Roundtable Talk - Incident Response for Lithium-Ion Battery Fires: Best Practices for Fire Departments

Tom Miller is a 40 year veteran of the West Virginia fire service currently serving with the West Side Volunteer Fire Department. He is a Pro-Board certified Firefighter II, Fire Officer II,  Fire Instructor III and a Hazardous Materials Technician & Incident Commander.  Tom has been an Adjunct Instructor with West Virginia University Fire Service Extension since 1990 and has written numerous courses on specialized topics in emergency response and delivered them across the country.  Tom is a Life Member of the West Virginia State Firemen's Association.  He is the West Virginia Director to the NVFC and serves as the Chair of its Hazardous Materials Response and Homeland Security Committees and its Pandemic Response Task Group, as well as serving as an SME on various Technical Committees including the National Hazardous Materials Roundtable.  Tom also serves on the Standards & Codes; and Health, Safety & Training committees of the NVFC.  He is a Principal on the NFPA 470 (formerly 472/473/475/1072) Technical Committee.  Tom has  Bachelor of Science degree from West Virginia State University and a Master of Arts degree from the School of Education and Professional Studies at Marshall University.

William E. Offerman is a retired Fire Chief with an extensive career spanning over four decades at the Elwood Fire Protection District in Elwood, IL. Throughout his tenure from 1981 to 2022, he demonstrated exceptional leadership and strategic planning skills, creating tactical alliances with organizational leaders to support key initiatives effectively. William is known for building and retaining high-performance teams by hiring, developing, and motivating skilled professionals. His expertise extends to emergency response, risk management, and multi-organizational collaboration, making him a strong decision maker and problem solver. His proficiency in hazardous materials, specifically for emergency response, incident command, and industry research uniquely qualify him to educate first responders in the field. This skillset was enhanced through various research projects on flammable refrigerants, chlorine, lithium-ion battery destructive testing, and vaporizing acid at the Nevada Nuclear Test Facility. Additionally, he served as the Village President of Elwood from 2009 to 2017, further showcasing his dedication to community relations and public service.

William holds a Master of Science in Public Safety Administration from Lewis University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Southern Illinois University. His numerous certifications, including Fire Officer III, Firefighter III, and Hazardous Materials Technician, highlight his commitment to continuous learning and professional development. As an instructor for the National Volunteer Fire Council, Partners in Training program, William has prepared first responders and instructors in hazardous materials incident response across the nation. 

Nate Sauer is a research engineer at the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), part of UL Research Institutes. Nate holds a bachelor's in mechanical engineering and a PhD in fire protection engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). While at WPI Nate worked on enhancing the cleanup of crude oil spills at sea by burning and investigating the effect of waves on this behavior. At FSRI, Nate is a part of the research group that studies non-structure fires and has worked on full-scale burn and suppression tests of electric vehicles, explosion hazard analysis from battery runaway gas, e-mobility device failure in commuter railcars, and stranded energy dissipation of fire damaged batteries.

Jerry Sjogren is the Senior Director of Safety at the Recycled Materials Association ReMA. He has over 34 years of experience in the environmental, health & safety (EHS) and transportation
industries. Prior to joining ISRI, Sjogren was the Safety Director at Westborough, Mass.-based E.L. Harvey & Sons where he managed the development and administration of the company’s safety program and environmental issues, including compliance with all levels of related government regulations. In addition to receiving EHS certifications in Emergency Response & Incident Command, Sjogren has training in employee relations and government compliance subjects. Sjogren has served on local and national professional industry organizations, from the National Waste and Recycling Association (NWRA) to ANSI Z245 Sub-Committees. He is a member of the Westborough Local Emergency Planning Committee, and former chair of the ISRI Safety & Environmental Council (ISEC).