, all of these things, it's… it's all factors, and… and real good firemen Are thinking these things.

[42:36] Kevin Sofen: again.

[42:36] Bobby Banome: But average firemen like myself, I would love to have some help.

[42:40] Kevin Sofen: Just a little setup.

[42:42] Bobby Banome: Yeah, a little help always can go a long way.

[42:45] Kevin Sofen: A little help from a friend. So, with thinking about small departments, large departments, I mean, there's a whole gamut across the country, from volunteer and paid departments. I mean, as you know, there's just… it varies, but if you were a small department or a medium department. I mean, is there… is it different for different departments based on its size and how they would use this? I mean, it seems like it's a core functionality of getting the right information at the right time, but yeah, is there a difference in terms of how you would consider small, medium, large, from paid to volunteer using this? And… and how do departments get started?

[43:23] Bobby Banome: Yeah, so it's a great question. And we have now… we're blessed to have client fire departments of all different shapes and sizes, so there's no speculation to say, hey, we think it might work for a large department, but we don't know. We've never tested it. We've tested it, from… huge fire departments, like Phoenix, DC, and New York City, down to small volunteer departments in… in… All over the country. And so… A lot of today we were talking about career, and let's unpack volunteer quickly, is this tool actually probably does better. This was a chief that was just giving me feedback. He said, I think you built a tool that works better for volunteer departments than for career. So I said, that's good to hear. How… what's the logic behind that? Can you give me a little more feedback? Can you unpack that? And he said, sure. He goes, you're on the rig for 2 minutes. Because your response areas are so tight. that you're basically on top of each other. Our response areas are so wide, we're on the rig for so long, and that time was more or less wasted. Everyone's waiting to get there, they're trying to listen to the radio for any information they might be able, but now. they have an iPad to look at. That time on the rig was this wasted time, and now it's just become such a useful time. They're sitting on this rig for X amount of minutes, just soaking it in and becoming much more useful. He goes, and you feel it as the incident commander at an emergency, as you're… you… people are getting off the rig. And you're just typically screaming at people, I need you doing this, I need you doing this. He goes, now? guys are getting off the rig with a plan in their head. Now, if I need to call an audible, I can tell them, hey, I understand, but I need you doing this, not that. But everyone's getting off the rig with a plan in their head. He goes, it's just a smoother operation, it requires less… actual hands-on micromanaging from the incident commander. He goes, and you could be more of… what an incident commander is supposed to be. This 40,000-foot view guy or girl that's able to see what everyone's missing, not actually telling everyone what to do. So that was… that was invigorating. I'm not a fire officer, I'm not… I was never one day an incident commander, so this was feedback that we… That we would only get from the field, not from my own experience.

[45:57] Kevin Sofen: Great feedback, and from thinking about whoever may be listening to this, if someone wanted to start, is it a… I mean, this is a SaaS product, is it a freemium model? Where does one start with attempting to tinker and try and maybe deploy this within their department?

[46:15] Bobby Banome: So, we have never made it easier to get started with us, and this can be built to fit anyone's budget, because it just scales up and scales down. to what your department's needs are. Maybe you don't have iPads, so you just want it for the cell phones. Maybe you just want it for the iPads and not the cell phones. So, the price could always be scaled up and down. There's no one who gets priced out of this product, which is a great place to start. But, let's pretend you don't know anything about this product, have you listening to this podcast, and you're saying, hey, I just want to learn more about it, or maybe I'd like to talk to my chief about it, right? Okay, so we have a free solution, we call the Lite version. They can go on our app store. Download Flint and get started for free. Right? And what they can do there? They download the product, they register, and there's a bunch of major metros whose data… their… their CAD is just public, right? So, you can follow, okay, Kev's gonna go in, and he's just gonna follow Atlanta, and you're gonna watch these runs come through, and you're gonna get a feel of what it's like to respond. with this app, you're not gonna have to explain the app to your chief. Say, hey, chief, look, this is what it could do for us. This is what it's doing for Atlanta right now. with these Atlanta runs, and just imagine our hydrants and our addresses in here. So, they don't need a demo from us, they could… I mean, we'll do a demo if they'd like, but they could, with no pressure from a salesman or anyone, they could download this app for free, get started, and get exposure.

[47:53] Kevin Sofen: And use it as a training tool.

[47:54] Bobby Banome: and use it as a training tool. So, that brings us into the core product, right? So I just told you about our free, or what we call our light product. The next thing is our backbone of everything, right? Our core product is the Pro. the pro version. It's… might be 6 bucks a month. Correct, and don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure it's $6 a month, and what that does is that allows you to start responding with this tool. Okay? Even if your chief doesn't like this, he's adverse to technology, you don't have iPads on the rig. For 6 bucks. Kevin Sophan can pay for this tool, and you get access to the search bar, okay? Now, you can type in any address you want around the world, and you will get every one of those views For that hydrant. I'm sorry, for that address. So, hey, my chief is not forward-thinking. No problem. You can still use and respond with this thing. So we love that we're able to get something out to the field that they love. Now, let's talk about the last offering, one we were going through today, which is our supercharged white glove offering. It's called Enterprise. That's when we're connected to your department's CAD. Hey, we had a conversation with your chief. He says, hey, we want to try this. Okay, maybe we can get them a free trial, we get their CAD, and that's where we bring in that last super high-level contactless solution, where, hey, this iPad stays on the rig, and it's just always up and running, showing the most recent rig. Hey, our cell phones are all connected to our CAD. But, what's beautiful is you don't need that to respond and get the info that you saw on this podcast. So, 3 different offerings to make it as easy as people to get exposure, to start using, or to go white glove.

[49:50] Kevin Sofen: Love it, Bobby. Well, you are a man of many features, many talents, I should say, not features are more of a product thing. You're a man of many talents, but you also wear a couple hats, and… One I wanted to end on was something that caught my eye, was your… the work with humble heroes, and I saw something around how firefighters are visiting kids as superheroes, and… I think that's awesome. I love all things nonprofit and social impact. Tell me more about Humble Heroes, and what do you have to do with that, yeah, what's your role with it, and what does Humble Heroes do?

[50:24] Bobby Banome: Thank you, Kev. I appreciate… again, I appreciate the kind words. I feel like, that I have, tall stories that I have to now live up to, right? You know, you're making me seem like a really great guy here.

[50:33] Kevin Sofen: I'm just giving you a setup, Bobby.

[50:35] Bobby Banome: I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Yeah, so Humble Heroes, probably some of the most meaningful work I've ever done, and it's a 501c3 FDNY charity. And what we do, it's just a group of volunteers. We dress up as superheroes, and we visit pediatric burn centers and cancer centers around the country, lifting the spirits of kids, giving out gifts to them. It was maybe about 10 years ago, I fell through a roof And I got a third-degree burn on my leg. And you have to keep going back and forth to the burn unit, and when I did that. to get to the adult burn unit, you have to go walk through the pediatric burn unit, burn unit, the pediatric ICU. And, you know, I just… you could tell these are the kids that need the most uplifting, you know? And I just asked them, you know, do people come here and lift the spirits of the kids? And, you know, the… they were like, oh, we try and do things, but… so I was like, hey, would you be careful, maybe I got some… you know. Firemen, as crazy as myself, to try and come in here and, you know, cheer up these kids, and they said, yeah, you know what, we'll give it a shot. And we did one visit. it went immensely well, and then all of a sudden, hospitals around the country started reaching out. Now we have probably a writing list of about 50 volunteers. You know, we operate in 6 different states. We've partnered with some of the biggest charities in the country, St. Jude's. Tunnel to Towers, the Tim Tebow Foundation, I mean, just wildly… it's amazing how much this journey has grown, and how much of an impact you're able to do. You know, when you walk into a room… and the costumes, you gotta check out the website. Everyone's here, I will put in, like, the show notes, but the… the costumes that these people build for us. We have a Marine who's just… a veteran, he's just so creative, he builds these costumes, and they're incredible. To the point where, when I walk into a hospital room. The kid doesn't see Bobby Bonomi dressed as Captain America. He thinks Captain America took time out of his day to be bedside with him, and the reactions are just unlike… anything you could imagine. The smiles, it just puts a smile on your face for a month, you know? And it also grounds you, because it's truly meaningful work, and I'm so glad that we… I don't run it anymore, but the new president, she's way better than me, and it just grows every day, you know? six states, like, I would have never thought. It was such a blessing, and it's just filled with some of the best people I've ever met.

[53:15] Kevin Sofen: Man, that's cool, and that's truly why we play the game, and if those who have the ability to know have the duty to act, and if we have the ability to serve and support those who are in need, or for whatever reason, it's good to do it, and it's very selfless of you in terms of what you've done, and I… I'm stoked to… to collaborate with that in another way, so we gotta dive deeper into that in another conversation, but definitely we'll put that in the show notes, and… and Bobby, to kind of close us out here, I'd love to know… is there any words of wisdom or favorite quote that you live by, whether it's your… whether it's your role with Humble Heroes, your… your role as a, kind of, CEO founder, or role as a firefighter, or role as a… son, you know, sibling, all those things. Like, what are some… is there any quote or quotes that you live by that you could leave us with here today?

[54:07] Bobby Banome: Stay motivated. Stay coachable. I truly, I'm, I'm failing my way to success. I, you know, people are so afraid of making mistakes, and it's the… the ego is the enemy of your success. If you're not afraid. to make mistakes, and you're not afraid to listen to people when they're trying to help you. And I'm not saying every piece of feedback is great, but if you don't listen, you're not even gonna give yourself the chance to dis… to digest it and figure out if it's good feedback or not, because your ego won't allow you to. So, staying motivated. And staying coachable are probably the two cornerstones that I could… that I could give to anyone inside the firehouse, outside the firehouse, family, friends, just in life.

[54:55] Kevin Sofen: Well said, Bobby. I mean, I think that… Couldn't be more true with, you said it earlier, checking your ego at the door and just being coachable. I'm always trying to learn, surround myself with people who are smarter than me, and I think if you think that you can't learn anything and are uncoachable, it's probably a time to… re-evaluate your mindset, or maybe you're in a different spot, don't know, but nonetheless, I couldn't agree more with being coachable, and Bobby, you've just shared and dropped a bunch of knowledge bombs today. Love the live demo, and I'm excited to continue to see the continued evolution of all things Blint. So, good on you, man, and thanks for all you're doing for the fire service.

[55:31] Bobby Banome: Of course. Kev, I really… I can't thank you so much for having us on. You please keep up the great work. We're all learning alongside with you with this podcast, so please continue doing what you're doing. It's such a wonderful community, and it's a place where a lot of good things are gonna start and spread.

[55:51] Kevin Sofen: Appreciate it, man. Alright, have a good one. Until next time, stay safe.

[55:53] Bobby Banome: Thanks. Alright, you got it.

[55:55] Kevin Sofen: item.