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.

Joe Meyer, PE | Fire Protection Engineer at MeyerFire
 
We’re a few weeks out from the P.E. Exam. I’ve been studying – not exactly as much as I would like, but I’ve been trying.

My scores aren’t exactly where I would want them to be. I don’t feel ready. Should I even take this exam?

THAT FEELING
If you’re taking the P.E. Exam (or have taken it), you know the feeling.

It feels like there’s a lot at stake.

Why? The exam is only once a year. It matters for my future career. For options, flexibility, pay, and recognition. Prep costs a lot. The exam itself isn’t free. I really don’t want to take it again.

As a college student, I didn’t know anything about fire protection.

I knew sprinkler systems existed. I knew fire alarms were loud. I knew how a fire drill worked. But as a career path? No idea that it was even an engineering discipline.

As it turns out, I wasn’t alone. Most college students don’t know about fire protection as a career.

Most don’t realize that it’s (1) in high demand, (2) well-paying, (3) technically challenging, and (4) is very meaningful work. Most people don’t plan to enter fire protection at all. Many fall into it and end up loving it.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT
I was studying architectural engineering at the time. Loved architecture. Loved construction. Was decent at math and science. Then one day in an intro-level class, I caught a guest lecture on fire protection engineering.

Seemed viable. Stable. Different. 

Perhaps most appealing was that it seemed like an industry where I could make an actual impact.

LANDING THAT FIRST INTERNSHIP
But, knowing about a field was one thing. Having that spark is great. But what’s that next step?

How do I actually land an internship or job? As a student, that’s not an obvious answer.

What companies actually do fire protection? Who hires interns? Are jobs even posted anywhere? Will calling 30 places actually go anywhere?

Many of the best opportunities don’t even show up online. As I know now, many smaller organizations – often the best places to learn – don’t have formal recruiting at all. So there ends up being this massive gap between being interested and landing that first opportunity.

HIRING COMPANIES EXIST
As I know now, companies are hiring. They’re looking for talent.

But - they can’t be at every career fair. They don’t always recruit consistently. Many don’t have the systems to find the students.

Both sides exist - they just don’t easily connect. There’s a massive disconnect.

Fire protection is a great field. Real demand. Real opportunity. Unfilled jobs. Long-term impact.

But the path to it isn’t obvious.

What seems like charting our own course is actually the most common path.

85% of fire protection designers and engineers in consulting firms didn’t have a fire protection degree going in. The industry is a melting pot of people from many different backgrounds.

THE STUDENT CONNECTOR
Being on the other side now, our fix is pretty simple. We’re calling it the Student Connector.

If you’re a student, and you’re even a little interested in fire protection, the industry wants to know!

Consultants, contractors and agencies often right in your neighborhood don’t know you exist.

How it works:
- You share a few details about yourself (school, degree, what you’re seeking)
- We make that visible to vetted fire protection organizations actively looking for talent
- Employers can see who’s interested – especially in their area
​

A man is walking through the woods and sees a lumberjack working hard to cut a tree. The lumberjack is exhausted, sweating, and has been sawing for hours with little progress.

The man asks, “How long have you been cutting that tree?”

Lumberjack replies, “Five hours – and I’m exhausted!”

The man looks at the saw and says, “Why don’t you take a break and sharpen your saw?”

The Lumberjack responds, “I can’t, I’m too busy cutting!”
 
There are different versions of the parable; you may have heard it before. Yet today, more than ever, our work lives are too busy to spend time helping ourselves out.

OUR CRITICAL ASSET
Our most critical asset is time. It’s a massive limitation, and yet we are all given the same amount each week.

What I’d like to beg you to consider is investing your time in your future. Not in a “work hard today so you don’t have to tomorrow,” or even “go make as much money as you possibly can,” that seemed to be an undertone in our parents’ and their parents’ generations.

I’m talking about investing time in order to get more time back.
 
THINKING LINEARLY
Our brains evolved to survive in environments where change was mostly linear and local. Survival was based on gradual change, local change, and physical outcomes. We’re wired to be extremely good at pattern recognition, cause-and-effect thinking, and short-term projections.

Not long-term exponential returns or compounding benefits.

To be fully candid, it’s a topic I can’t wrap my head around. Not in a self-deprecating way, but in a "I see it but struggle to accept it" kind of way. I can see it on paper. I can map it out. I can see investment in concept, but every projection I write or spreadsheet I drag out, my inner gut simply cannot accept that future path to be true. It’s as if once the trajectory starts to curve, I reject it as being far too sunny and optimistic.

So if you look at compounding returns as a magical theory of futurists – I can appreciate that because my inner gut agrees with you.

That said, it’s time to think of your most precious resource as a very important investment.

If you’re busy – overloaded – more stressed than you want to be – or working with smaller margins than you want to be – then you need to invest in getting back your own time.

Metaphorically, it’s time to stop sawing the tree and time to spend even just a fraction of your time sharpening your own blade.

The funny thing is that I actually just came from the future with the future you, and the one thing you kept saying was “PLEASE TELL ME TO FREE UP MY TIME! IT’S CRAZYLAND OUT HERE.”

So I’m doing the only responsible thing I can think to do and tell you now – it’s time to sharpen your blade.

How can we invest time in our own methods when we don’t have any time? How can we invest time when we don’t have any of it? I’m already working 50 hours a week!

A few tips that have worked for me.

TIP #1: JUST START
First, start. Start with just 15 minutes a week. You have to start a snowball by rolling just a little bit of snow. You can’t eat an elephant without taking the first bite. Any progress is better than no progress.

TIP #2: START SMALL
Second, start small. Don’t shoot for that report template that will take a week and has been on your to-do list for three years. Don’t. Start small, exceptionally small. That one detail that you have to change, and it irks you on every project. That one paragraph you have to hunt down and paste into emails every few weeks. That one prompt you can’t easily find and have to go look up. Start small with easy wins.

TIP #3: DO IT FIRST
Third, do it first. Your week will have fires you’ll have to put out. You’ll have meetings. You’ll have your workload. If you save this “sharpen the tool” effort until Friday afternoon, it will never happen. You know that to be true. If you want it done, do it first. Before anything else. Remember, we’re only starting with 15 minutes a week. Do it before you even open up your email in the morning.

TIP #4: GRAB THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT
Attack the lowest-hanging fruit. The analogy is obvious – the lowest-hanging fruit is the easiest fruit to grab. Start there. Start with small, quick and easy wins to regain even small chunks of time.

TIP #5: REINVEST YOUR TIME SAVINGS
Then finally, reinvest your time. At first, your time savings are extremely small. That’s how compounding works. Your 15-minute time investment that first week should only save you a minute of work in your next. Maybe, maybe you earn a minute back… fine. Add that minute to your 15 from week 1, and now you’ve got 16 minutes to reinvest into sharpening your saw. Update your templates. Update your library. Save down your process. Make a checklist. Save down a good prompt. Organize.

I’ll talk more about methods next week, but these investments are all about you building your own tools that help you work more smoothly and smartly going forward.

After Week 2?

Same thing, maybe you earn a minute more of your time back. In fact, weeks into recharging your life, we’re still talking about very, very small time returns.

​If you gain back just 10% of your invested time as future time savings… it actually accrues exceptionally slowly. Here’s what investing 15 minutes at the start of your week looks like, represented at scale:​Nothing amazing happens, even weeks in. That’s very commonly the frustration I think we’ve all experienced at one time or another. What little time we spend improving our own workflows, we get so little time back, and then we get busy and give up.

If we’re going to break through to what the other side can look like, it’s a longer-play. Prioritize earning your time back first, work with small wins, and roll that time savings forward.
​

It’s easy to project – run the numbers and make the assumptions you’d find realistic. My feedback here is that early on, we’ll hardly see the results. It’s only down the road, as each of these little changes compounds, that we’ll start to see the results.
 
When I first went into business for myself, I found that working hard on improving any one thing never showed up with quick results. It was always about six months later when I’d think, “Oh, that’s a lot easier now,” or “That’s not a problem anymore.” The returns were never immediate.
​
And I think that’s generally a healthier mindset looking forward. If we want to change any one thing six months from now, we have to push hard at that thing now.

We work our way into getting 1-hour a week back. Then, it’s 2. Then it’s more, and more, and more. All the while having just as good (if not better) output than we’d had before, yet having more time. Better, more consistent processes. Better quality work. Less stress.

I’m talking in concept. It very well sounds more philosophical and theoretical than real-world boots on the ground realism. But anyone who knows me well or has worked with me in the past ten years knows this is very much a real thing – a real way to operate. Have a worklife and workflow that’s more predictable, lower stress, with more consistent and higher quality work than before.

I’m not asking for your time for something I need. I’m asking for your time for something you need, and we all need. Get your time back, where you’re more in control, doing the best work you’ve ever done, and living a healthier, less-stressful life through that process.

Next we’ll talk on the objections that we get when trying to live in fantasy-land, but more realistically address how we can best invest our time to earn more of it and our sanity back. Check it out here.
 
​
- Joe

FIRE PROTECTION DEGREES
In mechanical engineering, you can show up to one of hundreds of college career fairs and (boom!) you have 100+ candidates that have a relevant, directly-applicable degree.

In fire protection, we have engineering and tech programs, but of course, many of us know that they’re not enough. Too few programs, too scattered, with too few graduates.

There are geographical issues (think "no fire protection programs within a 6-hour drive of my business"). Then there's natural constraints of competition for those students.

We know the numbers – we studied it just a few years ago - in the architectural and engineering space, 88% of people entering the fire protection industry don’t start with a fire protection degree.

There are more people like me (with an Architectural Engineering Bachelor’s degree) than there are with a Fire Protection Engineering Bachelor’s degree when entering the field in the A/E space.

It’s July.
 
I have a question for you – in January of 2026, where will you be?
 
What will you be doing?
 
Who will you be?
 
SITUATIONAL IMPROVEMENT
July isn’t exactly a time for New Year’s Resolutions, but we’re squarely halfway through the year.
 
Coincidental timing that I just discovered – 6 months ago I wrote a piece on how, practically, we can create improvement in our own working life. (https://www.meyerfire.com/blog/its-my-fault-so-what-has-to-change)
 
The concept is fairly simple. If I want different results than what I’m getting today, then I first need to accept the responsibility for my own path, and be actively willing to alter my own trajectory.
 
The concept is – it’s my fault – now what do I need to change about my situation?
 
WHAT HAS TO CHANGE?
Today, I want to expand on that just slightly.
 
Six months from today – what has to change? What do you want to be different? Who do you need to become to achieve that?
 
If you’re fine with everything staying the same just as it is today, then great! You’ve found a nice niche. Build on it and continue the course.
 
But if there are things that you’d wish were better. Were easier. Were less-stressful. Were more impactful… then it’s time to take action on altering what things look like six months from now.
 
Just in my own experience, it’s the 6-month window where the change actually comes to fruition.
 
I’m not talking about short-term tasks. Short-term goals. Easily achievable things.
 
I’m talking about the things we wished were better.
 
IMMEDIATE IMPACT?
My common expectation is that if I work on something hard enough, I’ll immediately see an impact; immediately see results.
 
That’s just not how big, impactful things happen.
 
It seems like the effort is more like pushing a giant boulder down a slight slope. I can push and push and push, but I hardly see any traction at all—hardly any momentum.

​​Yet, if I keep at it for long enough, eventually it starts to roll.
 
Applying the same effort to that boulder starts to get more and more movement.
 
Eventually, with time, it starts to roll.
 
With momentum, the pushing gets easier, and the movement starts to happen. Eventually, under its own momentum, the boulder starts to move faster and faster, where pushing isn’t needed at all.
 
That’s the 6-month mark.
 
The problem I have is that my expectation feels like the return should be short. Should be in days, maybe weeks.
​

 
But in reality, for big impactful things that truly affect our current situation, it’s that 6-month mark where results are notably different.
​

  
That doesn’t happen without a whole lot of effort, but it still takes time before that impact hits.
 
YOUR VIEW
What do you need to have changed in your life come January?
 
What change in direction can you make that alters your course?
 
What do you wish could be better?
 
Are you pushing that boulder now?
 
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

​What result do you want to achieve that is different from what you have now?

​Are you willing to make the change?
 
 

p.s. This is the last in a two-part series where I’ve talked about development and the impact-related world I’ve lived in recently, and what I’ve learned from living there.
 
In the coming weeks, I’m very excited to share new articles from Jocelyn Sarrantonio (our new Technical Director and also a Fire Protection Engineer); I think you’ll find her writing to be similarly accessible, casual, and thoughtful, but with a new perspective and different areas of expertise. I’ll continue to contribute, of course, but between the two of us, my hope is that you’ll get to read new content more frequently.
 
Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your week!
 
- Joe

In terms of workplace culture and career trajectory, saying that someone “has great potential” or any potential already presupposes a role or a specific level of achievement. “Maybe they could be a [insert job title] someday.”
 
Potential is always used in the context of an outside observer. Maybe a manager, maybe an executive, maybe an HR recruiter.
 
This person “has great potential.” For what? That’s my question.
 
Potential to do great things in the world, or potential to execute a job especially well?
 
It may sound like semantics, but in today’s world, I think that distinction is actually becoming really important.
 
Do we look at people’s future in the context of their potential – that is, what they could do in the context of our organization's roles and structures?
 
Or, do we look at people’s future in terms of impact with continuous support in their areas of skill and interest?
 
I think using the term ‘potential’ might unintentionally place a ceiling on any one person’s impact.
 
For hundreds of years now, in a post-industrialized workplace, we operate in roles. Established jobs, established roles, established titles. The work demands these X jobs with Y roles. We build companies on these roles, and try to fill them with good people.
 
By extension, leaders look at others and try to “maximize their potential”, but it’s still in the context of our pre-defined roles.
 
What happens when those roles shift?
 
When tasks change?
 
What happens when AI supplants plenty of things we used to do, and brings about many new things that we’ll only begin to do in the future?

The problem with my description of someone’s 'potential' is that I’m assuming a natural limit to what they can achieve based on the roles I envision.

 
The problem is that there isn’t a limit.
 
I keep coming back to 2004's Cady Heron (it's pronounced "Katie", IYKYK)... there is no limit!

 
If my peak potential had been the best foodrunner in a country club, I would never have left the job I started at 16.
 
If my potential had been doing art sketches in college, I’d still be drawing away on Etsy.
 
If my potential had been to be the best fire protection designer, I’d still be furiously hammering away in that regard.
 
You see where I’m going, and it’s the same for you too.
 
What I’m seeing in today’s world is people breaking through ceilings that they previously would never have thought possible.
 
It’s not just a “huh, I wouldn’t have thought I could do that” – it’s a rocket ship ride of learning and growth far, far faster than they would have ever thought possible.
 
Accessible information online. AI as a coach and a tutor. Leaning into learning and truly owning our education and upskilling.
 
I’m not talking about “ChatGPT made me this nice bobblehead image of myself that I posted online,” I’m talking about designers becoming tool creators, plan reviewers turned entrepreneurs, FPEs turned product designers.

 
There’s a world where you can imagine, brainstorm, and create easier and faster than we’ve ever seen before. There’s a world where we can all be multi-faceted and skilled in multiple ways that we’ve never been able to lean into before. And it’s happening right now, all the time.
 
How many people do you know who had side hustles back in the 1990s? Early 2000s?
 
Maybe there was under-the-table moonlight work going on. People have always had some hobbies on the side.
 
But compared to now?
 
Every day, I hear from people who have toes in different pools. Maybe it’s fire-related, maybe not. Maybe it’s consulting during the day, writing at night. Plan reviews at sunup, teaching at sundown. Wherever you want to learn and grow – wherever you want to upskill – it’s right there.
 
Leaning into our areas of skill and interest – even if they don’t fit into a conventional role – perhaps especially when they don’t fit in a conventional role – those are the ways we end up having far greater impact than we’d ever think possible.
 
Looking at someone through the lens of their potential might be an outdated perspective for our roles and the workplace today.
 
What truly is our ‘potential’ if what we’re able to achieve is limitless? What is ‘potential’ if our learning, our skills, our interests are always-evolving?
 
Our potential is no longer fixed, nor tied to predefined roles.
 
We should embrace the idea that we can always adapt, evolve, and be newer and better versions of ourselves. We don’t need to be defined by ‘potential’ – the future’s out there for us to create for ourselves.
 
 
 
 
p.s. Thanks for joining me for another soapbox of career commentary. I get fired up about these things, and I hope you find the perspective useful-enough to take something away and apply it to what you do.
 
In the next article, I’ll share the six-month-out analogy that is almost always top of mind, and is the only way that I think we can alter our near-term future. It’ll be a bit more grounded than this one. Thanks for reading!

​- Joe

Two weeks ago, we pondered – where is AI today, in March of 2025?

How do baseline, now-popular large language models (LLMs) compare to a practicing Fire Protection Engineer?
Do the models themselves make much of a difference?

That’s both an easy and difficult question to answer, and it raises more questions downstream, too.
 
A FAIR DISCLAIMER
For a little context, I’m not arguing that AI is replacing humans in fire protection. I’m not losing sleep over our industry adapting to changes in technology. I’m not trying to hype AI. I’m not arguing for more use of ChatGPT in our practice.

I am monitoring the ability of AI LLMs compared to our industry benchmarks, and as with everything else, I do favor finding ways for us all to adapt, improve, and make use of resources for our industry.
 
AI VERSES THE FIRE PROTECTION P.E. EXAM
Here’s what common AI LLMs score on a practice Fire Protection P.E. Exam, today, with 70% correct being an approximation for a passing score:

Earlier this week I needed to copy a four-unit apartment where I designed the 13R sprinkler system and simply roll it over into a new job.

It was a complete duplicate building, just in a different location (new jurisdiction, different water supply).

Slam dunk. Easy, done. Right?

Well sure, except then I looked at my prior layout. I couldn’t stand it. I looked at my own set of plans from just three years ago (2020!) and they look terrible.

Now, the actual layout was fine. The sprinkler, locations, pipe are fine. Plans are OK. They were not at a stage that I think the average person would look at them and puke – but when I look at them I want to.

Why?

There are so many different tweaks and improvements on the presentation in three years that the work I do today simply looks very little like the work I was doing just 36 months ago.

The titleblock is hard to read. When you look at the coversheet, it’s a mess of schedules and details and sections seemingly thrown around wherever they would fit. There’s no big bold title at the top, nor any kind of easy recognition on whether this project is on Main Street or Mars.

It’s disjointed, doesn’t flow, isn’t what I would choose to do today. I get little goosebumps now having to stare at it now.

IMPROVEMENT 
We don’t all stand on the shoulders of giants when we start out. We don’t hit perfection right off the bat.

In reality, we should acknowledge that we’re very clearly never operating in a state of perfection. There is always room for improvement.

And even if tradition says that our organization has done something the same way for 25 years, we need to be adapting to the needs of today and making use of the tools of today.

One single big overhaul that changes a whole organization’s work style and work output simply never happens. OK – maybe somewhere for somebody, a big, conscious overhaul of standardization and workflow is theoretically possible. But if it actually has happened somewhere, then it had to be exceptionally painful and surely not quick.

Improvement doesn’t happen ‘when we have time to take that on’. It happens in very very small increments. Micro improvements. A tweak here on this job. A nudge here on this job. A lightbulb on this job.

What worked better? What worked worse?

Adapt and move the chains forward. It’s far better in our world to take the 4-yard gain every single play than it is to throw 3 Hail Mary’s, fail, and then punt on the idea.
 
NO LIGHTNING-STRIKE CHANGES
If we tinker and tweak (surely I’m using some kind of Gen-Z curse word here or something?) things constantly, find what works, and adapt over time – that’s when we do actually make change happen.

We also don’t get this lightning-strike ideas all at once. We get lots of little ideas over time, that, when executed, add up.

It’s only after implementing all the constant little improvements that the big differences can start to show.

That’s why my gut sinks when I look at the presentation from a 2020 project.

It’s not one thing – it’s the 30 things that have all improved since then.

THANKS, JOE. 
Yes, I’m somewhat embarrassed of the work that happened not even that long ago.

But no, I didn’t come here today to brag about my own self-improvement.
 
SPINNING IT FORWARD
What I’m really interested in – is taking that look back and spinning it around.

Where do we want to be, as an organization, in the next three years?

Where do I want to be, as a person, in three years?

Where do we want to take the industry, in three years?

3-YEARS TO TEN? 
Where is it that we can take things? For me as a person, for my team, but also – what about all of us?
 
Three years seems hard enough to imagine. But carry out that thought – where can we all be, as an industry, in ten years?
 
Let’s set aside the news network hysteria and world ending predictions for just a second and assume that things are going to be mostly around in 2033.

That the fire protection industry will be growing and adapting just as it has for the last 120+ years.

What do we want the industry to be in 2033?

OVERESTIMATING THE SHORT GAME, UNDERESTIMATING THE LONG 
A famous person once said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

I find this to be slap-me-in-my-face true.

And I find the evidence for that easily when I look back on the last ten years.

What happened?

Where was I?

What did I know then?

What did I not know then? (answer: it was much more than what I knew)

What was I doing then?

What am I doing now?

2033 
In 2033, will we all be sitting around and griping about the same issues that we gripe about today?

Are we going to fix the issues surrounding delegated design? The boilerplate specs from 1985? Bid drawings that themselves obstruct code? Or perhaps just as important, the apathy some people have towards fire protection?

Is it still going to be a problem?
 
If not – what must happen?

How far away are we from changing the outcome?

Even if it is big – or would take a lot of effort, or resources, or awareness – is it not something that we couldn’t completely change by 2033?

THOUSAND SMALL INCREMENTS 
If we look back – see how all our small changes stack up – and then look back forward: it’s the thousand small increments that will make the big difference.

What are the small actionable items, today, that move us all in the right direction?

How do we break giant problems down so that we can hit the 4-yards of progress now instead of waiting for a Hail Mary in nine years?

What is that?

What does that look like?

TIME + PRESSURE 
I’ve spoken with enough people I admire that I believe in my core that there are few things we can’t solve given enough pressure and enough time. I see a path where we can change the trajectory of the industry if we choose to do so, collectively.

It all depends on what we choose to do today.

What will we etch in a small way today that keeps us moving towards big change tomorrow?

And without sounding like I’ve completely gone off the rails; I think about these things a lot. I feel extremely fortunate to be able to do so with the website and the content and community that hang around here. I am so thankful for that.
I don’t mean taking on big challenges in a figurative sense – I mean it as an actionable challenge.

If you’ve got a gripe with how our industry operates – what are you doing about it? What change can you make now that moves things in a better direction for all of us?

Around here we’ve got “irons in the fire” so to speak to be making progress towards the areas we really care about. Some things maybe awareness. Others education. Maybe resources. Maybe advocacy. 

Maybe they’re slow burns – maybe they won’t come to life for some time – but after lots and lots and lots of little victories maybe they will make it out to the world and make some real tangible change.
 
Ten years from now simply seems unfathomable for me to comprehend. Maybe it’s my age or my kids’ ages or that so much has changed in my world in the last decade. It’s difficult for me to picture it. I can only barely imagine what 2 years from now could look like.

But if you assume that 2033 will happen, that it will hit us at some point: will we be looking back and be mildly embarrassed by how things used to be – because so much has changed? Or will we gripe about the same issues without doing anything about it?