During a visit to the Capital Technical Rescue & Safety Consultants (CTR) facility in Albany, N.Y., I had the opportunity to spend some time with company owner Steve Disick to learn more about their facility.
As a technical rescue fanatic, this is the type of facility that grabs your attention from the time you walk in the door. It is not built around lots of bells and whistles; it is just a very well designed facility with props that provide a safe and challenging environment for the students they train.
When you look to build new or enhance your capabilities within your local training facilities you have to remember a few key elements for your success:
- Build it to last – remember many people will be rotating though the props, so don’t cut corners during construction.
- Put safety at the top of your list – many of your students will have little or no background in some of the skills that you are training them on, so mistakes will happen.
- Incorporate versatility into your props – not every prop can do multiple things but try to maximize those that can to maximize the value of the space you have, and to expand the options for your students.
While we toured the building many questions came to mind related to what motivated them to take on such a large scale project. As we traveled throughout the building we ended up in a very informative question and answer session related to their accomplishments to date.
Duemmel: Steve, your company has been providing specialized training in your region for a number of years. What prompted you to seek out a fixed structure?
Disick: When we set out to find a place to house our scattered equipment we knew that it was imperative to also utilize the space in multiple ways. Our initial priorities were the organizing and inventory of our gear, but we also needed to use the building for in-house training and testing of equipment and rescue techniques.
Manufacturers often give us prototype equipment to test, and our rescue standby teams pre-plan rescues and needed a place to test out the proof of concept. All of this in addition to housing equipment for collapse and trench rescue classes, swift water rescue, live fire training, firefighter survival training and more.
Duemmel: You referenced the building being an open shell when you moved in. What were your initial objectives once you made this a reality?
Disick: The first goal we set was to install pallet racking and shelves, move all of the equipment in and inventory it. The racks and shelves were simple; next we moved all of our gear from several trailers, garages, and storage units. That was the easy part as it turned out. Inventory was a goal all on its own.
Luckily all of us live in the Internet age and through some serious web surfing we found an online solution that we could access from any device with an Internet connection. From my phone I can search our inventory for a particular product, see its location, quantity, serial numbers etc.
Duemmel: Your facility is a vision of efficiency, how did this happen? With a bunch of guys whose primary love is providing training to others while not normally viewed as the office worker type of people.
Disick: The inventory solution we use also had great customer support. They suggested our labeling system and how to get all the info into the system the right way. Over the course of a few weeks our staff came in, organized, labeled, and inventoried everything we own. Turns out we found some pretty awesome gear we had ordered and never used before, since it was so scattered.
Duemmel: What are some of the other benefits of having your equipment so well accounted for?
Disick: In technical rescue, almost all of our gear is life safety rated. There maybe service lives to items that dictate when we must replace them, or manufacturer recalls where we need to pull the equipment from service immediately wherever it may be. This system allows us to respond to these needs in a timely manner.
Duemmel: You have a great group of instructors on your staff. What part did they play in the development of your props?
Disick: Our staff thought about all of the different scenarios we have run into in actual rescues, training classes, and on standby rescue jobs and tried to incorporate all of them into the structure. This process continued to create new ideas and ways to use the spaces that we had never even thought of from the start.
Duemmel: So phase two was to begin the building process for all your props. How was that accomplished?
Disick: Once inventory was finished, we set out to design an indoor confined space rescue simulator and establish anchor points for hanging ropes for climbing, rappelling and systems work. We looked at multiple different simulators and fabricating, everything from wood to full custom metal work. In the end we decided to go with shipping containers as the basic structure.
Duemmel: Even though this is a relatively large building putting up simulators can consume space quickly, how did you design and maximize the building's potential?
Disick: Due to physical space constraints in our building, we opted to go with two 20-foot shipping containers, one which would need to be cut to 16 feet, so we could stand it up on end. We then used the extra four-foot section to bridge a gap between the two containers and create offset openings, including a bottom opening.
Duemmel: Just bringing in the containers was only a portion of the project. What sort of modifications did you have to make in order to provide the level of safety that you promote during all of your training programs?
Disick: Working with our welder, a retired lieutenant from the Albany Fire Department, we realized that some areas of the containers would need reinforcing due to the weights and point loading we would be applying to the structure. Safety was a paramount part of the process and every "confined space" would have a very large opening to either place a victim or mannequin in, or to remove a participant easily should an actual injury or medical problem occur. The "confined space entry" points were all sized the same and structurally reinforced so we could make openings any size, shape or specific type of opening we may come across in the field.
Duemmel: What were some of the other things needing to be accomplished prior to moving forward to the training mode in the building?
Disick: Once we completed the challenge of moving the containers into place, they were leveled and anchored to the floor. OSHA compliant railings, a firefighter bailout window, and industrial ladders, including a caged ladder were installed. This gave us the flexibility of providing realistic training to a range of clients.
Duemmel: You have a number of other props. What are some the additional features you have on site.
Disick: During next phase of growth, the tower prop and hands-on areas of our classroom were installed to maximize on the use of the space.
Duemmel: Steve, you mentioned safety being a priority to you and all of your instructors. What have you done to maximize this aspect of your company?
Disick: An in house rescue pre-plan was created and instructors trained on the pre-plan and it is posted for all to see. The pre-plan could be as simple as moving scaffolding over to where a student is having difficulty, all the way to an instructor having to climb the same set of ropes the student is on and perform a pickoff on those same ropes.
Duemmel: What are some of the services you provide your customers?
Disick: Our company provides a variety of services, centered on all disciplines of technical rescue, including rescue standbys, rope access, technical rescue training, and industrial fire brigade training, and consulting.
Duemmel: How would you sum up your accomplishment to date?
Disick: Certainly we have more to do, and there are still components of the simulator on the plans that we haven’t included yet. We have created hands-on training areas that over 30 students have used simultaneously without interfering with each other while broken up into four to five groups.
You can reach Steve Disick at [email protected].
If you know of a technical rescue training facility that can be featured, please send a note to [email protected].
