Professional Experience

George has 29 years of fire service experience; ascending the ranks of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) to his current position of Deputy Chief. In addition to serving as the Incident Commander for fire and emergency responses, George is the Fire Prevention Coordinator for his Division. He manages the FDNY Risk Based Inspection Program and oversees the inspection and compliance process for buildings under construction, demolition, and abatement. George also serves as the FDNY Liaison to Consolidated Edison; providing fire service oversight on the design, construction, and fire protection requirements for a large-scale Lithium Ion Battery Energy Storage System.

Throughout his career, George has been dedicated to firefighter training. As the Division Training Coordinator, George is responsible for planning all Division training, developing content, monitoring field training, and coordinating multi-unit drills. He has developed numerous training curricula on ventilation, suppression, and wind driven fire response and was instrumental in developing the FDNY Managing a May-Day curriculum for command staff. He serves as an instructor for the FDNY Technical Rescue School Tech Course, the Nassau County Fire Service Academy, and the Illinois Fire Service Institute.

On multiple occasions, George has served as a member of the FDNY Incident Management Team and New York Task Force-1. His notable deployments include serving as the Division Supervisor during Hurricane Sandy when he directed fire, EMS, and Urban Search and Rescue resources in response to the catastrophic flooding and fires in New York City, the Planning Section Chief for Task Force-1’s Gulf Coast deployment in response to Hurricane Rita, and as a Rescue Specialist for the World Trade Center response on September 11, 2001. In response to the terrorism threats related to the 2004 Republican National Convention held at Madison Square Gardens, George spearheaded the establishment of a specialized team to that was prepared to respond to potential threats.

George is a recognized expert on wind driven fire. He served as Chairman of the Wind Driven Fire Committee, a partnership between FDNY and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to better understand the fast-moving spread of wind-driven flames, smoke, and toxic gases through corridors and stairways of burning buildings. He was an integral part of the design and execution of 18 experiments to test tactics and equipment to combat wind driven fires and the development of Standard Operating Procedures for alternative strategies that can be used to fight wind driven fires including opening apartment doors, deploying wind control devices, using high-rise nozzles, and stairwell pressurization. In collaboration with NIST and Underwriters Laboratories, George served as the Operations Section Chief for the 2012 Governors Island Ventilation and Suppression Testing, which was an initiative to improve and refine science-based tactics for the fire service to increase firefighter safety and victim survivability.

Education and Training

George earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Marketing from Saint John’s University in New York. He is also a graduate of the Columbia University FDNY Fire Officers Management Institute.

Committees and Professional Organizations

For over a decade, George has served as the President of the Fire Chief’s Association FDNY. He is a member of the NFPA Alternate Strategies Wind Driven Fires Committee and NFPA Committee for developing the NFPA 1770 Fire Dynamics Standard. He is a member of the Underwriters Laboratories Fire Council and an Advisory Board Member for Underwriters Laboratories Firefighters Safety Research Institute.

Awards and Accomplishments

George is the 2009 recipient of the FDNY James J. Johnson Administrative Medal for the Governors Island Wind Driven Fire testing and the implementation and training of the FDNY on wind impacted fires and alternate mitigation strategies.