THE grıll
John A.
Benanti and
Donald
Stanton
Technology’s role
in fighting fires and
saving lives
How many years have you
worked at FDNY? Benanti: Four,
but I’ve worked for the city for 30.
Stanton: 30, with 31 total working
for the city.
What’s your favorite technology?
Benanti: I’ve been playing with the
iPad lately, and I’m very happy with
it. It’s very, very easy to use, light,
convenient. Stanton: I’ve always
had an interest on the radio side,
but some of the iPad stuff is neat.
Are you a native New Yorker?
Benanti: I’ve spent all my life in Staten
Island. Stanton: I’m from Queens.
FDNY’s Donald Stanton (left) and John A. Benanti
FIRE TRUCKS remain the iconic image of any fire department, but firefighters — like all other workers — are relying on more technology than that to be effective on the job. Certainly, IT will never replace water hoses when it comes to dousing a blaze, but computers are increasingly being deployed on the scene, too. That’s certainly the case
at the New York City Fire Department (FDN Y), one of the largest fire departments in the world.
Here, Deputy Commissioner of Technology and Support Services John A. Benanti and Assistant
Commissioner Donald Stanton talk about how technology fits into the operations at FDN Y.
Can you give me an overview of the technology FDNY uses? Benanti: There’s an awful
lot of technology here. We work on mainframe services. We support our CAD dispatch,
data warehouses, well over 100 applications, Unix and Linux servers. We now have
kiosks in our fire stations and EMS stations for firefighters to go online.
