The 2021 Congressional Fire Services Institute/Motorola Solutions Mason Lankford Fire Service Leadership Award recipient is Deputy Fire Chief Billy Goldfeder of the Loveland-Symmes (OH) Fire Department. A 48-year member of the fire and emergency services, Chief Goldfeder has made firefighter safety and survival a central tenet of his career. A 1993 graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program, Chief Goldfeder serves on the boards of directors for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, International Association of Fire Chiefs, the September 11th Families Association. Chief Goldfeder has co-hosted www.FireFighterCloseCalls.com since 1998, has written Firehouse Magazine’s Close Calls column for 25+ years and serves as a contributing editor for FireRescue1, Fire Engineering and Firehouse. His 3 books, “Pass It On” 1, 2 and 3 (consisting of nearly 150 contributors) have raised funds with all royalties benefiting firefighter charities including the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, the Firefighter Cancer Support Network and the Chief Ray Downey Scholarship Fund. His contributions to firefighter safety, health and survival capture the spirit of the Mason Lankford Award, which embraces the importance of advocacy and leadership on behalf of all firefighters and emergency services personnel.

The CFSI/IFSTA Dr. Anne W. Phillips Award for Leadership in Fire Safety Education is presented to Don Porth, former Director of Public Education for the Portland, Oregon Fire and Rescue Department. Porth became a member of the department in 1984 and spent much of his career in the Public Education section for Portland Fire as a fire and life safety educator and eventually the supervisor. His long career in the fire service is notable for his frequent articles on fire and life safety education published nationally and many speaking and teaching engagements across the nation. He is perhaps best known for his many contributions to the field of youth firesetting, having established a non-profit (SOS FIRES) in 1995 that provided guidance and training for the fire service and others nationwide. He was also instrumental in starting the Youth Firesetting Information Repository & Evaluation System (YFIRES) with the International Association of Fire Fighters in 2011.

The third award is the Senator Paul S. Sarbanes Fire Service Safety Leadership, cosponsored by CFSI and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. The award recognizes fire and emergency departments and organizations for leadership in advancing the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives. The recipients of the 2021 award are the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department.  Fairfax County Fire and Rescue is being recognized for the Fairfax County Public Safety Occupational Health Center, an outstanding occupational and preventive medical health care facility that serves Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department’s 1,500 career and volunteer firefighters. The Los Angeles Fire Department is being honored for developing an annual Everyone Goes Home Symposium in collaboration with regional partners, including United Firefighters of Los Angeles Local 11.

And the fourth award is the CFSI/Masimo Excellence in Fire Service-Based EMS Award.  This award is presented to fire and emergency services departments for innovations in the delivery of emergency medical services. This year’s recipient is the Thornton Colorado Fire Department for its Pandemic Response team that is conducting rapid testing for public employees, senior citizens, first responders, and other community members in addition to setting up drive-thru vaccinations for city employees and other members of the community. The department has also implemented a monitoring program for symptomatic firefighters and their families and other essential city workers.

Details about the award presentations are forthcoming. Because of the pandemic, CFSI could not host the 2021 National Fire and Emergency Services Dinner, but we intend to conduct a special event to recognize our recipients in Washington, DC later this year.

Congratulations to all the recipients and a special thanks to our cosponsors.