MEDIA CONTACT: Mark E. Brady, Chief Spokesperson, 240-508-7930
mebrady@co.pg.md.us @PGFDPIO
Two individuals were recognized with the Fire Chiefs
Special Achievement Awards recently. Prince
George’s County Fire Chief Marc S. Bashoor made these presentations on April 7
during a ceremony held at the First Baptist Church of Glenarden. Before making the presentations Bashoor
stated, “I am honored to have the opportunity to recognize two individuals for
my Special Achievement Award. The two highest awards that a Fire Chief has the honor of presenting are Unit Citations and the Fire
Chiefs Special Achievement Award.”
The Fire Chiefs Special Achievement Award recognizes
an individual’s extraordinary performance or service which contributes significantly
to the overall mission of the Fire/EMS Department.
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| Battalion Chief Christian Wargo |
“Our first recipient willingly accepted my challenge
to coordinate a large scale, multi-jurisdictional training opportunity,” Bashoor
said. “The Market Place Project took on
a life of its own, with roof and roll-up door cutting, long-attack-line-advance
drills, explosives entry training, partition wall perforating, rapid
intervention training and many more opportunities. These were rare opportunities presented to the
department, which required organizational commitment as well as strong and
professional leadership to pull off effectively.”
This Battalion Chief enthusiastically accepted to
take on this responsibility. This was
not a mandatory assignment – he could have taken the easy road and passed, but
he did not. With the help of many
others, he coordinated the effort which brought personnel from around the
region, including Fire/EMS and Police Departments,
K-9, Investigative teams and bomb squads.
Over 1,000 personnel were afforded the opportunity to train for extended
periods, days, nights, and weekends during the four month project. Making the award presentation Bashoor said, “For
his tireless efforts as the Market Place Coordinator, I am honored to present
Battalion Chief Christian Wargo with the Fire Chiefs Special Achievement Award.
Chief Bashoor also selected a second recipient for
his Special Achievement Award. In doing
so, he stated, “It is unusual that I present a 2nd Fire Chiefs award
within a given year. It is equally
unusual that this award will be presented to a civilian employee who works for
a different County government agency.”
After the tragic Christmas Eve and Christmas day
fatal fires in 2014, the program now known as Adopt-a-Neighborhood was
developed. The program compliments our long established smoke alarm programs,
with a proactive door-to-door campaign aimed at ensuring all homes in the
county have working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors where needed.
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| Senior GIS Analyst Teddy Hailegeberel |
One of the Departments historic problems with smoke
alarm efforts has been tracking where alarms have been installed and more importantly, not installed. With advances in technology there had to be
a new hi-tech effort to accomplish this. After a couple of meetings with the County Office
of Information Technology and their talented staff the “right guy” was identified
who had the talent and thankfully the time to help the Department leap to that
hi-tech place. The ARCGIS application
was developed and used with some refinements. This app is downloaded onto smart phones and updates performed on site by firefighters.
Although it may never be “complete” the program is now being used at
many of our 45 stations with paid, volunteer and civilian members using the
application as we go door to door.
Existing GIS data is used to track our door to door campaigns, including
real time recordings of installations, failures, and rejections – the
real-time database provides an instantaneous capacity for follow-up that did
not exist before to ensure neighborhoods are completely protected. The development of this program has
revolutionized our record keeping efforts and significantly reduced the amount
of time spent managing the program and measuring effectiveness.
The program is also directly responsible for
convincing several businesses to contribute to the adopt-a-neighborhood
program. After developing the program,
OIT personnel have accompanied us on at least three of our weekend community events. The program, which may be the
first of its kind in the nation, has garnered national attention. As a result
of the application effort, the OIT staff has been requested to present at several GIS
Conferences.
Fire Chief Bashoor presented his Special Achievement
Award to the app developer by saying, “Without his efforts, the Adopt-a-Neighborhood
program would be ‘just another program’ on the shelf. It is
my honor to recognize Senior GIS Analyst Teddy Hailegeberel for his tireless
efforts, including going door-to-door with us on several Saturdays, with the
Fire Chiefs Special Achievement Award.”
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| Back row - Fire Chief Bashoor, Deputy fire Chief ben Barksdale, Deputy Fire Chief James McClelland Front Row - Patrick Callahan (County OIT) Teddy Hailegeberel, Battalion Chief Christian Wargo |
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