EMMITSBURG, MD. – The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) U.S. Fire Administration’s (USFA) National Fire Academy (NFA) announced that Joseph P. Kosiorowski, successfully completed the Executive Fire Officer Program (EFOP).
“The intensive EFOP is designed to provide senior fire officers with a broad perspective on various facets of fire administration,” according to U.S. Fire Administrator G. Keith Bryant. “This program provides fire service officers with the expertise they need to succeed in today’s challenging environment.”
In order to complete this program, Chief Kosiorowski after attending classroom studies at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, MD, was required to provide a written Applied Research Project (ARP) to demonstrate application of course theory and concepts to real life situations that he might be faced with while operating within the Green Valley Fire District. Each of the four courses of the program involve a yearlong commitment to complete.
U.S. Fire Administrator Bryant also stated, “It is important that these senior fire executives apply what they have learned in the classroom to existing situations in their own communities. This makes completion of the EFOP and the Applied Research Projects particularly valuable to these fire service leaders.” Each of these projects are then evaluated through a formal process, and progression through the program was contingent on achieving each of these milestones.
The required executive-level courses to complete the program are:
Executive Development, the entry-level course, emphasizes team development and consensus decision making to enhance organizational effectiveness.
Executive Analysis of Community Risk Reduction is a mixture of philosophy and application–the value of the community risk reduction and the process of applying risk reduction to the community. It involves developing partnerships with the community to implement programs, initiatives, and services that prevent and/or mitigate the risk of human made or natural disasters. Traditional fire prevention programs are addressed.
Executive Analysis of Fire Service Operations in Emergency Management, this course is a very critical curriculum in today’s incident response environment. The administration of incident response considering the Federal Response Plan, the Integrated Emergency Management System, emergency operations center functions, planning, documentation, are some of the topics covered.
The final course, Executive Leadership, examines all aspects of executive-level leadership and ties together the educational experiences of the three previous years.
We at the Green Valley Fire District are proud of Chief Kosiorowski for his accomplishment in completing this program. It came with great sacrifice and hard work on his part. It should be reassuring to the members of this great community that Chief Kosiorowski takes seriously his commitment in providing the very best leadership and experience in managing the response of future emergencies the area might face.