The Awards Committee encourages member facilities to share with the HFMA the names of personnel who unselfishly went beyond their responsibilities to prevent or reduce an injury to another individual or to the property itself.

Individuals who have responded bravely to protect others often are not recognized and go un-rewarded. The goal of the Award Committee is to see that an employee in an HFMA member facility receives the recognition they deserve.

The committee’s responsibility is to accept award nominations received from an HFMA member and to judge the merit of the recommendation and the level of the award to be granted. All recipients of an award will be invited to the HFMA Annual Dinner Meeting where the HFMA President and the Fire Commissioner of the City of Philadelphia or his representative will present them with their award.

High-level award recipients will be given a personalized plaque and lesser awards will receive a framed certificate; both will outline the act for which the award was given.

Tim Hawks, Mercy of Philadelphia is the chairman of this committee. If you would be interested in helping with this prestigious program, please contact Tim at thawks@mercyhealth.org.

The Fire Service Committee has been developed to seize an opportunity for the fire service to better understand the unusual fire response by hospital personnel. Also to realize the need of immediate assistance when emergencies are reported in nursing homes, personal care facilities, assisted living units, and other types of healthcare where staffing is minimal but because of age, disabilities, etc. of the residents residing in such facilities, the need of understanding is critical.

The committee also faces various types of challenges in meeting the needs of educational facilities from the very young student who are impressionable to the secondary student and beyond who believe they are invincible.

The committee hopes to share their knowledge and experiences with educators to help strengthen their safety and security program.

If you wish to be a part of this committee, please contact Jim Connell, Safety Coordinator for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania at conneljt@uphs.upenn.edu

The committee will attempt to accomplish their mission via e-mail communication with an annual face to face meeting in conjunction with the HFMA's annual meeting held in December.

The Membership Committee's mission is to recruit members from healthcare and educational organizations who are not represented in the HFMA. It is the committee's belief that if all of the healthcare and educational facilities were represented; the ideas, suggestions and proven safety and security practices would flow throughout the membership resulting in a visible improvement in the safety and security programs of all healthcare and educational facilities. Individuals who are employees, visitors, patients, or students would be the benefactors.

If you feel the HFMA's purpose is worthy and you would be willing to promote the organization to representatives of a non-member facility and would like to join Bob Shewbrooks in this unending struggle, please contact Bob at bobshew@aol.com.

The members of this group will meet and share ideas and ways and means to attract employees of facilities not listed in the HFMA roster via e-mail. A special e-mail list will be designed solely for the Membership Committee. A dinner meeting of the committee will be incorporated into the HFMA annual meeting held in December.

The Newsletter Committee has been designed to encourage HFMA members to contribute toward the constant improvement of the HFMA News. Committee members will be asked to write articles that would provide pertinent information helpful to the membership in maintaining fire, safety, and security issues relevant to their respectful positions

New ideas, code interpretations, best practices, actual events, new products, etc. are all topics that could be helpful to others in improving their safety and security programs.

Currently the newsletter has several writers who address specific issues monthly and because there is such diversity among the membership, additional topics of importance as monthly columns are endless.

If you feel you would like to become involved in improving the monthly newsletter, contact Bob Shewbrooks, current editor of the HFMA News @ bobshew@aol.com. No one having a desire to become involved in this effort will be turned away. Because the membership is spread-out throughout the world, meetings and the exchange of information will be conducted via a Newsletter Committee only e-mail network. Hopefully, many members of the committee will be able to meet briefly at the annual meeting in December.

The Program Committee is responsible for obtaining speakers who are experts in their fields to address the membership at monthly meetings and/or special programs. They assist in the search for speakers who meet and surpass the slogan of the Hospital Fire Marshals' Association, Inc., "So That Lives Saved By Science And Skill May Not Be Lost - By Fire"

The committee often works in conjunction with the Education Committee. Joseph McCarey, President of McCarey Associates, Inc. is the committee chairman.

The committee will often accept and/or extend invitations to organizations that have displayed an interest in sharing their product/expertise with the membership in an educational format, avoiding commercial sales promotions.

If you feel you could be helpful in meeting the needs of this committee and are interested in becoming involved, call Joe McCarey at 215-624-2026 or by e-mail to jmccassociates@aol.com. Also contact Joe if you are interested in speaking at a future meeting or program.

The Public Relations Committee is always looking for members with excellent writing skills that would attract attention of the various media. The purpose of this committee is to inform the general public of the successful work being done by the Hospital Fire Marshals’ Association, Inc. (HFMA)

The public relations committee members are responsible for writing and distributing News Releases that is felt worthy of public notification.

The committee works closely with the Awards Committee in an attempt to promote the efforts of the recipients of an HFMA Award.

The local print, radio and television media are the areas where the news releases would be distributed.

Any member having any type of influence with any of the media are encouraged to become active in this important committee.

Larry Harvey, Woods Services and HFMA Vice President is chairman of this invaluable committee. If you feel you would be helpful in promoting the HFMA via a public relations campaign and are interested in becoming involved, contact Larry via e-mail at lharvey@woods.org.

The committee will meet via a special e-mail list and will attempt brief meetings at the close of the monthly meetings.

The Scholarship Committee has the responsibility of selecting the recipients among HFMA members or their immediate family seeking a college education.

Scholarships in the amount of $1,000 are awarded annually through monies raised to support this endeavor. The annual golf benefit, a partnership seminar with the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) and an annual fund raising campaign soliciting donations from the general HFMA membership support the effort.

Members of this select committee would be asked to assist in making the money raising efforts successful. The more success, the more scholarships will be awarded benefiting the membership as they or their family members seek a higher education.

The scholarship has been named, the Art Anderson Scholarship. Art a former HFMA President and supporter of this effort contributed the first $1,000 after learning the scholarship was to bear his name. Art died shortly afterwards and never got to see the initial recipients.

The scholarship recipients are selected following an essay contest written on a subject selected by the John Skarbek, the committee's chairman. The responsibilities of this committee would also include serving as a judge of the essays. John distributes all of the essays among the judges after removing the writers name to ensure total fairness to all entrants.

The winners of the scholarship are required to attend the June monthly HFMA meeting with their member parent unless the winner lives a distance considered a hardship by the committee.

If you would like to be part of this important committee, contact John Skarbek at jskarbek1@juno.com