Robert Masonis, is a veteran firefighter of 22 years working for the City of Newport Beach, CA. He is a Senior Instructor for the State Fire Marshall's Office (S.F.M.O.), California Department of Forestry (C.D.F.) and the Office of Emergency Services (O.E.S.). He also teaches for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (F.E.M.A.) in the field of Urban Search and Rescue.

Bob's expertise is recognized nationwide, bringing him teaching assignments for municipalities, universities and colleges across the country.

Robert is a member of FEMA Task Force 6 Riverside, California and the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue (U.S.A.R.) Incident Support Team (I.S.T.) tasked with management of large disaster events.

Bob has been heavily involved in USAR for the last 16 years, and has been part of rewriting the Heavy Rescue Manual (Rescue Systems I) for the State over the last three years. This manual has become a model for the National Fire Protection Agency (N.F.P.A.) Rescue Systems I manual, and the FEMA Rescue Specialist Manual, used to teach the nations FEMA USAR teams. Robert has also been called upon to evaluate USAR teams "deployment capabilities" and "readiness" to respond to a disaster through MOBEX drill and deployments. Bob and representatives from both the OES and FEMA completed 6 FEMA Task Forces with full deployment using aircraft and ground transportation.

Two years ago Bob was also called upon to travel with a team of experts to evaluate the State of Gujarat, India for their readiness for disaster on behalf of California OES. This will be a program that will be on going over the next three years. Recently Bob became a part of NFPA 1670, technical rescue committee and on a private note, Emergency Film Group Inc., critiquing rescue films as a subject matter expert.

Upcoming events involve a trip to the Ukraine for USAR and DMAT deployment drill authorized through the California State Emergency Medical Service and a MOBEX drill for two more of the eight California Task Forces.