David A. Lucht (February 18, 1943 -) is best known as the person who developed and launched the first master of science fire protection engineering degree program in the United States in 1979. He developed and established the first doctoral degree program of its kind in 1991 and the first global distance learning fire protection engineering degree program in 1993. He is the founder and Director Emeritus of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Center for Firesafety Studies (1978-present) and Professor Emeritus of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Earlier in his career, David Lucht had designed and conducted the first residential testing program for battery-powered home smoke detectors. David Lucht wrote the first fire code for the State of Ohio. Ohio Commerce Director James Shaul appointed him to the position Ohio State Fire Marshal in 1974. President Gerald Ford appointed David Lucht, and the United States Senate confirmed him, as the first Deputy Administrator to lead the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration under the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1975. His was the first presidential appointment to the new agency. President Jimmy Carter re-appointed him to the position, where he served until 1978. He stepped down from that position to start the fire safety engineering program at WPI.
Video David A. Lucht
Early years
David Lucht was born February 18, 1943 in Warren Ohio and grew up in Middlefield, Ohio.
Maps David A. Lucht
Family
David Lucht is married to Susannah Baker and has three sons.
Volunteer fireman
At the age of 17, David Lucht began his career in fire safety as a volunteer in a firefighter cadet program offered to the students at Cardinal High School by the Middlefield, Ohio fire department. He was allowed to perform all the duties of a regular fireman except enter burning buildings. Late one October night he was called to a home fire that ultimately took the lives of four children. The home burned to studs and a chimney. David found the remains of the youngest victim while digging through the ashes. He recalled that moment as one of the most memorable of his life, and stated that it influenced the direction of his life's work. Shortly after that experience he applied for, and was awarded, a full four-year scholarship for Fire Protection Engineering Studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology of Chicago. At that time, it was the only fire protection engineering degree program offered in the United States.
Education
David Lucht earned his Bachelor of Science in Fire Protection and Safety Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology of Chicago in 1965. He attended on a full, four-year scholarship from the Western Actuarial Bureau. In 1965, the Chicago chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers recognized Mr. Lucht with its Outstanding Senior Student Award. Mr. Lucht was also elected into the Salamander Honorary Fire Protection Engineering Society in recognition of his high scholastic standing, leadership characteristics and a desire to further the interests of fire protection.
Pilot Research on Installed Residential Smoke Detectors, Ohio State University
During David's junior year of college on November 23, 1963 at 4:45 AM, just 14 hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the deadliest nursing home fire in a decade swept through the Golden Age nursing home in Fitchville, Ohio, United States. The Golden Age Nursing Home fire killed 63 of the facility's 84 residents. Investigators blamed the deaths on faulty wiring and the absence of any evacuation plan. In addition, the telephone wiring had burned before calls to the fire department could be made, and there was no manual fire alarm system. Just five days earlier, a hotel fire in Atlantic City had claimed the lives of 25 people. The Golden Age Nursing Home fire was the second deadliest nursing home fire in American history. The deadliest occurred just six years earlier in Warrenton, Missouri at the Katie Jane Nursing Home, killing 72.
On January 9, 1970, a convalescent home in Marietta, Ohio caught fire, killing 31 of the 46 patients. In the same town on October 10, 1971, a boiler exploded during Sunday school at the First Baptist Church, killing four teenagers and one Bible studies teacher, injuring eleven others with six hospitalized, and forcing the evacuation of 140 young people. With these recent tragic incidents, Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes and fire officials became increasingly concerned about fire safety. Governor Rhodes pushed for legislation to address fire deaths in Ohio.
In 1971, David Lucht volunteered to help the Central Ohio Fire Prevention Association conduct demonstration projects to help the public and as the fire safety industry understand the value of a fledgling technology that was just emerging on the market: affordable, battery-powered smoke detectors that could be installed in minutes by homeowners. He approached Duane Pearsall, the president of Statitrol Corporation for help. Statitrol was the small Colorado company that had recently developed the first affordable, UL-approved, battery-powered home smoke detector. Statitrol was struggling to help the home smoke detector, a product most people had never heard of before, gain awareness and acceptance by consumers and credibility with skeptical fire services. Pearsall donated 200 smoke detectors to the project. David Lucht worked with a team of graduate students to install and maintain the smoke detectors in homes around Columbus, Ohio. Part of the research project sought to provide information on optimal placement in a building to allow residents to be alerted to a fire and make a quick exit. Duane Pearsall considered the project successful in establishing reliable scientific documentation of the potential for home smoke detectors to significantly reduce the number of deaths from fire in the home. Factory Mutual Insurance Company, which has since merged into FM Global, took notice and provided battery powered smoke detectors to all of its own employees to keep in their homes. Duane Pearsall believed the two demonstration projects marked a turning point in the credibility and market acceptance of affordable, battery-powered home smoke detectors. By the end of 1996, eighteen states required smoke detectors in new homes, 10 states were considering similar legislation, some 16 manufacturers had sold nine million of the devices, and sales of 12 million more were projected for 1977. Looking back in 2004, Lucht credited the affordable residential smoke detector as, "having had the most profound impact on reducing the U.S. fire death rate--by 50 percent over the past three decades." In 1971, the Columbus Jaycees presented David Lucht with the 10 Outstanding Young Men Award, and the United States Jaycees recognized him with their Distinguished Service Award.
Ohio State Fire Marshal
In 1972, the Ohio Division of the State Fire Marshal hired Mr. Lucht as Chief of the Inspection Bureau. He quickly advanced to First Assistant Fire Marshal and then Chief Deputy Fire Marshal. David Lucht wrote the first Ohio State Fire Code. From 1969 to 1972, Ohio recorded 105 fire deaths in nursing homes as compared to 116 in the rest of the United States. In December 1972, in response to this problem andwith strong support from Governor Jim Rhodes, the Ohio General Assembly passed a new law requiring automatic fire sprinklers be installed in all nursing homes, homes for the elderly, and rest homes by January 1, 1975. The need for stronger regulations was punctuated by a January 1972 fire at the Green Nursing Home in Cincinnati that left the charred remains of nine elderly residents in their beds. Eight months earlier, the facility had passed its annual fire inspection with no violations noted. The executive director of the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control, Howard Tipton and its chairman Robert Bland arrived from Washington, D.C. to investigate. They noted that the facility had no fire sprinklers and had not conducted fire drills.
The Ohio Nursing Home Association lobbied successfully to block the proposed sprinkler requirement. David Lucht, however, was firmly convinced that fire sprinklers were necessary to effectively reduce fire deaths in nursing homes. Of some 1,260 retirement homes in Ohio, he estimated between 100 and 200 had sprinkler systems. He set up a demonstration for the naysayers. He furnished two identical rooms in an abandoned nursing home with everything found in a typical nursing home room. Both rooms had curtains, carpeting, closets, beds with sheets, cupboards containing clothing, and even greeting cards and stationery. The only difference was that only one of the rooms had a fire sprinkler system. A volunteer, actually a firefighter, dressed himself in a T-shirt and pretended to be sleeping in one of the beds. A fire was lit in the room. As the smoke quickly billowed down from the ceiling, the man pulled the sheets over his head. Before long, he scrambled out on his hands and knees covered in soot. Although unhurt, his wide eyes indicated he feared for his life. The experiment was then repeated in the room equipped with a sprinkler system. The firefighter got wet and then it was over. The demonstration persuaded the Nursing Home Association's lobbyists to become advocates for fire sprinklers, and they worked to make that solution happen.
When Ohio State Fire Marshal Robert Lynch incurred a back injury causing him to resign in November 1972, Commerce Director Dennis Shaul appointed David Lucht as Acting State Fire Marshal. Lucht held that position until February 1973, when James Caldwell was appointed State Fire Marshal. In January 1973, David Lucht held hearings and accepted written commentary on the new Ohio State Fire Code, which he had written.
The new code required all new one, two, and three-family housing units to be equipped with early warning fire detection systems, with the code modeled after the recommendations of the American Insurance Association. At that time, a one-bedroom home could be equipped with a smoke detector for about $50. The code required a detector sensitive to any of the products of combustion to be placed in hallways outside bedrooms, with alarms audible in any bedroom in the house even when the doors are closed. Heat detectors would not satisfy the requirements of the code because a fire caused by a cigarette would not create enough heat to trigger an alarm in time to save the building's occupants. Based on the increased cost of building a new home, the new code received immediate resistance from the Ohio Home Builders Association. The code went into effect in early March. The code required all nursing homes to be equipped with an approved fire alarm system by January 1, 1974, and with fire sprinklers by January 1, 1975.
Beginning in August 1973, Ohio Fire Marshal James Caldwell began a series of mandatory one-day educational seminars for operators of Ohio's 1,260 nursing homes. Every nursing home was required to register one person to attend their fire district's seminar. The first session was held in Toledo for 195 operators in a 13 county area. Caldwell opened each seminar by explaining the role of his office and each the basic requirements of the new law. David Lucht then took the floor and discussed the inspection procedures and the required alarm systems, sprinklers and other necessary equipment. The afternoon sessions covered evacuation plans, and the evening session was for a round-table informal discussion.
In early April 1974, Ohio State Fire Marshal James Caldwell resigned, citing personal reasons. Ohio Commerce Director Dennis Shaul appointed David Lucht to the position of Ohio State Fire Marshal. Mr. Lucht was 31 years old. Despite David Lucht's diplomatic success in persuading the Ohio State Nursing Home Association to accept and even help advocate for the new fire code, some impacted businesses in other industries were far less cooperative. The owners of an eight-story apartment building in Toledo known as the Fischer Building stubbornly refused to comply. City of Toledo fire officials took the building's owners to court seeking to condemn the building. The building was constructed in 1906 and had caught fire sixteen times between 1969 and 1974. The new fire code required the building be retrofitted with fire escapes, smoke detectors and an automatic sprinkler system. David Lucht testified that he estimated $100,000.00 of renovations would be needed to bring the building into compliance. Following several days of testimony from David Lucht and the Toledo fire officials, the city authorities obtained a court order on September 17, 1974 to vacate the building. Prior to issuing the order, the judge toured the building and noted it did not even have one safe fire escape. He declared it a "clear and present danger to life and property" and an "extreme hazard to life and property." Shortly following his order to vacate the building, the owners announced they would appeal the decision. The building managers told the tenants not to move out until the appeal was decided. Some of the tenants moved out and others said they had nowhere to go. As the city officials went through the building posting condemnation notices, someone followed close behind but just out of sight, tearing the notices down. The case went to the Sixth District Court of Appeals on September 22 and a hearing was set for October 1. Of the 44 apartment units in the building, 31 were occupied. Fire officials still had no count of the number of people living in the building. On September 27, while the city inspectors were getting a count of the occupied units they discovered a gas leak in the building and shut off the gas. The gas company fixed the leak late that afternoon and turned the gas back on. About 10:30 pm the night of the 27th, the building caught fire. The building had an open wooden stairwell. One fifth-floor resident stated that as she and her husband were evacuating via an outside fire escape, she could see flames being pulled down from the upper floors through the stairwell in the center of the building. A photograph of the fire in the Toledo Blade shows the building with flames 10-15 feet high coming up out of the roof. The Red Cross was called in to find emergency housing for the displaced tenants.
Deputy Administrator, National Fire Prevention and Control Administration
On April 11, 1975 President Gerald Ford announced his nomination of David Lucht to be the first Deputy Administrator of the new National Fire Prevention and Control Administration. At the time of this appointment, Mr. Lucht was 32 years old and a licensed Professional Engineer in both Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute Center for Firesafety Studies
Post-Retirement Involvement in Arts and Literature
Since retiring from WPI in 2005, David Lucht is active as an artistic painter, writer and storyteller. His paintings have been displayed in the Briarwood Gallery in Worcester, Massachusetts, and on his website. He is an active member of the Princeton Arts Society Portrait Group, with one of his paintings receiving an honorable mention in the 2014 Spring show. He is also active in the Artist Guild of Shrewsbury. He cofounded the Grafton Scribblers Group, has written several dozens of non-fiction biographies, and is an active member of the Worcester Storytellers.
Publications
Honors and Awards
- Fellow, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 1989.
- Gold Award, Audio Visual Communicators Association, for the video production "Careers in Fire Protection Engineering" (for Worcester Polytechnic Institute), 1989.
- Who's Who in Engineering, American Association of Engineering Societies.
- Harold E. Nelson Service Award, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 1993.
- Honorary Member, Salamander Honorary Fire Protection Engineering Society, Gamma Chapter, 2000.
- John J. Ahern President's Award, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 2000
- Arthur B. Guise Medal and Prize, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 2002.
- Person of the Year Award, Automatic Fire Alarm Association, 2004
- William R. Grogan Award for Support of the Mission of WPI, WPI Alumni Association, 2004
- Person of the Year Award, New England Chapter, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 2004
- Elected to The Skull Society of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 2005
- David A. Lucht Lamp of Knowledge Award, created by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 2005, to be given annually to individuals and organizations who stand out in support of higher education
- David Rasbash Memorial Medal, Institution of Fire Engineers (London), 2006
- John L. Bryan Mentoring Award, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 2013
- Cardinal Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame Class of 2015
Quotes
"We don't as a society take fire safety that seriously."--Billboard Magazine, Feb 28, 2004, page 14
When asked in 2003 why the United States had the worst fire loss record in the industrialized world, David Lucht replied, "We are not smart with our fire safety investments. We pile one reaction to a disaster on top of another without stepping back and looking at the big picture from an engineering point of view."
"Americans are constantly surrounded with readily ignitible materials and multiple sources of ignition. Our unique attitudes, behavior patterns and lifestyles contribute to the bringing together of ignition sources with fuel. And thus, the fires occur as the result of a complex set of social and physical factors. Our fire problem is very much an integral part of the American way of life and it will not be easily changed. Despite the total aggregate effort of the public and private sectors throughout history, the United States has allowed itself to become the worst industrialized nation in the world with respect to per capita fire deaths and economic losses."--An address given by David Lucht at the Second NFPCA Fire Protection Seminar, "Design for Fire and Life Safety: Responsibility of the Architect, the Engineer and the Fire Chief," March 5, 1976
References
External links
- [1]
Source of article : Wikipedia
0 Comments