Mr. Jerry Brant

 

Jerry Brant has 50 years of experience as a volunteer fire fighter in rural west central Pennsylvania. He is a life member of the Hope Fire Company of Northern Cambria where he served as Chief for 15 years. He is currently an active member and Second Assistance Chief of the Patton Fire Company #1. Brant served as President of the 21 county, Central District Volunteer Fireman’s Association in 1996-1997 and he was featured in the award-winning documentary “Friendship, Goodwill, And Hope” a four-part television news series on volunteer fire fighting in Pennsylvania. In August 2019 Brant was awarded the Leroy C. Focht Sr Memorial Award for outstanding individual service to the Central District Volunteer Fireman’s Association.

For 20 years Brant was employed as the executive director and then president of a small non-profit community development corporation. In recognition for this outstanding work in the field of community development in 2003 the Fannie Mae Foundation awarded him a James A. Johnson Fellowship. This Fellowship is a highly competitive process that is awarded annually to no more than six individuals nationally.

In 2008 Mr. Brant “retired” from his employment to form Decoplan Associates LLC. a firm specializing in grant writing, strategic planning and project development for fire, and EMS organizations and municipal governments. To date, Decoplan has written over $107 million in successful grant applications. Included in that number is the highly productive Allegheny Mountain Firefighters Initiative, the Keystone SAFER, and the Westco SAFER. Jerry also serves as a columnist for Firerescue1.com, a contributing author for the Centre Daily Times and a senior grant consultant for firegrantshelp.com. He has been featured in videos for Globe, Scott and the National Volunteer Fire Council and has spoken at numerous workshops across the nation. Brant has also co-authored five Get Ready Guides preparing fire and EMS services to plan and write more competitive applications to the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. Mr. Brant was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute (PFESI) for a three-year term ending in 2022.

Mr. Brant holds a B.A. in Political Science from Saint Francis University in Loretto Pennsylvania. He served as a member of Barnesboro Borough Council for eight years with six of those years as President. He is just starting his ninth year as a member of the Cambria Heights School Board.

Brant has testified four times before various committees of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and once before the United States House of Representatives on issues related to the fire service and community development.

Jerry has also served as a grant reviewer for the both the federal government and private foundations. He and his wife Christine Irwin are the parents of Tristin Irwin a 2013 Cambria Heights graduate.