Ernest Mitchell, Jr. was the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s United States Fire Administrator for the United States Fire Administration. He began his tenure on December 5, 2011 and was responsible for managing the United States Fire Administration, the programs and training activities at the National Emergency Training Center.

Chief Mitchell retired as the Fire Chief and Assistant Director of Disaster Emergency Services for the City of Pasadena, California Fire Department after 33 years in the fire service. Chief Mitchell is an active member and former officer of the IAFC. During his last year in Pasadena he was also President of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), where he continued until the completion of his term. He served in Pasadena from 1998 until 2004. Prior to becoming Fire Chief in Pasadena, Chief Mitchell served as Fire Chief and Deputy City Manager in the City of Monrovia, California for seven years. He began his career as a fire fighter with the City of Compton, California. He served there for twenty years in various ranks until leaving to become Fire Chief in the City of Monrovia.

His most recent professional affiliations include serving as a member of the International Fire Service Training Association Executive Board, the International Association of Firefighters Hazardous Materials Advisory Board, the IAFC President’s Council, the IAFC Foundation Board, and the IAFC/IAFF Labor/Management Initiative Facilitator Team.

In previous years he has served as a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Advisory Committee; on numerous committees and task forces of the IAFC; and presided over several fire service organizations, including: the Los Angeles Area Fire Chiefs Association; the League of California Cities Fire Chiefs and the Foothill Fire Chiefs. He has also been an Advocate for the National Fallen Firefighters’ Everyone Goes Home ® Program, an adjunct instructor for the National Fire Academy and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Fire Chief Magazine.

Chief Mitchell has an Associate of Science Degree in Fire Science from Long Beach City College; a Bachelor Degree in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco; and a Master of Public Administration Degree from California State University at Northridge.

During his career Chief Mitchell has either chaired or been a member of many working committees that contributed to the progress and development of communities as well as local, state and national fire and emergency services. He is a past recipient of the IAFC President’s Award for Service and has received several community awards for service.

He is a past recipient of numerous community and organizational honors, including: the IAFC President’s Award for Service, designation as a City of Compton Hometown Hero, and selection to the Long Beach City College Alumni Hall of Fame.

John Miclot is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist in the healthcare space. He brings nearly 30 years of health care industry experience and leadership to the Board of Directors. Miclot spent ten years in senior roles at Respironics, ultimately serving as president and CEO from 2003 to 2008 before the sale of Respironics to Phillips for $5.2 billion in 2008. While in his role, he led Respironics to record annual revenues of more than $1.2 billion. He joined Healthdyne Technologies Inc. in 1998 when it was acquired by Respironics, a medical device company. Miclot served in various positions at Healthdyne from 1995 to 1998, including senior vice president of sales and marketing. Earlier in his career, he held sales and marketing roles at Medex, Ohmeda, Baxter Edwards, and DeRoyal Industries. After leaving Respironics in 2008 he became an Executive in Residence at Warburg Pincus, was CEO of CCS Medical a company of Warburg. He also was president of Tengion Inc. focused on tissue regeneration and LinguaFlex focused on sleep disordered breathing. He has served on a number of public and private boards including Wright Medical, Dentsply, ev3, and Breathe Technologies. He has also served on numerous non-profit boards. He is an active member of YPO/YPO Gold. He currently serves as a Director of Dynamics Inc, McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine, and the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium. He is also an active and certified firefighter at Fox Chapel VFD, a national safety officer for the Fire Department Safety Officers Association, a certified incident safety officer, and a health and safety officer. He is on the board of the First Responders Center of Excellence, affiliate with the National Fallen Firefighters Association. Miclot received a BBA in marketing from the University of Iowa in 1981, where he currently funds the first ever degree in sales. He also holds the first endowed chair in sleep science at the University of Penn, the John L Miclot Professorship in Sleep.

Jeff retired from DuPont in February, 2024 after 42+ years of service, the last 18 years in the first responder business segments, and is a strong and passionate advocate of the first responder community. He is currently the Founder and Principal Consultant of First Responders Consulting LLC whose mission is to enable companies success in understanding and marketing to the first responder communities.
Since 2012, Jeff Fackler was the North America Business Development Director for DuPont Personal Protection. In his role, Jeff was responsible for strategy, managing the distribution portion of the thermal industrial apparel channel, and sales for the fire service apparel channel. Jeff also served as the Challenger Sales Process Champion for the business driving development and implementation of insights that contribute to business and customer growth.
Jeff joined DuPont in 1981 and held various roles in Marketing / Business Development, Sales, Training, Site, and Strategic Planning Management, as well as being a Six Sigma Sales & Marketing Deployment Champion and Six Sigma Black Belt. From 1981 - 2006, Jeff worked in the Coatings business before moving into DuPont Personal Protection where he led the global body armor business segment, then the 1st Responder business segments in NA from 2006 - 2024.
Jeff previously served on the board of directors of The Partnership for Electrical Safety, The Global Emergency Services Action, and The IACP Foundation.

David brings 30 years of experience in the financial, insurance and reinsurance industries, the last 11 overseeing AXIS Specialty Accident and Health business. Before joining AXIS, David was Vice President, Accident & Health for AIG, where he managed sales and underwriting staff, as well as a diverse multi-million book of accident & health business.

Currently assigned to the Bureau of Fire Operations, Chief Jardin formerly served as the Chief of Fire Prevention and FDNY’s Chief of Safety. With more than 38 years of service with the FDNY, much of Joe’s career was spent in Rescue Operations as a Firefighter, Lieutenant, Captain and Battalion Chief in the Rescue Battalion.

Chief Jardin has served as one of FEMA Urban Search and Rescue’s (USAR) NY-TF1 Task Force Leaders, deploying to a number of significant incidents including Hurricanes Katrina and Georges, as well as National Level Event standbys. Joe also served in the positions of Incident Support Team Leader and Deputy Incident Support Team Leader of the FEMA USAR Red Incident Support Team. Joe led more than 1500 deployed FEMA USAR responders during operations in Florida and Puerto Rico in response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

A licensed Fire Protection Engineer, Joe formerly worked as a Life Safety Engineer for NFPA and as a Fire Protection Engineer with Bechtel Power Corporation.

Chief Jardin served for seven years as a member of NFPA’s Standards Council and currently chairs NFPA’s Guide for Structural Firefighting Using Fire Dynamics Technical Committee. He formerly chaired NFPA Safety to Life Project’s Building Service and Fire Protection Equipment and Residential Occupancies Technical Committees.

Joe is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s Fire Protection Engineering program and has an MS in Management. Chief Jardin participated in the Naval Post Graduate School’s Homeland Security Executive Leadership program, has completed FDNY’s Fire Officer Management Institute - a Columbia University Executive Leadership program and completed the FDNY/USMA at West Point Combating Terrorism Program.

A graduate Fire Protection Engineer from the University of Maryland, Dan has more than 50 years of experience in fire protection; 44 years as a fire protection engineer. His early fire protection experience was as a firefighter and volunteer officer in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

His fire protection engineering experience includes positions with Bechtel Power Corporation and with Rolf Jensen & Associates where he served as a Vice President/Engineering Manager. In 2001, Dan founded Seneca Fire Engineering, LLC in Marietta, Georgia. In 2024, Seneca Fire Engineering was acquired by Coffman Engineers; a multi-discipline engineering firm with more than 20 offices located coast to-coast where he is a Principal Advisor.

Over his career, Dan has participated in more than 1500 forensic fire protection engineering investigations including the DuPont Plaza Hotel, San Juan, PR; One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia, PA; River Cities Business Park, Davenport, IA and the Live Oak Milliken Plant in Lagrange, GA. He has been qualified as an expert and testified in numerous Federal and State court matters.

Dan is a registered professional engineer in more than 20 states and is a Fellow of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) and a Life Member of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). He served on the SFPE Board of Directors for 10 years as a Director, Secretary/Treasurer and on numerous board governance, financial and strategic planning committees.