Keynotes – Programs – Seminars – Workshops
Powerful, results-oriented, high-impact, experience-based safety and leadership programs using interactive, adult learning techniques.
For 25 years Dr. Richard Gasaway has been delivering content rich programs for first responders, business leaders and industral workers ranging in size from 10 to 5,000 throughout the United States, Canada, England, Hong Kong and Australia.
Situational Awareness Program
Flawed Situational Awareness: The stealth killer of first responders
Flawed Situational Awareness:
The stealth killer of first responders
Keynote or Plenary Session
30 minutes
60 minutes
90 minutes
Half day
Symposium, Breakout or Workshop
One hour
Two hour
Half day
Full day
Two day
This program is appropriate for first responders working in environments that are high-risk, high-consequence, time-compressed with changing conditions/information. This program is suited for:
- Firefighters (structural and wildland)
- Hazardous Materials Teams
- Technical Rescue/Special Operations Teams
- Police Officers
- Tactical Entry Teams
- Security Officers
- EMTs & Paramedics
- Training Officers
- Safety Officers
- Commanders
- Dispatchers
- Emergency Managers
** This program can be customized to fit a specific audience
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: 15
Maximum: None
Program Description
Flawed Situational Awareness:
The stealth killer of first responders
This program shares the powerful findings of Dr. Gasaway’s extensive research on issues related to first responder decision making and flawed situational awareness. In his review of hundreds of near-miss reports, case studies, line-of-duty death reports and videos he continually found himself being frustrated because there were so many clues, indicators and signs that the incident was going to end in disaster.
Yet, for some reason, personnel operating at the incident scene – from company officers to incident commanders – could not see it coming. Or if they did see it coming, they did nothing to alter their course.
In his research to understand why first responders were (seemingly) blind and deaf to what was happening right in front of them, Dr. Gasaway uncovered and investigated over one hundred barriers that can destroy situational awareness and flaw decision making.
This program focuses on some of the most pervasive situational awareness barriers first responders will face while operating in stress-filled, dynamically-changing environments. Barriers to be explored and discussed will include:
- Pre-arrival lens
- Confabulation
- Mission Myopia
- Mind drift
- Staffing issues
- Cognitive biases
- Normalization of deviance
- Human factors
- Complacency
- The curse of knowledge
- Overconfidence
- Technology
- Miscommunications
- Command location
- Peer and supervisor pressure
- Command support
- Overload
- Fear-driven decisions
- Task fixation
- Culture
- Task saturation
- … and more
Decision Making Program
Mental Management of Emergencies: Improving decision making under stress
Mental Management of Emergencies:
Improving decision making under stress
Keynote or Plenary Session
30 minutes
60 minutes
90 minutes
Half day
Symposium, Breakout or Workshop
One hour
Two hour
Half day
Full day
Two day
This program is appropriate for first responders working in environments that are high-risk, high-consequence, time-compressed with changing conditions/information. This program is suited for:
- Firefighters (structural and wildland)
- Hazardous Materials Teams
- Technical Rescue/Special Operations Teams
- Police Officers
- Tactical Entry Teams
- Security Officers
- EMTs & Paramedics
- Training Officers
- Safety Officers
- Commanders
- Dispatchers
- Emergency Managers
** The content can be customized to fit a specific audience
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: 15
Maximum: None
Program Description
Mental Management of Emergencies:
Improving decision making under stress
Since the inception of the National Firefighter Near-Miss Reporting System in 2005, the leading contributing factors to near-miss events are NOT strategy, tactics, equipment, procedures or training. The leading contributing factors are flawed situational awareness, poor decision making and human error. Likewise, the line-of-duty death investigation reports issued by the National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health repeatedly cite issues with situational awareness and decision making as leading contributing factors in casualty events.
Departments with state-of-the-art equipment, sound strategy & tactics, well-developed SOPs and command training centers are still experiencing incident scene casualties. The solution to improving your safety lies with improving your situational awareness and decision making – learning how to see the bad things coming in time to change the outcome. This program explores and discusses:
- 6 ways physical and mental stress impact decision making;
- 7 step process for making decisions in high stress, dynamic, rapidly changing environments;
- 4 essential components to making quality decisions under stress.
- How the brain uses pattern matching, mental modeling and intuition to make high stress decisions.
- 3 levels of situational awareness including how to develop and maintain each level.
- 5 common situational awareness flaws that can have catastrophic outcomes.
- Best practices for developing and maintaining situational awareness in high-stress, high consequence situations
NOTE: This is not a strategy and tactics presentation. This program focuses on the neuroscience of high stress, high consequence decision making and the process for developing and maintaining situational awareness
Safety Programs
Creating the Thinking First Responder
Creating the Thinking First Responder
Keynote or Plenary Session
30 minute
60 minute
90 minute
Symposium, Breakout or Workshop
See: Training for Failure program
This program is appropriate for first responders working in environments that are high-risk, high-consequence, time-compressed with changing conditions/information. This program is suited for:
- Firefighters (structural and wildland)
- Hazardous Materials Teams
- Technical Rescue/Special Operations Teams
- Police Officers
- Tactical Entry Teams
- Security Officers
- EMTs & Paramedics
- Training Officers
- Safety Officers
- Commanders
- Dispatchers
- Emergency Managers
** The content can be customized to fit a specific audience
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: None
Maximum: None
Program Description
Creating the Thinking First Responder
This powerful keynote discusses how shortfalls in first responder training are contributing to catastrophic outcomes. Many instructors tell their students what to do instead of teaching their students the process for making high risk, high consequence decisions under stress
Specific first responder training examples will be used to demonstrate both how our training is failing to create thinking responders and the real-world consequences of this shortcoming. Solutions will be offered that ensure responders are trained to perform realistically based on the real world decision making environments they operating in.
Firefighter Safety: Mistakes & Best Practices
Firefighter Safety:
Mistakes & Best Practices
Symposium, Breakout or Workshop
Two hours
Half day
This program is suited for:
- Structural Firefighters
- Company Officers
- Training Officers
- Safety Officers
- Incident Commanders
- Risk Managers
- Dispatchers
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: None
Maximum: None
Program Description
Firefighter Safety:
Mistakes & Best Practices
This program looks at a summary of common mistakes and best practices discovered from the presenter’s extensive evaluation of more than 500 near-miss reports and line-of-duty casualty investigations. Improve your understanding of what’s killing firefighters at incident scenes and how to improve fireground safety
During this fast-paced program we will look at the role of staffing, communications, command activities, size-up, strategy, training, near-miss events and post incident evaluations play in line-of-duty deaths of firefighters and participants will be offered best practices to fix the mistakes.
Training for Failure: Understanding why first responder training must change
Training for Failure:
Understanding why first responder training must change
Keynote or Plenary Session
30 minute
60 minute
90 minute
Symposium, Breakout or Workshop
One hour
Two hour
Half day
This program is suited for:
- Firefighters (structural and wildland)
- Hazardous Materials Teams
- Technical Rescue/Special Operations Teams
- Police Officers
- Tactical Entry Teams
- Security Officers
- EMTs & Paramedics
- Training Officers
- Safety Officers
- Commanders
- Dispatchers
- Emergency Managers
Program Description
Training for Failure:
Understanding why first responder training must change
When first responders do seemingly insane things at emergency scenes there is never a shortage of peers waiting to pass judgment and to criticize. It is very easy to be the judge and jury of flawed performance after the fact. However, no amount of judgment will result in learning from the mistakes.
This program will offer an eye-opening view into how responders are being trained to fail, why those who are training them don’t know they’re doing it and how to fix the problem. We’ll discuss 16 things we know about how the brain works and provide specific examples of how police, fire and EMS responders are being trained to fail and offer tangible, immediately actionable solutions.
Fifty Ways to Kill a First Responder: Improving emergency scene situational awareness
Fifty Ways to Kill a First Responder:
Improving emergency scene situational awareness.
Symposium, Breakout or Workshop
Two day
Three day
This program is appropriate for first responders working in environments that are high-risk, high-consequence, time-compressed with changing conditions/information. This program is suited for:
- Firefighters (structural and wildland)
- Hazardous Materials Teams
- Technical Rescue/Special Operations Teams
- Police Officers
- Tactical Entry Teams
- Security Officers
- EMTs & Paramedics
- Training Officers
- Safety Officers
- Commanders
- Dispatchers
- Emergency Managers
** The content can be customized to fit a specific audience
Program Description
Fifty Ways to Kill a First Responder:
Improving emergency scene situational awareness.
This program is based on the findings of Dr. Gasaway’s research on emergency incident decision making. In his review of hundreds of near-miss reports, case studies, line-of-duty death reports and videos he continually found himself being frustrated because there were so many clues, indicators and signs that the incident was going to end in disaster. But for some reason, the personnel operating at the incident scene could not see it coming.
Chief Gasaway’s research sought to understand the barriers that challenge situational awareness at emergency scenes. This program focuses on the leading barriers to situational awareness at emergency scenes. This program explores and discusses:
- 12 categories of situational awareness barriers.
- How situational awareness is impacted by:
- Staffing levels
- Communications issues
- Attention management
- Workload management
- Human factors
- The location of command
- Command support and command aids
- Incident and organizational goals and mission
- The organizational culture
- … and so much more
- 5 critical command mistakes you can avoid
- 10 best practices for command decision-makers
NOTE: This is not a strategy and tactics class. This program focuses on the barriers that challenge emergency responder situational awareness and decision making. The program is based on the presenter’s doctoral research and the challenges faced by commanders at residential dwelling fires. However, the lessons are, quite literally, universal to anyone who works in a high-stress, high-consequence decision making environment.
In the Blink of an Eye: How quickly a firefighter can die
In the Blink of an Eye:
How Quickly a Firefighter Can Die
Symposium, Breakout or Workshop
Three hours
This program is suited for:
- Structural Firefighters
- Company Officers
- Training Officers
- Safety Officers
- Incident Commanders
- Risk Managers
- Dispatchers
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: None
Maximum: None
Program Description
In the Blink of an Eye:
How Quickly a Firefighter Can Die
On July 28, 2011, the Asheville Fire Department suffered a catastrophic loss when Captain Jeff Bowen tragically lost his life while fighting a fire in a 6-story commercial office building. In the following days and weeks, investigators from ATF, OSHA, NIOSH and the North Carolina Bureau of Criminal Investigations interviewed Asheville firefighters, company officers and commanders. Each agency would aggregate their findings and eventually issue their respective reports.
But the fire administration and the members wanted to make sure they understood both HOW and WHY the tragedy occurred and perhaps more importantly, how to prevent it from ever happening again. This level of understanding would require a deeper level of inquiry with a specific purpose.
My involvement with the Asheville Fire Department started the previous April when I conducted three days of situational awareness training for their officers. Captain Bowen was in my class. This loss was personal. In September 2011, I was invited to Asheville to conduct a facilitated debriefing using a protocol adapted from aviation. Airlines use the process to extract lessons after aviation near-miss and casualty incidents.
Initially there was some concern among the firefighters about being involved in yet another investigation. But this process is not an investigation and once we got started they quickly realized the benefits coming from their participation. The four-day process yielded some amazing lessons for the Asheville Fire Department and some valuable recommendations that can benefit every fire department.
NOTE: This program contains information about the inner workings of the Asheville Fire Department. I express my appreciation to Fire Chief Scott Burnette for supporting the facilitated debrief process and for his willingness to share the lessons with the fire service. He is a true leader in all respects.
The Competent Commander: 21 Essential skills for improving incident outcomes
The Competent Commander:
21 Essential skills for improving incident outcomes
Workshop
One day
This program is suited for:
- Structural Firefighters
- Company Officers
- Training Officers
- Safety Officers
- Incident Commanders
- Risk Managers
- Dispatchers
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: None
Maximum: None
Program Description
The Competent Commander:
21 Essential skills for improving incident outcomes
Often times fire department promotions are made based on an arbitrary process that may include a test and an interview. The candidate ranking highest gets promoted and with a new helmet donned, is vaulted into the position of commanding emergencies.
But there is a problem with this process: There is a high probability the newly promoted commander will be under-prepared for the challenges and complexities of being the incident’s ultimate decision maker.
There must be a better way. This program is designed to help commanders who work in high-stress, high consequence, time compressed environments where conditions can change rapidly.
Topics to be discussed include:
- Preparing to be in command
- Training
- Practice
- Simulations
- Rehearsal – Field practice
- Stress inoculation
- Preplanning bad outcomes
- Loser buildings
- Loser conditions
- DNR Orders
- Situational awareness
- Perception – Understanding – Prediction
- Size-up
- Four size-up priorities
- Smoke & Fire
- Construction & Decomposition
- Speed of change
- Risk assessment
- Shared situational awareness
- Personnel size-up
- Grading individuals and teams
- Command Presence
- Decision making
- Developing an action plan
- Playing the cards you’re dealt
- Changing poorly executed plans
- Ordering the withdrawal
- The initial IC (The company officer)
- Habits, comforts and routines
- Working command
- Passing command
- What do you have?
- What is your strategy?
- What has been done?
- What needs to be done?
- The Devil’s Advocate
- Managing workload
- Worksheets
- Checklists
- Aides
- Sectoring
- Safety Officer
- Command location
- Hands off
- Big picture
- Seat or street
- Mutual aid
- Depending on people you don’t know
- Training with mutual aid partners
- Know their abilities and inabilities
- Know their standard practices
- When things go bad
- Commanding the Mayday
- Coordinating RIT
- Evacuations
- Self Control
- Ego/Bravado
- Fear
- Excitement
- Anxiety
- Accountability
- The PAR Report
- The CAN Report
- The mental movie
- Tracking time
- Time distortion
- Begin with the end in mind
- Benchmarking
- Outcome expectations
- Can you change the outcome?
- Communications
- Pre-established terms
- Pre-scripted plans
- Hearing versus listening
- Front-loading resources
- Automatic Aid
- Pre-determine the staffing needs
- Pre-determined water needs
- Benchmarking
- Pre-set the benchmarks
- Time-to-task completion drills
- Plan B
- Development
- Implementation
- Transition
- Practice
- Game plans – SOGs
- Standardized plans.
- Avoid robotic action.
- Resiliency is important.
- Understanding the human factor
- Auditory exclusion
- Mission Myopia
- Confabulation
- Change blindness
- Post-incident feedback
- Assess opportunities for improvement
- Learning from errors
- Near-miss lessons learned
- Line-of-duty death lessons learned
- Facilitated debriefing process
Leadership Programs
The Leader’s Toolbox: Best practices for leadership success
The Leader’s Toolbox:
Best practices for leadership success
Symposium or Workshop
Half day
Full day
This program is suited for:
- Front-line employees/members
- Front-line supervisors
- Middle managers
- Senior staff
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: 10
Maximum: 50
Program Description
The Leader’s Toolbox:
Developing leadership based on best practices.
The Leader’s Toolbox is lively and fast-paced, interactive facilitated discussion designed to address the challenges of leading people. The program will focus on traits of human behavior that will help you understand why people do, and don’t do, what you want them to.
The program also looks at various leadership styles and behaviors, in a non-threatening way – intertwined with humor, to help you understand how your behaviors and beliefs toward others can influence their attitudes and performance. You’ll be introduced to best practices that are used by successful leaders in all walks of life and understand why some people can make leadership look so easy and effortless while others struggle with it daily.
Come prepared to discuss some of your most difficult leadership challenges and leave with leadership tools that work! Topics are participant-driven based on the challenges they are facing. Popular topics include:
- Teambuilding
- Communications
- Problem solving
- Conflict resolution
- Difficult co-workers
- Leading change
- Coaching
- Motivation
- Leadership
- Followership
- Counseling and discipline
- Performance improvement plans
- Accountability
- Compromise
- Collaboration
- Mission
- Vision
- Core values
- Time management
- Persuasion and influence
Company Officer Development Institute: Developing leadership skills for supervisor success
Company Officer Development Institute:
Developing leadership skills for supervisor success
Symposium or Workshop
Three day
Four day
Five day
This program is suited for:
- Front-line employees/members
- Front-line supervisors
- Middle managers
- Senior staff
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: 10
Maximum: 25
Program Description
Company Officer Development Institute:
Developing leadership skills for supervisor success
The Company Office Development Institute was created to strengthen front-line supervision and leadership skills of company officers and aspiring company officers. All too often, firefighters are promoted into the position of company officer without first having the opportunity to participate in a program to develop the skills needed to lead their team to success.
The results are predictable. The newly promoted company officer faces challenges they are not prepared to handle. This causes a great deal of frustration, anxiety, and in some cases can be career damaging. It can also damage relationships and prohibit the success of the company.
This weeklong program is designed to help build tomorrow’s leaders…Today!
It is based on proven strategies and skill development that prepares a company officer for success. This is a dynamic, interactive program addressing skills related to teambuilding, communications, problem solving, motivation, time management, role conflict, coaching, discipline and much more.
The goal of the program is to help company officers keep problems out of the chiefs’ offices by learning how to prevent and solve problems at the company level.
The program is ideally suited for aspiring company officers, newly promoted company officers and veteran company officers seeking to develop new leadership skills or looking to sharpen their existing leadership tools.
This program does not use PowerPoint slides and there is no bookwork. The presenters are skilled at using adult facilitated learning technique to focus attendees on discussions and solutions to the most challenging issues they are facing in their positions.
The presenters bring a balanced perspective to the challenging role of company officer: Chief Gasaway’s perspective is from the role of fire chief – managing, leading, communicating and inspiring from the top of the organization. Lieutenant Harper’s perspective is from the role of company officer – managing, leading, communicating and inspiring from the company level of the organization.
All building fires eventually go out. But the fires in your departments can burn for years, causing unbelievable damage. The Leader’s Toolbox is lively and fast-paced, interactive facilitated discussion designed to address the challenges you face as leaders of people in emergency services. The program will focus on traits of human behavior that will help you understand why people do, and don’t do, what you want them to.
The program also looks at your style and behaviors, in a non-threatening way intertwined with humor, to help you understand how your behaviors and beliefs toward others influence their attitudes and performance. You’ll be introduced to best practices that are used by successful leaders in all walks of life and understand why some people can make leadership look so easy and effortless while others struggle with it daily. Come prepared to discuss some of your most difficult leadership challenges and leave with leadership tools that work!
The Courage to Lead:
Doing the right things, in the right ways,
at the right times, for the right reasons.
Symposium or Workshop
One day
Two day
This program is suited for:
- Front-line employees/members
- Front-line supervisors
- Middle managers
- Senior staff
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: 10
Maximum: 50
Program Description
The Courage to Lead:
Doing the right things, in the right ways,
at the right times, for the right reasons.
Success requires great courage on three levels.
First, it takes great courage to lead yourself – to do the right things for the right reasons and never waver from your principles.
Second, it takes great courage to lead others – to inspire greatness in your followers and to do your part to ensure the right people are in the right positions for the right reasons and they are held accountable for their contributions.
Finally, it takes great courage to lead an organization – to do your part to ensure there is a culture of excellence, guided by a mission, vision and core values that are purpose-driven.
This program uses adult facilitated learning techniques (no PowerPoint) to reveal the motivation that compels or prohibit courageous leadership. Participants will be challenged to identify ways to overcome the fears that prohibit to courageous leadership. We will also discuss ways to support the courageous followership and how to create a courageous organization using core values and mutual accountability.
Preparing for the storm on the horizon: When efficiency consultants come knocking
Preparing for the storm on the horizon:
When efficiency consultants come knocking
Symposium or Workshop
Half day
This program is suited for:
- Front-line supervisors
- Middle managers
- Senior staff
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: None
Maximum: None
Program Description
Preparing for the storm on the horizon:
When efficiency consultants come knocking
Countless fire departments throughout the United States have been impacted from the storm created when the economy took a downturn. This has created an unprecedented set of challenges that require innovative problem solving and collaboration among all key stakeholders.
But are you aware of the sharks lurking in those stormy waters? They smell the blood of your vulnerability and they’re eager for the feast. Is this an over dramatization of reality or is it your new reality? You be the judge.
Private consulting firms are using well-selected cases of inefficiencies in fire departments and casting broad accusations about our entire profession. Whether it is their motive or not, the consultants appear to be making an effort to convince elected and appointed officials that fire departments cost too much, are inefficient, ineffective and are populated with lazy, self-centered employees.
This program is designed to help you be prepared if your city hires an efficiency consulting firm. When they ask the tough questions, your good answers may help weather the storm and overcome the shark attack.
Recruitment & Retention: Best practices to attract and retain quality members
Recruitment & Retention:
Best practices to attract and retain quality members
Symposium or Workshop
Half day
Full day
This program is suited for:
- Front-line supervisors
- Middle managers
- Senior staff
Recommended Class Size
Minimum: None
Maximum: None
Program Description
Recruitment & Retention:
Best practices to attract and retain quality members
After savings lives and property, one of the most difficult challenges fire departments are facing is recruiting and retaining quality members. Time demands, training requirements, increasing call volumes, leadership problems, legal mandates, internal conflict, time management, rewards and recognition, mobile workforce, cost of housing, aging communities… the list goes on and on.
This program focuses on best practices to help you attract and retain quality members. We will look at: Leadership styles, mission, vision, core values, officer selection, communications, teamwork, conflict resolution, recruitment practices, retention strategies, the problems leaders
Participants will be guided in a discussion facilitated by a successful public safety leader with more than thirty years experience working with volunteers. He is the contributing author of The Leadership Guide to Combination Fire Departments, co-author of The Leadership Guide to Volunteer Fire Services (both Jones & Bartlett Publishing), and On Fire About Leadership (self-published).