Fire Science Show
Fire Science Show
191 - Committee participation with Birgitte Messerschmidt and Kees Both
This episode explores the invaluable contributions of community participation in fire safety technical committees. Joining committees is not just about sharing expertise; it’s a journey that transforms careers and fosters growth. Our guests, Birgitte Messerschmidt and Kees Both, reveal how their experiences in various committees, including the NFPA, ISO, ASTM and CEN, have shaped their professional paths.
As we dive deeper into the intricacies of committee politics, our guests candidly share the challenges and rewards of engaging in this important work. They emphasize how participating in committees enhances one's career and contributes to the greater good by improving fire safety standards. This is an essential discussion for any engineer, especially those starting their careers, as they navigate the complexities of working with diverse stakeholders.
If you just felt inspired to join a committee, please look here:
- https://www.sfpe.org/membership-communities/standingcommittees
- https://www.nfpa.org/for-professionals/codes-and-standards/standards-development/technical-committees/committees-seeking-members
- https://www.cencenelec.eu/get-involved/small-and-medium-enterprises-smes/tools-for-smes/getting-involved/
Or just shoot us an email, or reach out at LinkedIn. We will help you out!
Thank you to the SFPE for recognizing me with the 2025 SFPE Fire Safety Engineering Award! Huge thanks to YOU for being a part of this, and big thanks to the OFR for supporting me over the years.
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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.
Hello everybody, welcome to the Fire Science Show. Giving back to community is something most of us would like to do. I think even all of us would like to do. My way of giving back is through the podcast, papers and other activities, but for many people, the way they would prefer to give back to the community is through participation within different bodies that create the body of knowledge that we all use and benefit from later, be it standardization committees, technical committees, advisory boards and so forth, and actually I've been asked multiple times to cover the subject of participating in those committees. For example, I've received a very nice letter from a listener, kevin Feek, who described his participation in NFPA committees and how he changed his life, and I must say stories like this that someone has just joined the committee without any expectations and then it became a significant part of their lives is very common. I would say it's also my story.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:In 2012, I believe, I've joined the CEN, tc191, sc1, workgroup 5 and 9 committees, and that was something that really changed my life, my professional career. I was exposed to new knowledge, new people. I've met fantastic people, good friends and still in touch with them. So definitely it was something I've benefited from largely and I think it's worth talking about this and to talk about this subject, I've invited the person that I think is in every single committee that exists in this universe not just kidding, but he's definitely involved in in so many and in such a variety. It's really impressive. My good friend, keys both he's been a guest on this podcast before and alongside a colleague who I know that has been a part of many uh committees in europe, and now, behind the ocean, she's one of the directors at nfpa a good friend, bergitte messerschmidt, and together we'll try to tell you what were our journeys to different standardization and technical committees, what a researcher or an engineer can gain from participating in those and, in general, the goods and a bit of the bad sides of participating. And I'll spoil it a bit for you. It's definitely worth it. So let's spin the intro and jump into the episode.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Welcome to the Firesize Show. My name is Wojciech Wigrzyński and I will be your host. This podcast is brought to you in collaboration with Ofar Consultants, a multi-award winning independent consultancy dedicated to addressing fire safety challenges. Established in the UK in 2016 as a startup business of two highly experienced fire engineering consultants, the business has grown phenomenally to eight offices across the country, from Edinburgh to Bath. Colleagues are on a mission to continually explore the challenges that fire creates for clients and society, applying the best research experience and diligence for effective, tailored solution. In 2025, there will be new opportunities to work with OFR. Ofr will grow its team once more and is keen to hear from industry professionals who would like to collaborate on fire safety features this year. Get in touch at OFRConsultantscom. Hello everybody, I am joined here today by Birgit Messerschmidt, director at NFPA. Hey, birgit.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Hey Wojciech, Nice to be back.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Welcome back and another comeback to the show. Unsuccessful bridge salesman who entered the fire laboratory and never left it, Keith Spoth. Hey Keith, Hello Jack, Can I have a good day? Nice to be back as well.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Thank you guys for joining me on this podcast episode and this was requested by audience multiple times since I started my podcast journey and we will be talking about community participation. A lot of people are asking to cover this part of our community. There are a lot of ways for our engineers can give back to the community and I believe participating in various technical committees that exist in our space is one way of giving back and I would love to give it a thorough discussion about pros and cons of participating and how to do it. But to settle the playing field, what committees you are or were a part of, let's try to list them and please make it like less than five minutes. Birgit, maybe we'll start with you and he makes his mind off the endless list of committees.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Okay, well, I'm no longer active in standardization committees. The interesting thing is, as one of the people working at NFPA, I cannot be active in the NFPA standardization committees. We support them with the work that we do in research. When the technical committees have things they want us to look at, then we look at it and provide the answer back, but I cannot vote on NFPA standards as an NFPA employee.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:That's interesting yeah.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:So that's some of the interesting parts of that. So I actually haven't been active in committees for more than eight years, but before that I was very active in committees. I started out early in my career. So I started out in Danish standards in the mirror committee to SENT-TC-127. And from there I became a member of SENT-TC-127, particularly the working group on reaction to fire I think it's working group four I don't know if they've changed names since and also into ISO-TC-92, subcommittee one, also on reaction to fire, was active there, later also in subcommittee three on smoke toxicity, and then I've been active in a notified bodies group etc.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:That's what I can think of right now that I've been active in so long story short CN committees and ISO committees for fire safety engineering and now, even though you're not a member, a lot of knowledge on NFPA committees.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Definitely some knowledge on that.
Kees Both:yes, and a kiss for you, thank you. And Birgitta was just a bit ahead of me, although she's a bit younger than I am. She paved the path and I've always sort of admired what she had been doing. So at a certain point there was when I switched jobs from the flyer laboratory and went to the dark side of industry, so to speak. One of my, say, mentors there was a guy, stefan van Houten, and I think Birgitte knows him well, and I was about to step into his footsteps and he was also in CEN not necessarily in ISO or in US standards and I had a bit of a free roll when I came, managed the laboratory and so forth and gradually I rolled into CEN standards. It was not unknown to me. I did partake in some other Dutch standards committees in SEND, but not so much.
Kees Both:So when I started this adventure I call it an adventure I was like okay, there's a new world sort of opening for me. A lot of people from the network were already there, but I also came to know a lot of other people with very different opinions. And if I can say one thing to make people enthusiastic about this, it's certainly a stepping stone to build your network or to meet people basically, and that's if standardization is anything. It's about meeting people from different cultures with different opinions, different views on, say, a definition of what, for example, a rate of heat release actually is, and then we should measure it. So that's a whole new world that sort of opened to me. And one thing that I learned was that, okay, we are far advanced, we think, in Europe, but a small step that would be to ISO standards, and from there it was not too difficult to explain to my superiors that it would also be of interest to watch what the Americans are doing.
Kees Both:And I had already one say nice experience in NFPA. I must say 502, and Brigetti, you know it well, it's tunnels and as you know, I have one specific hobby, or a tunnel vision, if you like. So it was NFPA 502 that really inspired me also to say, well, guys, what NFPA is doing, what ASTM are doing and what UL are doing, that's of interest also to what we're doing here in Europe, if not the global community. And then one thing sort of escalated I started to become an active member in ASTM, expanded the NFPA to 550 and 1700. Actually, as we speak, 1700 is meeting this week but unfortunately it can come to the US. So I'm in a number of ASTM committees as well and because of my, say, love and appetite for this and FIRE soon, I was asked also to do something on, say, fiber cement and gypsum, and then it sort of exploded.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:So okay, a good overview of the committees. Uh, especially that you have this astm nfp experience firsthand. I I appreciate that. I knew that you and cn are very close together and I personally been part of cn but I was a part of groups for smoke control and that was was a big part of my life Still is important to me, but not active that much for the recent years. And outside of technical committees standardization committees I also participate in adventures like SFP technical committees, for example, rewriting the risk guidebook. That's very important. That's going to be a standard actually soon. And I also participated in networks like COST, which is some sort of committees for scientists perhaps different way of collaborating, but the same concept. You put punch people in a room to convene on important stuff. So, having this in mind, this decades of experience we shared together in those standardization committees Kis, you said it's networking. So for a young person that just enters the room, how does participating in committee provide you a networking opportunity? How does it translate to your network really?
Kees Both:So I would think that well, for example, you mentioned SFPE right. So that would be predominantly a network of peers. So you would meet other professional engineers or consultants In CEN or in ISO or NFPA, for example. It would be a bit broader. So you would be more exposed to other stakeholders, whether it's producers, like I am, or a fire laboratory or a certification body or the standards bodies themselves. So you might meet Brigitte, although she might be a guest and not partaking actually in the meetings, so you would meet people from the fire brigade.
Kees Both:You would meet all kinds of people who would not necessarily be sitting as a VE-member or another, say, say, association. You would also be well exposed to other narratives and things that people say, because they have different agendas, obviously, when they speak as peers and direct colleagues amongst each other, or when they have to, say, make make clear what the position of a certain stakeholder group actually actually is. So it's it's about meeting different people, not necessarily also from different countries. So when you are an SFP member, you also meet people from different countries, but you really see people coming from a different approaching. I would say the diamond from a different angle and then see the slinkering and slunkering from a different angle. So that's how I would like to say standardization work is actually part of looking at a problem from different perspectives and trying to solve it from different stakeholder perspective.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:But how would that be different from a conference? Let's say you also meet different people with different viewpoints on conference. Would this setting be different to a conference?
Kees Both:You wouldn't necessarily have a goal right. So a conference is about meeting people and more or less a one-way direction of what, exposing the audience to new findings, and you can have some critique on it, obviously, but it doesn't necessarily come to, it's not necessarily with an aim to come at a, a standard, so a common agreement on how to move things forward. So conferences have their their part, obviously, but it's it's a different aim that you have.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:It's a very different aim just to jump in there. Also, a standardization committee group is smaller than a conference. There's a lot of people and who am I going to connect with? From my own experience?
Birgitte Messerschmidt:I mean, I came into standardization very early in my career and one of the things is you walk into the room as a very young one with people who are very, very experienced, and that is a great opportunity to learn from people that have that experience that yourself you're not there yet.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:So it's a great opportunity to connect with people that have that kind of experience that you're looking to gain. It's also, as Kees was saying, the fact that you're working on something together and often when you come in as one of the young ones in the technical committees, it's often because you have worked on some research that is needed by the technical committee. This is actually your opportunity to show your work to some of the people in power within FIRE and connect with them and show them what it is you've been working on and then enjoy seeing that what you have worked on now makes it into the process of where it becomes usable to people out in the field. That is really what I see as some of the extremely fascinating points as being some of the young ones stepping in to the standards committees.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:I think you both nailed it and I can relate this from my experience. It was exactly what Keith said meeting people with a common goal. So it's not like, while I enjoy conference settings, for sure, everyone there comes with their own ideas, problems, their own focus. In the committee group, you are sorted by focus, like everyone shares the same focus. Everyone is interested in this one particular problem for which the committee is, and if you're not, you are sorted by focus. Like everyone shares the same focus. Everyone is interested in this one particular problem for which the committee is, and if you're not, you probably should not be on the committee. So everyone has this common denominator for everything you say.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:And like you said I resonate with that very strongly that as a young researcher, you start to feel relevancy of your own work and also you know you can prove yourself and present some really valuable insight into the committee. But you're also pre-validated. If you're in the committee, you've already been vetted. You know that you will be an important member of that committee, like my experience is whenever a new person came into the group. It's not that the person sits on the edge of the table and then listens to the conversations for the next five meetings until they become relevant. They are relevant from day one. Was this your experience also, Kies, when you were joining new committees?
Kees Both:Yes, absolutely, and I would well. Perhaps it's a bit, I don't know, pushy to say it, but you perhaps even have an obligation to share your knowledge, not only on the conference, because there people will be eagerly absorbing the knowledge that you bring to the table, but then to take it to the next level and make sure that it's somewhere embedded in regulations or standards. And whatever a standard actually is. It can be a fire engineering standard, it can be a testing standard, it can be both.
Kees Both:You could argue and make a case that whatever you bring to the table, as a young researcher you have some obligation to see it true to the actual embedding in everyday use of engineers or who else is using it in the field. So that's something to bear in mind. And for that to happen you can't just only present at a conference. You also make sure that it's well heard of, at least make it aware to people in SAN and ISO and NFPA and whatnot. And you'll be surprised and Birgitte, you can vouch for this because I entered a bit later You'd be surprised as to how much you will be welcomed as a young engineer. But all of the old people like us, us now we can say that you made the joke before we start the recording. Right, all of us fall in love with the youngsters who come with with their research to the table.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:We've all been there so we know what it's like basically a part of the reason is also that there's it's a lot of work to do in the committee, especially when you have to supply this technical supplementary material to guide the decisions. So while the meeting can take you one, two, three days, it sometimes takes weeks or months preparing for the meeting with the material. And if you can drop this on a youngster, all of us have a lot on our tables. If there's someone willing to do the job, I'm not going to stop them. I will look into that job, but I will allow them, I will give them this ability to showcase their abilities while creating good technical feedback to guide the decisions.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:And I think this presenting and discussing this during a committee meeting is very different than the conference. In conference, you know you present, you have five questions in the end. They can be nice questions, they can be bad questions, it doesn't matter. It takes you five minutes to answer. You go eat your dinner and move on to something else. On the committee, you can spend three hours talking about the simulation In the absolute deepest details and you really learn a lot from those conversations.
Kees Both:If I could tell you the anecdote, maybe not now, but we've had like two or three years of meetings well, not obviously a thousand days, but three years of meetings on two words and an or relating to deflection and deflection rate as to load-bearing capacity criteria. Can you imagine three years on this? And when I say it like this, you're like okay, I hope people are not switching off from the broadcast now Because there's a story to tell. One other thing to add to this what people learn and hand it over then to Brigitte you learn additional skills as a youngster, because to convince your peers of your scientific work, that's one thing, but to convince people who are not so scientific or have a completely different viewpoint, you need argumentation skills, you need to listen and you need to argue and to repeat that with different words.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:It's a really good point there that you're making. You have to really learn how to present to all kinds of different people in the technical committee and you can spend so much time on one word. And when you come in as a young researcher it's like well, I've done all this research and I know this is right from what I've worked on. It can be tough suddenly to get that kind of feedback and discussion that suddenly drills down into a nitty gritty little thing where you go like why is this important? A nitty gritty little thing where you go like why is this important?
Birgitte Messerschmidt:And this is where your patience has to come in play and understand the role that the standards are playing and the importance of the standard Because it's. One thing is that you come in with the technical and the technical research and all that is correct and so on, but the role that the standards play in the world is so much bigger and therefore suddenly, is it an and or an or? It can be market share, and for a young researcher to accept that and understand that is a learning process that is extremely important and that is where try not to lose your patience with the standard process but actually start enjoying seeing that well, when I take my work from here, from the pure technical, bring it into a group of very different people that are going to try and make this into a standard, it suddenly becomes psychological as well.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Yeah, I have also this experience joining the technical committee as a very young engineer.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:At that point I was not a scientist yet and I was very let's say, I was actually quite experienced in designing systems, but in my own country, you know, following a very specific set of rules and ways of how to design that were very specific for my country.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:And then I am dropped into a group of various people coming from different backgrounds, coming from different countries, with their own ideas how to design systems, and apparently their systems are very different than mine. You know, things that I take for granted in my systems may not necessarily be relevant to theirs, you know so I have to now look at everything I do from a different lens that actually there are other ways to do it, there are other ways to understand that there are things that I consider most important. For someone other it's not, and we're writing a common standard that's like European standard, that it should share all those perspectives. It was very interesting because that was the first real environment in which I was really exposed to those differences. Perhaps, if you're like I am a FSE student and you have this multicultural you know experience of traveling across Europe, studying with other people. Perhaps that's the group of people that already immediately has this.
Kees Both:But for me, an engineer coming from Poland, that was very interesting to discover.
Kees Both:If anyone can tell, it's you on the call now because you have the experience coming from Denmark and moving to the US where you think, ah, it's also a Western civilized country, but the modus operandi is quite different, even to become a member, say, of NFPA, or ASTN for that matter. But that's a nuance perhaps. But the building codes are different. The way people's stakeholders are addressed and how they communicate is different. So maybe you can shed some light on that, because it might be of interest.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Well again, as not being an active member of NFPA committees because I don't have that practical experience from it, but from seeing it in functions from the other side, I do see the significant difference to the work that we are doing in Europe and in CEN and where in CEN you come in through your national standards committees and therefore whoever participates is designed by your national standards committee.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:They can agree on a balance or not, and then when it gets into the CEN committee, suddenly you can have a committee that might be very heavy on one side and not other opinions as much, because there's not an overarching look at how this committee combined. At NFPA we are very much about a balanced committee, so there's not more than one third of a committee can come from one specific group and we do look into that, we are very clear about that and I think that makes a huge difference in the work. What do we mean by one group? That can be manufacturers, it can be authorities having jurisdiction, it can be consumers, it can be test laboratories etc. So we have nine different categories and none of those can have more than one third.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:That's very interesting.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:And I think that is extremely interesting and an important difference because I must admit, like KS now is representing, as you said, the dark side, industry I did for many years as well. I did standardization, first from DBI, so the neutral side, and then for Rockwall for many years dark side of industry. So I know both sides of this and I know why industry has a significant interest in the standardization work. But it also, through experience, have been sitting in committees where we've been too many industry people and not enough people from, for instance, the laboratories or from research organizations. You know where we could have these young researchers coming in with the information that we needed. Between the process that we're running here compared to the process that we're running in Europe, and then, just generally, as I've said before, right in the US, I always thought that coming over here must be easier. One country, we would have just one regulation, et cetera.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:It's like no, no no it's more complicated because each state does their own thing.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Brigitte took me into, like she twisted the question, but she brought me into a very important subject of matter, which is how you become a part of a committee. So you said, cn, you get nominated by your national committee and you're kind of a representative of your country. You could consider yourself like that In NFPA. How do you become a member of a committee?
Birgitte Messerschmidt:You go on our website and go in and see what you know apply to become a member and then you're appointed by our standards council. So it goes to them and they appoint, and that's where they then can see well, actually in this committee. Now, if KS wanted to go into a committee and this committee is already has a heavy load of manufacturers it would be able. At the moment, there is not a seat available in this group.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:So it would be like pushing yourself forward and then you're assessed whether you're a good match for the committee. So I would say SFP committees are very similar. If you're a member of SFP, there are multiple technical committees that you can apply for. You send an email to the admin of that group, you get evaluated and eventually you get in. If a completely new committee forms, they often would scout for members.
Kees Both:That's how I remember this risk what NFPA also does. So the committee actively searching new yeah, but especially when the new forms.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:So you need a first group of people to form a committee. So then it's probably the easiest to join, and for ISO, I believe it's also a national nomination.
Kees Both:Yes, same as POSEN. Well, maybe it's nice if I may get to advertise a bit for ASTM, because they also have this balance of, I think, nine stakeholder groups and they carefully monitor that there's not an unbalance in this. But you can always become a member, but you are not granted voting rights, so you're the backbencher, so to speak. But that gives you access to all the meetings and to everything At NFPA. You can always be invited as a guest, so that will be my first step. That's actually how I entered NFPA 502. As a guest. So that would be my first step. That's actually how I entered NFPA 502.
Kees Both:So I was asked by the then chair of the NFPA 502 committee to appear as a guest, so I was. Then the meeting room was too small, I was literally a backbencher, but soon I was promoted to the table when someone had to leave early, so I was allowed to literally sit at the table. But it starts there. You have to be a bit bold and brave and and just to come to mention it, perhaps forget that may be a role that that you and I and maybe some others can play as well, like mentors or younger people that are entering for the first time. In a comedy. It would be good that comedies have like a mentor that that would allow people, freshmen or fresh ladies, to enter a a committee and to give them a bit of guidance how to behave, where to sit, what not to do.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:I think that's a really, really good point, kees. I think that is truly needed. I've been lucky through my career to have some mentors when I was younger in my colleagues and that truly helped me in the standardization work. But I think some of the points you point out, casey, about the openness of the way that US do standardization is very different from Europe. Also, anyone can comment. Anyone can send comments to an NFPA standard. It's a totally open process. Just go on the website, see where the standards are. Every standard is being revised every three to five years. You can go in and see where it is in the cycle and if there's open for comments, everybody can send in comments.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:We have the same in SFP. All the outcomes of those committees would go through public questions period where anyone can read the standard, Even though if the standard will cost or the book will cost $200 after it's being published. They just give the draft version for free for everyone to comment, to gather feedback. You know it's also a good way to familiarize yourself with documents and understand where the world is moving towards, and also a stepping foot, you know, for future engagements. So if you're commenting really well, I would assume you would eventually be invited to the committee because you have smart things to say, right?
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Exactly, or you can just participate as a guest. If you've commented and you can come in as an observer, connect with. It's open on our website. Who is the chair, who is the staff liaison from NFPA and who's the member of the? Is the staff liaison from NFPA and who is the member of the committee and you can contact them, say I have some things I would like to present to the committee, et cetera. So it has fascinated me to see how open the process is compared to the experience that I've had in Sandvik.
Kees Both:And nevertheless manageable. So it's very open indeed, but nevertheless it seems manageable. So it's not like you open it up and then you've opened up the can of worms and you can't handle it. Apparently, you found a modus operandi that actually works, so I'm fond of the US way of doing things. That said, it's not so easy and there are a lot of people perhaps not unwilling to change this also in in europe. But this, this will take perhaps another generation before this, this happens.
Kees Both:So this, this procedure, like you, apply to a national committee where there is perhaps a bit more, say, emphasis on safeguarding the, the balance in in the national merit committees. But then it comes. So the people who can then go to send an ISO. Well, you can imagine that ISO the abbreviation sometimes is nicknamed as International Sightseeing Organization you do need a budget to travel. Well, we've had, obviously, covid, where there were a lot of digital meetings only. But that has a flip side also because it's you can say you go to the bar because it's. You can say, you, you go to the book up to the bar because it's five o'clock somewhere on the world. But yeah, when it's five o'clock in new zealand it's a different time of the day over here in europe, and even different than the us, right. So these virtual meetings are not not ideal for standardization work.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:That would I do no, I agree that in-person meetings were especially that because of this discussion and everyone is present in one room, everyone is discussing, it's a different focus. I wanted to go back to the national committees because, to close the loop on participation, even if you don't participate in the international meetings, perhaps being a part of your national committee gives you a way to affect the outcomes of the international or the higher tier standards. Birgit, you've used the word mirror group before, so let's explain that to the listeners.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:So the mirror group was what we call the Danish standards. They had what they called a mirror group to CENTEC 127. So that was a group of Danish experts that was discussing before the SENTEC 127 meetings. We would look at what was on the agenda, discuss it among us and then what should be our viewpoint from Denmark as we go into these meetings, especially for the bigger meetings like the overall SENTEC 127 or an overall ISO TC92 meeting. This is extremely important. When you go down into the working groups there you're more there in your capabilities of a technical expert. So those details are not always discussed as much in the national mirror committees but depends on what it is. Sometimes they are. So this is an opportunity for national experts who are not members of the CEN or ISO committee to have an impact on those committees' discussions.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:So it's also a stepping stone for an engineer who would like to participate. If you don't have ability to put yourself forward for a CEN committee, if you're coming from a smaller country, like there are no representatives from your country actually you would have a very good shot to be a part of the table. But if you're coming from UK or Germany or Poland, even the chances are that the seats are already occupied by someone because there's just so many people and just so few seats on the tables. So participating at your country level perhaps gives you this ability to again participate and you still would get all the benefits of networking just within your own country. Part right.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Exactly, and it'll give you an opportunity to show well, I actually have some knowledge here that needs to go into the SEND committee. And maybe you can be invited in to start with us as a guest, to present your work to SEND, if need be, et cetera right, if the national committee decides this is of importance to the discussions.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:However, if you would like to do, you have to be a member of an FPA, to be a part of an FPA committee. Is this required? I don't think so.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:But honestly I'm not 100% sure.
Kees Both:No Ukraine Law is being invited as a guest.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:So yeah, I'm pretty sure you don't have to be a part to just participate, it's open meeting.
Kees Both:So you just have to send a message to the chair. It's on the website, so just send the message to the chair and then see if you can participate. Just notify that you have the intention to participate, because the meetings are open to public, which is nice which is not necessarily the case for stand meetings.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Okay, we've been advertising this for 30 minutes. Let's talk some. If someone is excited to join SCN or ISO or NFPA committees, let's talk over what does it come with, because it's also an obligation. So let's talk about costs of participation first in time. How much time does it really take?
Kees Both:The vague answer is this varies. So take into account, for example, the Eurocodes. So this is S dc 250. Obviously they have fire parts of fire, dedicated parts in in the euro codes. They have been revised.
Kees Both:They're still in the process of being revised, actually you know one of the the parts still has some equations and formulas in it that I developed that during my ph, phd. So that's nice to see. So that's how a young researcher eventually ends up in the Eurocodes Just a pathway or a career path. But when Eurocodes these big monsters, are in revision, then the underlying working groups. They meet very frequently and they do a lot of work. So this may be, depending on what it is that you want to have changed in the Eurocode might be a decent part of a day, but it also the other committees. There are standards that are being developed but they do not move that fast. And then it's like you have a spring and an autumn meeting, one or two days, and then you have some preparatory work as well and maybe some Entire days.
Kees Both:So that's more or less the idea.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:So the bandwidth is a couple of days per year to a month or so in total. Yeah, for me it, when I was very active part of the cn committees for 12 101 standards we had work group 9, work group 5 there that was car parks and transient systems. So we would convene two days for one work group, two days for other work group. A lot of people were would be in both, so it would be in a whole week pretty much of meetings. So you could, you had to fly to a place you have to fly back and that would happen two, three times a year. So you would miss out like two, three weeks out of the year for example, nfpa 502.
Kees Both:So we just finished the the 2023 or was it 2024 vision cycle. But then you have like the first public comments, so you address and you capture what Birgitta said. You capture all the comments from all over the world, basically, and then you have like a meeting which takes the better part of a week and we've had, I think, three meetings, such meetings, to finish everything and we send it out again for final public comments. So we had like three weeks in total, over one and a half years, but then it takes another three years before the next revision comes into play.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:In SFP it's different because it's almost exclusively virtual meetings, so they would be shorter, like having an entire day meetings makes sense when you fly in. Everyone comes to. It's a big investment to come, so you probably would like to spend many hours if you did this investment and this means the meetings would be shorter but more frequent. So when we were in the heat of writing the risk guide or revising it, we would meet within our subcommittees and that would be very frequent, like twice a month, once a month for an extended period of time. Drafting a chapter, like a subcommittee would be a chapter of a book and then you would have a meeting of all subcommittees where the chapters would be merged. So those were additional meetings. So when there was a lot of work, it was a lot of meetings but shorter ones, more frequent.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:I think a golden rule in how much time to spend is if you want to have an impact, you spend the time. The more time you spend on preparing, the more impact you will have at the meeting. So it's been fascinating sitting in meetings both SEN and ISO and observe those people who are truly prepared for the meeting and what they could actually manage to get through, and then the people who actually hadn't read the documents and didn't realize what was going on around them. So if you do commit to this, you have to commit the time and your employer has to agree that you commit the time when I was in an FPA Expo 2019 in San Antonio, I witnessed the grand voting thing of an FPA.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:That was a very interesting thing. Can you tell us about this? Because we just said about committees how we build up the standards, but in NFPA you also have this mechanism to vote on the changes of the standards. Right, it's a big thing.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:We have the technical meeting that happens after our conference and expo. Yes, the day after Big meeting, thousands of people with the ability to vote.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:I've never seen thousands of fire people in one room, and they were there.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Oh yeah, they're there, and that's where things that has been tabled for discussion, you know, or things that has come in that we wanted to amend and so on, can be discussed there. Again, I'm not an expert in our process, but I know that that is to me one of the most democratic ways, you know, that people can come in there and they can argue their point and we can vote on it. It's like the ICC code process and so on as well, where people can get up to the microphone and talk about their point in a way that we don't see in Sen and ISO, in my view. What do you think, Kees?
Kees Both:Yeah, well, interesting to say that. So, in my view, what do you think is? Yeah, well, interesting to say that. It inspires me to make the comment on the balloting and the weighted balloting that we have in CEN, whereas we do not have a weighted balloting in ISO, for example. So in ISO, the vote of Denmark and the vote of the Netherlands weigh as heavy as the vote of the US, for example, but in Europe, in CEN, this is different of the US, for example, but in Europe, in CEN, this is different.
Kees Both:So France and Germany and also the UK, because they're still a member of CEN, they have a heavy weight, and so the weighted balance is there determined on the basis of, I think it's, the number of inhabitants or the GDP, I don't know, or both, I don't know. There's a rule for this, but at least there's a weighted balance. So this is nice, and then you can argue whether this is democratic or not, but it's different. Transparency and the way the voting is handled in NFPA, aacm and so forth is something to look into, also in CEN and ISO perhaps. But this is not necessarily a critique. It's to ensure that perhaps in the future we have better ways of dealing with other opinions also in a very late stage of the standards development process also in a very late stage of the of the standards development process.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Yeah, and uh, you brought me to to the thing that I wanted to discuss, uh, very badly in here, which is the politics in the committees, because, uh, we cannot pretend it's just you know technical discussion and you know smart people arguing on technical knowledge. There's a whole bunch of politics. But you said a single world can be a market share in in the standard, absolutely, and people who are in those companies, a lot of those people are not not new to that concept, they know that very well and there is a big element of politics in in those committees. Everyone has interest, countries have interests, companies have interests and if you can, you know, tie those interests with the standard that becomes the standard of how things are done, the product standard, the design standard, whatever you can assure a win. How big part of the committees is there? How ready you have to be to deal with that? And I don't know how to deal with that. That's a difficult question.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Probably depends on the committee. I think some are more political than others. I would say that I have participated in several very political committees and, as I mentioned earlier, it almost becomes a game of psychology as well, as you're sitting there observing people who are saying what, why are they talked about? Committed participation can be expensive in time and in travel, and who can afford pay for that? Often, it's industry who has an interest in this. They will invest in this, and this is where we then can risk at getting into unbalanced committees, because they are the ones who then invest in this because they have an interest, whereas others, coming from research institutes, test institutes and so on, might not have the same budget behind them to be able to do this. That is one of the biggest challenges, I think, in both CEN and ISO in order to maintain neutrality.
Kees Both:I would fully agree on that set, and maybe it's a too rosy picture, I don't know, but sooner or later the ship will hit the shore, if that's proper English, because it's a long-haul fight, a long-haul battle, a pale battle. If you are a specific industry or a specific stakeholder that wants to get things done in a committee or rule things out in a certain committee, sooner or later you'll find a lot of opposition or you'll find your main competitor or counter arguments on your way, and that might take a year, might take five years, might take 10 years, but sooner or later you can, on short term perhaps, try and gain the system. But on the long run I think even the Sandlin ISO system are resilient enough to make sure that the excesses are ruled out. But as Brigitte said, I'm fully with you. There is a way to gain the system on short term if you spend enough money and if you bring enough arguments to the table.
Kees Both:But it's not a guarantee that you will see this completely true, because you you will face increasingly opposition. Whereas in the past perhaps sharing documents and getting the latest info on everything that happens in the committee was perhaps a bit difficult, nowadays everything is is on internet and you can approach it and you can forward it to your colleagues to gather perhaps additional opinions on shooting things to pieces and so forth. So to game the system is increasingly, I think, more difficult, but it's still possible. And I think it's up to the people who are more experienced say, like people like Birgitta and I, that we try and prevent this as much as possible, because on the long run it's not good for nobody, not even the industry that has a vested interest, to try and pull things off on the short term. It's not good for the entire sector. So we should try and rule this out.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:I think it's also a good argument for getting involved. The more people are involved there, the more passionate fire engineers are there, People who represent fire science, fire engineering or safety. I like to consider myself someone who voices out the voice of safety. I'm in for good fire engineering. I'm not in for selling a product or getting a market share. I'm here to promote good solutions. Perhaps it's naive, perhaps it's ambitious, but I like to think about myself like that. I think the more people are a part of those committees, the easier it is to, you know, build a front against lobbying, and lobbying sometimes is also okay.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Sometimes people lobby for good technical solutions to replace solutions that are perhaps not that great, so there's also nothing wrong in that. And lobbying to keep status quo is as annoying as lobbying for a specific type of device or a system. That's been there. One thing that I do not completely understand I've never been a part of TC-127 or ISO TC-92, which are fire safety engineering. I've only been a part of TC127 or ISO TC92, which are fire safety engineering. Have only been a part of those.
Kees Both:Sorry to interrupt you. Maybe I should correct you because you've mentioned it now a couple of times. So TC127 is not only about fire engineering, nor is ISO TC92 only about fire engineering. So to go to ISO TC92, for example, it has four subcommittees. Subcommittee one is on fire development and fire growth and subcommittee three on environmental aspects. So those were the committees that Perdita was in. I was more coming from the fire resistance side, so that's subcommittee two, on competition. And subcommittee four and ISO is actually devoted to fire engineering. So it's more than fire engineering.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Of course. Yeah, sorry for that, it's a shortcut in my head. What I wanted to contrast is products versus methods or design. I know ways of designing stuff, so is there an inherent difference in committees that developed standards for products versus committees that developed standards for like designing stuff Like Euroodes? Is design not a product, right?
Kees Both:absolutely so maybe I start forget and you finish off and you're more in the line and better in english, but it's absolutely so.
Kees Both:In in sen, for example, we we have dedicated also in isa, but we have dedicated product standards, that that are related to a product family, say thermal insulation, or say steel, or say concrete or glass, for example. And then we have horizontal committees like fire safety or acoustics, for example, or BIM, so building information management or IT-related stuff. So it's a kind of a matrix and obviously the balance, balance, say, and participation in these companies completely difference. It differs. So, yeah, there there is this, this matrix organization, if you like, and matrix is perhaps the right word because you can get more than no, I think.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:I think maybe it's an interesting way of of looking at it. Of course, in in the product technical committees, you will see a lot more manufacturers. So so I was not an appointed member of Santezy 88 on thermal insulation, but I was often a guest brought in when we were discussing on fire-related matters, discuss everything related to the product, and they are then, you know, referring to the fire standards, to 13501, etc. And this is then when the fire experts from the different industries come in and and and work with the, the product technical committee.
Kees Both:That's why it can get spicy, trust me maybe a nice link to uh, and again, brigitte can tell stories on this because, as I said, she was a couple of years ahead on this. So the product, say standards committees, like TC88 for thermal insulation. They have to think about the end use of their product and they have to test this in a specific end use condition. And then they go to send TC127 and say how should I perform this test, let's say a single burning item test, to make that bridge. Well, I'm not sure how much time we still have but Pergitta has some stories to tell on this history as well to try and develop from all the national standards on reaction to fire to come to this unique new standard, including the application of oxygen depreciation to get a measure of the rate of heat release.
Kees Both:But then the mounting and fixing discussion. So what can you discuss and what can you develop in the horizontal committee on this is how you should install your test specimen from a general perspective and then from the other perspective, like the producer of a product with specific end-users in mind, what kind of mounting and fixing is then the one that is perhaps most onerous to test and in the test only one? Can I then get a kind of a classification for multiple other ant-use conditions, or do I have to test all the variants? So that's where it can become. I think you use the word spicy. There's a word I like spicy, but sometimes it's not really spicy, it has a different taste.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:I think we'll have to reconvene on merging different points of view into one coherent piece of a standard in a different episode. Because I wanted to ask one more final question to both of you in this episode If you had to evaluate how big part of you getting to the positions where you are today successful fire engineers in positions of power how big chunk of that came from your participation? Like, was it worth it?
Kees Both:Absolutely yes, 100% yes. I wouldn't do anything different from what I've been doing in the last couple of years. It's absolutely worth it 100%.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:I would totally agree with that. I would actually say the fact that I was thrown into standardization so early has created my career and, even though I'm not in standardization anymore, everything that I've learned, the people that I connected with through that, the friends that I've made and that's something we haven't talked about here yeah but I one of.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:One of the things is it's not just professionally, it's also personally. You meet a lot of very interesting people. I made a lot of friends over the years and that so being in standardization, has truly shaped my career in a way that I am very grateful for, and I'm grateful for the people that I argued with in the standards committees, because I learned so much from that. It's been a great experience, even though there's also been some very boring meetings in between. I admit that, but I would not change it. No.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:I would say for me it's not that being a part of those committees would put me directly in the location where I am today. It's like a parallel path on which I was going, but the amount of stuff I've learned in those committees was unbelievable. At some point I had a feeling that this is really the only place where I still learn new things about smoke control. It's kind of probably not nice to say I knew it all, but I knew a lot for my context, for my country.
Kees Both:So on the word check, would you allow Birgitta and me then to ask you maybe I'll start, but Birgitte to finish off. I would like to invite you for the next FC4 meeting ISO TC92. That's fire safety engineering in Berlin the second week of April. So please come and be proud of it Don't?
Wojciech Wegrzynski:we have a conference right then in Annenbro we have a conference right down in Enem Row.
Kees Both:Okay, so I will make sure that there is a pint of beer or a glass of whiskey to seal this contract, but Brigitte may have an NFPA coming to that. You should become a member.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Probably several. I would say first of all, I hope you'll be coming to our conference and expo here in June and maybe then again can step in and see the NFPA standardization.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Grand voting scheme, exactly, yes, yes, I think we even have a paper submitted for that conference. I have to be also mindful of where I put my time into, but definitely SFP committees right now are the ones that I am willing to invest time, because I feel we're doing some great stuff for fire safety engineers and I also still believe putting time into those committees is valuable. I still grow and I still develop and I still learn new stuff. And what you said about making friends like shout out to all my good friends from TC191, sc1, workgroup 5 and 9. I've spent a lovely time with you guys. Many pints of beer and many interesting talks on the record and off the record, and definitely it has impacted my entire life as a 5-7 engineer and made me a better 5-7 engineer. So, yeah, highly recommend it.
Birgitte Messerschmidt:Final words yeah, you know, Kees very early on brought up the idea of mentorships for people to get into the standards and I just want to say, if anyone listening to this have an interest in getting in but don't really know where to start or just want some good advice, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll be happy to chat with you.
Kees Both:Same same here. So we're happy to reach out to the younger generation and the next ones that want to follow at least some part of the career path successful career path that Birgit and I have been able to follow, so happy to share all the knowledge that we have.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:And I'm also happy to guide you. If you want to enter this world, there's a pathway for you. Okay, thanks guys. And, as always, time flies by so fast when I'm chatting with you. Okay, thanks, guys. And, as always, time flies by so fast when I'm chatting with you. It's insane. Like an hour of recording sounds a long thing, but it's just a split second. I wish committees were like this, don't we all Cheers, thank you. Okay, that's it.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:I don't even know how many decades of committee experience we shared together with B Hit and Kiss Perhaps too many but if, after all this time, we're still excited about this work. You know, it's kind of painful and annoying in a way, and it takes you a lot of time, a lot of resources, a lot of energy, but on the other hand, it's really worth it. It's giving back to you in such a rich way and the friendships, the people you meet, the way how you can develop yourself as an engineer, the way how you can build up your name. It's really unbelievable. And I could speak about it more and more, emphasizing the points we've made in the podcast episode. But I would like to come back to the listener, kevin Feek from Labella Associates, who wrote me this message a year ago, and it was really encouraging me to do a podcast episode like this, and Kevin wrote me that while on the LinkedIn I saw a post from an FBA asking for people to join committees interested, I clicked link and went down the rabbit hole. It was a similar story when I joined my UL committee and joined department of Labor Advisory Board. Moving to code and standard development has been a peek behind the curtain into the code and studies that I use on a daily basis. It has also opened a huge network of people that I can contact with questions that stump me.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:The best part for me, though, is sharing that these opportunities are always there. We need more professionals willing to share their time and expertise to improve fire science and engineering standards. Hell, I agree with every word he wrote. First of all, it's fairly easy to get involved. Perhaps you will not be nominated to the biggest committee day one of your application, but it's a ladder that you can climb, and if you put in the work, if you do the job, if you're good, you will climb the ladder very, very fast.
Wojciech Wegrzynski:Secondly, there's always opportunities and we always lack people in those committees. It's really a lot of work and producing good standards needs varied points of view, good knowledge, but also people that put work in, so there's always need for more. And finally, the networking aspect is really brilliant. The people that you will meet there will definitely change or at least impact your professional career. So highly encouraging you to look for scientific technical advisory boards, standardization committees around you in the stuff that relates to your work and share your knowledge. Be a part of it. I think it's fully worth it. I hope we've convinced you in some way in this Fire Science Show episode. Perhaps a little less fire science in this episode, but definitely a lot of important stuff for our community and what else. I can invite you back here next Wednesday for another Fire Science Show episode. Thank you, bye.