By Joe Meyer, PE | Fire Protection Engineer 

We’re at a point with AI today where I think it’s worth saying out loud what we want the future of design and engineering to be.
 
For a period of time since ChatGPT surfaced in 2022 to today, much of what we, as an industry, have created with AI’s help has been creation that has happened because we now can do things.
 
The international dialogue about AI is talking daily about what we can create but also what we should create.
 
And before you think this is a moral lecture, it’s not. You’ll see in a minute where I’m going with this.
 
My core question today – where do we want to place our human touch in the future of our practice?
 
I don’t want us all casually watching AI happen before us, arriving at a future of design where we're mostly bystanders. I think our ideal future of work is when people initiate key decisions, not simply review them.

INCOMPREHENSIBLE OPPORTUNITY
For those who aren’t regularly working with AI multiple times a day, I’m not going to fear-monger and say you’re behind. You’re not. You’re the norm, not the exception.
 
For those who are in the throes of AI, you already know that our ceiling is completely blown out.
 
If we were walking a metaphorical hallway of opportunity, a few years ago we’d open a door (of AI opportunity) and see that there were a few more doors available to us. We open a door here or there and find closets, but then we’d open one and a giant room would open up. Today, working with any of your pick of LLMs, we’re opening one door and finding a Monster’s-Inc-style gigantic warehouse of doors.
 
If you can think of it today, it’s probably possible to make it. Today.
 
I’m not even talking some $100k worth of tokens or senior software engineer stuff – just using ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. It’s unbelievably wild what can be created right now. It’s something I can’t fully wrap my head around.
 
We recently created a new subsidiary of MeyerFire called MeyerFire Labs, LLC, where we’ve been exploring and tackling a wide variety of opportunities related to improving how work gets done (software, tools, workflows). In doing so, we keep coming back to can vs. should, and what we want our field to be in the near future.
 
CAN VS. SHOULD
Once we come to a realization of the scale of the opportunity today – our instinct is to build-build-build.
 
What do I do that can be automated?
 
What do I do that can be replaced by my AI?
 
Many of us have tried this. Many of us have been disappointed with putting in something straightforward (to us) and getting a response that’s less than our skill. There’s an entire mentality to this that I can (and do) spend hours talking about.
 
But I think the more interesting question at this stage, and something we all will need to decide for our individual selves in time – is what are things that we can automate versus what are things that we want to automate?
 
In other words, where do we want to place our human touch in the future of our practice?
 
WHAT MATTERS, VERSUS WHAT DOESN’T
Some say that everything we do today, as designers, plan reviewers, engineers or whatever our role – that everything we do matters, and none of it should be automated.
 
In my opinion, that’s too rosy a view and gives us too much credit for our own time effectiveness.
 
Setting up job folders. Project kickoffs. Digesting specifications. Editing specifications. Setting up projects, or titleblocks, or detail sheets. Spellchecking. Exporting PDFs. Naming files. Combining files. Saving files. Sending files.
 
Did you know that in your line of project-based work – however you like to set up your job when you first start – you could probably have it 60% done just by literally saying a few words into your computer?
 
To me, that’s partially exciting, and mostly terrifying.
 
It keeps coming back to that very-specific question that’s been top of mind since early summer.
 
In our own future, what is it that we want to be doing?
 
DECISIONS
Thus far, I’ve seen a few AI startups that have taken the ball and run. Promises (likely true?) that you could have a full sprinkler layout in just a few minutes.
 
How does it work? AI does it.
 
I’m not going to make an argument here that design shouldn’t be automated because of a moral imperative that only a human should lay out sprinklers or orient branch lines.
 
We’ve seen versions of this argument throughout history whenever technology changes how jobs get done – from automation in banking to self-service gasoline to countless others.
 
Now we have autonomous cars.
 
So while you and I value our craft and seek to protect it, there’s not a natural law that says a line representing a sprinkler branch pipe or a circle that represents a sprinkler has to be physically positioned by a real person.
 
It doesn’t.
 
But how do we feel about deciding protection for a combustible overhang? Or a hazard classification for tote storage inside an assisted living facility? Or performance-based criteria for smoke control inside an amphitheater?
 
Those are pretty important decisions, and I think most of us would agree that we’ve missed the mark if that’s automated away.
 
LINE IN THE SAND
Just my take, but I think the line that should be drawn in the sand for what can be automated and what shouldn’t is by asking, ‘if our end-user fully understood the process, what would they actually want us spending human attention on? What decisions are important enough that they should originate from a person, not AI?’
 
If we were fully transparent about our process, what would our clients want to see?
 
Would they be thrilled, or horrified?

Would a client be annoyed if you had AI tools at your disposal, and you didn't use them?  
 
‘Well, Joe, my clients wouldn’t give a hoot if our design was good or bad as long as it didn’t cost them any time or money.’
 
I’m not talking about apathetic clients. It’s our job as experts to advocate for their safety, whether they care or not.
 
I’m talking about a knowledgeable, concerned end-user. What would they truly want to see us lay human eyes on? What would they be fine with us automating? What would they be upset that we weren't automating? 
 
I think that’s where the line should be drawn.
 
DESIGN EXAMPLE
If I’m an architect hiring a consultant, or I’m a general contractor hiring a sprinkler sub – do either of those parties care exactly how a line is drawn in AutoCAD?
 
Do they care how projects are set up and logged in the job folder?
 
Or, do they care about the quality, accuracy, and ability of the submittal to be code-compliant, effectively communicate what is supposed to happen, and have someone who is responsible and can attest to all those things for this specific project?
 
PLAN REVIEW EXAMPLE
If I’m a plan reviewer, I might not think of end-users as clients, but it’s similar. Most probably wouldn’t care if administrative pieces were largely automated.
 
Do responsible and cautious building owners care how projects are logged, tracked, fees assessed, and communicated?
 
Many would probably say that reviewing for correct occupancy, egress, required systems, applicable standards – at some point, a human needs to be directly involved in those things – even if they have tools supporting them.
 

The new edition of the PE Prep Guide is here! 

Here we are in September, and I just put my children on the bus for their first day of school. I know lots of you may already be a month in, but here in the Northeast we start after Labor Day. Just as we’re entering “school mode” in my house, you might be entering “study mode” in your house if you’re gearing up to study for the 2027 PE Fire Protection exam. Just in time for you to kick off your studying, the 9th edition of the MeyerFire PE Prep Guide is here, updated to the new NCEES exam specification. 

This update isn’t just to fix typos and errata from the previous editions, it goes much further than that. The PE Fire Protection exam is changing for 2027, and this book has been revised to align with the new exam specification. Not only have they updated the editions of the codes being used, but they’ve also changed the topics that the exam covers. This is probably the most significant change to the exam since it became computer-based. 

WHAT CHANGED ABOUT THE EXAM? ​
Joe wrote a blog post about this in May, but primarily, the topics covered have been realigned to the new PE Fire Protection specification. The figure here summarizes the changes nicely: 

 
WHAT IS THE PE PREP GUIDE? 
The goal of the update was to make sure the book does what it’s supposed to do: help candidates study the material that’s most relevant to the exam they’re about to take. If you’re preparing for the April 2027 exam, this edition is built for that specification. 

It’s not intended to teach you everything about fire protection, go deep into fire protection engineering concepts, or show the work for deriving equations that are used. There are great books that do those things, and they are resources that will help you in your preparation. But the job of the PE Prep Guide is narrower: it’s meant to help someone efficiently prepare for the PE Fire Protection exam as it will exist beginning in 2027. 

Since the book first came out, it’s been a valuable resource to folks studying for the exam. The guide was originally built through the hard work of Joe Meyer and Chris Campbell, along with years of valuable feedback from students. If you’re unfamiliar with the PE Prep Guide, it includes advice for test-taking, a road map for studying, formulas used in the exam, page references to other handbooks for variables, formulas, and example problems, over 100 practice questions and worked solutions, and a full-length 85-question practice exam. 
 
YES, WE (HUMANS) ACTUALLY CHECKED IT 
In updating the book, I thought it was important to flip through the pages in the handbooks and verify the references with my own eyes. We reviewed the topics in the exam specification and used that to guide the update. I personally checked the code and standard references in the book and verified or updated them in the newer editions. I had the books spread across my desk, correlating between table of contents of multiples documents. I say this not to be a martyr, because I know your desk will look the same while you’re studying. I say it to let you know that an actual human worked through this update. And the Track Changes were a massacre! 

There’s a lot of PE prep material out there, and more of it than ever can be generated quickly with AI. And we use AI too. It was an incredibly useful tool during the QC process. But there’s a big difference between using AI as a tool and asking a chatbot to generate technical material in a few minutes, then publishing it without knowledgeable scrutiny. We stand behind our published work. We put our names on it, and we take responsibility for the final content. 
​
We’ve worked hard to get it right, but we’re also not going to pretend we’re infallible. So if you find an error, let us know! And we’ll do our best to fix it. 

We hope you use this book on your study journey, and that you’re successful. If you want more, we have many PE-specific prep classes that are part of MeyerFire University. They’re already included in your subscription, there’s nothing special you need to purchase. We’re updating the MeyerFire University PE content against the same new specification, revising segments affected by changes to the exam content and new code and standard editions, removing material that is no longer on the exam, and adding new material where it’s required. Those updates will be rolling out this fall. 

And if you’ll indulge me in a bit of schmaltz: what’s not changing is our commitment to learners and to providing quality educational content. There are real people behind these resources, written for the real people who will use them. We’re going to keep checking the references, updating the materials, correcting our mistakes, and doing our best to give you materials that help you prepare as effectively as possible for the exam.  
​
If you’re preparing for the 2027 exam, we hope the 9th Edition makes that process a little more manageable. Good luck studying. We’re rooting for you! 

The 9th Edition of the MeyerFire PE Prep Guide is available now. [Get the new edition here]

- Jocelyn

I am happy to share updates on our MeyerFire Toolkit - we have upgraded fourteen of our quick-hitting tools and added new features as well. ​

If you enjoyed this, subscribe to NFPA's show and you'd also probable appreciate the Leader Insights 2026 series we're debuting on MeyerFire University at the end of August. Enjoy!

​- Joe

​

It was great to catch up with some of you at the NFPA Conference & Expo in Las Vegas last week. We had a booth, and I had a small speaking event for the first time at NFPA. Quite the experience. 

TRENDS AND CHANGES WITH AI ADOPTION 
If you’re looking to get your hands on Trends and Changes with AI Adoption, where I talked about real changes we’re seeing today in fire protection with entry-level Large Language Models (LLMs) – you can see the recording if you attended the NFPA Conference here (https://nfpa.confex.com/nfpa/2026/meetingapp.cgi/Session/15945). 

If you weren’t at NFPA, be part of MeyerFire University and get our entire 2026 Leader Insights Series, where I talk on the concepts presented in more depth, as the course releases at the end of August. 

​SUPRISING TAKEAWAY
In the talk, I present practical use cases for entry-level AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) that we’re seeing actively used in industry today.

A key part of the material is looking specifically at the best use cases not being one-for-one replacement for what we do today with AI.

I think instinctively, we look at our processes we do today, and we tiral chat-based AI as a substitute for our thinking or our process. It doesn’t do that well. Part of that is AI doesn’t have our unique worldview, expertise, or experience.
But the other part of it is that noone actually wants AI to be a substitute for our judgment, for our communication, for our work, or for the things that make us most human (advocacy, trust, empathy, relationships). Clients don’t want us to spit out AI – they can just get AI from their AI. They want us and our experience and expertise to own our work and support them through a project. 

The best thing I feel we can do today is lean into the areas where we provide the most value, and that’s increasingly the human-side of what we do. 

What if we could be more responsive to clients?

More present in meetings? 

Have significantly better work output? 

Those are all things that are improvements over what we do today. 
 
THE MISCONCEPTION
The general misconception, and I hadn’t entirely wrapped my head around it until I spoke with many people last week before and after the talk – is that we naturally want to take AI today and simply swap out something we do with AI. It doesn’t work well, and it’s not what our clients want. 

What’s far, far better, is to have AI help us QC our own work. It’s instant, nearly-free, and it can give us a grade on our own work. 

Here’s the key – we tell AI what it is we value. We tell it what to grade us on. What matters to us. That’s the key. Essentially, we create our own grading rubrics, and AI can help give feedback on what matters to us. 

If the report needs to be clearly communicated – if the change order proposal needs substantiation – if a proposal needs to be void of gaps – if the plan review needs code references, have AI grade us and tell us where we’re falling short. 

Not what the code reference should be (that’s a common AI hallucination and source of error today), but where in our work we don’t provide a reference (that’s really easy for AI to pick off). 

Large Language Models today work really well with two things – language and data. 

Despite being in a technical field, we have language everywhere – reports, emails, RFIs, plan reviews, meeting notes. We also have lots and lots and lots of data, though we usually don’t think of it that way. 

The last 10 years of the work we’ve done? The plan reviews we’ve sent? Our own boss’s review comments? Emails? RFI logs? Outside comments received? 

LLMs can make great use of that information, all internally, into our own QC checklists, grading rubrics, internal spreadsheets, internal dashboards, or internal tools that help us do far better work. 

Not replace a process, but build it better. 

There’s a huge difference there and the best applications we’ve seen thus far for fire protection and these entry-level LLMs are usually in that arena. 
 
Plenty more to come on this – if it’s a topic that interests you at all, I would greatly encourage you (that’s a midwest polite way to say seriously, check this out) to evaluate MeyerFire University for your team. We have so much technical and upstart coursework for new learners, but now we're NICET- and ICC-accredited CEUs and CPDs for senior-level teammates, 100+ PDF flowcharts, tables, cheat sheets, and checklists, and we’re adding our 2026 Leader Insights Series at the end of August. 

Most people I talk with are floored at how much has been added since they last looked. Come help your team get significantly better and be part of the community there – it costs less than you might think. 
 
Thanks, as always, for being part of what we do here! On the up -
​
– Joe

We're back for 2026 at the NFPA Conference & Expo!

Joe Meyer will present Trends and Changes with AI Adoption at Islander BG (Lower Level, Mandalay Bay Convention Center)  on Wednesday, June 24th at 8:00 am local time.

This presentation will feature the already-shifting landscape with AI adoption and what it means for client expectations, entry-level roles, formal and industry educators, and our own team's processes. The talk caps multiple studies (MeyerFire Insights Survey, 2026, and Purdue Solutions project, 2026) alongside real and anecdotal conversations from within the last year.

If you're not at NFPA this year, join MeyerFire University! We're releasing our first Leader Insights 2026 course on MeyerFire University this August that covers the shifts we're seeing but with actionable insights on what, as leaders, we can do about it.

If you're at NFPA, come see Joe, Erik & Jocelyn at The NFPA Expo! We're at Booth #1840, and the hours are:
Monday, June 22 3–6 p.m.
Tuesday, June 23 11 a.m.–4 p.m.
Wednesday, June 24 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

If you have ideas, tips, feedback, or things you'd want to see in the coming year, this is a great time to connect and share! This tends to be the biggest connector event of the year for the industry and we look forward to catching up with some of you there!

By Joe Meyer, PE | Founder / Fire Protection Engineer at MeyerFire

Just after this year's completion of the Fire Protection P.E. Exam in April, NCEES released a new exam specification for the Fire Protection P.E. Exam starting in April 2027.

THE CHANGES
On the surface, the topic weights seem to favor less data analysis and fundamentals and more systems-based applications. For instance, water-based suppression, special hazard, fire alarm, smoke control, and passive systems all gained 15 questions, on average, against the prior exam specification. That's a fairly significant shift, and it seems to be in line with the gripe many have had against the exam for years in that it's leaned too heavily in theory and not in practical, real-world application.

This shift may get us closer to regular Fire Protection Engineering applications, at least from the design and reviewer's regular working experience.
​

​REFERENCE UPDATES
Along with the topic reorganization, the referenced standards have shifted too. Every reference standard has a code edition update. NFPA 12 and NFPA 25 were removed, and NFPA 855 is a new edition to the P.E. Exam references.

There's an entire side of the industry that would probably lament that FPEs may never brush up against NFPA 25, including as part of the P.E. Exam efforts, but the modernization effort seems to be shifting to more modern challenges (introduction of NFPA 855) and away from less-common FPE applications (Carbon Dioxide Systems & ITM).

The full new exam specification can be found on NCEES's website here: ncees.org/exams/pe-exam/fire-protection/

OPPORTUNITY
If we're looking at this glass-half-full, this is a welcome change for many in the industry. Aligning closer to today's challenges and less on fundamentals has been an ask from many people for a long time. 

Is there a missed opportunity in not skipping straight to 2025 and 2026 standard editions? Certainly (I think), though I'm sure that'll come in time.

With shifts to the computer-based exam, we've seen pass rates temporarily rise. We'll likely know the pass rates for this April 2026's results in July. As with anything, it's hard to feel like a guinea pig in trying out the first iteration of any change, but historically those who have first passed through the wall have tended to score well; so my glass-half-full suggestion would be if you feel ready to study and take the exam, don't hesitate just because of some new nuance to the exam.

MEYERFIRE UNIVERSITY UPDATES
We've already put together our internal plans for updating all of our University content to reflect the new exam specification. It'll be implemented on a rolling basis, with all the new University content to be done before the bulk of the 2027 PE Exam study season in January. If you're studying in the fall you'll likely notice many updates already incorporated.

PE PREP GUIDE, 9TH EDITION
Because of the major update to the exam specification and new references, we're also working on a new edition to the popular PE Prep Guide. It'll be published as soon as it's complete, which will likely be this fall. All questions, study schedule, weighting, and programmatic advice need to be brought up to the new exam specification.

If we want to get an early start, will studying from an older edition suffice in the meantime? Of course! There is far more overlap from past exams than there are differences. Studying more, and earlier, never hurts. 

Any questions, let us know! Hope you have a great rest of your week.

​- Joe

By Jocelyn Sarrantonio, PE | Technical Director at MeyerFire

Last week, I celebrated my 1-year anniversary at MeyerFire. Yay me! Joining MeyerFire was a career pivot for me, having worked almost exclusively in Fire Protection consulting before that. I’m happy I was fortunate enough to find the right opportunity at the right time, and am really enjoying my new role.

Recently, a lot of what I’ve been working on here was content to help students preparing to take the Fire Protection PE exam, and an introductory course (coming soon!) that’s meant to teach current engineering students about what Fire Protection is. The thought is, when we make contact with students via the Student Connector, we have information readily available for them to let them know all about fire protection. Both of these efforts have had me looking back a bit. First in reminiscing about my winding pathway to how I got here and my pathway to becoming a licensed Fire Protection Engineer. And also in revisiting the basics, the fundamental concepts in fire protection engineering, and helping young professionals achieve their goals and progress their careers.

I’ve been feeling a lot like a professional Mama Bear. I care a lot about helping people be successful and finding their own paths. Even people I haven’t met!
 
MY PATHWAY
My path to being an engineer followed the “normal” engineering pathway. I attended a four-year engineering school studying Mechanical Engineering. I was organized and really good at math, and I like the order and quantitative finality that engineering brings. I thought I knew what I was going to do, designing machines at The Gillette Company in Boston. That didn’t really work out, so I stayed for my Master's degree when I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do. At the end of that tenure, I threw my resume on Monster.com (yes, it was still a thing back then) and ended up in Chicago for my first job. That part was a huge leap. I had lived in Massachusetts all my life, and I moved to a big city I hadn’t even visited before my job interview. The job offered me a bit of relief, though, when my first boss explained to me how people end up in Fire Protection from all over the place. I wasn’t starting out behind. 

In fact, I was starting out kind of ahead! I spent some summers working at my Mom’s fire sprinkler contracting business that my grandfather started, but I would still consider myself to be starting off at square one. I knew what NFPA 13 was and could name some of the major pieces of equipment, but I certainly didn’t know what a building code was, and I probably couldn’t tell you the actual difference between a butterfly valve and an OS&Y valve. I recognize that it was quite a privilege to have family members in the business, and I definitely called my Mom for help a few times in those first few years. “Mom, they’re telling me they need a fire pump, are they just trying to bully me, or is that real?” (In hindsight, yeah, it probably could have used a fire pump.)

It was at the first job where I learned that I really like the codes. It feels like a treasure hunt for me, I like following the pathways and understanding what the code says, what they meant to say, and how things change over time. Love that stuff. Looking back, that makes sense! I’ve always loved puzzles, and NYTimes crossword and games are part of my daily routine. Figuring stuff out and getting to a final answer are things I’ve always enjoyed. 

At my next few jobs, I specialized in data centers, and I liked that I could be good at something. That’s where I really felt like I started to stand out, it was like a double specialty, both fire protection and mission-critical designs. Then I took a brief stint working for a government contractor. But then I got right back into mission-critical consulting and ended up managing a team at my last job.
 
THE CAREER FABRIC
Looking back at my (almost) 20 years in the industry, the pathway hasn’t really been a straight line, and if you spend some time talking to people in fire protection, you’ll learn that hardly anyone’s path is a straight line.  Managing a team also taught me that lesson; I encountered people from all different pathways that somehow ended up at similar spots, and I got to see people develop into engineers first-hand.

There’s no one way to do things, and over the years you pull in parts from different people, projects, and places to create the fabric of your career.
​
Your career isn’t a ladder, it’s a tapestry. 

There are project lessons that teach you something and always stick with you. Did I make that fire pump mistake again? Yes, absolutely, but I didn’t make it a third time. There is something to learn and carry with you in every situation.

Even my brief stint at a government contractor, I spent most of my time writing a fire protection manual instead of design work. But a lot of the way that business was conducted was through letters, and being amid people who really understood fire protection, and those who didn’t. That was a hidden gift of boring paperwork and bureaucracy. It taught me a lot about technical writing and presenting information for groups of people with varying knowledge of your subject matter.

Writing precisely the right thing, no more, no less, is really hard! The wrong number can result in a change order, and a missing word could be a safety failure. I write some detailed technical reports, and they have to be appropriate for different audiences. Enough detail for people who are looking for thorough answers, but broad and basic enough for people who don’t have time to get into the weeds. But the practice I had in that job forced me to be better, and the skills I learned stay with me.

I was once interviewing an intern with two coworkers and she asked us about our favorite projects. One said a project where he got to design the best systems, and the second named a project where the client listened to him. And me, I said the one where everything went wrong. Seriously, I picked up the project shortly after joining the company, after DD, and the design was missing so much. Some of it basic, and some of it was very specific AHJ requirements. It seemed like one thing after another, changes to our drawings, constant calls to walk through technical situations, and several technical memos and opinions to justify design decisions. But bit by bit we worked through it, and at the end of the day, that was the job I learned the most from, so it ended up being my favorite. I was pretty proud of how much ground was made up from when I started to where I ended up.

You take the things with you, make the best of the situation you’re in. And by “making the best of it” I don’t mean as a consolation prize, but seizing the opportunity that’s in front of you.

NAVIGATING THE SNAGS AND SPEED BUMPS
How do we do that? A lot of our jobs and careers are outside of our control. There will be rips or snags in the fabric. You won’t know when you move across the country for your first job that there will be a nationwide economic crisis. (Yikes, that was fun.) You can’t control if the small business you joined gets bought by a much larger company. But learning adaptability is a skill.

Recessions are more than just annoying, but slowdowns are a good time to take your time, enjoy the quiet, and squeeze as much as you can out of the role you’re in. It’s no secret that private equity is infiltrating a lot of sectors. Acquisitions are more than just annoying, but they’re a good opportunity to take advantage of corporate structure. When your company gets bought, it’s easy to feel like a number, but that’s a good time to master the business side of engineering. 

When you look around and consider the people who you encounter that you deem to be successful, the common denominator is usually that they’ve found what they’re good at and they’ve made the best of the opportunities available to them and the situations they’re in. Things are constantly changing around us, whether it’s our company, technology, or codes. If we spend time learning our own strengths and weaknesses, that helps us make the most out of our experience.

I always tell people to squeeze as much as they can out of the position they’re in. If their company offers training or will reimburse for coursework or licensing prep courses, take advantage of it!

MAMA BEAR ADVICE
After all that contemplating, the career advice that didn’t end up in the course ended up here. If I had to give three pieces of advice it would be:

1. Don’t panic at the pivots. It’s hard in the moment (ask me how I know), but learn some good breathwork and consider how you can make the best of it. You can’t control your reaction, but you can control your response.
2. Your company, the economy, and the code will change. How you learn from it and choose to incorporate it into your career tapestry is what’s important. 
3. Every job (even the bad ones) gives you a tool for your toolbelt.

 
Have you had any unraveling or frays in your career that ended up being your biggest lesson?

By Jocelyn Sarrantonio, PE | Technical Director at MeyerFire

Hiring in fire protection is tough.

You can have a perfectly written requisition, offer the right salary, and still watch it sit open for months, waiting for the right person to come along.

Before joining MeyerFire I led a fire protection group of 15 people across 5 locations at a large global firm. Management and running a group isn’t just about managing the team you already have. If you’re lucky enough to be at a growing company, it’s also about finding the right people to join your team and fill open roles in the right locations. Even with a full talent acquisition team and sophisticated systems, we still struggled to fill fire protection roles.

Because the challenge isn’t just hiring. It’s finding people who even know this field exists.
 
WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE?
I remember trying to explain to a manager from a few jobs ago, who was not a fire protection engineer, just how special a bunch we were. He thought we could just drive to WPI and show up in the fire protection lab with some pizza, and they’d be knocking down our door to work with us. I appreciated his optimism, but it doesn’t work like that anymore! Especially not in fire protection, those students already had jobs lined up.

Imagine your team is getting pushed – really stretched thin. 

You could say yes to more work for the team if only you had the hands to pull it off. 

You’d hire – but there’s a problem. 

Where do you find people? 

Working for competitors? 

Hiring away from competitors is a short-term fix for an industry-wide problem. We can’t keep robbing from other companies if we’re going to grow the industry. 

Surely you've seen it; we need to bring people into the industry. We are not bringing people in at the rate that the demand increases and people are retiring. The math isn't mathing. 
 
But there lies the bigger problem - where are the students? 

WHERE ARE THE STUDENTS? 
In our industry, we have very few fire protection programs. Few locations, few graduates. There are only so many high schoolers who know about the fire protection industry before choosing a program. 
 
Maybe we look to bring in a few interns each year. Maybe we look for a few new hires in the hope that they grow into meaningful leaders on the team. 

But, where do you find them? 

Go to a local college career fair? Make a strong pitch for a student to split from their degree and go into fire protection, and hire them on the spot? 

What are the true chances of that? One in a hundred? One in five hundred? 

At those rates, are you going to attend all nearby career fairs? 

No; small and midsize employers know we can’t be at 12 regional career fairs in the hope of bringing over, maybe, one college student. It's a lot of time to put out for the chance meeting with your unicorn student.

It’s a scale problem.

WHAT'S BEEN TRIED
What else do we try? Connect with local college professors? Guest lectures? Create a career social media account?
 
The problem is, these things have been tried. They can be great - but we're still very short on talent.
 
Huge companies have recruiting staff. Maybe they get in front of enough talent, maybe not.
 
But for everyone else, the problem is scale and connectivity.

We can’t be everywhere at once. And we can’t exhaust ourselves in the hope of maybe finding an interested student.

SCALE & CONNECTIVITY
We need, as an industry, to find students where they are. We need to advocate for the upside of this awesome industry. And, when that first spark is lit, we need to connect those students with our opportunities in a consistent way.
 
What does MeyerFire have to do with it?

We’re not hiring big dogs – but we are good at connecting people. Whether via forums, learning, or resources, we do online connectivity and scale in slightly new ways.

NEW: STUDENT CONNECTOR
The concept for our new Student Connector, which launches today, is to find students who have shown even a little interest in fire protection – wherever they are – and connect them with employers seeking that talent.

So what we’re introducing today is a simple way to bridge that gap.

It’s meeting a scale problem with scale.

Easy for students to signup, easy for organizations to share opportunities with the students.

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