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Ritchie Trompert started his firefighting career in 1991 at the Fire Brigade Halfweg near Amsterdam. From there it was a logical step to become the Fire Chief of the professional Fire Brigade Haarlemmerliede in 2002 until 2008 when he stepped over to the professional Fire Brigade Amsterdam-Amstelland first as Head Officer and later on also as facility Manager.

During his time at the Amsterdam-Amstelland Fire Brigade Ritchie held several additional functions at the Netherlands Fire Service. Since Januari 2016 Ritchie is the Manager Emergency Respons of the Schiphol Group.

Just over 40 years ago Ulrich joint the Fire Service in his hometown, where he is currently the Deputy Fire- Chief. Besides various other things he has been working for HALE-Godiva since 1993 and was ever since then involved in CAFS on topics as development, testing etc. In 1995 he was already doing tests for the adoption of CAFS to European applications and from that moment on involved in the work of fire service standards.

Furthermore Ulrich is Second convenor, National WG 2 Mirror Group as well as Convenor CEN TC 192 WG 2 (WG 2 is responsible for Fire- Pumps and related systems)

Luca is a professional fire fighter of the Trento Fire & Rescue Service since 1998. Besides that, he is a member of the panel of the National Italian Fire Service about Compartment Fire Behaviour Training (CFBT). Ever since the receival of the first fire engine with CAFS at the Trento Fire & Rescue service, in 2003, he has been an enthusiast of CAFS.

Over the years he gained that much knowledge about CAFS that he wrote the first manual in Italian about CAFS in 2010. At this moment CAFS is the first choice in his Fire Service in (nearly) all fires.

Graeme joined the Fire & Rescue Service in 1979 retiring 30 years later as an operational Area Commander. During his career he attended a wide variety of incidents including the UK response to the earthquake in Turkey and was seconded to the UK Government to manage a command and control project on behalf of the UK Fire and Rescue Service.

Graeme is currently the Regulation & Oversight Manager for Heathrow’s Airport Fire & Rescue Service where he is responsible for providing support to the Airport Fire Managers at Heathrow Airport in order for them to achieve their strategic aims and ensuring that they comply with all relevant European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) requirements.

Besides that, he is a member of EASA Rule Making Task Group (RMT 0589), Chair of the ACI-Europe RFFS Working Group and Chair of the UK Airport Operators Association RFFS Working Group. He also works with the relevant RFFS NFPA and ICAO committees and is a Member of the Institution of Fire Engineers.

Dr. Niall Ramsden is project Coordinator of the LASTFIRE Project, an international industry group reviewing the risks associated with storage tank fires.

The Group’s work includes incident data collection, best practice development and research on topics including boilovers and firefighting foam effectiveness. Niall sits on the EN and NFPA (USA) Foam Systems standards committees and was a lead author for the Energy Institute’s MCOSP Part 19 – Fire Precautions at Petroleum Refineries and Bulk Storage Installations.

He attended the Buncefield incident – arriving on site within a few hours of ignition and acted as a specialist advisor to the fire services.

Rijk van den Dikkenberg B.Eng. MCDm has been a senior researcher at the Netherlands Fire service academy for 10 years. Besides that, he has been a voluntary firefighter for over 25 years and is currently the area commander of two fire stations.

He is the project leader of the research program that was carried out to study the applicability of techniques to fight ventilation-controlled structure fires from the exterior of the building, according to the newly developed “Offensive Exterior Attack Tactic” in the Netherlands.

Wilfried Gräfling was born 1955 in Gelsenkirchen and grew up in Herten (Ruhr area, Nordrhein-Westfalen). While still in school, he entered the volunteer fire brigade of his hometown. After studying electrical engineering at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, he started his professional firefighting career in 1981 as a fire clerk for the city of Leverkusen. 1983 he switched to the Berlin fire Brigade as fire officer. During his tenure, he was responsible in different positions, including the IT department, as technical Project manager for the Berlin Police control centre and as project manager for the control centre of the Berlin Fire Brigade, as head of controlling and as head of a directorate. In 2001 he was appointed permanent Deputy Chief Fire Officer. 2006 he was appointed Chief Fire Officer of Berlin.

At the same time, Wilfried Gräfling engaged himself in the field of standardization, especially “fire alarm systems and electrical equipment” and was a member of various bodies in the fields of fire safety, civil protection, public safety and research.

Wilfried Gräfling was and is a major concern to ensure the future viability of the Fire and Rescue service. Therefore it was only logical that he established a research department within the Berlin Fire Brigade in 2008.

Since August 2018, Wilfried Gräfling is retired.

George Cajaty B. Braga is a Colonel and Head of the Technical-Administrative Advisory of the General Commander’s Office at the Federal District Fire Department (CBMDF/Brazil), where he has been leading research projects to improve fire prevention, firefighting and fire investigation methods since 1994. He also works as firefighter instructor and fire investigator.

He was a guest researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL/USA) from 1999 to 2001 and a guest researcher at the Fire Fighting Technology Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST/USA), working on Fire Fighter Respirator Characterization and Fire Fighter Protective Clothing Performance Model projects, from 2009 to 2011.

He is a research associate at the University of Brasília (UnB/Brazil) since 2001 and co-advisor in graduation programs at the University of Brasilia, as well as the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRS/Brazil) and the University of Coimbra (UC/Portugal).

Dr. John Gorrie has a PhD in environmental toxicology. Until recently, John spent over 10 years with the Tasmanian Environment Protection Authority. He had roles providing advice to emergency responders, including the Tasmanian Fire Service, and emergency response planning.

John has a strong commitment to assisting fire services to gain the necessary environmental knowledge and skills to make good defensible fire ground decisions in a dynamic changing situation.

Leon Smith, “Alfy” has 33 years of experience in the emergency services sector in Australia, where he has worked as a career and volunteer firefighter, emergency fleet manager, fire investigator, trainer and project manager.

An experienced operational fire fighter in both urban and rural operations, Leon has been responsible for the establishment and ongoing management of the strategic capability development program of works for the past 16 years in the role of Fleet Manager. Managing a business unit within the Fire has allowed rapid integration of technology to design functionality matched to emerging risk, with exceptional results in capability development, the concepts of which have been shared and received within the industry both nationally and overseas.

Leon has presented in National and International forums where his knowledge and experience has been recognized and has held the position of “chairperson” of the AFAC fleet and technical group within Australia for 7 years.

Leon’s operational and technical knowledge has provided the Australian Fire Industry with cutting edge capability, therefore transforming the manner in which fire suppression is undertaken, the direction and position has been recognized as “best practice” in the industry. He has designed, engineered and utilised CAFS systems and is versed in the risk based drivers that influence change in the industry.

Gary Baum is a Field Staff Instructor for the Illinois Fire Service Institute where he teaches Hazardous Materials and Cornerstone Classes including Combustible and Flammable Liquid Response Awareness, Firefighting Foam and Fire Officer Development classes.

Mr. Baum is also the Lead Fire Science Program Instructor at Fox Valley Career Center (FVCC) in Maple Park, Illinois, USA (metro Chicago area). Mr. Baum is a graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program in 2017. Mr. Baum received the IAFC Don Manno Award for Excellence in Research on the topic being presented at Fire Asia 2018.

Mr. Baum has previously served as Deputy Chief Fire Officer for the Fox River & Countryside Fire Rescue District, the New Milford Fire Protection District and Assistant Chief Officer for Sugar Grove Fire Department.

Ever since the mid 70’s when he designed and patented a foaming system with compressed air and nitrogen cylinders, water and detergent during his time as Research Specialist in the Texas Forrest Service Mark Cummins is known as the inventor of Compressed Air Foam.

Over the years he refined this with air compressors and foam proportioning equipment as President of Cummins Industries. Up until today Mark is well known and appreciated for his knowledge about the usage of CAFS.

Alberto Acuña has been linked throughout his life to firefighting foam concentrates. After studying in Madrid and Oxford he enrolled fulltime in Vs Focum. Since then, he has been in charge of the communication and international sales.