- Author
- Lucht, D. A.
- Title
- Initial Years of the U.S. Fire Administration: An Informal Collection of Papers.
- Coporate
- Worcester Polytechnic Inst., MA
- Keywords
- research facilities
- Abstract
- The United States Fire Administration never received the level of funding/support envisioned. To make matters worse, the fledgling agency was severely kicked around and wounded, starting with the Carter transition team in 1976. The fire agency never grew up to be the firesafety resource its progenitors had imagined. As the first presidential appointee to serve the new agency, I [D. A. Lucht can say I was there on "day one". At that time, the U. S. Fire Administration (then known as the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration) was little more than a corner office on the third floor of the ole Weather Bureau Building, 24th and M Street, N. W. in Washington, D. C. Howard D. Tipton was confirmed as the agency's first Administrator, shortly after I was confirmed as theDeputy Administrator. In a few short years, under Howard Tipton's able leadership, the entire Weather Bureau Building was taken over and filled with highly skilled, motivated professionals from a host of disciplines. There was little time or tolerance for bureaucracy. All were committed to implementing AMERICA BURNING, the best way they knew how. For the most part these dedicated professionals are now dispersed, due primarily to the reorganizations and budget cuts. The original momentus was lost in many ways. I have often wondered what could have been, had the original team remained together over the past 15 years, operating as a cohesive unit. This is an informal collection of public papers prepared by me while serving in an official capacity as Deputy Administrator of the U. S. Fire Administration, 1975-1978. Also included are a few documents pertaining to the nomination and Senate confirmation process. Individually, none of these papers is particularly profound. Collectively, however, they tend to portray the tone and direction of the agency during its robust initial years...at least as articulated at the time by one agency official. This collection may be helpful in understanding the programs, directions and philosophies of the early Fire Administration days, from perspectives that may be difficult to reconstruct through other archival information. Elements of both naivete and seasoning can be seen along with initial manifestation of the Fire Prevention and Control Act itself.