Christopher J. Naum, SFPE is a 35-year fire service veteran and a former Fire Chief/ Fire & Safety Coordinator at a U.S nuclear power plant and previously served as a commanding company officer for over twenty years in field operations with a volunteer fire department in Central New York. He is presently the Chief of Training for the Command Institute; a Washington, DC based emergency management & training organization with a focus on research, development & policy insights . A nationally recognized authority on building construction, structural collapse and command management, he has traveled throughout the United States, and internationally delivering training programs on building construction, command risk management and firefighter safety.
An Adjunct Instructor with the National Fire Academy, he specializes in training courses for Structural Collapse, Building Construction and Firefighter Safety & Health. A Contributing Editor with Firehouse Magazine since 1988 and Firehouse.com since 2002, he has authored numerous articles on building construction, firefighting operations, command, leadership and special technical rescue operations. He authors the periodic column at Firehouse.com entitled- Structural Anatomy and also authors the Firehoues.com blog, Structural Anatomy of Buildingsonfire that focuses on building construction, command risk management and firefighter safety. He also advocates and writes extensively within various fire service internet training forums and groups including Firehouse.com, Fire Engineering, FireRescue1 and Firefighter Nation where he authors the Building Construction & Firefighter Safety Groups and Command Safety forum. His popular interactive scenario based series; Ten Minutes in the Street is a regular feature on Firefighter Nation. The recipient of numerous awards and commendations, he was the 1987 ISFSI George D. Post National Fire Instructor of the Year as presented by the International Society of Fire Service Instructors.
In addition, Mr. Naum has over fourteen years of experience within the areas of architectural design and planning & having served as a project architect for an architecture & engineering firm. He has served on numerous FEMA, USFA, NFPA, IAFC and ISFSI task forces, committees and panels over the past twenty nine years and holds full professional member grade Fire Protection Engineer-SFPE, status from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
The Second Vice President with the International Society of Fire Service Instructors, he is an active supporter and participant of the NFFF, The Everyone Goes Home Initiatives, a State Firefighter Safety Advocate and a resource contributor to National Near-Miss Reporting System. A member of the IAFC since 1987, he served over ten years as a charter member of the IAFC Urban Rescue Structural Collapse Committee and is a member of the Safety, Health & Survival Section and the Volunteer Chief Officers Section. He serves on the Board of Directors with the International Association of Fire Chiefs, Safety, Health & Survival Section (IAFC SH&S) and the Board of Directors of the Open Fire Academy International (OFA). He continues to present his popular structural anatomy building construction training series throughout the United States and internationally and is the developer of the informational portal Buildingsonfire.com dedicated to building construction, command risk management and firefighter safety launching in January 2010. Buildingsonfire informational insights are also now being posted on Facebook . He is presently authoring a new text book integrating building construction, risk management and firefighter safety and provides insightful firefighter safety commentary on his CommandSafety Blog at http://commandsafety.com/ and thru two Twitter accounts at Commandsafety and Buildingsonfire (Bldgsonfire). Chief Naum has developed and delivered training to over 176,000 personnel nationally and internationally throughout his career. He can be reached at Christopher.naum@gmail.com Watch for the newest blog web site coming soon dedicated to Company Officer Leadership, Development, Training, Supervision and Safety..TheCompanyOfficer.com
Additionally, follow him on the following eMedia sites:
- Firehouse.com: The Structural Anatomy of Buildingsonfire, HERE
- CommandSafety.com, HERE
- Firefighter Nation.com
- Buildingsonfire on Face book, HERE
- FireRescue1.com: The Kitchen Table, HERE
- FireEngineering.com: The CommandSafety Group, HERE
- The new Buildingsonfire.com (launching early 2010), HERE
