The Minnesota model

A special  Thank you to all of these partners.

Tim Zehnder, Fire & Rescue Training Program Mngr, South Central College Mankato, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Kenneth Timm, Truck Driving Program Staff, Lake Superior College, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Robert Little, Director of Truck Driving Program, Lake Superior College This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Paula Castleman, Interim Director of ERTC Lake Superior College, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Mike Opp, Dean of Transportation, Dakota Technical College, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Velvet Walker, Acting Dean, Century College, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Denise Rimbold, Lab Technician – Truck Driving, Century College, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
David Borrett, Emergency Medical Services, Century College, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Chris Caulkins, Faculty/Program Director, Century College, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

With the enormous help of Warren Jorgenson in late 2006, the International Fire Relief Mission collaborated with the Minnesota Fire Science Center within MnSCU to better manage the expenses associated with collecting donated fire and EMS equipment. The fire-science students who attended area trainings would bring donated gear from those sites to the school. Having concentrated locations for IFRM staff to collect large amounts of donated gear allows IFRM to get the most value from its limited human and financial resources. This was a very welcomed affiliation. To this day, Program Manager and Instructor Tim Zehnder of South Central College, at Mankato, Minn., engages his students, conference attendees and staff in this joint venture. Building on this model, several other fire-science schools began inviting IFRM’s staff to attend conferences and receive donations. This grew at such a rate that IFRM could no longer gather all of the donated items in rented vehicles. So IFRM looked for transportation partners. And again IFRM turned to schools.

In early 2007, Dakota Technical College Dean of Transportation Mike Opp entered a partnership with IFRM. The transportation students needed practical experience and IFRM needed goods moved from collection locations to its warehouse. This program was further expanded in the summer of 2011 when Instructor Kenneth Timm of the Lake Superior College truck-driving program enlisted his students to collect and transport the donated items.

As IFRM continues to grow and carry out its mission to make firefighters in developing countries safer and more effective, it is turning its sites to developing other partnerships with technical schools, colleges and universities. Some other areas for future partnerships will include computer science, EMS, photography and videography, web design, search engine optimization, and warehouse logistics.

IFRM offers students hands-on experience doing work that will dramatically change the lives of firefighters in developing countries, and the civilian populations that they are sworn to protect. Contact IFRM President Ron Gruening ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) about establishing a partnership with your higher-education organization.