Lieutenant Marc Friddell received the Burlington County Training Officers Association (BCTOA) 2015 "Educator Of The Year" award for his work as a part-time instructor at the Burlington County Emergency Services Training Center (BCESTC) in Westampton. The mission of the BCTOA is to provide a forum for Fire, EMS and Emergency Management educators to share ideas and improve training for first responders in Burlington County. The association consists of fire, emergency medical, and emergency management educators from various agencies in Burlington County.

Marc was selected from several other educators who were nominated for the award. He was then selected as the winner by a BCTOA peer review panel, led by BCTOA Vice-President Robert Dovi. BCTOA's annual award program recognizes educators who are making a difference in Fire-EMS-OEM education. Lieutenant Friddell has been a firefighter for 24 years, and an instructor at the BCESTC for 12 years. He is the association's third recipient of the award.

Present at the ceremony to honor Lieutenant Fiddell were his parents, wife and sons, Burlington County Deputy Public Safety Director Howard Black, Willingboro Fire Department Deputy Chief Ken Sitzenstock, BCESTC Senior Fire Instructors Mark Robertson and Steve Taylor, and several members of the BCTOA.

The department would like to congratulate Lieutenant Friddell on this exceptional accomplishment. This is a short excerpt from the Lieutenant's nomination letter:

"In the case of Senior Instructor Marc Friddell there is no one achievement that makes him deserving of the Educator of the Year honors, There Are Many. Through his years as an Instructor at the Burlington County ESTC, Instructor Friddell has consistently proven to be a high performer. Marc displays knowledge, resourcefulness and a focus on detail that has translated too many successful classes and projects. Serving as a Senior Instructor, Marc has had the opportunity to develop courses for hundreds of responders, as well as educate the Instructor staff on new techniques and best practices. Marc’s signature can be seen in many of the current ESTC programs including Engine Co, Truck Co, RIT, Vehicle Extrication, Rope Rescue, Confined Space and Flashover. These classes only scratch the surface of Marc’s involvement in the ESTC curriculum.

When the request for facility and equipment upgrades is made, Instructor Friddell is often tasked with the research and development of the upgrades. His unique position at the ESTC and his drive for more realistic training have provided a successful outcome to many facility and equipment upgrades. These include Confined Space Props, Vehicle Extrication Equipment Upgrades, the Flash over Simulator, Force Door and SCBA Upgrades. Instructor Friddell’s resourcefulness shines. Instructor Friddell utilizes a network of professional relationships from the business and response communities to facilitate economical pricing and sometimes transfer of County assets in order to successfully upgrade the training cache of the ESTC. When the purchase of an item is not possible, Instructor Friddell “the craftsman” steps up and builds the props himself.

During 2015 the Burlington County ESTC placed a new flashover simulator in service. This prop is one of only a few in the tri-state area and is often seen as more hazardous than other training props. The addition of this prop was not taken lightly by the Director of the ESTC, Senior Instructor Friddell was tasked with developing an Operating Guideline and training all the Instructor Staff that was to operate the simulator. Over the course of six months Instructor Friddell reviewed and visited other simulators in the area to assist him in the development of an Operating Guideline that would work for the ESTC. After the development of the OG the daunting task of training approximately two dozen Instructors to work the simulator began. This involved upwards of 15 separate training burns for Instructor qualification. Instructor Friddell was there for all of these burns, constantly fine tuning the end product and encouraging safe practices. By fall 2015 the flashover simulator was operating for the student of the ESTC."