ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

Responenomics: Applying Economic Principles to Optimize Incident Response

Every incident is a cost event. This new model exposes the hidden inefficiencies and guides better decision-making under constraints.

webinar responsenomics firehydrant

Incidents are not merely interruptions to be resolved, but economic events with a real impact on labor, output, and productivity. Responsenomics is a new conceptual and operational model that reframes incident response as a resource allocation challenge, using microeconomics to guide smarter decisions.

In this webinar, Blackrock 3—experts with over a century of fire service and critical infrastructure experience—joins FireHydrant CEO Robert Ross to explore how economic thinking can reveal hidden inefficiencies, guide better decisions, and turn reactive firefighting into a data-driven, cost-aware decision-making practice.

Learn how to approach incident response with economic thinking to:

  • Reduce wasted labor
  • Prevent unnecessary escalations
  • Quantify opportunity costs
  • Justify investments in automation and tooling

 

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About the speakers

Rob Schnepp, Blackrock 3

Rob's incident response career spans 30 years in international public safety as a Special Operations Fire Chief, Incident Commander, consultant and published author. Rob commanded numerous large-scale emergencies for the Alameda County (CA) Fire Department, protecting 500 square miles and two national laboratories in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. Rob has responded on Unified Command/Incident Management Teams to high profile incidents including:  9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attack; oil spills in San Francisco Bay (Cosco Busan and Dubai Star); large propane gas explosions; campaign wildland fires and numerous large scale emergencies. Rob planned and directed Red Command at Urban Shield, the largest Homeland Security exercise in the United States. Rob has planned and directed full scale exercises for the US Department of Defense in 12 countries.

Rob is a founding partner of Blackrock 3 Partners, helping IT companies maximize uptime during high severity IT incidents by assessing, training, evaluating and exercising incident response teams. With deep global experience in Incident Management (Fire Department, Special Operations) and Critical Infrastructure (fiber networks, data centers, oil and gas, power systems), we combine a unique mix of expertise and ingenuity to maximize IT Uptime in any organization.

Ron Vidal, Blackrock 3

Ron’s corporate career spans 35 years as a senior executive in critical infrastructure  disciplines of metro/long haul/subsea fiber optic networks, data centers, oil & gas, power systems and capital markets. Previously, Ron was a senior executive at Level 3 Communication (operates 16,000 mile international metro, long haul and transoceanic fiber optic Tier 1 backbone network), UUNet Technologies (largest Tier 1 Internet Service Provider (ISP) when acquired by MFS), MFS Communications (operated 38 metro fiber networks in U.S. and Europe, acquired by Worldcom) and Kiewit Construction (3rd largest U.S. construction contractor).

Ron led technical and operational due diligence teams on over $19 billion of telecommunications and Internet Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) transactions, including the 5th largest transaction in history at its closing. Ron developed and communicated key financial messages during the sale of $14 billion of public equity, debt and convertible debt securities, across 10 international roadshows and 8 trading desks, and managed relationships with 21 sell-side research analysts and 25 of Level 3’s largest shareholders and bondholders. Ron presented at investment conferences sponsored by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, UBS, Oppenheimer and others and at company sponsored investor & analyst days and has been quoted in Business Week, USA Today and numerous trade publications.
 
Ron led Level 3 Communications relief and recovery efforts in New York City after the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attack.  Ron also served on Mayor Dinkins New York City Task Force on Network Reliability.
 
Ron has advocated technology public policy to Members and staff of United States Congress, Commissioners and staff of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Commissioners and staff of the California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York Public Utility Commissions (PUC), notably testifying before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on E-911 and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) policy. Ron is a volunteer firefighter, and former Chair of the Emergency Preparedness Commission in Mill Valley, California and a technical peer reviewer for FEMA’s Assistance for Firefighter Grant (AFG) program.

Robert Ross, Founder & CEO, FireHydrant

As co-founder and CEO of FireHydrant, Robert Ross believes that better incident management tools and processes are integral to a world where all software is reliable. He founded FireHydrant in 2018 as the tool he wished he’d had when managing incidents as an on-call engineer at companies like Namely and DigitalOcean. In his spare time, Robert enjoys skiing, traveling, and a good road trip.