Leadership

Early in his career, Shane developed a passion for Community Risk Reduction, earning a Bachelor of Science in Fire Prevention Technology from Cogswell Polytechnical College and an Associate Degree in Fire Technology from Shasta Community College.  He founded PyroAnalysis in 1998 to assist communities, developers, and attorneys in the interpretation and application of fire and emergency management principles.  As a certified instructor, he has inspired thousands of fire service professionals to create innovative strategies to combat hostile fire and other disasters and was a contributor to the California State Fire Marshal Fire Officer certification curriculum. 

As a leader in fire and emergency management, Shane has guided communities and institutions through the challenges related to the COVID-19 disaster, the development and evaluation of emergency and evacuation plans, and the adoption of fire codes and standards specifically tailored to the unique needs of the community.

Shane started his career as a firefighter in the summer of 1985.  He served with the City of Redding, California Fire Department from 1986 to 2012. During his more than 25 years in Redding, he worked as a Firefighter, Fire Apparatus Engineer, Arson Investigator/Inspector, Fire Captain, Operations Battalion Chief, and Deputy Chief of Administration. In January 2012, he became the Operations Chief at Chico Fire-Rescue. He served as Fire Chief in Chico, California from April 2014 to 2016, where he created a Division of Community Risk Reduction, prioritizing emergency preparedness and risk reduction over the traditional, reactive, fire service response model.  

Shane has served on a Type 1 Incident Management Team since 2001. As an Operation Section Chief and Branch Director, he has assisted dozens of communities impacted by catastrophic fires and other disasters in California. Incidents include the Thomas Fire of 2017, where he led the evacuation of Ojai and the firefight in Montecito; the Oroville Dam failure; the Camp Fire in 2018; the Kincade Fire of 2019; and the Butte Complex of 2020.  He is a member of the Advanced All-Hazard Incident Management (AAIM) training cadre that provides intensive disaster management training and evaluation for All-Hazard Incident Management Teams.

His certifications include NFPA Certified Fire Protection Specialist, Type 1 Operations Section Chief, Type 3 Incident Commander, Certified Chief Fire Officer, Certified Fire Officer, Certified Fire Prevention Officer, Certified Fire Service Instructor, and IAAI Certified Fire Investigator.

Robert “Bob” Womack is a career 40-year first responder with experience in emergency management, law enforcement, and the fire service. He has extensive experience in evacuation modeling, wildfire response, incident management, and alert and warning systems. He has a Master’s degree in Emergency Management from CSU Long Beach and has numerous certifications in the Incident Command System and Emergency Operations. He is also a FEMA and CSTI certified instructor in the ICS and EOC platforms.

Until his retirement in November 2023, John served as the CAL FIRE Assistant Region Chief, overseeing the CAL FIRE’s Northern Region Operations and Resource Management Program and providing leadership to six operational units.

He began his fire service career in 1991 as a firefighter working for a federal agency in Northern California. During that time, he attended Chico State University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in geography with an emphasis on geographical information systems (GIS). His career started with CAL FIRE in 2000, where he worked through the ranks to become Assistant Region Chief.

John has diverse experience in the fire service, holding positions in operations, aviation, and administration and serving as an executive-level chief officer with CAL FIRE. From 2020 through 2022, John was the Unit Chief of the Butte Unit, where he served as the Fire Chief for Butte County, the Town of Paradise, and the cities of Gridley and Biggs through cooperative fire protection agreements. During his tenure as the Butte Unit/County Fire Chief, he successfully negotiated a new cooperative fire protection agreement with the City of Oroville.

He spent 14 years on a CAL FIRE Incident Management Team as an operation section chief and qualified Type 1 incident commander. Before being promoted to Unit Chief, he was the deputy incident commander of Incident Management Team 5. John has been directly involved in some of California’s most notable disasters, including operation section chief of the 2017 Oroville Spillway emergency, and incident commander of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, and as Agency Administrator, he guided and led the 2020 North Complex and 2021 dixie Fire emergency responses. In 2019, he was assigned as an incident commander to California’s statewide response to the COVID-19 disaster.

He has extensive experience in all aspects of disaster planning, including community evacuation planning. Working with local, state, and federal officials, he was intricately involved in the recovery and rebuilding process for the Town of Paradise after the Camp Fire and collaborated with government officials to develop local ordinances for more effective wildfire mitigation requirements. To this end, he assisted in developing a local Wildfire Safety Task Force and State/Federal Land Use Coordinating Committee tasked with establishing priorities and providing guidance for wildfire resilience and forest health projects. John has firsthand experience and in-depth knowledge of how significant disasters impact communities and government entities. His experience in mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery has given him a clear understanding of what community and government leaders face and how to guide them through disaster preparedness and response challenges.

Mike started his professional career in 1991 in the timber industry of northern California. He worked for a private consulting firm and a large timber company before moving to state service in 2001. As an employee of CALFIRE, Mike held many positions from Forester, Fire Captain, Battalion Chief, Division Chief, Deputy Chief, Northern Assistant Region Chief to Northern Region Chief. He retired from state service at the end of 2021. In 2022 Mike began consulting as an Emergency Management Specialist for the US Forest Service International Program. He has taught emergency management to Civil Protection employees in the national Emergency Operations Center for Albania. He has also instructed fire fighters, Department of Defense and Civil Protection employees in both Albania and Armenia in emergency management and fire protection operations.

Mike has a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from Humboldt State University and is a Registered Professional Forester #2612. His fireline qualifications range from Agency Administrator to Division Supervisor. During his five years at the northern region office, he had responsibility for some of the largest deployments of firefighting resources ever assembled in California. Mike is an experienced professional with a successful career in fire protection, forest, watershed and administration. He excels at interfacing with others at all levels to ensure formulation, administration and continuing evaluation of programs and products are developed with the larger picture in mind.

Ron began his fire service career in 1985 as a firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in Butte County.  After completing his bachelor’s degree from California State University Chico, he accepted a position as a Fire Apparatus Engineer. Over the course of his career with CAL FIRE, Ron has held the positions of Firefighter, Engineer, Fire Captain, Battalion Chief, Division Chief, and interim Unit Chief. Ron has a wide breadth of experience ranging from all risk firefighting, emergency dispatch operations, Hand crew supervision, prevention, and a sworn Peace Officer.  

He has over twenty years of Incident Management Team experience. Ron was a qualified Type I Incident Commander and held qualifications in Operations, Plans, Liaison, Logistics, Information Officer, and Agency Representative.  He was the Incident Commander of CAL FIRE Incident Management Team 5 until he retired from CAL FIRE in 2018. Ron has been a member of the national Complex Incident Management Course cadre for over a decade.

After retiring from CAL FIRE, Ron accepted a position as Deputy Chief with North County Fire Authority (NCFA) in San Mateo County. Ron was responsible for the supervision of the operations bureau, which consisted of eight fire companies, training, and special operations. NCFA provides fire service to the cities of Pacifica, Daly City and Brisbane.

In the fall of 2020 Ron retired from the fires service.  With over thirty years of public safety experience and leadership, Ron has demonstrated the ability to work collaboratively with Community, City, State and Federal organizations on emergency incidents as well as non-emergency projects. With experience working through complex community dynamics, applying fire behavior analysis, to arson investigation, Ron possesses a diverse background of knowledge and experience he looks to share and apply.

Don began his fire service career in 1986 as a firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in Santa Clara County. After completing his Associate Degree in Fire Protection Technology at the College of San Mateo, he accepted a position as a firefighter with the Woodside Fire Protection District (WFPD). Over his 35-year career there, Don has held the positions of firefighter, engineer, fire inspector, fire investigator, deputy fire marshal, and battalion chief. Don has a wide range of experience including all-risk firefighting, emergency management operations, fire prevention/community risk reduction, fire investigations, hand crew supervision, and defensible space/fuel mitigation operations.

As a deputy fire marshal, Don assisted in administering and managing the code enforcement and fire prevention programs for his district. His areas of responsibility included reviewing plans for compliance, inspecting property and buildings, assisting with public education activities, leading fire prevention mitigation activities, and investigating fires.

As a fire marshal, Don was responsible for supervising, planning, organizing, and directing all activities within the fire prevention division. He enforced all laws, ordinances, and regulations for the protection of lives and property from fire and led public fire prevention education.

Throughout his time with the WFPD, Don’s essential duties included providing code enforcement for the district and, as a technical liaison, conducting plan checks for new construction. Don conferred with town and county department heads to determine compliance with fire and life safety codes. Communication with other members of the public, such as developers, property owners, architects, engineers, and contractors, was a large part of Don’s daily tasks. Field inspecting, testing, and writing reports were essential to Don’s duties.

Active management of the fire district fuel mitigation program was required. Don managed the residential defensible space inspection programs and developed additional public education and outreach programs to promote community involvement and awareness of responsibilities in pre-fire mitigation efforts.

With wildland fire being one of the greatest threats to the WFPD, Don took the initiative to seek out and obtain specialized training, which has given him vital knowledge, skills, and abilities that can be directly applied toward land use planning, the CEQA process, emergency preparedness and evacuation planning, and defensible space and fuel mitigation programs to reduce the risks of wildland fire to communities.

Bill holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of California at Davis in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning, with an area of specialization in City/Regional Planning and Post Graduate work in Hazardous Materials Management. He began his professional career as an Environmental Consultant focusing on the review and development of Environmental Impact Reports and Phase I and II Site Assessments.

His firefighting career began with the CALFIRE/Butte County Fire Department in 1994. In 1995, Bill was hired by the City of Chico Fire Department as a firefighter and quickly moved through the ranks: he was the first firefighter to promote through the ranks to Fire Chief in the City of Chico in over fifty years. In August of 2017, Bill was hired as Fire Chief to lead the City of Rocklin and Lincoln Fire Departments under a Cooperative Service Agreement. Bill believes in developing a pro-active, forward-looking fire and disaster response service delivery model based on Community Risk Reduction and Mission Tasked Rapid Response Teams. A focus on data- driven and evidence- based decisions is imperative, and any successful model must be based upon sound public service delivery principles: customer focus, sustainability, equity, efficiency, effectiveness, fiscal responsibility, accountability, and transparency.

Bill is certified by the State of California and other national organizations as a Chief Officer, Executive Chief Officer, Incident Commander, Liaison Officer, and Hazardous Materials Specialist. He has been assigned to and held leadership positions in several large State-wide incidents including the Oroville Damn incident (2017), Weed Fire (2014), King Fire (2014), and Humboldt Fires (2008). He served as the Area II North Director of the California Fire Chiefs Association, a member of League of California Cities Fire Chiefs and International Association of Fire Chiefs, and a board member of the American Cancer Society Northern California Leadership Council. He is also the past President of the Butte County Fire Chiefs Association and the Butte County Training Officers Association; the California State Training Education Advisory Committee – Hazardous Materials Section, and the Butte Community College Advisory Board.

Throughout his Fire Service Career, Bill continued Consulting focusing on training, land use planning, and Fire Code interpretation and implementation. Clients included but are not limited to: United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), California State University at Chico, Butte College, and local developers.

After retiring from the Fire Service, Bill took a position as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Rescue 42 Incorporated. They were developing and bringing to market a product that would transform the landscape for emergency communications: the CRD™ for FirstNet® is an AT&T FirstNet deployable cell tower that generates an area of FirstNet Cellular and Wi-Fi coverage, anytime and anywhere. Bill utilized his experience with collaboration and change management to lead a fast-growing team that increased production by over 1,000% and increased sales 4x in one fiscal year.

Dennis began his career in 1977 with the California Division of Forestry and Fire Protection. In 1980 he transferred to the Stanislaus County Fire Department, and in 1985 he took a position with Pleasanton Fire Department, which merged with Livermore in 1987. Dennis retired from Livermore/Pleasanton Fire Department in 2018.

Dennis earned an Associate of Science in Fire Science from Modesto Junior College and a Bachelor of Science in Fire Management from CSU Sacramento.

Dennis has served on national Type 1 Incident Management Teams as a Fire Behavior Analyst since 2000. He chairs the S-590 (Advanced Fire Behavior Interpretation) Steering Committee and is a member of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Fire Weather Sub Committee and the NWCG Fire Behavior Curriculum Unit.