Professional development is the planned, progressive, and lifelong process of education, training, self-development, and experience that you gain during your development. In the fire service, professional development is a critical element of being a leader and a professional. When we step up to accept the responsibility of leadership, we also accept obligation to continuing our training, education, learning, personal experience, and growth and work to improve our effectiveness.  Professional development is an excellent tool for meeting that obligation. As fire service organizations, we must strive to provide continuing guidance to our most valuable resource, our personnel, through a carefully crafted professional development plan that meets the specifics of the organization. This class will help students with developing a model for their organization.