David develops and has organised the Floodfighters and Watersave Conferences and International Masterclasses over two decades in the UK, Europe, Australia and USA. From being involved with flood and water rescue tactics and response capability research in the early 2000’s for which he was awarded the ‘Higgins and Langley Award’ for “outstanding achievement in swiftwater rescue”. On the basis of research, then developed the courses, tactics and techniques through his Academy and colleague instructors to train hundreds of rescue technicians in aerial assets, flood, water and SAR courses; receiving delegates from many services from voluntary flood/water rescue teams, to fire & rescue services, to police and special forces around the world. An Associate of Royal Institute of Naval Architects, designs and builds small SAR craft. Has authored and co-authored research papers and/or articles on flood/water rescue and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for SAR. By qualification and or election to the grades, is a Member of Institution of Fire Engineers, Fellow of Royal Institute of Navigation; a UAV/RPAS pilot and PPL holder. Emergency manager of over four decades experience including international work projects in USA, Far East, EU and Australia.

A former UK senior fire officer and member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), (www.iafc.org) which represents the leadership of firefighters and emergency responders worldwide; members are the world's leading experts in firefighting, emergency medical services, terrorism response, hazardous materials spills, natural disasters, search and rescue, and public safety policy. David is a member of the ‘IAFC Technology Council’, which gives thought leadership, tactics and techniques advice in all matters of Technology for firefighter leaders.

He spent many years as adviser to European Union Community Safety and Security Projects, thereby maintaining national, European, and international level interests in fire and rescue services and represented at the EENA, CEN, and has been involved in various roles including major international level strategic EU FP6/FP7/Horizon 2020 initiatives; including HELI4Rescue - for future Civil Security use of large rotary wing and air transport systems onto disaster sites for Worldwide use and EU flood & water rescue projects, EU Pop Alert; EUFOFINET Project; - wildland fire fighting improvement;  IKARUS DARIUS – use of unmanned aerial and terrestrial vehicles for emergency response, including as board member of ‘Advanced Forest Fire Fighting (AF3)’ project. Including use of UAS/UAV for firefighting.

David’s passion is improvement through research, a current project is improving small craft SAR capability with ‘Multi-layer SAR Tactics’ deploying K9, sonar, UAVs and ROVs.