Edward Wallace Bent, 1917-2012
Supervisor of California Fire Service Training
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Remembering Edward Wallace Bent
Ed Bent’s Contribution to the American Fire Service
By Chief Ronny J. Coleman, California State Fire Marshal, Chief Deputy Director California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, retired. Honorary Member, Marin County Fire Chiefs Association.
Edward W. Bent is a legend in the American Fire Service. The Annual “Instructor of the Year, Training Officer Award", sponsored by the California Fire Training Officer Association is named after him. Those individuals who are honored by being recipients of this award should also be humbled by being named a modern version of Ed Bent’s life. He was admired, respected and honored more than almost any other single individual that has emerged from the California Fire Service. Keeping his memory alive is an important part of the legacy of our profession.
Ed Bent was born on October 29, 1917 in Boston Massachusetts. He came to California to work with his as a laborer with his father. In 1943 he began his firefighting career with the Los Angeles Fire Department and received his vocational education degree from UCLA in 1951. As a Firefighter, Ed Bent’s draft number came up in 1948 and he transitioned to become Private Ed Bent, United States Army. He was sent to Fort Ord in Monterey to begin his basic training. While others were sent off to assignments abroad, Ed’s assignment remained at Fort Ord where he became an instructor.
Ironically, Ed would return to the Monterey area to create the California Fire Chiefs Fire Academy at Asilomar in the 1970s. In the late 1990’s the Monterey Peninsula College, who had managed the program Ed helped create, moved to Ford Ord and continues to offer the State Fire Training classes after Fort Ord was decommissioned. In 1952, Ed moved to Redding California and started working with the State of California as a regional fire instructor. In this position he was responsible for teaching firefighting classes in thirteen Northern California counties. During the next several years, he was a “traveling instructor” for the state and during that period, helped organize over fifty new fire departments in the thirteen counties, as well as, providing training for all other departments. Ed remembers that when he first went there, there were only 75 fire departments. When he left there were 162. For fourteen years, Ed served as the face and voice of State Fire Training in Northern California.
On September 15, 1965, Ed was appointed Supervisor of Fire Service Training, which required him to move to Sacramento. At that time State Fire Training was under the State Department of Education. In 1966, Ed was instrumental in creating the first Oil Fire Control School, held in Turlock, California. He brought 75 firefighters from Mexico up to the school arranging transportation, meals, and housing. This also began the Annual Bombero Program. As Supervisor of State Fire Training he offered it the first three years and then proposed that it be taken over by the California Fire Chiefs’ Association. They took on this responsibility in 1969.
In 1967, Ed working in cooperation with the State Department of Education and UCLA, proposed conducting an in-depth study of “A Fireman’s Occupation”. This document had as its origin an earlier document, produced by Los Angeles City Fire Chief Ralph J. Scott called “Trade Analysis of Fire Engineering”. That document had been produced in 1932 and had as one of its author’s John Baker, who had worked with Ed during his early years. This document was updated by the UCLA study, and became the basis for both the first master plan of training and education and the curriculum and certification development ever since and a model that was used across the country.
In 1967, he initiated the “Area Instructor Program” to help with the backlog of training requests. Our whole fire training program is now based on this system. Also in 1967, Ed became a member of the California State Fireman’s Association Board of Directors as Northern Director. He served one year in that capacity and was re-elected as President during CSFA’s 50th Anniversary in 1972. Mr. Bent wrote training texts for dealing with hazardous materials, building collapses and other safety issues. He taught classes for firefighting agencies in Western states and spoke at seminars for professional groups, including the Western Fire Chiefs Association and the National Fire Protection Association.
From 1971 through 1972 Ed supervised the creation of a statewide committee that developed the first Master Plan for the California Fire Service Training and Education System. It identified the need for an overseeing board, resulting in legislation, setting up the State Board of Fire Services in 1973. Appointments were made and the first Board meeting was held early in 1974. In 1974, Ed Bent, under the supervision of the State Board of Fire Services, started the development of the present Certification System. Ed working with the California State Fire Service begin the process of getting legislation passed transferring the Training Program from the Department of Education to the State Fire Marshal’s Office on January 1, 1978.
In the span of his career he served on many national and statewide committees and as an officer in many organizations that helped move the fire service training agenda forward. He worked tirelessly with the California fire service on a number of curriculum projects that covered topics such as Hazardous Materials, Emergency Medical Training, and Heavy Rescue. Ed retired as a Supervisor of State Fire Training on May 1, 1983 having completed 42 years of service.
But even in retirement, Ed did not rest on his laurels. He was involved in Pioneer Hook and Ladder Society and following his devotion to God was also heavily involved with the Fire Chaplains. He was a regular participant in fire related activities in and around the Sacramento area. Ed Bent’s contribution and life long devotion to his chosen profession has spread across the country, and impacts every firefighter working in California today and will continue well into the future. He passed away on March 27, 2012.
Remarks at Edward W. Bent Memorial on April 9, 2012
By Chief Ronny J. Coleman
"A very good friend of mine, Fire Chief Randy Bruegman of Anaheim, California recently discussed with me a concept that I believe is very important to recognize while we are here celebrating the life of Ed Bent. What Chief Bruegman and I discussed was that many of us go through life looking for success, when in fact we ought to be looking for creating significance.
Success, as we have seen in the lives of celebrities and other famous people is a fleeting phenomenon, but significance is an enduring thing that often lasts much longer. Significance has a profound effect on others. Personally, I am not always impressed by what I see as samples of success in our society, especially in the form of ridiculous financial rewards and excuses for outlandish behavior.
But significance, that is another thing. It does have a way of extending beyond the present. It does have a way of influencing the future. It is often measured by the number of others who subscribe to the values and the behavior of being significant themselves. Therefore, it is not what someone does in their lifetime that makes them successful, but what they leave behind for others to emulate that makes their life significant.
And, so it is with my friend, my mentor and my role model, Edward W. Bent. I speak with no reservation or hesitation, when I say that he was a man that made a huge difference with what he did with his life. And those differences are reflected in those of us that were exposed to his contributions. He was on this earth for 94 years. He influenced tens of thousands of individuals over that lifetime. I am just one of the individuals in the fire service that benefitted from being exposed to a man of Ed Bent’s character, compassion and charisma. He exuded integrity and honor. When he asked for your help, you knew he really meant it. There was not an ounce of evasion or manipulation in his communications with his followers.
Today, I believe I can speak for the thousands of others from the fire service industry that knew Ed, but are not here to provide personal testimony to how he affected their lives. They are literally all over the country, even internationally situated. Many could not be here today. So, in a way I am their representative. I first met Ed in 1966. He was an influence on me from that very day. He was introduced to me by my Fire Chief. I didn’t know him at all, but he greeted me as if I were his son. He gave me my start as a fire service lecturer, by inviting me to participate in a workshop at a Training Officer‘s conference in Fresno. I was just a 26 year old Fire Captain at the time. It was the beginning of a lifelong relationship that I will treasure as long as I live.
But, my relationship is not what I want to talk about. I want to speak on behalf of the others that do not have this opportunity. What I believe to be the most important legacy of Ed Bent was his lifelong commitment to that search for significance that I started off discussing earlier that he gave to us. He was not a man to make trivial commitments. He was a person that was both humble and assertive. He was a person that asked a lot of others and gave a like measure himself. He expected the same out of us.
I happened to be from Oklahoma, and as I was preparing my comments for this service, I was reminded of a home-spun philosopher named Will Rogers who had reputation of making a lot of common sense. He once was quoted as saying; “I never met a man I didn’t like” As I reflected upon Ed’s relationship with the fire service I can honestly say I never met a man, or woman that didn’t like Ed Bent. How do we best remember Ed Bent? I had the great good fortune to conduct an oral history session with him about six weeks before he passed away, and I experienced a very strange feeling when doing so. I was looking at Ed Bent, aged and weak, but proud and very precise when I had a flashback.
He answered each question with a weakened voice, but was accurate to the date and time of every event we discussed. He corrected me several times on names and sequences of events. That even included his having a better memory of our first meeting than I did. His mind was as sharp as it ever was. The thing I remember doing was to close my eyes and listen to Ed talk, but remembering his voice that I had grown accustomed to at Training Officer’s meetings and Fire Chief Meetings over the 45 years I had known him. The voice that still rings in my ears is the one that helped shape my career as well as many others. I wonder how many of you can still hear it yourself if you knew Ed.
I fully realize that I cannot speak to all of the specific events, the actions, the decisions made by him over his lifetime, in a short speech at this memorial service. Our Oral History team was able to develop a biography of Ed from that oral history session that will eventually be published to provide those specifics. In his lifetime he served under the giants of our industry and was not intimidated by that. He was asked to sacrifice for his profession and he and his family did so. The list of his achievements is overwhelming. His impact on the fire service literally reads like the history book of the last 50 years.
Instead, I would like to condense them all into a short example of his legacy. Going back to my earlier reference to Will Rogers, the cowboy thinker also stated “If you want to know how a man stands, go among the people who are in the same business.” The training officers of the state of California named their Instructor of the Year after Edward Bent. There is no higher recognition than to have an annual award named after you. There is great honor in being named the recipient of that award. Years from now the memory of Ed’s voice will disappear as people like me and my contemporaries in the fires service leave because our times will eventually be up also. But, as long as the name Ed Bent is repeated the significance of his lifetime will be reinforced.
And, in deference to my last use of Will Roger’s wit and wisdom, he was also quoted as saying “A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.” Those of us that had the opportunity to be friends, colleagues, even casual acquaintances of Edward Wallace Bent will forever be influenced by what he stood for, what he acted on and what he left for us to do in the future. We were privileged to be his friends, his student, his subordinate and most importantly his supporter.
We will all miss him, but we all likewise remember him and what he stood for. The task that remains is to carry on his good work into the future."
Ed Bent's Obituary:
"Edward W. Bent was born October 29, 1917, and went to be with his Lord March 27, 2012. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. After graduating from Medfield High School, he hitchhiked across the country to be with his father in Los Angeles. He blossomed as a Christian in California, mentoring youth by teaching first high school and then college Sunday school classes of 50-100 students and directing choir.
Ed began his firefighting career with the Los Angeles Fire Department in 1943 and received a vocational education degree from UCLA in 1951. In 1952, he moved to Redding, and started working with the State of California as a regional fire instructor, responsible for teaching firefighting to thirteen northern California counties. The highlight of his career was working as Superintendent of Fire Service Training for the Sate Fire Marshal’s Office. He received numerous awards for his innovative teaching contributions during his tenure from 1965 until his retirement in 1978.
The Ed Bent Training Excellence Award was established in honor. In retirement he remained active on a number of national firefighting training committees, served on the board of the Pioneer Mutual Hook & Ladder Society, and was involved with the local chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Firefighters. Ed was a founding member of the Sacramento Area Firefighters Chaplaincy board, serving as president at the time of his death.
Ed was a man of God, mentoring and loving his family, friends, and community. He has been a faithful and active member and leader at Fremont Presbyterian Church since he joined in May 1966. He served as an elder four times and as a deacon. In his 80s, Ed took on the leadership role for the Men’s Ministry for five years, initiating the 4th of July church picnic and two father/daughter banquets. During that time, he partnered with St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church to organize annual men’s prayer breakfasts. He is remembered as a prayer warrior by many.
Ed was preceded in death by his beloved wife Lynn, and two of his daughters, Deanna DiNallo and Karrin Howell. He leaves behind his daughter, Clarissa Miller, Deanna’s three children, Traci Cheri and Tony Towsend, and his other two families – his friends at Fremont Presbyterian Church and his numerous firefighter friends. Services were held at Fremont Presbyterian Church, 5770 Carlson Drive, Sacramento, CA 95819, Monday April 9th, 2012."
Ed Bent’s Contribution to the American Fire Service
By Chief Ronny J. Coleman, California State Fire Marshal, Chief Deputy Director California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, retired. Honorary Member, Marin County Fire Chiefs Association.
Edward W. Bent is a legend in the American Fire Service. The Annual “Instructor of the Year, Training Officer Award", sponsored by the California Fire Training Officer Association is named after him. Those individuals who are honored by being recipients of this award should also be humbled by being named a modern version of Ed Bent’s life. He was admired, respected and honored more than almost any other single individual that has emerged from the California Fire Service. Keeping his memory alive is an important part of the legacy of our profession.
Ed Bent was born on October 29, 1917 in Boston Massachusetts. He came to California to work with his as a laborer with his father. In 1943 he began his firefighting career with the Los Angeles Fire Department and received his vocational education degree from UCLA in 1951. As a Firefighter, Ed Bent’s draft number came up in 1948 and he transitioned to become Private Ed Bent, United States Army. He was sent to Fort Ord in Monterey to begin his basic training. While others were sent off to assignments abroad, Ed’s assignment remained at Fort Ord where he became an instructor.
Ironically, Ed would return to the Monterey area to create the California Fire Chiefs Fire Academy at Asilomar in the 1970s. In the late 1990’s the Monterey Peninsula College, who had managed the program Ed helped create, moved to Ford Ord and continues to offer the State Fire Training classes after Fort Ord was decommissioned. In 1952, Ed moved to Redding California and started working with the State of California as a regional fire instructor. In this position he was responsible for teaching firefighting classes in thirteen Northern California counties. During the next several years, he was a “traveling instructor” for the state and during that period, helped organize over fifty new fire departments in the thirteen counties, as well as, providing training for all other departments. Ed remembers that when he first went there, there were only 75 fire departments. When he left there were 162. For fourteen years, Ed served as the face and voice of State Fire Training in Northern California.
On September 15, 1965, Ed was appointed Supervisor of Fire Service Training, which required him to move to Sacramento. At that time State Fire Training was under the State Department of Education. In 1966, Ed was instrumental in creating the first Oil Fire Control School, held in Turlock, California. He brought 75 firefighters from Mexico up to the school arranging transportation, meals, and housing. This also began the Annual Bombero Program. As Supervisor of State Fire Training he offered it the first three years and then proposed that it be taken over by the California Fire Chiefs’ Association. They took on this responsibility in 1969.
In 1967, Ed working in cooperation with the State Department of Education and UCLA, proposed conducting an in-depth study of “A Fireman’s Occupation”. This document had as its origin an earlier document, produced by Los Angeles City Fire Chief Ralph J. Scott called “Trade Analysis of Fire Engineering”. That document had been produced in 1932 and had as one of its author’s John Baker, who had worked with Ed during his early years. This document was updated by the UCLA study, and became the basis for both the first master plan of training and education and the curriculum and certification development ever since and a model that was used across the country.
In 1967, he initiated the “Area Instructor Program” to help with the backlog of training requests. Our whole fire training program is now based on this system. Also in 1967, Ed became a member of the California State Fireman’s Association Board of Directors as Northern Director. He served one year in that capacity and was re-elected as President during CSFA’s 50th Anniversary in 1972. Mr. Bent wrote training texts for dealing with hazardous materials, building collapses and other safety issues. He taught classes for firefighting agencies in Western states and spoke at seminars for professional groups, including the Western Fire Chiefs Association and the National Fire Protection Association.
From 1971 through 1972 Ed supervised the creation of a statewide committee that developed the first Master Plan for the California Fire Service Training and Education System. It identified the need for an overseeing board, resulting in legislation, setting up the State Board of Fire Services in 1973. Appointments were made and the first Board meeting was held early in 1974. In 1974, Ed Bent, under the supervision of the State Board of Fire Services, started the development of the present Certification System. Ed working with the California State Fire Service begin the process of getting legislation passed transferring the Training Program from the Department of Education to the State Fire Marshal’s Office on January 1, 1978.
In the span of his career he served on many national and statewide committees and as an officer in many organizations that helped move the fire service training agenda forward. He worked tirelessly with the California fire service on a number of curriculum projects that covered topics such as Hazardous Materials, Emergency Medical Training, and Heavy Rescue. Ed retired as a Supervisor of State Fire Training on May 1, 1983 having completed 42 years of service.
But even in retirement, Ed did not rest on his laurels. He was involved in Pioneer Hook and Ladder Society and following his devotion to God was also heavily involved with the Fire Chaplains. He was a regular participant in fire related activities in and around the Sacramento area. Ed Bent’s contribution and life long devotion to his chosen profession has spread across the country, and impacts every firefighter working in California today and will continue well into the future. He passed away on March 27, 2012.
Remarks at Edward W. Bent Memorial on April 9, 2012
By Chief Ronny J. Coleman
"A very good friend of mine, Fire Chief Randy Bruegman of Anaheim, California recently discussed with me a concept that I believe is very important to recognize while we are here celebrating the life of Ed Bent. What Chief Bruegman and I discussed was that many of us go through life looking for success, when in fact we ought to be looking for creating significance.
Success, as we have seen in the lives of celebrities and other famous people is a fleeting phenomenon, but significance is an enduring thing that often lasts much longer. Significance has a profound effect on others. Personally, I am not always impressed by what I see as samples of success in our society, especially in the form of ridiculous financial rewards and excuses for outlandish behavior.
But significance, that is another thing. It does have a way of extending beyond the present. It does have a way of influencing the future. It is often measured by the number of others who subscribe to the values and the behavior of being significant themselves. Therefore, it is not what someone does in their lifetime that makes them successful, but what they leave behind for others to emulate that makes their life significant.
And, so it is with my friend, my mentor and my role model, Edward W. Bent. I speak with no reservation or hesitation, when I say that he was a man that made a huge difference with what he did with his life. And those differences are reflected in those of us that were exposed to his contributions. He was on this earth for 94 years. He influenced tens of thousands of individuals over that lifetime. I am just one of the individuals in the fire service that benefitted from being exposed to a man of Ed Bent’s character, compassion and charisma. He exuded integrity and honor. When he asked for your help, you knew he really meant it. There was not an ounce of evasion or manipulation in his communications with his followers.
Today, I believe I can speak for the thousands of others from the fire service industry that knew Ed, but are not here to provide personal testimony to how he affected their lives. They are literally all over the country, even internationally situated. Many could not be here today. So, in a way I am their representative. I first met Ed in 1966. He was an influence on me from that very day. He was introduced to me by my Fire Chief. I didn’t know him at all, but he greeted me as if I were his son. He gave me my start as a fire service lecturer, by inviting me to participate in a workshop at a Training Officer‘s conference in Fresno. I was just a 26 year old Fire Captain at the time. It was the beginning of a lifelong relationship that I will treasure as long as I live.
But, my relationship is not what I want to talk about. I want to speak on behalf of the others that do not have this opportunity. What I believe to be the most important legacy of Ed Bent was his lifelong commitment to that search for significance that I started off discussing earlier that he gave to us. He was not a man to make trivial commitments. He was a person that was both humble and assertive. He was a person that asked a lot of others and gave a like measure himself. He expected the same out of us.
I happened to be from Oklahoma, and as I was preparing my comments for this service, I was reminded of a home-spun philosopher named Will Rogers who had reputation of making a lot of common sense. He once was quoted as saying; “I never met a man I didn’t like” As I reflected upon Ed’s relationship with the fire service I can honestly say I never met a man, or woman that didn’t like Ed Bent. How do we best remember Ed Bent? I had the great good fortune to conduct an oral history session with him about six weeks before he passed away, and I experienced a very strange feeling when doing so. I was looking at Ed Bent, aged and weak, but proud and very precise when I had a flashback.
He answered each question with a weakened voice, but was accurate to the date and time of every event we discussed. He corrected me several times on names and sequences of events. That even included his having a better memory of our first meeting than I did. His mind was as sharp as it ever was. The thing I remember doing was to close my eyes and listen to Ed talk, but remembering his voice that I had grown accustomed to at Training Officer’s meetings and Fire Chief Meetings over the 45 years I had known him. The voice that still rings in my ears is the one that helped shape my career as well as many others. I wonder how many of you can still hear it yourself if you knew Ed.
I fully realize that I cannot speak to all of the specific events, the actions, the decisions made by him over his lifetime, in a short speech at this memorial service. Our Oral History team was able to develop a biography of Ed from that oral history session that will eventually be published to provide those specifics. In his lifetime he served under the giants of our industry and was not intimidated by that. He was asked to sacrifice for his profession and he and his family did so. The list of his achievements is overwhelming. His impact on the fire service literally reads like the history book of the last 50 years.
Instead, I would like to condense them all into a short example of his legacy. Going back to my earlier reference to Will Rogers, the cowboy thinker also stated “If you want to know how a man stands, go among the people who are in the same business.” The training officers of the state of California named their Instructor of the Year after Edward Bent. There is no higher recognition than to have an annual award named after you. There is great honor in being named the recipient of that award. Years from now the memory of Ed’s voice will disappear as people like me and my contemporaries in the fires service leave because our times will eventually be up also. But, as long as the name Ed Bent is repeated the significance of his lifetime will be reinforced.
And, in deference to my last use of Will Roger’s wit and wisdom, he was also quoted as saying “A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.” Those of us that had the opportunity to be friends, colleagues, even casual acquaintances of Edward Wallace Bent will forever be influenced by what he stood for, what he acted on and what he left for us to do in the future. We were privileged to be his friends, his student, his subordinate and most importantly his supporter.
We will all miss him, but we all likewise remember him and what he stood for. The task that remains is to carry on his good work into the future."
Ed Bent's Obituary:
"Edward W. Bent was born October 29, 1917, and went to be with his Lord March 27, 2012. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. After graduating from Medfield High School, he hitchhiked across the country to be with his father in Los Angeles. He blossomed as a Christian in California, mentoring youth by teaching first high school and then college Sunday school classes of 50-100 students and directing choir.
Ed began his firefighting career with the Los Angeles Fire Department in 1943 and received a vocational education degree from UCLA in 1951. In 1952, he moved to Redding, and started working with the State of California as a regional fire instructor, responsible for teaching firefighting to thirteen northern California counties. The highlight of his career was working as Superintendent of Fire Service Training for the Sate Fire Marshal’s Office. He received numerous awards for his innovative teaching contributions during his tenure from 1965 until his retirement in 1978.
The Ed Bent Training Excellence Award was established in honor. In retirement he remained active on a number of national firefighting training committees, served on the board of the Pioneer Mutual Hook & Ladder Society, and was involved with the local chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Firefighters. Ed was a founding member of the Sacramento Area Firefighters Chaplaincy board, serving as president at the time of his death.
Ed was a man of God, mentoring and loving his family, friends, and community. He has been a faithful and active member and leader at Fremont Presbyterian Church since he joined in May 1966. He served as an elder four times and as a deacon. In his 80s, Ed took on the leadership role for the Men’s Ministry for five years, initiating the 4th of July church picnic and two father/daughter banquets. During that time, he partnered with St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church to organize annual men’s prayer breakfasts. He is remembered as a prayer warrior by many.
Ed was preceded in death by his beloved wife Lynn, and two of his daughters, Deanna DiNallo and Karrin Howell. He leaves behind his daughter, Clarissa Miller, Deanna’s three children, Traci Cheri and Tony Towsend, and his other two families – his friends at Fremont Presbyterian Church and his numerous firefighter friends. Services were held at Fremont Presbyterian Church, 5770 Carlson Drive, Sacramento, CA 95819, Monday April 9th, 2012."
(l-r) Ed Bent, Marie Coleman, and Ronny Coleman at the Coleman home during a 2012 biography and history interview of Ed (video coming here soon.)