Speakers

Speakers

Magnus Arvidson

Magnus Arvidson is a Fire Protection Engineer working at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden since 1991. He served as a member in the NFPA 750 technical committee on water mist fire protection systems from 1993 to 2000, has been active in the Sub-Committee on Fire-Protection at the International Maritime Organization, and has been involved in a technical committee at CEN developing standards for water mist systems. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the International Water Mist Association.

Wes Baker

Wes Baker is a Senior Engineering Technical Specialist in the Chief Engineers Group at FM Global. He is a member of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers and an NFPA member serving on both the NFPA 13 Installation and NFPA 13 Discharge committees. He has been with FM Global for 37 years and is currently responsible for data sheets related to the protection of storage, as well as the installation guidelines for sprinklers that are used for storage protection. He has received the William M. Carey award and Special Achievement Award from NFPA for his contributions to sprinkler standards.

Simon Barratt

Simon Barratt is the Foam Product Manager for Viking EMEA. He has over 27 years of fire protection experience. Simon began his career at Central Spraysafe, a sprinkler manufacturer. At Viking he has held sales roles that also encompassed marketing and technical support for the UK and Ireland. In EMEA he is responsible for the internal organization of sales, marketing, technical support, R&D and certification of Viking’s expanding line of fixed fire protection foam products. He is a member of the NFPA11 and NFPA409 committees.

Volker Bechtloff

Volker Bechtloff has a degree and PhD in Economics from the University of Münster in Germany. He began his professional career at ABB in 1994 and soon became a branch manager for Building Services at ABB Building Technology Ltd. It was in this position that he first developed an interest in the Building Services and Facility Management business. In 1999 he began working for Schindler elevators, rising to become Managing Director of Schindler Germany. In 2003 he was invited to join Minimax as Chief Operating Officer, where he led an overhaul of the Service and Maintenance business. Following the merger with The Viking Corporation in 2009, Volker was appointed CEO of Minimax and a Managing Director at Minimax Viking GmbH.

Simon Bird

Simon began his career designing and manufacturing bespoke optoelectronics test and measure equipment for the telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries. He then became Head of Fire Suppression (responsible for product testing and certification) at the BRE Global / Loss Prevention Certification Board. Simon next joined the FPA (Fire Protection Association) where he was lead author of the LPC Rules for Automatic Sprinkler Installations and was responsible for various testing and research projects. In 2018 Simon founded Fixed Firefighting Systems Bureau, a specialist engineering consultancy firm. Simon serves on several British and European Standards committees and is chair of the IFE (Institution of Fire Engineers) Special Interest Group for Fixed Firefighting Systems.

Alan Brinson

Alan is the Executive Director of the European Fire Sprinkler Network. He has a degree from Cambridge in chemical engineering and first worked as a research process engineer for Shell and Proctor & Gamble before joining Tyco in 1992. With Tyco he held a series of European fire protection business and product management roles, culminating in responsibility for the European sprinkler components business. In 2003 Alan left Tyco and set up the EFSN. For the past 19 years he has led and participated in successful sprinkler campaigns in many European countries, working with EFSN members, fire chiefs and officials to ensure that new buildings are fitted with sprinklers. Alan is an active member of fire safety standards and regulatory committees for BSI, CEN and NFPA.

Piergiacomo Cancelliere

Piergiacomo Cancelliere has a degree in Electrical Engineering and PhD in Electrical Energy Conversion. He began his career in 1998 working in industrial automation for ABB SACE. From 2001 to 2006 he was a research assistant in electrical machines and drives at the University of Cassino. He joined the Italian National Fire Service (C.N.VV.F.) in 2006. Following a period in the command of the Fire Brigade of Frosinone, from 2011 to 2018 he served at the Central Directorate for Fire Prevention and Technical Safety, following the qualification and certification of fire products and fire protection systems. He represented the C.N.VV.F. for fire safety aspects relating to the Construction Products Regulation. Piergiacomo is a member of UNI and CEI Italian technical standards bodies and contributed to the development of the Italian Fire Prevention Code. From 2018 to 2020 he was deputy commander of the Italian Fire Academy in Rome, responsible for training courses for the executive and managerial staff of the C.N.VV.F. In 2021 he became Commander of the Rimini Fire Brigade.

Gaetano Coppola

Gaetano is the Managing Director of Jensen Hughes srl. He is based in Milan and responsible for operations across Europe and North Africa. Gaetano is a member of the SFPE and of its Italian Chapter A.I.I.A. – Associazione Italiana Ingegneria Antincendio. Within UNI, the Italian standardization body, Gaetano is a member of committees for Active Fire Protection Systems, water-based fire protection systems and cultural heritage. Within CEN he is a member of the sprinkler working group and is the Technical Committee 191 (Fixed Firefighting Systems) liaison to TC 346 (Conservation of Cultural Heritage).

Knut Czepuck

Knut Czepuck is Ministerial Adviser in the Ministry for Homeland, Municipal Affairs, Building and Equal Opportunities of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, responsible for building inspection issues with technical building equipment. In addition, he is the chairman of the technical building equipment working group of the Building Supervision Commission of the Conference of State Ministers and Senators responsible for urban planning, building and housing (ARGEBAU) and is active in various expert committees and regulatory committees (e.g. DIN, VDI). Knut previously held various positions in the state building administration of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, most recently Building and Property Management (BLB).

Benjamin Ditch

Benjamin Ditch is a Senior Lead Research Engineer at FM Global and has a MSc. in Fire Protection Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester MA, USA.  He is the Technical Team Leader of the Large-Scale Fires Team with 22 years of experience in fire hazard analysis and special fire protection system design. Ben is responsible for the development and implementation of large-scale testing, including for special hazards such as ignitable liquids, non-standard storage, and emerging technologies. His current research includes the protection of automatic storage and retrieval systems, energy storage systems, and lithium-ion batteries.

Witali Engelhardt

Witali Engelhardt is the Manager for FM Approvals in Europe. Based in Frankfurt, he plans and develops relationship with local manufacturers in Europe regarding FM Approvals’ testing and certification capabilities. Witali is a mechanical engineer with a degree from the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, Germany.

Russ Fleming

A past president of the National Fire Sprinkler Association (NFSA) in the U.S., Russ Fleming retired from that organization in 2017 but continued to serve as the part-time Managing Director of the International Fire Suppression Alliance (IFSA) until 2020, where he is now completing his service as a part-time Technical Director. With bachelors and masters degrees in civil engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he was hired by NFSA as its first staff engineer in 1975, serving on more than a dozen NFPA technical committees, as chair of the NFPA Standards Council, and on the boards of both the NFPA and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, while also completing research projects both for NFSA and for outside organizations, including the U.S. Fire Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Francisco Garcia

A chemical engineer by background, Francisco joined Marioff (Carrier Corporation) in 2011 after working for several multinationals such as GE Plastics and Arkema. He started as Account Manager in the Marioff Spain office to later develop the Latin American market as Sales Manager, contracting and managing the distribution network in the different countries of the region. He currently holds the position of Global Market Manager for High-Rise Building and Hospitality and reports to Marioff Corporation in Finland.

Chris Gill

Chris is the Product Manager for Water products for Viking in the EMEA region. He has a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering with Environmental Technology. He began his career over 20 years ago working for the Loss Prevention Council (LPC) in the UK, conducting sprinkler research projects to support the LPC Sprinkler Rules. He later moved to the LPCB where he managed active fire protection equipment approvals for sprinklers, gas systems, fire extinguishers and hose reel testing and certification. Chris joined Viking in 2004. Today he helps end users, insurers and fire authorities find the right fire system solution and ensures Viking has a complete product line for its customers. He is a member of several International and European standards committees on water, foam and powder systems and participates in many active fire protection associations.

Ingunn Haraldseid

Is a Product Specialist Fire and Safety within the warehouse robotics company AutoStore. Her main focus within the company is research and fire testing as well as product safety and support to partners and customers in fire related matters. Ingunn has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering with a specialization in process chemistry and a master’s degree in Technical Safety. Before joining Autostore, she was a PhD Candidate at HVL researching smouldering fires.

Jeff Hebenstreit

Jeff is a Principal Engineer and a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at UL specializing in water-based fire suppression products.  During his 20-year career, he has been involved with a variety of UL’s testing and certification activities serving on numerous technical committees.  He is a member of the National Fire Protection Association and a member of several NFPA Technical Committees including Sprinkler System Installation Criteria, Hanging and Bracing of Water Based Fire Protection Systems, Private Water Supply Piping Systems, and Installation of Standpipe and Hose Systems.  Jeff obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Bo Hjorth

Bo is the principal of Swedish fire protection inspection and advisory company AlbaCon AB. He has more than 40 years of experience from the field of fixed suppression systems, especially of the fire sprinkler kind. Bo is the Swedish representative in CEN WG5 and WG10 since the mid-1990s, as well as chairperson of the Swedish mirror committee for CEN and ISO-standards for suppression systems. He is a member of the NFPA 13 AUT-SSD committee since 2005. Bo has experience from sprinkler review and inspection services in more than 20 countries outside Sweden, in Europe, Asia and Central America.

Johan Hoogeweg

Johan has a degree in structural engineering and began his career as a fire safety officer in the Dutch fire brigade. Since 2006 he has been an independent fire safety consultant, developing strategies for complex buildings. He specialises in fire safety systems and has published papers on third-party certification and the use of sprinklers to reduce structural fire protection demands.

Jeffrey Hoppenbrouwers

Jeffrey is the Commercial Director at Unica Fire Safety, responsible for sales and marketing at Unica Fire Safety, Boele Fire Protection, Gerco and Applicom to the active and passive fire protection markets in The Netherlands. He joined Unica in 2016 and has worked in sales and marketing roles for sprinkler, water mist and fire detection systems. Jeffrey holds a degree in Architecture and a Master of Science in Management of the Built Environment from the Technical University of Delft and a post-graduate degree in Fire Safety Engineering from the Institute of Physical Safety.

Gary Howe

Gary is Senior Fire Protection Engineer with more than 17 years of fire safety and risk management experience at Zurich Insurance. He is a specialist in fixed fire protection and has extensive experience of the power generation, pharmaceutical, waste to energy, pulp and paper, waste recycling, manufacturing, automated and conventional distribution warehousing, automotive manufacturing, educational, high-rise buildings, and construction sites. Gary undertakes evaluation of fixed fire protection systems in accordance with NFPA standards and LPC rules incorporating BS EN12845. He assesses sprinkler systems, water mist, gaseous systems, kitchen extinguishing and automatic fire detection systems.

Paul Jennings

Paul joined London Fire Brigade in 1990, starting as a firefighter in Croydon. After several promotions and working in other South London fire stations and Brigade headquarters he became a Station Manager in 2007. In 2010 Paul became a Group Manager in Central Operations, responsible for the coordination of delivering the frontline services from the 103 fire stations and leading projects to rebuild nine fire stations and replace respiratory protection equipment. He became Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Fire Safety in 2016 and a year later Area Commander for South East London, where he was responsible for 26 operational fire stations and 1000 frontline staff. In 2020 he was promoted to Assistant Commissioner, leading the Fire Safety department of 450 staff and 300 volunteers. He led the LFB response at recent high-profile incidents, including the terrorist attack at Fishmongers Hall and the large fires at Worcester Park and Shurgard, Croydon.

Henrik Johansson

Henrik Johansson has been working in the fire protection industry since 1987 and started his career at JCI in 1992. During his 30 years at JCI Henrik has held the roles of Sales Manager in the Nordic Territory and 10 years as Managing Director of the Prefabrication plant in Sweden. For the last 10 years he has been the Business Development Manager Water for the Nordic Territory. Henrik is a member of TC 191 WG 5 TG2 representing NS – Norway.

Daniel Joyeux

Karim Karzazi

Karim Karzazi is head of the technical department at AXA XL Risk Consultants. He has been involved in the development of European standards for over 20 years. He is the convenor of the CEN task group drafting changes to the European sprinkler installation standard EN 12845, of the supervisory CEN working group which sets priorities for all the CEN sprinkler standards task groups, and of the working group which writes the European insurance sprinkler installation rule CEA 4001. Karim has a degree in mechanical engineering and is a graduate of the National Institute of Fire Safety, INSSI. Before joining AXA he worked for five years as a loss control manager and sprinkler expert at ALLIANZ AGCS. He began his career at CNPP, rising to become head of the inspection department, where he was also responsible for updates to the French APSAD R1 sprinkler installation rule.

Philippe Kibler

After studying engineering, Philippe was hired by Tyco Fire and Security in 1992. With six colleagues he set up Atlantique Automatismes Incendie in 2001. AAI has become a leading French sprinkler installer and is now part of Groupe SAVE, of which Philippe has been CEO since 2013.

Stewart Kidd

Stewart has worked in security and fire protection since 1974. He now combines consultancy with expert witness assignments. One of his specialities is fire protection of cultural heritage buildings. He is the author of eight books on fire and security topics. Stewart is a member of the Institution of Fire Engineer’s Heritage Special Interest Group and was a member of the NFPA Cultural Resources Committee from 1990 – 2015. He was the Director of the Fire Protection Association from 1989-1997 and is a former Governor of the Institute of Risk Management. He is a former President and now Life Vice President of the Institute of Fire Safety Managers, and Vice President of the Security Institute. He was Secretary General of the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association from 2000-2015.

Amanda Kimball

Amanda is the Executive Director of the Fire Protection Research Foundation, the research affiliate of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). In her role she provides leadership on research initiatives that pertain to fire protection, emergency response, and virtually everything that challenges safety in the built environment. She is also a registered professional fire protection engineer in the state of Massachusetts. Prior to her arrival at the Research Foundation in 2011, she worked for seven years in a consultant capacity for Arup providing insights on fire protection engineering, building code life safety, the design of fire protection systems, and the egress modelling of buildings and subway stations.

Henk-Jan Kooijmans

Henk-Jan Kooijmans is Senior account manager for sprinkler and watermist systems at Unica Fire Safety. He began his career in 1985 as an engineer, project manager and sales representative for sprinkler, water spray and gaseous extinguishing systems at Total Walther, Wormald and Tyco. He joined Unica in 2010 as a sales manager for sprinkler, water mist and fire detection systems. Henk-Jan is a civil engineer and has diplomas in sprinkler systems, gas extinguishing and water mist, and in Fire Safety Engineering from the Institute of Physical Safety.

Rüdiger Kopp

Graeme Leonard

Graeme is Director of Sales (Fire Protection) Europe for Victaulic. He has worked in the fire sprinkler industry for over 25 years for fire protection products manufacturers. He has held roles in Sales, Operations and General Management covering UK, European and Global territories. During that time Graeme has been privileged to sit on the Councils of BAFSA and EFSN and he is a previous Vice Chairman of EFSN.

Stuart Lloyd

Stuart is the Global Practice Leader for Fire Protection at Zurich. He spent 15 years in the active fire protection system industry before joining Zurich UK in 2003. He is a committee member of NFPA 13 (Sprinkler System Discharge Criteria), the EN 12845 working group and the UK’s RISCAuthority LPC rules committee. Beyond sprinklers, he participates in other UK and European fire protection system standards committees, he is a member of BAFSA and EFSN technical committees and the BRE Global fire suppression liaison group. Stuart is also a Zurich representative at NFPA Research Foundation (PIRG) meetings.

Nicolas Lochet

Nicolas is the owner of ELEN risk consulting. He previously worked for 13 years in the insurance industry, lastly as Regional Technical Manager for Allianz in the Mediterranean& Africa, Iberia and LATAM regions. He began his career with seven years in the automotive and fire protection industries. He has an extensive background in risk management issues and specific expertise in ignitable liquids stored in portable containers, Li-ion batteries, automatic storage and retrieval systems, spray dryers and distillery operations. He is an Industrial Engineer and holds an MBA from La Sorbonne.

Allan Macpherson

Allan Macpherson has worked for over 30 years for FM Global in their Loss Prevention Engineering Department. FM Global is the world’s largest commercial and industrial property insurance and risk management organization specializing in property protection. For over 20 years Allan has been the Chief Engineer for their London Operation covering the UK, the Middle East and English-speaking Africa. He works with the Research Department to identify where research or testing is needed, to ensure rapid and consistent application of fire research results and to help in the development of new fire protection standards. He is also responsible for day-to-day technical questions that arise from work with their insured customers. The great majority of his work is concerned with fire and explosion hazards.

William Makant

William is a mechanical engineer with an MBA from Imperial College. He is a co-founder of Plumis, makers of the only electronically controlled residential suppression system. He is also a member of the British Standard committee on water mist and of the UK’s Fire Industry Association’s Extinguishing Council. Prior to that he worked on the combustion development of engines for Ford in Brazil, Germany and the UK.

Jan Nikola

Jan joined VdS in 2019, after studying mechanical engineering and materials science. He mainly provides a service as a fire protection expert in the southwest of Germany. Around May 2020 he was given an assignment to investigate the “hydrogen problem in sprinkler systems”. Since then VdS has been working on this.

Youcef Ouammou

Youcef OUAMMOU has been the EFSN representative in France since 2013. He has a long career in the field of automatic sprinkler systems, beginning as a Design and Control Engineer at CNPP. From there, he joined Vinci Energies and became Technical Director for installations and manager of an international design office. Since the beginning of 2022, Youcef has been the manager of the Prevention Engineering Department of AXA France. He has led large projects both in France (Eiffel Tower, Beaubourg Museum) and abroad (Renault Factory and Danone Factory in Morocco, Baghdad Airport). For more than 10 years he has coordinated a water suppression system training module at the National Fire Officer School. Working with the fire brigades, Youcef has guided the introduction of residential sprinklers in France and helped draft guidance for sprinkler protection of wooden residential buildings.

Alex Palau

Alex is the Water Mist Product Owner for Minimax – Viking Research and Development GmbH, responsible for the technical development of the water mist product roadmap, working closely with the regional product managers to ensure effective management of product lifecycles and competitive intelligence. He has a degree in mechanical engineering and over 20 years of fire protection experience. Alex joined Minimax Viking Research and Development GmbH in 2017. He is an active member of CEN TC191/WG10, the European standardization committee for water mist systems, and was recently appointed as convenor.

Shayne Parker

Shayne has worked for Domestic Sprinklers for two years and is responsible for the company’s operations in Hampshire, Sussex and South London. His first direct role in the Fire Sprinkler industry, he has had to familiarise himself with every aspect, including installation work, design and project management. Within his region he is running major retrofit contracts for Southampton City Council, Wandsworth Council and New Forest Council. Shayne has held senior management positions in computing, data/MIS management, compliance, estates & project management, operations, data protection, health & safety, and fire safety. His most recent prior role was Director of Operations for a group of private schools.

Eike Peltzer

Eike Peltzer studied rescue engineering at the TH Köln (B.Eng.) in Germany and disaster management at Coventry University, UK (M.Sc.). He attended the German national training programme for senior management fire officers. From 2011 to 2021 he was Manager Fire & Rescue Service of the LyondellBasell fire brigade in Germany. Since 2016 he has been chairing the working group on firefighting foam of the Werkfeuerwehrverband Deutschland (German Industrial Fire Brigade Association). Eike is a registered observer to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and as a consultant advises national and European authorities on the transition to fluorine-free foams. He has participated in numerous test projects for testing fluorine-free foam concentrates.

Robert Reinermann

Robert Reinermann is the CEO of VdS and has held this position for 10 years. VdS is a fully-owned subsidiary of the German Insurance Association (GDV), and is one of the leading independent testing and certification institutions in the security and safety market. Robert has a PhD in psychology, an MBA and a degree in management and mechanical engineering. He is a certified systems security professional (CISSP).

Tom Roche

Tom Roche is Assistant Vice President, Senior Consultant within the International Codes and Standards Group for FM Global. Tom works to share FM Global’s knowledge and expertise to influence building codes and loss prevention standards. In the UK he is the Secretary of the Business Sprinkler Alliance, which promotes the use of automatic sprinklers in Industrial and Commercial premises, and is the Active Protection Director within the Fire Sector Federation, where he promotes work on active fire protection systems and supports the review of fire safety regulations. Prior to his current role, Tom served in a variety of engineering and management roles, travelling extensively to support clients across the world. Tom holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in mechanical and electronics engineering from Lancaster University.

Paul E. Sincaglia

Paul Sincaglia, P.E. is the first full-time Managing Director of the International Fire Suppression Alliance, Ltd. (IFSA), a not-for-profit association created to globally promote the use of effective water-based fire protection systems. A fire protection engineering graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, he has over 30 years of experience as a managing design professional, fire ground officer, and code enforcement official. As the leader of the IFSA, his principal objectives are to increase the adoption of water-based suppression as the best and most reliable means of improving fire-related life safety and property protection.

Anna Suwalska

Anna graduated with a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Warsaw University of Technology. Shortly after she joined CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. As a software engineer she participated in and led several projects in the domain of controls and monitoring for the physics and accelerator sectors. PMP certified since 2015 she is currently leading the SPS Fire Sprinkler Protection System project to renovate the sprinkler system in SPS, Super Proton Synchroton, the second largest accelerator at CERN.

Laurens Swennenhuis

Laurens is Vice President Global Business Development at Johnson Controls, JCI. Following his degree in computer chip design and military service, he joined a predecessor of JCI in The Netherlands in 1991. Laurens initially held sales and engineering roles before promotions to run the regional distribution centre, followed by Branch Manager Benelux, Director Operations & Product Management EMEA, Managing Director EMEA and Vice President Global Sales before being appointed to his current role.

Ludger Tegeler

Ludger Tegeler is Operations Chief Engineer of the Frankfurt business of FM Global. He joined the company in 1993 as a consultant engineer for fire and natural hazards, later including boiler and machinery risks with a focus on electrical systems. In  his current role he provides technical guidance for about 80 Risk Engineers and Account Engineers, technical evaluation of protection concepts based on other standards and offers clients customised solutions with the involvement of the Technical and Research Departments. Chief Engineers participate in writing FM Global data sheets. Ludger also participates in the development of the European sprinkler standard, EN12845, as a representative of the DIN mirror committee for TC191. Ludger has an engineering degree in Energy Technology from the Fachhochschule (Polytechnic) Osnabrück, a Bachelor degree in Combined Engineering from Coventry Polytechnic, UK and an MSc in Renewable Energy Systems for Developing Countries from the University of Oldenburg.

Arjan ten Broeke

Arjan works for Johnson Controls as Business Development Manager, representing fire protection products for the region Benelux and the UK.

Piotr Tofilo

Piotr is a lecturer and researcher at the Main School of Fire Brigade in Warsaw, Poland. He completed his PhD at the FireSERT research centre of the Ulster University.  After graduation he joined Ramboll Safe in London where he built on experience as a senior fire engineer working on UK and international fire engineering projects. For several years he has been involved in Polish fire engineering projects. He was a guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He is the current vice president of the Polish SFPE Chapter and the president of the Polish Fire Suppression Systems Foundation.

Ruud van Herpen

Ruud is Professor of building fire safety at Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Fellow in Fire Safety Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology and Technical Director of Nieman Consulting Engineers. He has led fire safety design and research projects for Shell Pernis refinery, Schiphol airport, hospitals, football stadiums, museums, entertainment and retail centres. His research for the Dutch government and Dutch standards body, NEN, has supported the development of Dutch fire safety regulations, building codes and fire engineering standards, including for the Dutch application of the Eurocodes. He is a member of many national and international standards committees.

John van Lierop

John van Lierop has been working for the fire safety industry for over 20 years. As Country Manager Netherlands he is developing the Dutch sprinkler market for EFSN, the Dutch associations United Sprinkler Industry (part of Federatie Veilig Nederland) and the Residential Sprinkler Industry. John chair the Dutch standards committee on fire extinguishing systems, is a member of several Dutch standard committees and working groups and is Secretary of the SFPE Benelux Chapter.

Steven Wolin

Steven Wolin is Vice President, Product Technology & Compliance for The Reliable Automatic Sprinkler Co. Inc. In this role he is primarily responsible for the development of new products at Reliable. He oversees technical services, business development, and industry outreach. Steven is a recipient of awards and medals from the Fire Protection Research Foundation. He is a member of NFPA 13 Sprinkler System Discharge Criteria, NFPA 13D/13R Residential Sprinkler Systems, NFPA 30 Fundamentals of Flammable and Combustible Liquids, and NFPA 30 Storage and Warehousing of Flammable and Combustible Liquids committees. He chairs the NFPA committee on Hazard and Risk of Room Contents and Furnishings and the SFPE Subcommittee for Standards Oversight. Steven is a licensed Professional Engineer in multiple U.S. states. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Fire Protection Engineering and Master of Science from the University of Maryland U.S.A., and a Juris Doctor from St. Louis University, Missouri, U.S.A.

Yibing Xin

Dr. Yibing Xin is currently the Research Group Manager at FM Global. His Fire and Explosion Protection Group conducts both critical problem-solving projects and long-term strategic research programs. Dr. Xin joined FM Global in 2003 and took various research and leadership roles. Over the years he has developed special interests in innovative protection concepts such as SMART sprinkler, automatic water cannon and oxygen reduction systems. He is a member of NFPA, SFPE, IAFSS and ASME, and serves in the NFPA smoke management technical committee.

Johannes Zimmermann

Johannes Zimmermann, Director of Construction Management at SSI Schaefer, has been working in intralogistics for over 15 years. After completing his studies in construction management and civil engineering at the Bauhaus-University in Weimar and the University of Wuerzburg in 1999, he worked as a project manager worldwide for one of the international market-leading companies in the construction industry. Due to his additional qualification as a fire safety specialist, he was also responsible for fire protection. Johannes has been working for SSI Schaefer since 2011, where he initially headed turnkey projects, including fire protection issues, before becoming director of construction management in 2019.