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?

When I first started in the industry I figured every company had access to the senior-level mentors – the knowledge hubs – the experts – the people that could cite code verses faster than they could show you their sprinkler tattoos.
 
Turns out, that situation was more rare than I would have thought.
 
Many organizations – contractors, consultants, building departments, plan reviewers, inspection teams – many do not have a wealth of highly-experienced, highly-trained expertise at their fingertips.
 
If your office does, consider yourself lucky.
 
There are many small businesses throughout the world with some level of fire protection involvement. With the retirement of many Baby Boomers in the US, we are transitioning to a new era beyond having a generation that held so many answers for many years.
 
The reality is – there are many, many organizations where the responsibility of fire protection falls to someone who (shriek!) doesn’t have any sprinkler tattoos.
 
Well, what happens when you’re that person?

What happens when you're the someone who is supposed to have all the fire protection answers?
 
What happens if you’re the “fire protection guy”?
 
[Important note: I mean the term ‘guy’ in a Midwestern-sense, not as a male in gender but as a human. We don’t say “hey y’all” here, nor do we properly say “you all”, rather, it’s usually said as “you guys”. I know. We is what we is. Can't predict the future but I hope this will still age well.]
 
Well, what happens then?
 
WHEN THE BUCK STOPS WITH YOU
This was a big fear of mine when I moved from a large company with many senior-level experts and many resources to a smaller company where I was to be in charge of fire protection issues. I was the end of the line – where the proverbial “buck stopped” as things related to fire protection.
 
My big fear was that without someone else with better technical knowledge, I’d be exposed, the company would be exposed, I'd miss things, or do poor quality work.
 
It’s hard to "know what you don’t know". I’ve certainly learned lessons in avoidable ways.
 
But what I found after the move, without having a direct “fire protection” mentor, is that getting answers could still happen. Help could be made up in a few ways where I could still learn and still maintain a relatively high standard of work.
 
What I had to learn was where to turn when I was the "end of the road."

I had to figure out where to go to conjure an answer for something I didn’t previously know.
 
Simply "guessing," “shooting from the hip," or doing what I “think” is right just doesn’t cut it. I do not, and cannot, instinctively know the industry standard of what has been debated and adopted into code over a hundred years. I can’t “predict” what I think code will say. When I have, I've been wrong.
 
When I have a new or unique situation – a question – a challenge – an ask – for something that I haven’t encountered before – here’s my secret list of go-tos to find that best path forward.
 
For those in large offices, large companies, or who are working under experienced staff – much of this might be trivial. But for those of us in small teams or small organizations, some of these resources can offer major lifelines to collect answers that we didn’t know where already available.
 
Here goes:
 
#1 DEVELOP YOUR OWN CODE PATH
We talk about this a lot on the University platform; and that is developing a formal code path.
 
Codes and standards have a hierarchy. Most begin with a title, chapters, sections and then subsections.
 
It’s far too easy and way too common nowadays to open a code and click “CTRL+F” until we find a sentence that fits the narrative we wanted.
 
CTRL+F is a good method to jump to a term, but a poor way of gaining context.
 
Instead, when we’re trying to find a solution to a particular problem, try starting from the very beginning and document every step along your path. Make a trail. Leave yourself bread crumbs behind you so that if you have to walk backwards, or walk this path again, that it’ll be easier the next time.

Well, what does a “code path” look like?
 
It’s a documented path, from the highest level all the way down to the answer, that charts each step along the way.
 
My question yesterday was what was the Fire Flow for a building (military job). I didn't know.

Here was my resulting code path, starting with the applicable standard that I knew applied (UFC 3-600-01), and working my way down to the applicable content I needed:
 
• UFC 3-600-01 (8 AUG 2016 WITH CHANGE 6, 6 MAY 2021)
    • Chapter 9 Fire Protection Systems­
        • Section 9-2 FIRE FLOW FOR FACILITIES
            • Section 9.2.2 Non-Sprinklered Facilities
              Fire Flow must be in accordance with NFPA 1, except the following special facilities. ➾
 
➾ NFPA 1 (2018 EDITION)
       • Chapter 18 Fire Department Access and Water Supply
           • Section 18.4 Fire Flow Requirements for Buildings.
               • Section 18.4.3 Modifications
                  • Section 18.4.3.1 Decreases in Fire Flow Requirements
                     Fire flow requirements shall be permitted to be decreased by the AHJ for isolated buildings
                     or a group of buildings in rural areas or suburban areas where the development of full fire flow
                     requirements is impractical as determined by the AHJ.
               • Section 18.4.5 Fire Flow Requirements for Buildings
                  • Section 18.4.5.3 Buildings Other than One- and Two-Family Dwellings
                      • Section 18.4.5.3.1
                        The minimum fire flow and flow duration for buildings other than one- and two-family dwellings
                        shall be as specified in Table 18.4.5.2.1. ➾➾
 
                        ➾➾ Table 18.4.5.2.1
                        Requires Type II-B Construction up to 22,700 sqft in size to have a
                        minimum Fire Flow of 1,500 gpm, at 20 psi, for 2-hours.
 
My simplified answer therefore was 1,500 gpm, at 20 psi, for 2-hours, unless the AHJ permits a decrease, based on NFPA 1-2018 Section 18.4.5.3.1, Table 18.4.5.2.1, and Section 18.4.3.1 with the code path above as a basis.
 
DUH, JOE.
Now with this question some might say “well of course it’s 1,500 gpm” or “I would have just jumped right to NFPA 1”, but the reality is – if that’s the first time you’re getting that answer for yourself – how are you supposed to know where to go? Just guess NFPA 1? Why not NFPA 1142? Or the International Fire Code?
 
Novel situations – new questions – deserve at least an individual attempt at looking through code and charting that path. Basically - read the book and see if we can't find the answer ourselves. 
 
SAVE YOUR WORK
With every one of these, I save them down in Microsoft Word files in a specific folder, and I can go back and reference them whenever I need. There’s probably a good 50+ in there by now.
 
What happens if we get a similar question, but it’s slightly different?

What about a different code edition?

Well, we can follow our same path until it’s no longer true.

Copy over, start the path and blaze the new trail.

If you want to spice up your life, consider each question you're own little 'puzzle of the day' and see what the code book kicks back out. 

Life's too short not to have a little fun in your life, right?
 
HIERARCHY
Remember that codes have hierarchy. If there is a title to a section, that says “Combustible Concealed Spaces”, with subsections below it – chances are “noncombustible” spaces, or “nonconcealed” spaces will not apply. That’s deliberate. Citing a line of code without the context can get us into trouble (it’s gotten me into trouble).
 
I’ve had code paths from model codes that were similar, but with a different end result, based on a locally adopted code. Those prior documented paths were major timesavers the second and third time around.
 
In short, the first place I go when I don’t have an answer is to dig into the code or standard itself. Find a path, document the justification for it, and if there’s no ambiguity, then we have our answer with support behind it.
 
#2 ANNEXES & COMMENTARIES
I had a salesperson visit once who said the only value he really provides to his customers is reading the Annex and Commentaries of each code.
 
He says the extra hundred dollars for each standard he buys has made him look the part of the expert – because “hardly anyone ever reads it!”
 
Sometimes we hop around in codes & standards and lose context of what part of code their in – or if that code even applies in the first place.

The Annex portion of the code often has material that expands upon the body of the code with input from the codes and standards committees themselves.
 
Commentary can also be a huge help. But, just as a word of caution, these are sometimes (perhaps mostly) not from committee members – so they can provide help but ultimately are not as well-reviewed and approved as the Annex or the body of the code or standard itself. 
 
#3 USE ALL THE RESOURCES YOU CAN
Back to Algebra class for a second:
 
If your billable rate is $60 an hour – how much time do you need to save in order to justify a $120 book?
 
Roughly two hours.
 
Yeah there’s shipping, and billable rate isn’t exactly a translation for your internal cost versus net profit and all that.
 
But in the big picture – if a $120 book saves you more than two hours – then it roughly paid for itself.
 
What if that book saves you four hours? Now you have a solid return on your investment.
 
What if that book saves you eight? It’s not crazy – think about time over a year or two. Tabbing, bookmarks, indexes, quick references: all of those things could save you time here and time there that adds up in the long run.
 
The thing is – having the book is only one part of the ask. That’s the surface-level debate that goes on inside offices – do we spend money on a color printer? Can we get larger monitors? What about that software? Do we really need more books?
 
Those are all part of the business decision making and limiting overall cost.
 
But what if you have a book and also then use the references to their full potential?
 
What if a textbook helped you understand an area you were previously lacking, or a topic that you’ve never covered before?
 
What if that book provides informal interpretations that helps you make more informed decisions?
 
There are many materials out there that are widely underutilized.
 
Two that I’ve been fortunate to work on are NFSA’s Layout Book (Layout, Detail and Calculation of Fire Sprinkler Systems 3rd Edition) and NFSA’s Expert of the Day Handbook. Those are excellent resources for someone practicing in the sprinkler field.
 
Within those books there are step-by-steps and literally over two-thousand answered questions related to fire sprinkler systems.
 
Is your question simply sitting in that book? It’s possible.
 
There are other books, introductory and advanced, that exist for life safety and fire alarm as well. Do some research, ask around, and see what tools you can have in your toolkit that help you be more informed and more effective at what you do.
 
Not just books too – but Forums and online communities (here and elsewhere) – where can you plug in and get answers from your peers.
 
#4 ASK
 
Joe – you said the buck stops with me. Who am I supposed to ask?
 
There is help.
 
Help in a traditional sense would often come from within your own organization.
 
But consider those outside your walls for a second. The ICC and NFPA both have request lines where you can ask for informal, and if need be, formal interpretations on their own codes and standards.
 
But there’s also informal interpretations, too. On the suppression side, AFSA and NFSA both have fantastic expert references that will answer project-specific questions with informal interpretations for members. These experts have far more collective knowledge than I hope to gain in my whole career. They’re an excellent resource.
 
Lastly, there are Forums. Here, I started the MeyerFire Forum to provide an opportunity to have quality discussions, at a deliberate pace, with anonymity so that we all can learn. Use that as a resource in your toolkit. Ask when you need input.
 
SO WHEN I DON'T KNOW, WHAT DO I SAY?
The biggest fear I had when I first started was what if my client asks a question and I didn’t know the answer?
 
Well – here’s some news – this happens to me. Still. Like Today. And All. The. Time.
 
And there’s a line you need to rehearse and hold tight. That line is “I don’t know offhand, but I’ll do some research and get this for you.”
 
That’s it. Simple. Buy yourself time to do the legwork and point someone in the right direction. And then follow up as soon as you can with a well-documented code path.
 
Are they going to be upset? Are they going to be belligerent because you don’t have code memorized?
 
Perhaps – but that’s on them. High pressure situations or bad attitudes isn’t going to make someone suddenly know something that they don’t know.
 
If you want a complete cop-out answer and partial lie, then just say “it depends” without any explanation.
 
Just kidding – don’t do that.

I can’t stand it when “it depends” is the answer I get, when really someone doesn’t know. Just say you “don’t know offhand” – like you remembered that person's maiden name from from high school but just can’t recall it at this particular moment. It’s OK! You’re human. We still like ya.
 
Whether you’re the “fire protection guy” or not, more practice and more familiarity is all we can do to grow our fire protection “muscle” and become, slowly, more comfortable with what we do over time.

To get there, just be sure you’re making good use of all the resources you have available to you.
 
Keep up the good fight. It's good to be the "fire protection guy". Not easy, but it’s good. 

We ran an open-ended study about the why and how fire protection professionals get into the industry and the roles they are currently in.

This is our fourth dive into that data. In the upcoming week or two we’ll summarize and offer tips for business owners, recruiters, and HR professionals on where to look for future talent and how best to “make the pitch”.

WHY EXPLORE THIS
For one, we need more talent in the industry. More quality people mean better overall advocacy for the industry. We will never be recognized at a major discipline if there are far too few people to speak up for fire protection, much less if there’s hardly anyone to do the work.

So then, if we’re actively looking for help and looking to spot future potential – how do we “make that pitch?”

WHAT'S THE ALLURE TO THE INDUSTRY
What should we celebrate about the industry to people that don’t know about it?

Well, like we explored before, the best way to answer that is looking backwards at why we got into the industry in the first place.
 
We asked - as an open-ended question – why did you go into fire protection?

THE RESPONSE
We received 297 unique responses to this question.

Many cited multiple reasons for entering the field. In total, we received 655 cited reasons why our group of 297 people entered the industry.

Now before we get to the full breakout, I’d like to offer a few special shout outs to unique reasons why some people got into the fire protection field. Here are a few of the favorites and important ones as well:

I went into fire protection because...
   ... of the TV Show “Emergency”.
   ... I wanted “to put the fire department out of business.”
   ...“of the beautiful receptionist at the company, whom I later dated.”
   ... “I visited an engineering firm and the engineers bored me to death. I didn’t want to go down that road so I checked into fire protection.”
   ... “after I broke up with the bosses daughter, I figured it was in my best interest to find other employment.” That’s why I got into fire protection.
 
Aside from unique causes, there are more noble ones that became a theme:
   “I wanted to contribute to safety for the people I was really passionate about, the elderly and kids.”
   “It was very interesting and is beneficial to society.”
   “I wanted to feel good about the work I did.”
   “Wanted to make a difference.”
   “I saw it as the way to make the greatest impact and least harm among other engineering disciplines.”
   “I wanted a career that matters.”
 
There were plenty of ‘nerdy’ responses (I say this being a part of that crowd):
   “I enjoyed hydraulic calculations.”
 
There were reasons related to people in the industry:
   “FPE students had a spirit of cooperation that was nonexistent in electrical engineering.”
   “The family, community spirit” of the industry.
 
There were also tragic reasons:
   “When I was 8-years old the house down from us burned down and a great family lost their home.”
   “Lost a brother and father to fire-related deaths.”
   “Our house burned down.”
 
THIRTY REASONS
In all, we could generally categorize each response in one of thirty categories. Many responses cited multiple reasons, so we categorized those under both.

Here are the top 15 reasons why people went into fire protection, broken down by the different industries.

ARCHITECTURAL & ENGINEERING
143 Responses; 229 reasons "why" they went into fire protection.

If you recall back to the first couple parts of this study, you can see the influence of family (24%), friends (19%) as reasons people first heard about fire protection. If that’s a big contributor for awareness of the industry, then it would also jive that many in contracting got into the industry because of these same influences. "Because of Family" ranked as the #6 reasons why those in contracting got into fire protection, which didn't show up at all in Architectural and/or Engineering firm circles.

AHJ & GOVERNMENT
64 respondents, 178 reasons.

TAKEAWAYS

#1 Wide-Range of Responses
I think my favorite part of combing through this was seeing the variety of reasons why people went into fire protection. I would have guessed that the reasoning could have been categorized in maybe five or six reasons, but it's much more nuanced than that. 

In reading through responses, things like "the challenge" versus "learning something new" and "sounded interesting" are very much in the same vein, or similar source, but they're different and a little more nuanced than that.

Things like "job security" and "job stability" can be tied together, they're very related, but many people cited how the industry is "unique", "niche", and "specialized". That's different than saying the industry is "diverse" or "has a wide range of work". 

What were the others reasons that didn't crack the Top 15 lists? They were:

• Because of Location / Didn't Want to Move / Wanted Remote Work
• Passionate / Cooperative People
• There was Little Training Required
• Diverse / Wide Range of Work
• Job Benefits
• Personal Loss
• To Preserve Old Buildings
• Because of a TV Show
• Wanted to Date Someone

#2 Many Motivators Other than Money
To be honest, I thought career potential, salary and benefits would rank a whole lot higher than they have. Job benefits didn't crack the Top 15 reasons for any group, and Money / Pay only ever reached as high as Reason #5 why people entered fire protection. I would have guessed it to rank much higher. 

#3 Think about "The Pitch"
Think about the opportunity you might have to talk to someone new about going into fire protection.

What 'angle' do you take?

What reasons resonate for you? Do those reasons match up with the majority?

If you're looking to craft your reasoning why someone should hop into fire protection - wherever that happens to be - consider first where you are (what type of organization you're in), and then check out the top reasons. Chances are if you can quickly cite those top three-to-five reasons why people go into fire protection, then you may have that 'hook' that helps your case.


I hope this has been interesting. Feel free to shoot me an email or comment below with your own thoughts & takeaways. 

- Joe

One thing I hear as soon as I introduce my role as "Fire Protection Engineer", all the time, is "wow you're a rare bird."

Not sure if it's a compliment or not. 

To be fair they don't always say "bird", sometime's it's "duck" or "unique" or "oddball", but the sentiment is the same.

Fire Protection pros (engineers, designers, project managers, estimators, plan reviewers, inspectors) - we're all rare birds.

That acknowledged - where do we look for more help?

If we need help, and we're ready to train new hires, where do we even look?

For larger organizations, this may be well charted. We know X and Y school has related programs, so we go there. Or we know Z technical college has good students, so we go there. Or we badger our employees to always be thinking about hiring their friends or family. Whatever works.

But one of the key questions I kept coming back to in this space was - if most of us don't start in fire protection - which we now have some data to back up that notion - then where do we come from?

If we're looking for new hires to train up - where are they?

Last week we looked at the industries that fire protection professionals started in, and we broke those out by their current organization type.

This week we're looking at that same period in the career - when we first started in fire protection - and are looking at what education we had at that time.

Many studies about the fire protection industry look for current education status - do you have a fire protection degree? High school? Associates? Bachelors? Masters? 

But that doesn't tell us very much. When someone is in the industry for five years and goes to get a Master's in Fire Protection, well, they're already in the industry.

If we're looking to recruit new people to the industry, knowing that someone has a Master's in Fire Protection, and they got it after they were already in the industry, well that's not helpful.

So here, in this question from our study, we asked specifically what education each person had when they first entered the fire protection industry. 

And here are those results:

DESIGNERS / ENGINEERING TECHNICIANS SPECIFICALLY
This breaks down individuals who are working as designers or engineering technicians (119 response):

Where do fire protection professionals come from?
 
This is a follow-up to the first article in this series where we are discussing takeaways from our industry sourcing survey.
 
What do we hope to answer?

1. How do people even hear about fire protection?
2. Do most in the industry go straight into fire protection? If not, where do they come from?
3.  Why do people go into fire protection?

 
Last week we answered #1, today, we’re covering where people actually come from. I’ll break this out again by the source (A/E, Contracting, AHJ/Gov’t, and Insurance/Manufacturing/Users) as it perhaps is the best way to get suggestions for future recruiting.
​

SO, WHERE WAS OUR FIRST "REAL" JOB?
 
ARCHITECTURAL & ENGINEERING SPACE
For Architecture & Engineering (139 applicable responses):

CONTRACTING SPACE
For Contractors (178 responses):

AUTHORITIES HAVING JURISDICTION / GOVERNMENT
For those in government and AHJ roles (64 responses):

TAKEAWAYS
What do you find interesting? What takeaways do you see in the data?

Personally, here's what I found interesting or surprising about these notes:

SO MUCH OF THE INDUSTRY DOESN'T "START" IN FIRE PROTECTION
We mentioned this last week, but anecdotally it seems as though many people in the industry didn't exactly 'intend' to end up in fire protection. The data from our survey seems to suggest the same consistently throughout the different user groups.

OF THESE FIELDS, CONTRACTORS HAVE THE MOST PEOPLE WHO "STARTED" IN FIRE PROTECTION
We'll dive deeper into this later on, but so many in contracting get in "because" of friends and family that it would make sense that their first "real" job is directly in the fire protection industry. That said, there's still just as many people even in contracting that didn't first start out in fire protection as people who did. 

I would imagine the same wouldn't be said for fields like architecture, structural engineering or mechanical engineering.

HOW FEW PEOPLE IN AHJ/GOVERNMENT ROLES STARTED IN FIRE PROTECTION
Personally, I was very surprised at how few people in AHJ and Government roles actually started in fire protection from the survey. This is also our most limited data set, so I can't take away too many conclusions from that subset.

HOW BIG OF AN INFLUENCE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING HAS ON FIRE PROTECTION
Traditionally, fire suppression has been a "subset" of mechanical engineering. This can be seen in the way project specification divisions used to be arranged, or how many mechanical engineers have traditionally specified fire suppression systems.

All of fire protection isn't just in fire sprinklers, of course, but the data we get continues to say that of people who didn't start in fire protection, the most popular starting point was mechanical engineering.

I would think the next few weeks will also support the notion, but if we need to find good people - it's time to start recruiting the best mechanical engineers!

The next part of this series will cover college degrees when we 'first' got into fire protection, which could help highlight exactly where we started out and what we had pursued prior to being in the industry. 

Why is all this important? 

Well, if you're a team leader, a recruiter, a manager, or someone in a role where you need help - then it's time to start recruiting!

Where do you go? Where have people gone before? Where do we, as an industry, have the most luck in finding talent?

Well - look at the data. Check out your user group (are you a contractor? engineer? AHJ?), and see where people historically have come from. That's the first hint on where you might have the most success first.

​We'll go deeper on this in the next part, for now - have a great rest of your week!

​Today is a pretty big day in MeyerFire-world. 

I've spoken with contractors, consultants, plan reviewers, educators, insurance carriers, installers, inspectors - and we all continue to come back to one big issue that is holding our industry back right now.

We need to develop new talent. 

For the organizations that are busy and growing - we need more help, and we need knowledgeable help.

When we look out even a little into the future, even just 2-5 years from now, the problem will be compounded. Call it the Silver Tsunami, the Experience Exodus, the Golden Goodbye, or whatever other name the kids come up with - our industry has already lost a lot of experience to retirement, and that will only continue as many of the remaining Baby Boomers look to complete their careers.

We need to develop new talent.

We need something that can resonate with today's Gen Z. We need engagement, and a way to not just train in a two-day or two-week sprint, we need something that can help people new to the industry learn every single day, year-round.

Around here we've thought and debated and circled on the idea for a solid couple years. 

I'm excited to say that we finally have the platform that we have built specifically to help develop new talent in the fire protection industry.

We're calling it MeyerFire University:

​​It's an all-new training platform built for those with 0-3 years experience, and covers technical topics like fire suppression, fire alarm, code, life safety, and specialized systems; it covers production topics like plan preparation, drafting, modeling, and plan review; and it covers business & career topics as well.

It's everything we wish we had when we started, delivered in bite-sized, highly-visual video clips that are delivered daily and on-demand.

Today is our "Soft-Launch". 

If your organization finds that you also have this need to help train and develop new talent - and you want to join in on this platform early - now is a good time to do so.

We've only been in full production on our video content for a month and our platform is growing by five new video modules each week. If you're wanting to be an early adopter - we have a couple ways of saying thank-you and making sure the platform is worth your team's time.

To get a quote & more information for your organization, visit:

​This has been a dream we've worked towards for years now, and I'm thrilled that it's finally coming to light and can soon start helping teams like yours shine.

Thanks for your time and being a part of the community for better fire protection!

Earlier this week I read a very basic question on a sprinkler design forum. Some say there are no bad questions. Those hypothetical people may never have been in a Facebook Group.

The question clearly showed the lack of understanding on the part of the person asking the question.

You can imagine what happened next – the keyboard warriors went to battle. They had fun blasting the novice into the internet oblivion.
 

And this happens all the time.
 

It doesn’t have to be Facebook. It happens on Facebook for Businesses (also known as LinkedIn), email forums, Reddit, and other online technical forums.

It is also not limited to the digisphere. A bad question in a conference room or in the field gets chided at best or embarrassingly criticized at worst.
 

Did we all not start somewhere with nothing?


I’m not a second generation Fire Protection Engineer, but my guess is those that are third and fourth generation practitioners don’t come out of the womb spelling escutcheon correctly.

I'm still not 100% convinced I spelled it right just now.

We all started knowing literally nothing. We each are on our own journey learning piece by piece and at different paces that never really ends. The best experts that have spent three decades in the industry are still always trying to improve.
 

Is there harm in asking a dumb question? Yes, but it’s not the embarrassment in the moment or the obvious display of misunderstanding. It’s the discouragement to ask the next question.

When Average Jim (I have to use Average Jim because Average Joe hits a little too close to home for me) actually seeks an answer to a basic question and gets lambasted – you know what he’s not going to do? He’s not going to ask the next five questions that he also needs answers on. 
 

On the very first morning of my very first internship, I asked a bad one. I was maybe 15 minutes into that first day when the site project manager asked me to make copies of a handful of documents. I asked if the staples had to come out before making copies.

Dumb question? Yeah. Do commercial copiers appreciate hard metal through their sensitive little feeder claws? No. And had I ever used a commercial copier before? No.

If I hadn’t asked, would I have been the dufus that destroyed a commercial copier 15 minutes into his first internship? Yeah brah, that would have been moi.
 

I heard so much crap about asking that question, but I was glad I did. I also never had to ask it again.

Eventually my questions got slightly more sophisticated and a little better, but I did start at nothing.

 
I’m not going to change human behavior. I can’t help people act online like they would in a face to face conversation.

What I can do is provide a better avenue for those people who don’t want to be vilified but do need answers to their question.

With nearly a couple decades of internet usage we know now that it isn’t Vegas - what happens on the Internet stays on the Internet. Like forever.

It’s getting more and more difficult to ask a question that isn’t tagged to your name, your company, or your reputation. Your forum question you wrote in 2007 when you didn’t know anything on pre-action systems? Yeah it’s probably still searchable.

Goodness knows I’d rather not have my kids go post-by-post from what I put on Facebook during high school. Same would go for a client seeing questions I would have had early in my career.
 

So what can I do about it now? Create a quality avenue for the question - any question - whether it’s expert-level or at square one - and not tie a personal reputation to it.

If you haven’t checked it out, the Daily Forum is a place for a single, filtered, anonymous question each day. There are experts there from a wide variety of backgrounds and locations that have far more knowledge than I could hope to gain.

Experts from across the globe, from AHJs to Designers to Researches to Installers to Engineers. Last I checked we were approaching nearly 3,000 subscribers just to those questions.
 

If you have a "dumb" question, if you don’t want to ask your boss, if you need an outside opinion, and you don’t want your identity tied to something it? Send us your question here. Also consider bookmarking the page so you can send in that question the next time you're stumped.

The link toward the bottom of this email “Have a fire protection question?” is always there for exactly that same reason.
 
Chances are, if you have an interest or can’t find an answer, someone else is looking for it too. When you ask, we all learn. And that’s exactly what this site is all about. 


Free NFSA Virtual Conference Tomorrow
This year's National Fire Sprinkler Association Business and Leadership Conference went Virtual. The virtual seminars are this week (Thursday the 30th and Friday the 1st). Registration is live, it is FREE, and CEUs will be awarded. Check it out here.

I had the pleasure to talk about the changing digital media opportunities in fire protection with the host of the Fire Sprinkler Podcast, Chris Logan, as part of the virtual conference. I believe we'll air at 2:35 pm Eastern Time on Thursday.
​

A New, Free, Fire Protection App
I've gotten asked a good handful of times - "Will you make an app?"

While I am quintessentially a millennial who disowns being a millennial, I have thought about making an app.

The good news is, there's already one that I was able to help beta test and can now share with you. It's free and was developed by Michael Swahn and the helpful engineers over at Sebench Engineering out of Atlanta. It's now live on both Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Here's links to get it:

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sebench-engineering/id1506207375
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=al.pragmatic.sebench.android
 
The app has quick-calculations for Fire Pump Tests, Hydrant Flows, Equivalent K-Factors, Flow/K-Factor/Pressure Calculations, and Friction Loss. Download it today with the links above.

Thanks & I hope you have a safe and great rest of your week.

We love to poke fun at millennials. It’s like the holy grail of tradition.

“Kids coming out of school these days – you know? It’s ridiculous. They want twice the pay and half the work of when I came out of school. They don’t want to learn. They’re lazy. There’s not enough talent. There’s not enough interest. They don’t work hard.”  

Ever heard that before? How about this one -

“Young people think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.”

Yeah – that last quote wasn’t exactly about millennials – Aristotle wrote it in the 4th Century BC. Every young generation is clearly, obviously, unexplainably worse than the one before it. Right? I mean criticizing the next generation has been going on for all human existence. I’m sure cavemen used to scorn at how the young have no eagerness to strike rocks anymore…

But Millennials.

Millennials are so… entitled.

Yikes.

Yeah – I wrote it. Entitled. The worst label of all. That E word.

So Entitled.

Millennials are so entitled that they don’t even own their own issues; those are of course caused by Boomer parenting. [see the half a million search results for “millennial poor parenting” on Google].

I mean clearly millennials are like the worst young generation we’ve ever seen? Right?
 
Back Off Another Joe/Millennial Soapbox
OK. So maybe the problem isn’t that bad. Maybe I exaggerate a little. Maybe I write too much in the third person considering my age technically qualifies me as a millennial. And yes, maybe I do also blame my parents for all my nonsensical fears (thunderstorms and sinkholes, come on Mom!).
 
I was probably accused of being entitled a couple years into my post-college career. I felt good about the work I was doing, felt like I was understanding the curve, and I am sure it was showing in my attitude. A couple big project issues plus a bad annual review and I was quickly sized back to reality.

But entitlement doesn’t go away easily.
 
It was around that time that some coworkers went to a career fair at an area state college. One of the college students (a junior) inquired about the company. He got the normal pitch on working culture, opportunity, training and the whole bit. He then asked about management positions. After laughing it off my coworker realized the student was serious. He was looking for a management position as a quasi-21-year-old with zero real world experience!

After returning to work and sharing the disbelief, it’s easy to see entitlement in others when at that same time I probably couldn’t see it in myself.

I did get over it though. It wasn’t through shame or being a “company guy” or bad annual reviews. It was by starting my own side-hustle.

Takeaways from the Art Shop
I had always enjoyed creating sketches. During college I had a few architectural studio courses where we learned architectural sketching traditions. I enjoyed drawing and took some of those lessons to open a small art shop online.
That experience brought so many positive perspectives into my life.

It started with only one sale in the first two months of opening. It was a wonderful feeling. Then one good review led to another sale in month three. In month four I had two sales. Month five I doubled again.

With each touchpoint I worked on improving the customer experience. I learned quickly to be responsive to customers. I learned how to deal with unsatisfied customers – which meant putting frustrations aside and owning-up to every misstep. I learned how taxation is theft (ok not really – but it is a major downer).

Probably one of the most important things I learned from the basic art shop is that I had to take ownership of the work result. It never mattered how hard I tried to draw. If I created something that offered no value to others, it wouldn’t sell and had no value. That’s the real-world economy.

People pay for value. How was I to bring value to a customer? How could I improve the value I offered? How could my presentation and correspondence be improved to help convey value? I thought about all of those things, constantly.
That also began slowly translating to the workplace. Just because I put in effort – if the end result was incomplete, sloppy or just wrong – then I was not producing value.

The essence of entitlement is believing that showing up is enough. It’s not. The value we provide for the world is our all-in engagement with doing great work.

Employee vs. Ownership Perspective
Starting that art side-hustle slowly and fundamentally changed my perspective about business and serving people.
As I see it – there exists an Employee and an Ownership mentality. An Employee mentality asks – “why doesn’t our company pay for X?”, “they underpay everyone here”, “they never pay for good software”, and on and on.

The Ownership perspective is looking holistically at the business. “How can we better serve our clients?” “How can we improve work culture?” “How can we improve productivity?” An Ownership mentality links personal responsibility to their work and representing a brand.

I didn’t have to have a stake in a company to begin to develop that perspective. Businesses exist to make money. If businesses didn’t make money for a long period of time, then they fold and cease to  exist. That’s reality, and that’s not a bad thing either.

But just adopting an Ownership perspective brings about a world of possibilities. Company limitations don't become obstructions - they just become a problem that needs a creative solution. 
 
That art business grew, and grew and grew. Just three years in I sold over 600 pieces in a year. Wild. Especially for an ameateur artist who's dayjob is being and engineer. That shop still exists at www.etsy.com/shop/artbyjosephdalton. There’s not much time into it anymore now that the fire protection content is top priority – but I’m so thankful I started that shop because the lessons it taught has been invaluable.

Want to change your perspective? Start that side hustle you’ve always wanted. It just might unlock a fresh way of looking at the world.

Enjoy this? Consider sharing with a friend. 

If you enjoyed this, consider sharing with a friend. Here are some similar pieces by Joe Meyer:
Does Your Job Title Matter?
Knowledge is Not Just in Education
Fahrenheit 451 & The Thirst for Knowledge
Heartache of Failure in Life Safety Design

A little over 3 years ago I started my role in leading a small fire protection group. It is a subset of up to 3 people within a multi-discipline engineering consulting firm.

The first week there I asked my boss about what my title should be.

He asked what I wanted it to be, largely indifferent to the outcome.

If it mattered to me, he said, I should think about it and choose what I feel is right.

A myriad of thoughts came to mind. A buddy of mine was just promoted to “Director of Fire Protection Services,” which I liked and sounded fancy. 

“Team Leader”? Sounded too self-appointed (and too Star-Trek-ian). 

Finding a Title
I asked my wife and it spawned a healthy discussion. 

A job title should relate to the actual work accomplished so that clients can relate. Sure, that part is easy.

Maybe a fancy job title could impact future roles. Maybe a fancy one would make mom proud.

After thinking about it for some time I kept asking - does the job title really even matter?

I came to this role from a 500+ person company with an assortment of titles and even levels within each title.

At the new small company – what did the title even matter? I’d be doing design, engineering review, business development, project management, and low-level management. The work wouldn’t change whichever title I chose.

Sorry, I Still Get Carded
It was around that time, just six years into the industry, that a recruiter approached me. It was for a Senior Fire Protection Engineer position. 

The recruiter said I paired up exactly with the role. He expressed disbelief when I wasn’t interested in the role, considering I was just an Engineer at that time. [side note: I’m somewhat convinced recruiters will say anything to set up a job interview.]

Why even have the term “Senior” in a job title if it is even possible for someone 6-years into the industry to have a crack at it? 

I am not saying I would have gotten the job – I surely would not have – but to even suggest a 29-year old could be a “Senior” Engineer completely degrades the meaning of the term Senior.

Perhaps in large organizations the job title is the measure of prestige and responsibility. Perhaps it carries more weight where there is little else to distinguish thousands of employees. 

But for the rest of the world? The small consultants & contractors? I can’t see it carrying much meaning, or at least nowhere near the importance of the role itself.

Your role in fire protection is so much bigger than your job title. 

Whether you're an intern, engineer, manager, designer, or leader of the multi-hundred-person firm - you play an important role in protecting people and structures from major loss. 

Your hands create the safety we want to see in the world. 

That is far more important than your title. 

Consider your role and your contribution to the world beyond the job title and I promise your work will be more rewarding.

So where did I end up with my new job title? 

I chose “International Director of Fire Protection and Life Safety Design & Consulting Services”.

…just kidding, I stuck with “Fire Protection Engineer”.

What About You?
Where do you stand on job titles? Am I on an island, or have you had similar thoughts yourself? 

I'm interested in your take - post your thoughts here.​

p.s. This blog covers weekly takeaways in my experience as a Fire Protection Engineer. Some are thoughts on career while others are real-world technical applications. If you’ve found this interesting, consider sending to a friend.