Program Desciption

This program shares the powerful findings of Chief Gasaway’s extensive research on issues related to first responder decision making and flawed situational awareness.  In his review of hundreds of near-miss reports, case studies, line-of-duty death reports and videos he continually found himself being frustrated because there were so many clues, indicators and signs that the incident was going to end in disaster. 

Yet, for some reason, personnel operating at the incident scene – from company officers to incident commanders – could not see it coming.  Or if they did see it coming, they did nothing to alter their course.

In his research to understand why first responders were (seemingly) blind and deaf to what was happening right in front of them, Dr. Gasaway uncovered and investigated over one hundred barriers that can destroy situational awareness and flaw decision making.

This program focuses on some of the most pervasive situational awareness barriers first responders will face while operating in stress-filled, dynamically-changing environments.

Barriers to be explored and discussed will include:

• Pre-arrival lens
• Confabulation
• Mission Myopia
• Mind drift
• Staffing issues
• Cognitive biases
• Normalization of deviance
• Human factors
• Complacency
• The curse of knowledge
• Overconfidence
• Technology
• Miscommunications
• Command location
• Peer and supervisor pressure
• Command support
• Overload
• Fear-driven decisions
• Task fixation
• Culture
• Task saturation
• ... and more

The first 25 to register each day will receive a complimentary copy of Situaitonal Awareness Matters Volume 1 (a $40 value).

(Additional books will be available on check-out and on-site.) 

Register for the one-day event on: 
Friday, August 3, 2018

Register Now! 

Register for the one-day event on:
Saturday, August 4, 2018 

Register Now! 

Richard B. Gasaway is widely considered to be a leading authority on human factors, situational awareness and the decision making processes used in high stress, high consequence work environments.

He served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic, company officer, training officer and fire chief.  His doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience and the human factors that flaw situational awareness and impact high-risk decision making.

Dr. Gasaway has authored 6 books and his contributions on human factors have been featured and referenced in more than 400 publications.

Chief Gasaway has conducted training for NASA, the 
US Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of Defense and every branch of the armed forces including the United States Military Academy and the United States Air Force Academy.

He has conducted situational awareness training for more than 66,000 first responders worldwide including members of the New York City Fire Department’s Incident Management Team, the fire officers associations for Los Angeles City and County Fire Departments and fire brigade members in England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

For more than 20 consecutive years, he has presented at the Fire Department Instructor’s Conference, Fire-Rescue International and the University of Maryland’s National Fire Service Staff and Command School.

You can learn more about Dr. Gasaway and his mission by visiting his websites: www.RichGasaway.com and www.SAMatters.com.