Robert Tutterow has 46 years of experience in the fire service. He is retired with 24 years of service as the Health & Safety Officer for the Charlotte Fire Department. Concurrent with this position, he was the Logistics Officer for the first 14 years. Before that, he was a volunteer firefighter for 10 years with the Center VFD while employed by the Ingersoll-Rand Company. He rose through the ranks and was named Fire Chief just before accepting a job with the Charlotte FD. As a volunteer, he was named the Department’s Firefighter of the year in 1980 and Davie County Firefighter of the year in 1981. He was President of the Piedmont North Carolina Firefighters Association in 1987 and again in 1996.

Currently, Robert is President of F.I.E.R.O.—an organization he co-founded in 1990. As President of F.I.E.R.O., he has led the development and managing of its annual Fire Station Design and PPE Symposiums. Both events are internationally acclaimed. He has also helped F.I.E.R.O. become involved in three research grants.

Robert has been a very active participant in NFPA standards development for the past 35 years. He has served on the Occupational Safety and Health Technical Committee and the Apparatus Technical Committee—where he was Chair of the Safety Task Group for over 10 years. He is currently on the NFPA Technical Committees on Structural & Proximity Fire Fighting Protective Clothing, the Emergency Responders Occupational Health, and the Correlating Committee on Fire & Emergency Services Protective Clothing and Equipment. He served on the NFPA’s Fire and Emergency Services Member Section Executive Board for almost 20 years, having “gone through the chairs” and serving as the Chair.