Fire Protection Podcast: Episode #40

et you last year, I believe you just rolled on to the NFSA. What’s your background, and what’s your role at NFSA currently?

Mike Joanis:

Yeah, so I’m Mike Joanis. I’m a fire protection engineer. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I came to the NFSA about two and a half years ago, but my life before that was slugging it out as a sprinkler contractor. Okay. Many, almost 28 years of slugging it out daily, you know, with our clients and non-job sites and dealing with all kinds of good stuff. So I had a little bit of a unique perspective with being a licensed fire protection engineer, working for a sprinkler contractor. So it kind of was a unique perspective. It gave us a little bit of a different look and edge with our clients. And it was a good run, and it was time to go on to a new challenge. And NFSA presented that new challenge for me, which brought me.

Drew Slocum:

Here. Oh, that’s great. What sprinkler contractor did you work for?

Mike Joanis:

The company? The company that I was a part owner in towards the end was called Covenant Fire Protection. Oh, yeah. It was in Manchester, New Hampshire. Yep. Most of our work was in Eastern Massachusetts. We did,  worked with the current owner and kind of, um, partnered with them to take it over. And we ran from about $800,000 a year to about 14 million a year for the business over a 10-year period. So. Wow. So it was a good, good, fun run. And, you know, most of our work was Eastern Massachusetts in and around Boston, and you know how it is at the beginning, we’d take anything we could get our hands on. Yeah. And, towards the end, we were trying to do a lot more, you know, a lot of the podium buildings just because that’s what’s out there. Yep. But we got a little bit of a niche for doing freezer warehouses, which was fun.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. Freezer warehouses. I remember, you know, when I worked for Tyco or JCI now, I went to a lot of Quell training, and then after that went to Viking, and they have their own; the cold storage is kind of a neat little niche to get in fire protection. So,

Mike Joanis:

Yep. I’ve been there. Tele Quell the LP 46 from Vitalik. Yeah. You know, the Viking ESFR dry pendants for the box in the box. It’s all good stuff. Yep. It keeps it exciting, you know, keeps you on your toes, keeps you challenged, and that’s what makes you get up and come in every day and get some good stuff done.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s a lot of fun challenges with those situations. So, what is your role now at NFSA?

Mike Joanis:

So, at NFSA, I am technically the chief engineer. So, I and another fire protection engineer, Jeff Dunkle, who’s in Kansas City, on the Kansas side. But NFSA  traditionally had an engineering department. It’s always been, um, we had the two-leg legends with Russ Fleming and Ken Isman for many years. Jeff and I are the two current fire protection engineers on staff. We work closely with the codes and standards, the public fire protection, the learning development group, and even the legislative and regulatory groups to be technical experts and, be involved as much as we can, including on what we’re talking about today, which is, the learning and development opportunities and the layout technician class. So it’s a big part of what we do.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. Yeah. Russ, Russ Flemings from the, the Best Polytechnic Institute, uh, called Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. So my alma mater, my or my, a couple others in the company. So I always, I always, uh, love how he, uh, he’s one of our alma mater, so, um, there we go. Yeah. Would that layout technician class that FSA is doing, how has that different, you know, what is it traditionally been over the years?

Mike Joanis:

Yeah, so traditionally, over the years, the layup technician class or the designer class has been around for decades, and, it’s all, it was traditionally always a two-week in-person experience. You know, just grit your teeth and bear it 40, 50 hours a week for two weeks. It traveled around the country. Sometimes it was at our headquarters in Maryland more recently,  two weeks in person, get a layout technician from day one or zero, or a little bit of experience too, you know, at least up and running and, and driving at highway speed, you know, down the highway. So, right. That was where it was traditionally, unfortunately, with Covid, you know, the in-person came to a screeching halt a little over two years ago. And we’ve been doing it virtually, um, live virtually, um, for the last two years.

And we’ve been doing, uh, we’ve been, I think we’ve been doing about four or five classes a year, and we switched it to be, you know, obviously trying to expect students to sit eight in the morning till five for Oh yeah. Five days straight. Yeah. So we changed it to Tuesdays and Thursdays, starting a little later for the West Coast folks. It runs four or five weeks with a couple of days a week, and it did; we did switch some of it to be a little bit more self-paced and, and, some of the modules we have them doing on their own, but uh, we still do the detailed layout stuff. We do the hydraulic calculations by hand. We still do it all. We’re just staring at the computer. t can be painful staring at the computer all day. But, uh, we try hard to, we try and hard to do things like Microsoft forms and activities and ways to engage people. If you don’t do that every few minutes, uh, is an instructor, you’re like, hello, is this thing on? Yes, exactly.

Drew Slocum:

You might be talking through a blinking light, you know, of the camera. Yeah.

Mike Joanis:

<laugh> How did my internet go out five minutes ago? Right. So, um, but we’ve been doing it virtually, and we got to a point where we knew this thing was gonna come back at some point, and we wanted to completely revamp the layout technician class. So something that was originally two weeks in person switched to virtual. And now we’re gonna switch it up and, and kind of go with a self-paced e-learning module,   mm-hmm. <affirmative> for the first piece of a live virtual in the middle, and then an in-person at the end. So we’re in the process of dividing up, um, dividing up, um, the traditional content, seeing what fits well, where do we need to do some of these in an inter, you know, a beginner, intermediate in advanced Right. The scenario with the way we have it set up.

But the goal is to start at self-paced. So, for example, if you have a student or a designer or layout technician you just hired, you could go right online and say, boom, here you go. You can get started with this class. The um, self-paced online stuff would be available, you know, the second you signed up. Now we do want, we do, and we want people to complete the class mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So when you sign, you can’t, you know, when you sign up for the first piece, you gotta sign up for the whole thing. Gotcha. So that, you know, you’re on a path to get it done. Right. And then, of course, we’re thinking the last piece will be about three days in person, where we’ll get back to, um, lay doing, doing layout on a project and doing the actual hydraulic calculations by hand.

Nice. Hydraulic calculations by hand are, some people might think we’re archaic. You know, I’m old. I, I did have a slide rule in college. I did have to do hydraulic calculations by hand when I, you know, in the late eighties, early nineties. We strongly feel that you can’t understand hydraulics well unless you’ve had an opportunity to learn how to do hydraulic calculations by hand. So again, 28 years of having designers and layout technicians working for me, and they’d bring me the head or the Sprint CAD calc report and tell me it doesn’t work. And, well, you know, it’s a light hazard. You got 150 static and 140 residual. Right. You know, please. You know, you know, and they just didn’t, you know, they don’t have that base understanding.

Um, they know how to put it on the computer. They know how to read the bottom line. But, uh, we do feel strongly about that. So that piece got, you know, that gets preserved. We’re trying to go on a lot more project-based too. If anybody listening has ever taken this class, our project’s called Ponchos. Okay. Uh, it’s a Mexican restaurant in a strip mall <laugh>. Um, so it’s a little bit of a, a little bit of a, um, been around a long time. So we’re keeping ponchos, but Ponchos are getting, uh, getting updated.

Drew Slocum:

So, is it an actual place?

Mike Joanis:

No, this is made up. Made up, but made,

Drew Slocum:

I wonder who made it? Do you know who made that up? You know, the origin story behind Ponchos?

Mike Joanis:

I’ll give Roland credit for Ponchos. Okay. Um, it’s kind of his baby, but ponchos are the project. It starts, you know, it was a Mexican restaurant tenant fit out in a strip mall mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we would use that as an opportunity to go things like construction type water supply laying out the system. But we’ve kind of recently, actually, over the last few years since we’ve been doing it virtually, we can, you know, we start, we now have a CAD file, a Revit file, you know, we give them those documents, you know, we used just to do it all by hand. Right. So now the students that are capable of doing it in AutoCAD or whatever programs they’re using have it electronically. Um, and then, of course, we’re starting to integrate more of the content into the project.

So we have, uh, I think we have a pharmacy next to it now, and then we have a, a bakery next to that. And we’re starting to add things like clouded ceilings. Oh, wow. And skylights and exterior overhangs and open grid ceilings and windows sprinklers. So the intent is to expand on the, the projects so that as we work through the content, we’re constantly referring back to the project. So that at the end of the day, we have a completed project with as much of the content built into it as possible.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. It’s interesting moving; you’re going to the hybrid model where it’s self-paced, then essentially e, I would call e-learning or, you know, e-learning, whatever, and then in person. So I would feel that that, you know, especially in that middle section, you know, obviously handcuffed at the end, Right? Proving that out and making sure you have that basis of knowledge. But just in the middle part, you’d be able to; you’d be able to use your, you know, your CAD programs, your Revit programs a little easier than you would in person. Right. Cuz you’ll, you’ll have that computer, you know, accessible while they’re doing that.

Mike Joanis:

Yeah. And I think the other thing that the computer has helped with, and one thing about doing it virtually, you know, online like we’re doing this, this podcast today, is that you know, you can really start to throw a lot of other resource learning resources at the students. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, for example, we started, you know, we would, we used just to throw the PowerPoint up, right? Right. And just everything we wanted was in the PowerPoint. But for example, nowadays, instead of cutting and pasting the Beam rule, Yeah. Or creating the Beam rule in the PowerPoint, we’re just jumping in and out of the standard. So, you know, we have the standard, you know, we have NFPA 13 electronically up on the computer to share the students have resources to either the freelink or their own versions. Um, you know, we even take sections of the layout technician handbook. And what we can do when we’re doing it electronically is just jumping in and out of things. We can jump in and out of the codes and standards and jump back into the resources we can, you know, uh, for example, you know, all the drawings for ponchos that we’ve added a whole bunch of sections and elevation views and being on the computer all the time allows people to get in and out of those student resources a lot easier.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. I see that when I do a lot of demos for Inspect Point, there’s like a minimal part: the presentation versus just going live. You’re on your computer, you can go in and out of the software platform, and you can go in and out of the code. So it’s more, I think it’s a little bit more real-life than the standard PowerPoint. Right. So mm-hmm.

Mike Joanis:

<affirmative>. Yeah, it’s been helpful. And again, a lot of the layout technician class, you know,   I’ve been doing this a long time. You’ve been doing sprinklers for a long time. I don’t know everything there is to know, but I will tell you what I did learn very early on was I learned how to read codes and standards, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I learned how to get into the appropriate codes, the right additions, the right references to the right standards, and just learning, you know, how to manipulate that information. You’re never gonna walk away from a two-week class knowing all the sprinkler obstructions to reach the hazard. You know, it’s just not gonna happen. Sure. But knowing where, how to find it, and what section you need to be in. Those are the aha moments I see with the students in the class. Somebody told me once something about something and, you know, they, that’s what they’ve been going on is what, someone said to them in passing. And then it’s like the aha moment is when they find it and put their finger on it, you know, where it comes from in the coder stand.

Drew Slocum:

Right. Right. Yeah. And pointing that out. No, it’s interesting. This is still new. If you did a really intense two-week session before, this has to be extra. You’ll be able to retain a lot more of the knowledge, I feel like if you’re spreading it out over X amount of time. Right. Cuz if you’re, if you’re going at it for two weeks, you’re gonna remember it probably for another four weeks, and then you’ll probably forget a lot of that. But with it expanding out in the different sessions, knowledge is retained a lot easier.

Mike Joanis:

The other thing we’re focusing on is being able to pace the class and the content a little differently for different folks. We get folks in the layout technician class that it’s their first day ever doing sprinklers. They, you know, were, literally could have been working at a grocery store. <affirmative> and their friend of, a friend of a friend, and they will learn how to be a sprinkler designer. And then other folks have been doing it for years. But I think when we spread it out and break it up a bit and have the different deliveries, even with the self-paced e-learning modules, you know, that’s gonna include, um, instructor, uh, support, you know, sessions. So if you’re someone that knows the stuff pretty well, or you know, a particular piece of it, well, you could breeze through it, but there’ll be other times where people will be able to slow down, digest it, reach out to the instructors, you know, go back into the textbook and, and reread something.

So yes, you’re right. That’ll help rather than trying to jam it down everybody’s throat in two weeks. But again, when you’re asking somebody to travel, you know, you’re asking somebody to travel to Chicago. Right. You know, that’s what happens when we’re doing it that way. One of the advantages is not having to travel for the whole thing.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. Now the attendance will likely increase. You said there are different levels. So do you have to go all the way through? Or can you do the first two pieces? I mean, you want everybody to go through it. Yeah.

Mike Joanis:

Yeah. Right now, the intent is to set it up as it’s a complete package with the three pieces of the class. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the e-learning modules, the virtual, and then the in-person. Obviously Yes. Once we get that up and running, there’s an opportunity for us to separate it. And one of the thoughts was to take some of that content and offer it to folks in the sprinkler business, but may not be designers. Right. Right. So there may be folks, for example, a purchasing agent or a, you know, someone who works in the shop. It’s amazing to me, being an NFSA for the past few years, there’s a lot of folks in our industry that don’t get everything that we do, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> as, as, as what, like how would we affect people’s lives?

It’s incredible how many times you’ll do a side-by-side, and some guy will come up to me and be, you know, I’ve been a sprinkler fitter for 20 years, and I’ve never seen a sprinkler put a fire out <laugh>. There is the idea that we’ll be able to take that apart a little bit once, once we get it all put together for the purpose of the layout technician. And I think, yes, we’ll go back and look at, um, look at rearranging it a little bit so folks can have an introductory course be exposed to it. Um, you know, things purchasing people shop can get, can get the experience and learn a little bit about what a lay layout technician does, how sprinklers work. But to your point, not having to go through the whole Yeah. Um, physically laying things out and, um, doing,  friction loss

Drew Slocum:

Equations. Yeah. No, exactly. And sales there’s a lot of different people throughout the company, sales folks. Yeah. Like a light version that they, that they can take, you know, and have a certification for. They’re not gonna have to, you know, not everybody can do a hydraulic calc, right. So, um,

Mike Joanis:

<laugh>, right. And in the same light, Drew, the other piece would be to take, take it to the next level and have, you know, an advanced option or a  second option. And quite frankly, if you get all the way to the end goal of where we’re trying to get to, we’re trying to get to a point where folks can come to N Fs a and select and, and manage a, a learning path for, you know, where they are today and where they want to go. And to your point, this type of content can kind of be used in many different ways depending on what people’s paths are.

Drew Slocum :

Yeah, yeah. I can see the light, and I can see it, you know, really ramping up. When do you plan on really getting into it and having the first sessions open?

Mike Joanis:

Right. So registration’s gonna open up on March 14th. Okay. So I’m like, oh boy. Not until March 14th, but now I realize it’s like

Drew Slocum:

The next week now, right?

Mike Joanis:

So yes, next week. So we’re gonna have the registration for it open next week, once that opens. The first e-learning modules and all that stuff, I believe is gonna be all rolled out in May. And then that’s when we’ll start rolling, and we’ll get a little bit of a delay, and then we’ll start scheduling the in-person pieces and everything else. I’m sure the first in-person piece or two will be at headquartered in Maryland, but then we’ll start moving ’em around the country. I know we’re trying to do one up here. We’re trying to do one in Connecticut. Oh, yeah. So we’ll see if we can find a good spot in Connecticut and Florida. We’re hoping to have four or five in-person opportunities once it’s rolled out. Between then and the end of the year.

Drew Slocum:

Wow. I see this being very successful, and I’m really hoping that, and we chatted about this the other day; inspection, testing, and maintenance are near and dear to my heart. With the Inspect Point platform and everything,  and there’s been a lot of focus on it the last few years with just companies, you know, really moving into that. And NFPA 25 is a beast. So an NFSA has always done a tremendous job, Jeff, Hugo, and Vince Powers and all that handling the ITM piece. I would love for them to fit this model into that, you know, maybe  six months a year down the road, because that is a little bit more hands-on, but there’s a lot of code to it. So that hybrid model approach would really work well and don’t do that one or two week, drag it on over, you know, a few month timeframe. You know, you, you’re setting the, you’re setting the, uh, template for, for other parts of the business too.

Mike Joanis:

Yeah. I’m <laugh> when we did this, we’re like, okay, well, you know, we’re taking on the biggest and toughest of the offerings that we have. Right. It’s the most popular amongst our members. It’s the most expensive among our members. It’s a big class, and it’s a big deal. It’s a ton of content. But to your point, yes, we would look to follow this model through a lot of the other things that we offer. One of the things about NFSA is there’s just tons, if you ever take the time to look on our website at the content that we have and all the different classes we have in the, in the catalog, there is a ton of stuff in there. And we have a great base to work from.

And it’s updating, changing the way we deliver it, finding other ways to engage students, being project-based, you know, to the ITM piece, being as hands on as we can possibly be. It engages the students. And we do a new class for sales folks and estimators. We’ve done it a few times, and by the time we get to the end, they’re yelling at me and I’m yelling at them, and we’re going at it!   Let’s get the best and final price from this group and pit ’em against each other to try to get the job.

Drew Slocum:

And That’s great!

Mike Joanis:

Great. The class, the project we do in class, all that stuff is good. It’s, you know, I’m a sprinkler person, Drew; this is not my cup of tea. We have Evan, in our office now that’s pushing a lot of that stuff. And as a legitimate learning and development person. That’s right. Helping us, change the way we do a lot of this stuff.

Drew Slocum):

No, that’s good. What software platform are you using for the LMS or learning management system?  Is there a specific software or are you just doing like Zoom?

Mike Joanis:

For the classes, we’ve been doing Microsoft Teams. Okay. We’re looking to change  that and go to an Adobe format. We were using Moodle, but I think we’re gonna move away from Moodle. I don’t know exactly what we’re headed to. Yeah. But, we have been fooling around with a couple different platforms. The goal is always the same is- to make all those, for example, that estimated class, there’s like, you know, 30 different resources we’re giving these students. Wow. So the goal, the goal is to just make it as easy for them to manage the class

Drew Slocum:

Right, right. Yeah. And there are many different options, but to have that all in one place, I didn’t know Adobe did that. That’s interesting to see what it will be.

Mike Joanis):

Yeah. The other thing we’re working on with this class is redoing the textbook. So when you look at the different formats, this textbook will also be electronically available. So, again, NFSA for many, many years has had books and textbooks and white papers and all kinds of other things. And like everybody else, we need help offering all that content electronically. We’re very close to doing that. So with this layout technician class will come a new textbook that will have electronically and be based on the 2022 edition of N F P A 13. So.

Drew Slocum:

Gotcha.

Mike Joanis:

Some people tell me, what do you mean, Mike? There’s a 2022 edition already. It’s like, oh, yeah, there is.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

Mike Joanis:

It came out in 2021.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. And most jurisdictions won’t be on it for five years, too, but hey, you have to learn on the newer editions. Right?

Mike Joanis:

Well, there’s good tricks and trades in there. As a sprinkler contractor, I’m always like, Hey, wait a minute, they finally addressed this issue. <laugh>, I know I’m on the 2010 edition, but I can talk to the authority, having jurisdiction, and say, Hey, they didn’t really deal with this back then, and now they’re dealing with it. So here’s some good information.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. And if you can highlight that to the AHJ, that’s super helpful. And get their buy-in of why it’s happening.

Mike Joanis:

Well, yeah. We all know that, we talked about it earlier, the regulatory matrix of codes and standards, and if you’re jurisdictions on 2010,  that’s where you are. But, <laugh>, you know, there are, there are opportunities, there’s plenty of things in 13 that are, I mean, for example, if you’re already back in, if you’re all the way back that far, you may not even have the cloud ceiling

Drew Slocum:

Rules. Yeah, I was gonna say, cloud ceilings, I think that’s more recent in the last two or three. Yeah,

Mike Joanis:

Yeah. So there’s always a lot of good, you get it. You can’t pick and choose, but sometimes when there’s new material, it works.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. Sso great learning management platform is coming out for the layout. I think that’s really exciting. And,  we’ll get this episode out, so you get people signed up. What else is the NFSA up to? I know the National Expo and conference is set for the end of September, which I’m speaking at. I think it’s been delayed a few times, but I’m set to speak at that, in late September. Is there anything else the NFSA is kind of working, working on this year?

Mike Joanis:

Yeah. We canceled the expo in Vegas, and then we had some issues with getting it rescheduled, but it is rescheduled for Clearwater Beach. Nice, at the Sheridan, San Key and Clearwater Beach, which is near Tampa for September 28th and 29th. We’ve been to that facility, you know, several times for board meetings and everything else. It’s a great spot. I will be on the agenda for that conference for some research that we’re doing.

We did a little bit of research in Pleasant View, Tennessee, last May, and tomorrow I’m going to EKU and we’re gonna keep going with that research. So that’s, what I’ll get to present at the expo, which is a big initiative for NFSA right now, especially on the technical side, is getting some research back up and running.

Not necessarily lighting fires always, but I like to do that. <laugh>. So just these first few ones were actually lighting some stuff on fire, that’s cool. But it’ll be data collection and all kinds of other things. So that’s a big thing for us this year,  on the federal legislative side, depending, you know,  regardless of your politics, there’s a lot of federal spending coming out on infrastructure HUD housing, and,  regardless of, of where you are politically, we’re working really hard to make sure this stuff includes the opportunity to include sprinkler protection in that spending. So if the federal government’s gonna spend the money, right, we want to make sure that it includes the opportunity to upgrade existing HUD housing and things like affordable housing and everything else that it includes the ability to spend that money on sprinkler protection. So yeah, that’s been a big one.

Drew Slocum:

I know, uh, sorry to interrupt. Shane Ray, We had a New York contractors Association meeting last week. And there have been some big fires in the Northeast and Philadelphia and New York, and they’re looking at some different retrofit opportunities in New York.  Sean Pierce for  Lubrizol actually worked with Shane Ray a little bit to call the FDNY, to say we have this opportunity to do some of this retrofit and low-income housing. It’s never been done before. Let’s just try it. So they’re on the way to doing that. And Shane was a big part of that, helping us there. And they’re trying to retrofit the place the fire was at in the Bronx with sprinklers in the actual suites in the units, which has never been done before in New York. So NFSA has been a big part of that. And, obviously have experience with Retrofit as well.

Mike Joanis:

Yeah. I mean, traditionally, as an association as an industry, you know, mostly based on the  NFPA 13 premise, we’ve always been, all or nothing. Yep. Fully sprinkler. We know that it costs money, it takes time. Retrofit’s a tough animal. We’ve been talking about, you know,  Systems and Dorothy May systems and all kinds of other, I’m gonna call ’em, uh, phased approaches. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we don’t like to call ’em partial sprinkler systems, but, you know, we do understand that there’s, a need to phase in some of these projects and some of that phasing could be years, could be, five, ten years. I mean, we want the end goal to get buildings, as, you know, as fully sprinklered as we can.

But we, we recognize that, and quite frankly, last week at our board meeting, we put together an ENS task group to start looking at, how we could have a guide, or how NFPA 13 could address, that kind of phased approach mm-hmm. <affirmative> and as a, from an installation standard perspective, right. We know that the requirements and the allowances would come from the building code or the fire code, most likely the fire code in this case for retrofit. But, standards wise, as an installation standard, should we be addressing this and should we be getting off our high and mighty hill that we stand on that Everett has to be a hundred percent sprinkled or,  nothing. So,  yeah. That’  a good movement.

That’s a good piece. Yeah. NFPA 13 is actually starting its cycle again; believe it or not, we’re in the process of putting together the first draft public inputs for the next edition. It’s a never ending cycle. Jeff Hugo likes to tout that we have  85, staff members and members that serve on over 250,  codes and standards committees. So, wow. Yeah, it’s, when you hear it,  it’s a lot of work that we put into that. There’s about 10 or 12 staff members that are included in that, but the rest are our regular, you know, NFSA members that step up to the plate and serve on these codes and standards committees.  One of the things coming  a few years ago is how far and wide the NFSA tentacles reach, you know, you’ve mentioned Shane a few times, but anytime you need to know someone who knows someone who knows someone, uou pick up the phone and call Shane or Vicky and,

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

Mike Joanis:

It’s one of the strengths of our association.

Drew Slocum:

It is far-reaching, I think it was the first association in my fire protection career that I was a part of the NFSA. And you know, just going to the local chapter meetings, you learned a lot. You learned who to talk to when you had an issue.  I was in sales, so I kind of figured out who was who.  I was in the New York metro area, which is,  NFSA was always essentially started there, right. So,  <affirmative>, it’s always been, a great base of knowledge. I think I’ve been through a few classes as well, with them. And yeah, there’s just a lot of good momentum moving forward with the associations and just overall. Any industry, had a tough time through in the last couple years, just, just adapting to the changes and moving things virtualyl. And, I think everybody’s done a good job and we’re kind of coming out of that now and yeah, real excited to see everybody again in September.

Mike Joanis:

Yeah, it’s been good. The last couple years were tough, but I’ll tell you, we were probably pretty uniquely set up that we were already remote to some extent. Yep. So, yep. It ended up working out real well and  kind of Shane would say, not missing a beat and just continuing to move forward and not slow down. So,

Drew Slocum:

So, we’ll wrap it up here in a second. I’ve got a few, well, I don’t know if you’ve heard any of my other episodes, but I have something called the quick response round  <laugh> that you don’t know what’s coming. And I actually had to think these up <laugh> over the last few days. So, we’ll start easy. Let’s see. What is the wildest, craziest system you have ever designed in your career? Like, it could be a daily system, it could be a facility, or whatever. I love to hear it; you have a lot of experience.

Mike Joanis:

The craziest thing I think I’ve ever done was  I helped sell a 5.5 million sprinkler job, which was a retrofit of a DC to AC power conversion station. The facility was built redundant, literally with a fence line right down the middle with a DC to AC converter on one side and on the other. And then all the 13 eight KV8 transformers, the DC power came down from Hudson Bay in Canada. They converted it to AC, and I guess there’s a reason why they transmit DC power long distance. I don’t know. Again, 280,000-gallon tank, four fire pumps, pump house, 27 deluge systems on the transformers, you know, short windows of time for them to do shutdowns and for us to get in and out. But the interesting part about it was we were going there for a D scope and, and we walked the facility and they had a complete spare transformer, off in a safe spot on the site where you were safe, meaning you could just walk up to it whenever you wanted to.

Right. And didn’t require it. So we went into the D scope and I said, Hey, look as part of our submittal and permitting process, we’re gonna completely build a functioning deluge system on your spare transformer.

Drew Slocum:

Boy.

Mike Joanis:

And that’ll be part of our submittal process and our review and approval. It’ll allow us to troubleshoot everything. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, get all the pieces parts ready, and we will have one under our belt before you shut your power down on half of your site here. And we come in and try to do three transformers in two weeks. So, when we’re done, we’ll disassemble it and give it to you for spare parts. But, yeah, that was crazy. That was absolutely crazy.

Drew Slocum (40:17):

Yeah. Dealer systems are always fun, especially on the power side. And then you get to test them, which is, <laugh> that’s even better, right? <laugh>.

Mike Joanis:

Yeah. Testing those was close to the  Triple F overhead deluge systems I was doing for the Navy when I first came outta college. I say those are the, probably the two when, you know, when you have systems doing 8 –  9,000 gallons a minute with you know, 12, 2500 GM diesel pumps in series coming out of a pond, and you light that bad boy off and the ground starts to move.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. Right. Better have the right detection method there. You don’t want that thing going off <laugh>.

Mike Joanis:

Well, yeah. I mean, the overhead deluge foams are gone now because they did so many false discharges versus actual

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

Mike Joanis:

You know, you start seeing the, the nozzles that pop up out the floor, and Yeah. All the stuff that’s more underwing now.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. The great nozzles and stuff. And there are a lot of changes coming there with what’s going on. Um mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, um, how long have you been in New England, Mike?

Mike Joanis:

I grew up in Clinton, Connecticut. That firehouse that sits over my corner when I’m on the camera is in Clinton, Connecticut. The story was, Boy Scouts 12 years old, flipped the bus over. I’m a victim. Oh man. My dad’s part of the Boy Scouts. We learn about being a volunteer firefighter, blah, blah, blah, driving down the street one day in a 1975 Suffolk Tower ladder. The guy driving is the fire marshal at Yale University Uhhuh. And he’s explaining  to me how he’s going to school to get his master’s degree in fire protection engineering from WPIi. Yep. So, put the two things together. So I’ve been in Connecticut, then Maryland for school, California a little bit, and then back to New England. So I’ve been in New England my whole life.

Drew Slocum:

Wow. Okay. And I just recently came up here about three years ago.  I’m getting to a question. What up with people from New Hampshire? Like, you got people from Vermont, people from Maine, I mean, Maine, you know, Mainers are a little weird lol. Connecticut, Rhode Island, everybody’s got their little, you know, things. But  New Hampshire is in its own little category. Right. <laugh>.

Mike Joanis:

Amen to that. That’s the way we like it. <laugh>, live free, live free or die. You don’t have to wear a helmet. You don’t have to wear your seatbelt. You know, we don’t have any laws for anything. The state doesn’t have any income for Christ’s sake. We don’t, you know, barely make any money. No state income tax, no sales tax. And the state doesn’t have a pot to piss in to spend any money on. So yeah, it’s definitely a different place, but you have to buy your alcohol from the state. So there you go. As deregulated as we are in most other areas, the liquor is not. That’s funny. And being here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, it’s coming. I know it’s coming again. It’s that four-year cycle of having all those presidential candidates again here. It’s,

Drew Slocum:

Uh, oh, that’s funny. Right? Yeah. They start there.

Mike Joanis:

New Hampshire. Oh, it’s funny, the New Hampshire thing. You cannot go to the grocery store or the coffee shop, you know, when they’re in season around here. It’s just a funny way we do things and, uh,

Drew Slocum:

<laugh>, good mix of America. Right. And so they do it.

Mike Joanis:

I guess it’s very provincial, but today’s a big day in New Hampshire. It’s voting day. All the little cities in New Hampshire vote at town meetings.

Drew Slocum:

I didn’t know that. Wow. Today, so, wow. Yeah. And, in March. Wow.

Mike Joanis:

Luckily, I live in a city, so we don’t vote today, but all the towns vote today.

Drew Slocum:

The towns.

Mike Joanis:

Oh, that’s, it’s the same. It’s New Hampshire, man. You can stand up at the podium and say; I make an amendment to the budget to cut out, you know, to cut out the, the plow trucks. So I don’t want plow trucks anymore.

Drew Slocum:

<laugh>. And they have to listen to you, right,

Mike Joanis:

<laugh>. And they have, yeah. And if you get your friend, if you get enough of your friends to come with you, that’s the way it works.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, that’s great.

Mike Joanis:

The Cloud truck’s right out of the budget. <laugh>.

Drew Slocum:

That’s great. <laugh>.

Well, we’ll end on that note. Mike, thanks for coming on the podcast today. Where, where do we find you? Where do we find anything on NFSA, for anybody looking to get involved.

Mike Joanis:

So it’s pretty simple. It’s just nfsa.org. It comes right up. The learning and development site is right there as a tab on the top. And this layout technician class, for the new rollout, of the new program is gonna start on March 14th. About a week from today, that’ll be up on the website on the learning development page.

Drew Slocum:

Great. Yep. And, hopefully, see everybody, whoever’s an NFSA member, if you’re not get there to Clearwater Beach,  the NFSA expo is always a good time.

Mike Joanis:

Yeah. And folks that are listening, if your company’s a member of NFSA, it’s pretty easy to go on the website and register. Just putting it in that you’re part of a company that’s a member, and if you’re not if you’re individuals, it’s really short money for what you get for the value. So take a look if it works for you or you’re already a member, or you’re already a member company, get in there and get registered.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. And when Inspect Point starters up, NFSA really worked with us and got us on as members, and it was very beneficial, even as a startup company to be members. And, thank you again for all the work you guys do.

Mike Joanis:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Drew Slocum

Yep. Thanks, Mike.

This was episode 40 of the Fire Protection Podcast powered by Inspect Point. I want to thank Mike Joanis again for coming on to discuss all things NFSA, specifically some of the new learning platforms they’re launching this year and into the future. The NFSA has been a big part of my professional career. I recommend anybody to get involved with their local chapter or even at the national level.  Thanks again for listening to the podcast. And remember, if you’re looking at inspection software, reference that you’re an NFSA member if you’re taking a peek. See you again soon. Thanks.