The Fire Protection Podcast: Episode #69 – Andreas Huber On the Intersection of Software, the Fire Service, & Fire Protection

t-weight: 400;">Yeah. Yeah, it might be second.

Drew Slocum:
Second. Yeah. Well, first off, congratulations on your Inc. 5,000 anointment, announcement.

Andreas Huber:
Thank you. Yeah, we've been working hard and we're proud to have gotten the recognition.

Drew Slocum:
We're about 800 spots behind you, but it was our first time, so it was really cool to get that email or letter, whatever they send, and the team’s been thrilled.

Andreas Huber:
Congratulations. That's awesome.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah. Yeah, so it was funny you put the announcement out there like number one fire software and I'm like, he is number one fire software. There's not many of us, right on the Inc. 5,000 list at least.

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, no, for sure. That's right.

Drew Slocum:
So, thanks for coming on the podcast today. I wanted to—I had you on last time with I think Brycer and Matt Rice, but wanted to, it's been probably three or so years. But how's it going at FirstDue? And for the people that don't know you or the FirstDue fire software, what does it do and how does it help the whole fire industry?

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, so FirstDue is the most comprehensive suite of essentially business applications. So you can think about in the fire and EMS industry, there is records management and response and we're the most comprehensive, functionally deep suite of software modules for a fire or EMS agency to run nearly every component or part of their operation.

We actually got started on the fire prevention side. That's where we as a startup began, and we were working with a county fire marshal organization and just very quickly focused on pre-incident planning, focused on inspections and permitting, licensing, fee collection, plan review, all that good stuff, and then quickly realized how much more software fire departments needed. We can leave the EMS side for your audience, I think we'll just focus on fire today. And realized, gosh, they need modern tools to help manage so many other components of their day-to-day and their operation. And so let's go ahead and build all of those organically from the ground up in modern times and be sort of this really awesome software partner for them. So that's really where we are today and that's what FirstDue is.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, I think I have experience with that, that county fire jurisdiction. And they have quite a system set up, just their whole workflow in general is pretty deep, and I know that's where you got your start.

Andreas Huber:
Yep. Yeah, Nassau County is where I'm originally from, and really great people there.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, they have a good staff there. Saw them recently at a show in New York.

So, I know there's a lot of components to the software and just the AHJ side, and I know we're just specifically focusing on fire today, but what have you seen as the differentiators in really the AHJ’s mindset? Where do their needs differ from 10 years ago and where do their minds go when, all right, this is what I need and this is the solution out there?

Andreas Huber:
A lot's changed, especially if you go back 10 years. I think going back that far, we still have so many people working on paper and maybe just having paper files. I think you also started to see digital transformation happening at scale even back then. And so even if you're in the field using paper, you're coming back to an office and entering your work, your results, your inspections, et cetera, into a computer system of some kind.

Fast forward with mobile and apps and so on, and then point solutions and cloud-based products. I think you've kind of gone from that last decade of time to a place today where I want cloud-based products. I want to be able to access my information from anywhere. Of course, I want my inspectors and my folks in the field to be able to have better tools than they have actually back in the office to some degree, right?

So it needs to be mobile, it needs to be cloud-based. It needs to work offline, and it needs to take into account the end-to-end workflows. Everything from intaking a set of plans, reviewing those plans, coming up with all of the different activities that take place from that point, being able to task all that out to the people who are going to do that work, monitor and sort of report on the performance—are my inspectors getting to all of their jobs? Are they, et cetera? How much revenue are we collecting if we're one of those agencies that charges for our services? And then efficiently scheduling our people out into the field, making it easy for them to do their work quickly, having an integration or sorry, payments solution so that if my people are in the field, they can very quickly send an invoice with all the information that the property manager or owner needs to see to feel good that this is an accurate representation of what I owe the AHJ, right?

Gosh, if it's really convenient and easy for me just to pay right away with a credit card or whatever off my mobile device, boom. Now I collect more money as an AHJ and the whole thing just works better. Versus sort of the older way of doing things on paper, sending out letters, sending out reminder letters, and then enjoying the fact that we're collecting a very small amount of the total amount billed.

So it's just all the way around. The last point I'll make on that is, because we were seeing some really good results from our solution that does all the things that I said sort of in the modern side of that decade, collection goes up. So the actual—everyone's happier, less time spent in the field, more work gets done, the property owner/building owner is happy because they want to be compliant. At the end of the day, you're making it easy on them, and so just creates a really great environment all

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, it's funny, the workflow you just described is exactly what happens on the protection and contractor side as well. Of the antiquated methods all the way to collecting payment in the field. So it's kind of funny, it's so similar.

Andreas Huber:
Right, and then on the contractor side, if you're finding yourself getting sort of behind on paperwork or feeling like your office staff are overwhelmed, there's probably a better way to do things and everyone will be happy as a result. Your customers, you and your P&L.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, yeah. Now I know some of your products, do they bring in certain codes that the AHJs utilize for NFPA, ICC or not wouldn't be ICC, but is there tools for them to make sure they're following the codes?

Andreas Huber:
There are. Yeah. So, customers can go out and inspect buildings and, if they've got their codes and they've got license of their codes, they can attach them to whatever notice for violation that they're sending out.

Drew Slocum:
Interesting. Yeah, I know, I guess we're similar in that capacity as well, where again, AHJ, they're looking at the whole ecosystem versus contractor base is hyperfocused on those building systems, more or less.

But with that, you mentioned those workflows. Is there any parts of the process where you're ingesting data from other sources through integration or any other way where you're taking in, obviously there’s the platform, there's entry from mobile or whatever, but are you ingesting any other data from other sources?

Andreas Huber:
From time to time, yes. It really just depends on which part of our application. Do you mean for an AHJ?

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, for an AHJ, whether it's a prevention bureau, I know of a few of them that you have like Brycer and third party compliance solutions like that. But is there any other parts that you're taking in data from other software platforms or other digital pieces?

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, for sure. So even just within our product, enabling the customer to be able to pre-incident plan right on the spot. We see that customers really—there's one of the big differences I think between a commercial third party contractor inspector or fire prevention company versus an AHJ, an AHJ kind of being the other side of the fire department. They want really seamless information flow with ops, with operations. And so if they notice hazards or certain special conditions that they want them to be notified of, doesn't it make sense to give them an easy-to-use tool to capture that? And it's the same type of tool that then the crews are using when they respond to that call without anyone having to think about it. That's really nice.

There are also, oftentimes, especially in sort of larger jurisdictions where they are users of arc GIS, there's often data in there that simple things like—I've got my jurisdiction mapped out by zones, and so I want those geographical boundaries to be inside FirstDue so that I can do everything from report on data against those boundaries. Or I might want to even schedule my people based on some of those boundaries.

So, having good integration there, even two-way, because sometimes you have other stakeholders within the city, county, what have you, who want reporting either out of FirstDue, or maybe they're used to different type of geospatial reporting that lives inside a GIS system. And so people like to use whatever they're using. So if you can kind of meet everyone's needs wherever they're at, people are going to like your product more.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, you got to iterate to whatever your client's using, right? Well, it's easier these days with cloud and APIs and all that, so you just got to make a use case for it, right?

So with that inspection, and obviously, we're familiar with that, and a lot of the listeners are familiar with inspection and deficiencies. How does that, you know, a lot of times the contractors are doing inspections or making service fixes—how does that data eventually, and who does that eventually go up to? Obviously, maybe the fire prevention bureaus, but I know you mentioned the incident side, so how does that look when the first responders roll up?

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, that part's really interesting because, in your example, you have a contractor or an inspector going to a building and putting a fire system, marking it as deficient, and that might be in the form of an inspection form or sort of data in a database that then goes to the AHJ or is available if they want it, or maybe it's an emailed notification.

But when you're a responding crew dispatched to that building, you're not really flipping through a filing cabinet or a digital filing cabinet. You don't have time to look for things you might care about. So it's really important, and this is how it works in FirstDue is, that information is going to just be popping up the moment that the crew looks at the response application.

So it's taking into account that this is a user who needs to see a whole set of things, and we need to give them only the information they care about when certain conditions exist in a format that makes sense for what they're doing. They're not there on the job site with time to look at records. They're on-scene within a couple minutes, they're under stress, and they need the product to show it to them in a different type of format. And that's what we do.

Drew Slocum:
So if like a fire pump is shut off, unfortunately, or whatever happens, or whatever suppression system is in a critical or impairment state, that data's going to immediately—that's going to show up versus having to filter through an entire report and even find it. Right?

Andreas Huber:
Exactly. In reality, yes. So if you have that solution, for example, inspector does the work, it goes through Bryer. There's an integration with FirstDue and Bryer. Our crew responds, they're good. They will always be good. Departments who don't have that type of solution, often what we see is, they're relying on the fire marshal being on point, listening to calls, knowing buildings, knowing situations, and showing up and letting the fire chief know—or hopping on the radio or jumping on the phone and letting them know. That's what we see in reality.

Yes, of course that works. Right? Is it the best way to do it, or the most reliable? Probably not, but it can work. If you're on your game, you have the info, and you make the phone call or you're on site and you get to people before they've done anything. Yeah, you're good.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, it's just like there's a manual method there where if it can be automatically done…

Andreas Huber:
A lot of points of failure.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's really cool to hear about that, and I think you guys told me about that a few years back, and I was like, wow. Because I never knew what happened to our data a lot of times when it went up, and is there a pretty decent adoption with that full integrated workflow, or is it still kind of being done by the fire marshals?

Andreas Huber:
No, tons of adoption. Our product is unique in that it's not just for those types, those deficient systems. It's also for, if I'm using FirstDue at the Fire Marshal's office and there's been a whole bunch of violations at this building, I may not care about the 20 years of history of violations. But if there's an open one, that maybe there's high-piled storage blocking sprinkler heads, and now I'm showing up to a structure fire. I probably want to know about that. 

Our product is configured to look for those certain conditions and serve it up to the responder if they exist. If they don't, then don't bother me with information I've told the system I don't care about. So we kind of do it that way, too.

But in the example we just gave, where there is a compliance solution, bridging the gap between those commercial inspections and, call it the response side, it's used a lot. So the integration between FirstDue and Brycer, there's not a lot of customers that have both of our products that don't have the integration.

Drew Slocum:
Oh, nice.

Andreas Huber:
Sorry, that's probably what you were asking.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, well, no, I'm just interested. Yeah, that's more of the adoption. I see Brycer everywhere and we have a great integration where all our data flows up to them, and then hopefully that's flown to you. It'd be interesting to see an actual use case of that and like, all right, because we do this all day long. You never know when you never know who's getting that data. So yeah, it's great that it is happening and there's more adoption.

You were recently, you got a keynote speaking engagement recently at one of the conferences, right? Out in Dallas?

Andreas Huber:
At FRI, Fire Rescue International.

Drew Slocum:
I guess what was that topic and what are you seeing? What are one of the top three topics that were discussed down there? What's happening?

Andreas Huber:
So, a lot going on in the fire service right now. There's kind of always a lot going on. If I was to rattle off, maybe not necessarily what I spoke about, but, you know, you've got EVs have been a big topic. Obviously, you've got lithium ion batteries inside the vehicles, but then also in scooters and other places that charge them that aren't safe, for example, that are causing big problems. So not just really dangerous fires on the road and MBAs, but also inside buildings.

Also, there's a big change to the fire incident data set. So the required information and format of that information, when you document what happened on a fire call and then reporting that to FEMA, it's has been called NFIRS for a long time, National Fire Incident Records System. And that's going to National Emergency Response Information System—NERS.

So that's changing. That's a big deal. My conversation was more about what we see, which those things all play a role in. And that's really just been the journey that FirstDue has been on in building and coming out with software applications on the response and records management side to help fire departments operate really well and help them continue to tackle new problems as they come up, which is one thing that we've seen over all of time is that the job gets harder and harder and there's just more challenges thrown at them, and they need really good tools to help them operate efficiently when staffing becomes a problem in terms of count, to be able to easily adjust to new data standards when a new one comes out, all that good stuff.

And then also, to introduce some new tools, is what the conversation was really about. So we announced three new big exciting product updates, and one was related to a very cool tool that's coming out soon for scanning interiors. So, to essentially get the interior scans of a building and then have that seamlessly show up right inside your 3D response map. 

So, if you are responding to a call where it's important for you to activate the interior layout of the structure, you can do that. And the way that you capture that is super easy now. There's a whole host of ways it was being done from manually sketching and drawing to trying to OCR type scan building plans when interiors can change or walking big with these big LIDAR packs, walking the interiors. Think about schools and other sensitive high occupancy structures. So a lot of this stuff now can be done on an iPhone.

Drew Slocum:
Really, on an iPhone? Wow, that's crazy.

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, a newer one. But…

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, it's funny, we did a training for some of the sprinkler fitters or whatever, but they recently this summer, and they were doing an inspection, but with one of those, I forgot what product it was called. But literally they were walking through this industrial facility that was 3D. They had to do the inspection almost virtually, all the data was there. Again, you have to enter a lot of that data, but it was there in front of them. So I could see that being very similar and super valuable to the AHJs.

Yeah, no, this is great. It's good to learn about the other side of fire prevention, and we get stuck in the protection side and the system side and security and all that. So it's good to get these updates and what the needs of AHJs are.

One quick topic that I forgot to bring up. I sit on NFPA 915. It's the standard for remote inspection, and I popped into your product and it seems like you guys have a virtual inspection component of it and just wanted to see the thoughts on that and just adoption. Because that's the one thing I've seen, just being on the standard is, the tough part is AHJs adopting this standard for their jurisdiction. So would love your take on that. 

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, we built it based on a need from customers during COVID really. So we found that AHJs were getting super behind on their inspections, which obviously leads to growing risk out there. Their people were sidelined during sort of the very strict lockdowns, and obviously that varied, but it was fairly ubiquitous around the country. And so, we needed to come up with a solution to allow them to do some level of building inspection from their desk when they couldn't go on site. And that's what we did.

So we built that, and I think there was—shouldn't say think—there was lots of use of it because it was a necessity. Exactly what we thought might happen, just like Zoom and so many people who were doing meetings on Zoom or Teams or whatever as a requirement because they couldn't be in person, they then realized all of the convenience and efficiencies as a result. So when we can be back in person, a lot of that stuff doesn't just go away.

So we've seen the use of our virtual inspection product continue to be used. Now, it's not a replacement for an onsite building inspection, but it's mostly used for some of the simpler, maybe re-inspections. But again, there's also a workflow where some AHJs just want to see a photo of the extinguisher that expired or the exit light that was out that is now operational. Sometimes, they just want to have those communications over email and then they can attach it to the record or their system without having to go out into the field to correct that.

Other AHJs are going to want to take every opportunity they can to go on-site, especially for specific buildings that maybe have a history that they're not comfortable with. But then you also have departments, sorry AHJs, where maybe in your larger city settings where they might be understaffed—not everyone's understaffed—but there are plenty that are and feel overwhelmed. And so it's just another tool to help them meet their goals and get all the work done that they need to get done.

They're finding ways to work it into their workflow and their day-to-day in a way that makes sense specifically for their AHJ. So it's very much still being used. That's how it sort of came about. And it's not one of those things that was a fad during COVID that, now that everyone's back in-person, that's gone away because just like we still continue to meet virtually.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. We're doing this right now. Yeah, I see that standard. And hopefully there's more adoption, because I think there's some potential on the side of…the fire protection system inspection side where less critical inspections, the monthlies, the quarterlies, can that be recorded, can that be done virtually? Can that be documented virtually by, I guess a less senior technician, but all that has to be adopted by the AHJ, and it's about to happen. It's just like, I was always wondering if the AHJs are comfortable with remote inspection, but obviously you've seen that, obviously since COVID, but within your product, and whether it's staffing shortages or just getting to more places. And again, you're never going to eliminate your obviously critical inspections or the more intense inspections, and being on-site, definitely the best, but you might not have the staff for the time for it.

Andreas Huber:
Everything you said, I couldn't agree more with. And it also comes down to who's responsible. If you've got to go out and put your hands on a fire pump…if you're the one signing off that thing's operational and there's a huge fire, and it turns out you did something virtually and you watched someone else test it, and they kind of didn't do it right, and now didn't work as well as it could have been a fire, and there's loss of life of property as a result. I just don't think most AHJ professionals are in that job…because they're a certain type of person and they don't want fool around with those, like you said, sensitive, really important stuff. Anyway, I think you can't replace that unless we get to a point where these machines are so accurate, they can communicate their current status themselves in a way that we feel 100% confident with when we put life, property and life at risk. It's just not going to happen.

Drew Slocum:
The products are starting to happen. The fire alarm systems are doing auto test features and stuff like that. Fire pumps have some features to do, not a full test—not a full flow test—but the no flow tests. So it's there, it just needs to be, and I wrote this article recently of like, “Hey, why is the fire industry so slow to change?” Right? And I think it stems down to, it's a codified industry. We're looking at codes. It's not like building codes for HVAC or plumbing, but they're fire and life safety codes. So, to get people to change and to get those to change, it's a lot slower. Anyway.

Well, this is great. Love to maybe a year and a half or so, 18 months, two years, I'd love to have you on again, see where you guys are at, and excited to see your journey from when we met, I don't know, five or six years ago to now. It's super exciting to see your guys' growth.

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, no, I'd love to. Sounds good, Drew.

Drew Slocum:
Hey, one quick question. I haven't done a quick response round in a while. You know, we're both big golfers. What is your ideal foursome? Have you ever been asked that before? Who would be in your ideal foursome? It doesn't matter where you play, but…

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, I don’t know. I’d love to play with Tiger, especially if you can go back in time, right? Rory and probably Bryson.

Drew Slocum:
Okay. Got to get on his YouTube channel, play from the Red Tees, right?

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, that's…talk about something that's really taken off. It's been cool to watch all the stuff that he's doing there.

Drew Slocum:
It's insane. See what he's trying to… I actually, I did it recently. I played, I don't know, three or four holes from the up tees. It's a lot of fun. It's a whole different challenge, right? You got to, anyway…

Andreas Huber:
We used to do it as kids. We used to go play from the way up tee, the ladies tee, and they didn't even have senior tees back then. It was the red tea. Yeah. And we used to see if we could break whatever.

Drew Slocum:
Oh, that's funny. You should have started a video podcast. Before Bryson did

Andreas Huber:
Actually. So what I've heard is, it's a great way to teach kids.

Drew Slocum:
Interesting.

Andreas Huber:
So they take the same concept and expand it to the front. So you actually play from much, much closer when they're really young. So they're not just constantly hitting…driver, 3 wood. They kind of just tee it from way much farther up. So they're getting, because they have short attention spans, right? And so they're playing it now more like we play it where it's fairway green.

Drew Slocum:
Interesting.

Andreas Huber:
Just let them ride, and then you just plop them 60 yards in front of the green.

Drew Slocum:
Well, it's funny, our junior tees here in Connecticut, at the course I play, they put them way up.

Andreas Huber:
Makes sense.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah. It's interesting what they're doing, I mean, they don't have a specific tee, they just put 'em in the middle of the fairway, really, or on the side of the fairway,

Andreas Huber:
Huh? Yeah. Well, those junior golf associations are probably well ahead of parents.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure.

Well, this is great. Where can we find you guys at FirstDue? Is there any, obviously, website and all that?

Andreas Huber:
Yeah, websites FirstDue.com. Chances are we'll be at an event nearby. We do about 120 a year. Yeah, we're kind of all over the country.

Drew Slocum:
That's great. Well, I'll get this out to the masses, it'll be going out in—October's Fire Prevention Month or fire safety month. So good timing for it.

Andreas Huber:
Great. 

Drew Slocum:
Well, I appreciate you coming on.

Andreas Huber:
All right. Thanks, Drew. Hope I see you soon.

Drew Slocum:
Alright, thanks man. This has been episode 69 of The Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Want to thank Andreas again for stopping on the podcast to discuss everything fire and EMS software, and kind of how they're changing the industry and changing the landscape with the AHJs. So really cool for him to explain where things are going. And yeah, again, appreciate the listenership, and we'll see you next time.