 Firefighting safety champion honored for revolutionary product Over 20 years ago, a Westinghouse engineer responded to an MSA employment ad. He was intrigued by our focus on safety and the customers we serve, especially firefighters, who “put their lives on the line every day.” Engineer Bill Lambert has become a firefighters’ champion who received the 2002 "Special Achievement Award" from Design News magazine. He is also currently vice president and general manager of MSA’s safety products division, and will become MSA’s president in 2003.
NFPA staff member Bruce Teele agrees. "With his deep engineering knowledge and ability to pull people together, he is one of the key players driving SCBA technology." The Design News national engineering award honors Lambert for his contributions to the safety of firefighters, including his design of the patented Quick-Fill System that revolutionized air-sharing in an emergency. Lambert’s design enables firefighters to share air by connecting a high-pressure hose between their self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) rather than removing equipment and exposing one or both firefighters to noxious smoke, etc. When a firefighter with only 200 psi connects with another with 4,000 psi of air, their cylinders will automatically equalize at about 2,100 psi each in about 30 seconds. They then disconnect and move to safety. That sounds easy, until you realize the enormity of pneumatic pressures released during such connections. It is almost 100 times what you see when your garden hose whips around after you’ve turned on the water full-force! Lambert’s award includes a $20,000 educational grant to be used by the University of Pittsburgh’s mechanical engineering department, who team with MSA in advanced R&D programs to improve firefighting safety. Read the story online at www.designnews.com. (Search for “Lambert.”)
|
"He
always thinks first of what's good for firefighters," notes Rich
Duffy of both the firefighters' union and the non-profit National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA) standards-correlating committee on which
Lambert voluntarily serves as secretary.
