We recently spoke with Greg Trosper, President of Fire and Explosion Consultants, LLC (FEC) – a privately owned and operated forensic fire investigation agency providing fire and explosion consulting services throughout the Midwest and East Coast – about the use of technology in fire investigations.
Greg has a mind-blowing amount of certifications, JD, NAFI-CFEI, IAAI-FIT, and IAAI-ECT, so we were very interested in learning more about the way FEC orchestrates fire and explosion investigation services across several states.
Let’s jump into the interview…
Kristee Ulerick of FileOnQ: Greg, do you want to tell us a little about how you reached the level you’re at in fire investigations and your history before that?
Greg Trosper: I’ve been with FEC for 10 years now. I came on as a consultant and was hired as the operations manager. I run the day-to-day operations, so the guys who do the fire investigations can focus on that.
My background is actually in law – I have a law degree – and I have a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, political science, and geographical information systems.
A month after graduating from law school, I opened up my first business in retail. I ran that for five years and moved on to an electrical distribution company for a while. Then, I did business consulting for about two years before coming here.
Kristee: Thanks! Let’s dive into the questions… What first inspired you to get into fire investigations? Was it something you’ve all wanted to do?
Greg: I wouldn’t say I sought out a career in Fire Investigation, but when the opportunity presented itself, it was a natural fit. My education and experience as a Business Analyst allowed for an easy transition, not only into the operational and administrative side of Fire Investigations but also into the job performance requirements of a Fire Investigator. Both roles require unbiased collection of raw data, analyzing that data, and the presentation of opinions and or forecasts.
Honestly, from my career background to today, it’s all about extracting data, interpreting data, and then forming an opinion about it. It is not too different from business management. It was very easy for me to segue from the business side to the fire investigation side. It’s different media that I’m looking at. But it’s the same process.
Kristee: What do you think are the most important qualities for someone aspiring to be in a leadership position in Fire Investigations?
Greg: Clear, unequivocal communication. The ability to look at issues, problems, and cases as individual events, absent any pattern, preconception, or bias. Every fire we investigate is unique, every fire investigator we employ has specific strengths and weaknesses, and business cycles are non-repetitive/unforecastable. Leadership within the fire investigation profession needs to be flexible and constantly vigilant. There is no “tried and true” formula or one-size-fits-all approach to investigations or management.
Kristee: As the President of Fire Explosion Consultants, can you describe your responsibility for the evidence maintained at your company?
Greg: Stealing from President Truman, the buck stops with me. Early in my tenure at FEC, I performed all evidence management responsibilities. Over the past 5-6 years, I’ve managed a warehouse move and standardized our approach to evidence handling, preservation, and disposition. I now oversee a team of evidence techs who handle the day-to-day preservation and evidence management.
Kristee: Tell me about your decision to retire as an attorney and get into Fire Investigations.
Greg: I never worked as an attorney nor had any intention to practice. I did obtain my Juris Doctorate but immediately entered the business management/analyst field. That path led me to join Fire and Explosion Consultants in 2014.
Kristee: When comparing different evidence management software, what would you say is one of the most important functions you need?
Greg: A user-friendly platform. There is no need to overcomplicate what is essentially inventory management. Evidence Management is essentially three functions: Collection, Preservation, and Storage. Software should recognize and embrace that simplicity. It should also uncomplicatedly fill the gaps between the functions with Chain of Custody, Bin/Lot Management, and Specificity.
Kristee: Are there any challenges unique to Fire Investigation that you didn’t anticipate before taking on this role?
Greg: Absolutely! Fire Investigation is not an office job; it’s remote, it’s dirty, and it’s a bit antiquated. I would not be surprised if “pen and paper” was the preferred instrument for the majority of fire investigators. The acceptance of even simple technologies has not become “mainstream” yet. This is not because the technology is lacking; advancements in the field are on pace with any other industry. It is the acceptance and use of these technologies in the fire investigation community that is deficient.
Old habits die hard, and the introduction of technologies (time-saving, efficiency-producing, digital cataloging, any of them) occurs with greater resistance than I anticipated.
Kristee: Does your role with FEC come with any unique challenges?
My main role here is related to operations, but our company has two main sides: an admin side and a field side. I’m probably the one who crosses over the most between the field and admin.
So when an investigation comes in, it takes a certain kind of person to handle it. A lot of fire investigators retire from the public side and go to the private side. On the public side, you don’t have that much interfacing or interpersonal communication. Your client is basically a municipality. You get to do your investigation by yourself, and if there’s no crime, you get to call it quits. When you switch to the private side, there’s a lot more involved in that investigation.
Kristee: How do you get them up to speed in the “interfacing” department?
Greg: We’ve created a program here that requires people to ride along. It’s not to teach them how to process a scene; most of the time, they have that information. It’s more about how to interact with clients and other people who may be involved in the investigation.
We’re going to show them how we have to talk to certain clients. It’s an apprenticeship-type of program that we have – teaching them… this is how we communicate.
Kristee: Did anything about taking over evidence management surprise you?
Greg: Yes. I was surprised that FEC was one of the few firms out there that actually enjoys taking evidence – we take it frequently and manage it. I mean, there are a lot of firms that just don’t want to handle it because it is an undertaking. You have to have an administrative department to be able to handle it. And a lot of firms don’t have that.
We’ve investigated a lot of scenes where the evidence isn’t ours, but they requested we take it because they know we can handle it. So that was probably the biggest surprise. We are in a niche field, and we are unique in that field.
Kristee: You definitely are. Even in law enforcement, some agencies can’t manage the evidence in their own facility. That’s the whole reason they need software and capable people who consistently do dispositions.
Okay, back to the questions… Has managing evidence changed your perspective on its importance when it comes to fire investigations?
Greg: Probably not, just because of my legal background. I mean, one of the first things that you go after in a case is evidence… and establishing chain of custody. There are a lot of mom-and-pop shops that take in evidence. And their attitude is like, I stored it over there. It’s in that storage locker. I think that’s where I put it.
So when you find companies that know what they’re doing – and actually utilize evidence management software – it does become a more complex process. Evidence is still going to be challenged.
We are seeing some emerging trends on the legal side of our business. When our guys get deposed, we review the cases that go to litigation and things that pop up unexpectedly. But evidence is always going to be scrutinized. How did you collect it? When did you take it? Did you maintain custody? Did you maintain control? Those questions are always going to be there.
Kristee: Let’s see… What do you enjoy most about working in evidence management compared to your previous positions?
Greg: In retail, you’d be running the special of the day on something like shoes. I mean, they’re shoes, right? They come in pairs. It’s the same thing over and over again. Maybe if you’re lucky, they change colors.
When you work in fire investigations, it’s anything and everything that you can think of that comes in. And everything is a unique challenge. Maybe we take in a full-sized range (kitchen stove), but we’ve had a range about the size of my laptop after an event. So it’s fun. I mean, everything’s new. It’s a challenge trying to figure out how to store some things.
Coming from the retail world, our back room was small. The mantra was always, There’s always room. Now that I’m here, I have the same mantra. There’s always room in the warehouse. We will find a place.
But the stuff is dirty. It’s awkward. Sometimes, it has sharp edges. It’s fun to be able to take in things like that and see them through the lifecycle.
Kristee: What is one piece of advice you would give someone if they’re going to take over evidence management for fire investigations?
Greg: Put everything in one system that works, and you never change it.
Kristee: I’m excited to get you guys moved over to FileOnQ, especially for the digital aspect.
Greg: DigitalOnQ is going to be huge for us.
Kristee: In a business sense, you guys are a unicorn. Can you say more about how your system is set up and why the digital component is vital to you?
Greg: I think that’s a good term for us. We built our own server and our own file share program.
That is mainly on the intranet, which is internal. We’re in 19 states, and we’ve got investigators in 12 of them. So when they work a scene, they have to upload their photographs to our server.
We have all that here, and we can see everybody’s uploads. The data is backed up to the cloud, and we have it on physical drives as well. We do have redundancies. We can share from our server, but I and the other IT guy don’t like doing that because we want our server to be as partitioned as possible and as isolated as possible.
Our guys would have to use something like OneDrive. But with OneDrive, you don’t get the chain of custody that you’re going to get with DigitalOnQ.
And sometimes you’re going to get photographs that they don’t really care about. It’s kind of like, Hey, it’s going to be easier for me just to send you everything. Instead of, Hey, let’s just give you the room of origin. Or hey, let’s just give you this quadrant of the house.
I want DigitalOnQ to be where the guys can upload, select, and send them from there. Not only that, be able to track who’s opening them and when they did that. I mean, it’s a brilliant piece of software. I’m really looking forward to it.
Kristee: Have you noticed a sudden increase in digital evidence? And if so, when did that start?
Greg: I don’t want you to confuse the two things. There is digital evidence and how we manage our evidence digitally.
Yes, there’s digital evidence. For example, finding a ring camera or something similar on a house is pretty likely in most neighborhoods that we go into. That would be some of the digital evidence. We have NVRs and DVRs, and individuals who can process those for us.
We also have cell phone data – we’ve processed those for a few cases here and there. But mainly, it’s video and DVR, and NVR type of stuff.
How we manage evidence digitally is different. When I’m talking about sharing the photographs, that’s what I’m talking about when managing evidence digitally.
In Part 2 of this interview, we’ll take a deeper dive into this topic, and you’ll learn about a case where an entire house was brought in in 75 tote bins.
To learn more about FileOnQ’s software solutions for Physical, Digital & Forensic Evidence or our Property and Asset Management platforms, click the links you’re most interested in. To book a Demo, visit this page.