Tom Carroll QFSM, MIFireE
Areas of Interest
Armed Forces and Emergency ServicesHonorary Award
Honorary Master of Arts, 2004Biography
Chief Fire Officer Tom Carroll initially joined the Fire Service in Cambridge in 1977, subsequently serving in Northumberland and Oxfordshire before being reappointed to Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) as Chief Fire Officer in 2001. He is involved as Chairman or Member of numerous Fire Service related committees in the UK and abroad and was awarded the Queen's Fire Service Medal in 2002. He has been a strong supporter of our University's Public Service Degree and of the establishment of the strategic partnership between CFRS and the Fire Service Research and Training Unit at Anglia Ruskin University.
In 2004 Tom Carroll was awarded an Honorary Master of Arts.
Citation
"The Senate of Anglia Polytechnic University has great pleasure in recommending the award of an Honorary Master of Arts degree to Thomas Martin Carroll, QFSM, MIFireE, popularly known as Tom, involved in a plethora of Fire Service committees, on the County Board of both the St John's Ambulance Association and the Prince's Trust and who is a would-be-enthusiastic golfer, only because of constraints on his spare time.
Tom was born in Tipperary in the Republic of Ireland. His education began at Redwood School from where he moved to Birr secondary School in County Offally, before going on to the Salesian College at Palleskenry in County Limerick.
In 1977, he joined the Cambridgeshire Brigade of the Fire Service, where he rose rapidly through the ranks, gaining broad-based experience from operational fire-fighting through to Fire Safety and in 1991 he was transferred to Northumberland. Here, he was promoted to the rank of Deputy Chief Officer. Then, in 1995, he moved to Oxford where he was to remain for six years, during which time he was elevated to the status of Chief Fire Officer. Then, in 2001, Tom came back to the larger Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, which is also a Combined Fire Authority, comprising Cambridgeshire and the Peterborough unitary authority and is based at its headquarters in Huntingdon.
It was in 2002 that Tom was awarded the Queen's Fire Service Medal for his commitment to excellent service to the community and especially for his development of safety-related issues. In this connection, he developed the theme of "...fighting fires before they start...". Also, related to safety, Tom is the UK's International Representative on the Federation of the European Union Fire Officers Associations, designated FEU (the French word for a fire) which expresses opinion on any matter associated with disaster management, fire safety, fire service management, fire fighting, rescue and other emergency operations. The FEU organization has also initiated the Safe Hotel Project across Europe, to encourage hotels to maintain vigilance regarding their fire safety measures, with a view to developing a kite-mark type accreditation for those hotels which are potentially the most safe from fire hazards.
Tom is presently involved as Chairman or Member of a number of other Fire Service related committees both locally, nationally and internationally. These include the roles of: Vice-President of the Chief Fire Officers' Association Presidential Team, Executive Board Member of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers' Association, President of the Commonwealth Overseas Fire Service Association, National Executive Committee Member and National Council Member of the Fire Services Sports and Athletic Association, Chairman of the Fire Sprinkler Association, Chairman of the Fire Service National Benevolent Fund for Anglia (which Tom is planning to represent at the Hong Kong Half Marathon charity event in 2005) and Vice-President of the British Fire Services Association.
Tom Carroll has provided considerable support in connection with the establishment of the strategic partnership between Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service and Anglia Polytechnic University. As such, he has set in place the foundation for the University to take a major role in research and training in the UK Fire and Rescue Service. His support for the public service degree has similarly provided an opportunity for APU to be a market leader in this area.
It is for these reasons, therefore, that I invite you, Secretary to the University, on behalf of the Vice Chancellor, to confer on Thomas Martin Carroll, QFSM, MIFireE, an Honorary Master of Arts degree of this University."