Richard B. Chapman, FSSC co-founder (1927–2022) Before establishing Fire Safety Sales Company in 1974, Richard Chapman had already spent a lifetime in service to his community. He was Assistant Fire Chief in Los Alamos, New Mexico; started an office supply company in Santa Fe; was Assistant Fire Chief and a fire safety inspector in Amarillo, Texas; and had guided hunters and fishermen, worked construction, and waited tables as a young man.

But Richard Chapman’s devotion to service began in the days after Pearl Harbor, when he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. More than a year after he enlisted, Marine officials realized he was only 15, so he continued to serve his country at sea in the Merchant Marines for the remainder of the war.

Richard served in his first fire department in Los Alamos, shortly after WWII. As the decades passed, he observed how time and resource scarcity limited fire departments in their capacity to deliver public safety training and keep commercial fire protection equipment reliable. So, shortly before being named Los Alamos Deputy Chief in 1974, Richard and another department captain, Chester Woodsen, founded FSSC to help provide those services.

Richard retired from the Los Alamos fire department in 1995 and joined the Department of Hospitals and Institutions to raise the level of specialized fire protection needed in medical facilities across northern New Mexico. He continued to serve as an advisor to Fire Safety Sales Company until his retirement.