Mr. Ed Comeau is the third annual winner of the Excellence in Fire & Life Safety Award. This year, the judges felt that Mr. Comeau best exemplified the award criteria of an individual whose service, professional abilities and leadership were exemplary in promoting fire prevention and who serves as an example to all fire prevention and fire protection professionals.
Mr. Comeau, of Belchertown, Mass., is the owner of Writer-Tech.com, a technical writing firm that publishes Campus Firewatch, a monthly electronic newsletter that focuses on issues relating to campus fire safety. He is the founder and past-director of the Center for Campus Fire Safety, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization focusing on the complex issues of campus fire safety.
Mr. Comeau has been instrumental in developing educational materials targeting students as well as raising national awareness of the importance of fire safety among parents, administrators, legislators and students. His writing has appeared in a number of international publications and he is the author of the campus fire-safety chapter in the current edition of the NFPA Fire Protection Handbook.
Before forming Writer-Tech.com, Mr. Comeau was the chief fire investigator for the NFPA's Fire Investigations Department, responsible for the investigation of numerous major domestic and international incidents, including the English Channel Tunnel Fire, the Dusseldorf Airport Terminal Fire and the Oklahoma City bombing, among others... Read more (pdf)
Photo, from left: Chief Jeffrey D. Johnson, IAFC president and chairman of the board; Chief Adolf Zubia, president of the International Code Council (ICC) and Fire & Life Safety Section board member; Mr. Comeau; Mr. Jim Tidwell, former vice president for fire service activities, ICC