Daniel Adams
East TN Representative

My name is Daniel Adams. I am the public fire education officer for the City of Clinton Fire Department. I also help with the fire education for the Marlow Volunteer Fire Department. 

I started my career as a volunteer firefighter at the Marlow Volunteer Fire Department in September of 2002. As a new member of the department, I participated in every event possible including the fire education presentations at the local elementary schools. After a couple years, I was given the task of handling all the public fire education and was promoted to captain. As I learned more about the fire service, I decided I wanted to make a long time career of firefighting. I was hired as a reserve firefighter for the City of Clinton. In September of 2005, I became a full-time member of the Clinton Fire Department. When I hired on to the department, Clinton had three public fire education people, one for each shift. For the first couple of years with the city, I helped with the fire education, mostly in the Sparky costume. Due to being involved in public fire education at the volunteer department, I was given the job of public fire education officer for the city. 

With people leaving the department, my training for my new position was mostly on the job and trial and error. For this reason, I started looking for training in the field of public education. I attended my first Tennessee Public Fire Educators Association conference in 2009 and found out there were other educators in the state fighting the same issues I was at my department in regards to public education. At the conference, I was not only able to acquire vital training to help my education programs but I was also able to network with educators from across the state who has overcome the same battles I had been facing. With the knowledge learned while in the association, our programs have become more effective and we have reached more of the community with life saving information. 

As not only a member of the association, but also as an East Tennessee representative of the association, it is my goal to pass on the information I have learned to the next educator and to continue learning myself to make my programs more effective. I am thankful to be able to work with some of the greatest fire educators this state has ever seen and am grateful to work for a city that recognizes the need for fire prevention education. I am thankful for my wife Alena, and my son Brandon, who are supportive of my efforts for fire education despite the added hours dedicated to the cause. I take no credit for any of our programs there are too many people behind the success for me to take the credit myself.