The International Association of Fire Chiefs installed Steven Westermann, fire chief of the Central Jackson County (Mo.) Fire Protection District, as its president. As president, Westermann will provide leadership to the association's 20-member board and will serve as IAFC's primary spokesperson on matters of national and international interest. He will be called to testify at House and Senate hearings and is the representative dignitary for the association in all major political and international functions.

Westermann has served as chief in Central Jackson since 1988 and has been in the fire service since 1972. Prior to serving as a vice president, he served as the International Director for the Missouri Valley Division, president of the Missouri Valley Division and was on the IAFC's NFPA 1710 Implementation Guide Task Force.

Westermann plans to focus on enhancing current partnerships and seeking new ones. One such partnership is the Labor-Management Initiative. The LMI provides training and best practices that bring together individual departments' labor and management leaders to work together for a thriving, positive environment.

"An LMI workshop that I and my union counterpart attended in 2000 made a dramatic difference in our own department," he said. "For a time, the two sides in our department had been in the adversarial relationship, not untypical in the fire service. At the workshop, we looked at the baggage both sides were carrying, and we dropped it and started anew. The resulting atmosphere of trust and openness has enabled our department's labor and management to accomplish many initiatives together and I want that for all departments."

At the IAFC dinner, Chief Kelvin Cochran, fire chief of the Shreveport (La.) Fire Department was installed as first vice president and will succeed Westermann in 2008 as president. Janesville (Wis.) Fire Department Chief Larry Grorud won a spring election to become the association's second vice president.