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Braveleader.com partners with Texas A&M Engineering

April 17, 2020 – Earlier this year, BraveFireLeader.com announced a new partnership with Texas A&M Engineering Extension Services (TEEX) to deliver its curriculum to students and existing fire department officers through the extension school.

Last year, TEEX served more than 194,000 people from every U.S. state and 75 countries worldwide. TEEX is recognized as a leader in the delivery of emergency response, homeland security and workforce training exercises, technical assistance and economic development.

BraveFireLeader.com is online leadership training platform developed by training coach Kelly Walsh and former Fire Chief and fire instructor Dan Jones.

The pair are recognized leaders in fire department leadership training, having trained more than 150 fire departments,  representing more than 650 fire officers. Walsh and Jones have been delivering live training since 2015 and in 2019 they launched the training academy online in an effort to reach departments who cannot otherwise afford the costs and/or time commitment to conduct live training for their chiefs and prospective chiefs.

The BraveFireLeader.com training academy is time flexible and can be accessed from anywhere in self-paced fashion and focuses on the soft skills leaders need that are not covered in most tactical training programs.

“TEEX understood that we offer practical tools and cover more nuanced topics than typically covered in tactical-only or theoretical programs. Our students get skills and tools that they can turn around and use immediately because they are derived from real-world scenarios built from more than 30 years of experience in training fire leaders,” said Walsh.

“We do a great job of training our personnel for the fire ground but not how to handle sensitive things back at the station like politics, time management and diversity,” said Jones.

One thing that’s clear he said is that every response to every emergency will go well if the team is well-lead.

“I am excited about partnering with The Brave Fire Leader,” said Robert Barron, TEEX training manager heading up the partnership. “The ability for the TEEX Fire Officer and Leadership Program to offer these high quality educational opportunities through this partnership will be of great value to our current and future students.”

Students who complete the program through TEEX will be jointly certified by both organizations and Texas-based students will enjoy college credit for the courses.

“So often students graduate from tactical training programs and ask, what’s next?” said Walsh. This is echoed by Chief Peter Telhia, Battalion Chief of the Austin Fire Department. “As a 25-year veteran of the fire service, I am super excited to hear of the partnership between the Brave Fire Leader’s Kelly Walsh and Chief Dan Jones with a globally recognized organization like TEEX.”

Telhia said this collaboration has yielded a positive response from fire department members, citing young fire service leaders are hungry for leadership training.

“This program is a great opportunity for them to receive the best in high performance training.”