Specialties:
Fire Protection Engineering, System Design and Review, Loss Investigation, Expert Witness, Project Management
As president and founder (1989) of FFCDI, Scott Futrell has provided consulting, project management, design and loss investigation of fire protection systems for a broad range of building types and investigated fire protection system failures. He is a Fire Protection Engineer registered in the State of Wisconsin (License Number 30737) and has been in the Fire Protection industry since 1975. Mr. Futrell is a Fellow in the International Society of Fire Protection Engineers and is active nationally as well as in the local chapter. He served as the Chapter President for the local Society of Fire Protection Engineers Chapter, and is a member of the National Fire Protection Association, participating in its Education, Industrial, and Architecture and Engineering sections. He is a Certified Fire Protection Specialist, a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator, and a Certified Water-Based Systems Professional. He is also an instructor for the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. He worked directly in the fire-sprinkler contracting field of the fire protection engineering industry from 1975 until 1989.
Mr. Futrell wrote the curriculum for the Fire Protection Design class taught at Hennepin Technical College and has written chapters for the current Advanced Fire Protection Design Class for Engineers sponsored by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. He has in the past provided continuing education training for sprinkler fitters to maintain their state licenses. He is on the task force that has written the curriculum for the Society of Fire Protection Engineers class entitled Sprinkler Design for Engineers since 2003 and taught that class as well. He is currently the Chairperson (2010) of the task group updating the SFPE class for 2011 and the Chairperson of the task group developing the new SFPE class on Protection of High-Piled Storage for 2011.
Mr. Futrell was on the Governor’s Council for Fire Prevention and Control, is a past member of the Executive Committee of the Council, was a member of the Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association Code Committee, was a member of the International Residential Code Minnesota Coalition, was an alternate member of the Fire Protection Advisory Council, has chaired the Task Force on Performance-Based Design, making recommendations to the Governor’s Council for Fire Prevention and Control and the State Fire Marshal’s Office, and has chaired the Task Force writing a White Paper on Residential Sprinklers in 2009 for the Governor’s Council for Fire Prevention and Control. For the National Fire Protection Research Foundation, he has served as a member on the technical panels for the Residential Sprinklers and Sloped Ceilings (2008 to 2010), Home Fire Sprinklers and Antifreeze Solutions Literature Review (2010), and Home Fire Sprinklers and Antifreeze Solutions Phase II (2010) projects.
Mr. Futrell was Chair of the committee and a Contributing Author to the paper “Automatic Fire Sprinklers and Passive Structural Fire Protection (The Impact of Performance-Based Design)”, prepared by the Task Group of the Governor’s Council on Fire Prevention and Control in Minnesota, November 26, 2002.
“The experience gained by working directly as the project manager, designer, estimator and design department director, and investigator cannot be replaced by any amount of education,” he points out. “Education in conjunction with actual field experience in the design, installation, testing and investigation of systems is critical to understanding our customers’ needs. We never want to lose sight of the things that can go wrong during construction and the events that can lead to system failures.”
Mr. Futrell has been involved in a wide variety of fire protection projects since 1989, including fire investigation related to system failures; design of special hazard suppression systems for extraction plants; power and cogeneration facilities; flammable and combustible liquids storage and use, including tank farms and unloading stations; studies, bid documents, and construction observation of fire protection for industrial clients; loss control evaluations; and many projects involving industrial, educational, and institutional facilities. His expertise in strategic planning also has included the water supply analysis and site planning necessary for many types of fire control and suppression systems.