Seven recognized as new Code Council Honorary Members

International Code Council members awarded Honorary Memberships to seven distinguished individuals for demonstrating outstanding service to the Code Council or one of the association’s legacy model code organizations. Members approved the nominations of Fulton Cochran, Dwayne Garriss, Dennis Hirsch, Jerry Mallory, Mike Metcalf, Sarah Rice and Richard Witt during the Code Council’s 2019 Annual Business Meeting in Las Vegas, Nev. Honorary Members have voting rights and receive all Code Council member benefits.

Fulton Cochran

Fulton Cochran, former assistant fire chief with the Clark County Department of Building & Fire Prevention in Nevada, has been involved in the fire service for more than 35 years. Starting as a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Manitou Springs, Colo., he worked as a career firefighter and then moved into fire prevention. He was the fire marshal in Breckenridge, Colo., and an active member of the Fire Marshals Association of Colorado prior to moving to Southern Nevada. He currently serves on the Code Council’s Fire Service Membership Council Governing Committee (he is a past chairman), the Board for International Professional Standards that oversees the ICC certification and testing programs and represents the fire service on the Codes and Standards Council, which advises the ICC Board regarding the technical code committees and code development. In 2013, Cochran received the ICC Fire Service Award. He is an active member of the Southern Nevada Fire Code Committee and is a two-term past president of the Southern Nevada Chapter of ICC. He is also the former chair of the EduCode Committee of the Southern Nevada Chapter for code training and professional development.

Dwayne Garriss

Georgia State Fire Marshal Dwayne Garriss is a past president of the International Code Council Board of Directors and has been an active member of the Code Council’s Fire Code Council, including serving as chair. He is the recipient of the 2018 Excellence in Fire & Life Safety Award that honors those who have dedicated themselves to saving lives and property through the development of codes, fire-prevention practices and leadership techniques. With an educational background in architecture from the University of Tennessee, Garriss started his career as a mechanical engineer project manager and then relocated to the Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner in 1988 as a fire safety engineer. In 2011 he was appointed as the Georgia State Fire Marshal.

Dennis Hirsch

A member of ICC Region II and a past president of the Montana Chapter of ICC, Dennis Hirsch is the building inspector for Miles City, Mont. He has been involved in Montana state code adoption and an active supporter of facilitating inclusive, collaborative relationships between seasoned code professionals and emerging industry leaders.

Jerry Mallory

Jerry Mallory, CBO, building official and fire marshal for Johnson County, Mo., has for the last 25 years served as past chairman of the board of the International Association of Building Officials and on the International Code Council’s Building Membership Council Governing Committee. A certified building official, building inspector, fire inspector, electrical inspector and zoning enforcement officer, Mallory led teams of trained assessment inspectors in response to Hurricane Katrina and the Greensburg, Kansas tornado, as well as tornado and flood events in Johnson County, Merriam, Prairie Village, Lenexa, Shawnee, Overland Park, Tonganoxie, Parsons, Hoisington, Pratt, Plainville, and Augusta, Kansas. He is the recipient of the Code Council’s Code Official of the Year Award in 2007 and its Community Service Award in 2003.

Mike Metcalf

David “Mike” Metcalf, CBO, CFM, chief building official with the Plaquemines Parish Government in Belle Chasse, La., is a member of the Code Council’s Building Membership Council Governing Committee, a past president and past executive director of the Building Officials Association of Louisiana, a member of the International Code Council Gulf Coast Region IX board, and a member of the Louisiana Floodplain Management Association. A former Louisiana State Uniform Construction Code Council chairman, he led the effort to provide military veterans with a provisional two-year time period to become International Code Council certified, allowing military veterans to work and learn while they earn their certifications.

Sarah Rice

Sarah A. Rice, CBO, is the project manager at The Preview Group, an architectural/engineering firm in Cincinnati, Ohio, specializing in construction code consulting in regulatory areas, including building code, fire code, accessibility and fire protection. Her extensive involvement in the regulatory arena has addressed a broad spectrum of project issues ranging from life safety and fire protection to hazardous materials assessment. A certified building official, Rice is active in the code development process at the local, state and national levels where she has served on numerous technical and development committees for the Code Council. Her engineering experience includes work as a project engineer and manager of standards for the legacy code organization Building Officials and Code Administrators International. She is an active member and past president of the Women in Code Enforcement and Development chapter, which received an ICC Community Service Award in 2017.

Richard Witt

Richard C. Witt, recently retired building inspection director of the Building Inspection Department for Chesterfield County, Va., began his career as a mechanical and plumbing plan reviewer in Chesterfield County. He has dedicated his professional career for more than 30 years to promoting building safety at the local, state and national levels, earning him the 2016 Gerald H. Jones Code Official of the Year Award from the Code Council. He also served as vice chair of the ICC Codes and Standards Council, chair of the Board of International Professional Standards, and on the Professional Development Council and the Certification Committee. In addition, Witt served the Virginia Building and Code Officials Association as legislative chair for seven years on the Governor-appointed position of Virginia Director of Regulatory Compliance, coordinating with lobbyists and members of the Virginia General Assembly to gain a 100-percent success rate on bills that affected the building community. He was also instrumental in the expansion and growth of the Virginia Building Code Academy as well as the Building Code Academy Advisory Committee.

View the complete list of ICC Honorary Members.