Ron Siarnicki receives the Mason Lankford Fire Service Leadership Award from Jim Estepp (left) of the Congressional Fire Service Institute and Domingo Herraiz of Motorola Solutions (right) at the award ceremonies in Washington, DC.

Mason Lankford was a career firefighter from Texas with a passion for making the fire and emergency service safer for the men and women who have worn the gear and responded to the call. In 1987, he was instrumental in persuading fellow Texan and then-House Speaker Jim Wright to support the idea of a Fire Caucus. Thanks to Lankford’s persistence and dedication, the Congressional Fire Services Institute (CFSI) was created in 1989. Today, CFSI continues to educate members of Congress about the needs and challenges of the nation's firefighters and emergency medical technicians, and to encourage the federal government’s continued support for the training and funding needed by first responders.

The Mason Lankford Fire Service Leadership Award, sponsored by the CFSI and the Motorola Solutions Foundation, recognizes individuals who, like Lankford, have been proactive at the local, state or federal level to improve fire and emergency services and life-safety issues.

This year’s Lankford Award recipient: Chief Ron Siarnicki. Following a 24-year career with the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department, Chief Siarnicki was named executive director of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation in 2001.

In this role with the Foundation, he conducted the annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service in Emmitsburg, Md.  Since becoming executive director, Siarnicki has expanded the Foundation’s work to include initiatives that address firefighter health and safety, as well as programs to help the survivors along on their difficult journeys.  One of his many accomplishments was holding the 2004 National Firefighter Life Safety Summit, the first meeting of its kind, attended by representatives of the major fire service organizations.  The culmination of the two-day event was the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives embraced by the national organizations to reduce the number of deaths and injuries in the fire service.

In Washington, Siarnicki has been an active leader on a number of federal initiatives, working closely with the major fire organizations, congressional leaders and administration officials.  Many of his efforts have focused on the Public Safety Officers Benefit Program to ensure that the program is properly administered for survivors who file claims.  He also has been actively involved in efforts to advance fire sprinkler initiatives and burn treatment research.

We salute Ron Siarnicki and the previous Lankford Award recipients for continuing the spirit of Mason Lankford with their own brand of leadership, perseverance and vision. Their legacies have profoundly impacted the fire service, as well as the health and safety of so many Americans who have been ably served by our nation’s fire and rescue services community.

Domingo Herraiz is Director of Government and Enterprise Funding, Motorola Solutions Inc., and formerly director of the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Read additional blogs by Domingo Herraiz here.
Watch this video to learn more about Motorola’s commitment to the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service.

As evidenced by the number of VHF and UHF public safety and industrial/business entities in the FCC ULS database that are still only licensed for 25 kHz operation, there are still many of you who are scrambling to get into compliance with the FCC narrowbanding mandate.

The Utilities Telecom Council will help its members through any outstanding narrowbanding compliance and implementation issues at its May 15-17 UTC Telecom 2013 Conference in Houston, Texas.   I will be speaking at the UTC panel session “Narrowbanding: I Missed the Deadline.  Now What?”  Please join me on May 16, from 7:30 – 8:30 AM in Room 320AB at the George R. Brown Convention Center.    The panel is moderated by Don Vasek, UTC Director of Spectrum Services, and joining me is Richard Donaldson, IT PMO Manager at Duke Energy.

The panel will address Duke Energy’s lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid in completing your system narrowbanding, possible FCC audit and enforcement considerations, frequency coordinator treatment of remaining non-compliant systems, and recommendations for resolving non-compliance and project completion issues.  I will mainly address narrowband impact on manufacturers, what it means to you the licensee, and what to do if you still need to buy 25 kHz capable radios or multi-mode radios that have some exceptions to the FCC mandate.

In addition, there is a second regulatory-related panel session in which I am also speaking aimed at those of you interested in gaining access to 700 MHz public safety broadband communications.  I invite you to attend “Mission Critical Readiness: Are You Prepared for the Public Safety Broadband Network?” on May 16, from 2:30 – 3:45 PM also in Room 320AB.  Joining me on the panel is my Motorola colleague Jared Pickrell, Director of Engineering, Strategic Products, and John Chaney of Harris County Texas.  Harris County is currently implementing an early deployment of the 700 MHz nationwide PSBN in the Harris County (Houston) area, and John will share what they are doing on network sharing.  I will address last year’s legislation that enables critical infrastructure access, how the PSBN can leverage utilities infrastructure assets, plus how utilities can promote partnership opportunities.  Jared will provide valuable insight on LTE and broadband applications for utilities, the energy worker of the future and multi-service, multi-use priority and access.

Al Ittner is Senior Manager of Spectrum Strategy at Motorola Solutions, Inc.

For more information about Narrowbanding, please visit www.motorolasolutions.com/narrowbanding.