John W. Mittendorf joined the Los Angeles City Fire Department in 1963. He served with this department until his retirement in 1993. Mittendorf has been a member of the National Fire Protection Research Foundation on Engineered Lightweight Construction Technical Advisory Committee. He has provided training programs for the National Fire Academy, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the British Fire Academy at Morton-in-Marsh, England. He has also acted in an advisory capacity for five college fire science advisory boards, and has participated in numerous promotional interview boards.
The author of numerous fireground articles for fire service magazines in the United States and Europe, Mittendorf lectures internationally on strategy and tactics, truck company operations, fireground operations, the ten most common fireground mistakes and how to avoid them, building construction, ventilation, the complete fire officer, and interview techniques. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of Fire Engineering magazine, the author of Facing The Promotional Interview (Fire Engineering, 2003), Truck Company Operations (Fire Engineering, 1998), and was a recipient of the Fire Engineering 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award.
