Scot Smithee brings more than 35 years of law enforcement experience and extensive professional driver-training experience to The Driving Company. He is recognized by the State of California (POST) as an expert in Emergency Vehicle Operations and off-road vehicle instruction.

Scot serves as a lead driving instructor for multiple law enforcement academies and teaches EVOC Instructor Courses, preparing other professional instructors to safely and effectively train emergency vehicle operators.

His specialized driver training includes Off-Road EVOC, counter-terrorism and dignitary-protection driving, Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT), emergency vehicle operations, and advanced driver training.

Scot holds a Bachelor's Degree in Organizational Behavior and a Master's Degree in Leadership, bringing an additional dimension to his work as an instructor. In addition to professional driver training, he teaches leadership and ethics, combining extensive field experience with a strong academic background in organizational leadership.

Scot served for many years as Chief of Police for the City of Gilroy, providing executive leadership for a full-service law enforcement agency. His experience as a police chief gives him an understanding not only of vehicle operations and training, but also of the responsibilities agencies face in developing effective, consistent, and defensible training programs.

His public-safety leadership experience also crosses traditional disciplines. Scot served as Interim Fire Chief for the City of Gilroy, giving him firsthand insight into both law enforcement and fire-service operations and the different demands placed on personnel, vehicles, instructors, and organizational leaders.

That combination of law enforcement command experience, fire-service leadership, professional driver training, and advanced education in leadership and organizational behavior brings a perspective to off-road EVOC training that is difficult to duplicate.

Scot is the recipient of both the prestigious Carnegie Medal and the U.S. Coast Guard Gold Lifesaving Medal for his actions while vacationing in Hawaii, where he helped save the lives of seven people.

These nationally recognized awards honor extraordinary lifesaving actions and reflect qualities that Scot also brings to professional training: sound judgment, leadership, situational awareness, and the ability to act effectively when circumstances become critical.

Read the story of how Scot helped save seven lives in Hawaii.

Today, Scot continues to train law enforcement officers, emergency vehicle operators, EVOC instructors, and off-road drivers, bringing decades of operational, instructional, command, and leadership experience to every course he teaches.

 Ron Waterman brings decades of fire-service, Emergency Vehicle Operations, heavy-vehicle, and professional driver-training experience to The Driving Company. He is a California POST-certified instructor with extensive expertise in Off-Road EVOC, vehicle recovery, winching, commercial vehicle operations, and emergency vehicle instruction.

Ron spent much of his fire-service career with the Sacramento Fire Department, including 15 years assigned full-time to the Training Division as an EVOC instructor. In addition to training firefighters and emergency vehicle operators, he was involved in both the practical application and written components of engineer promotional testing.

His instructional experience extends across multiple public-safety disciplines. Ron has also served as an Academy EVOC instructor for the Sacramento Police Department and Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, giving him extensive experience training both fire-service and law-enforcement emergency vehicle operators.

Ron played a major role in developing The Driving Company's Winching & Off-Road Vehicle Recovery curriculum and brings extensive practical knowledge of recovery equipment, rigging, recovery forces, winch operations, and safe vehicle-recovery techniques to TDC courses.

His recovery expertise extends beyond instruction. Ron has conducted product testing for off-road equipment manufacturers, giving him hands-on experience evaluating recovery and off-road equipment in practical applications. That experience contributes directly to TDC's approach to recovery training: understanding not only how equipment is used, but how it performs, how it should be rated and selected, and where its limitations may become important during an actual recovery operation.

Ron is certified by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) in an unusually broad range of professional driver-training disciplines, including:

• Emergency Vehicle Operations (EVOC)
• Off-Road EVOC
• Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT)
• Skid Car instruction
• Winching and vehicle recovery
• Motorcycle operations
• Driving simulators

Ron is also recognized by the State of California as an expert in Commercial Vehicle Operations and has been certified by the California DMV to test drivers operating Class A and Class B commercial vehicles, including buses. His expertise also includes Class C trailer towing instruction, adding another dimension to an already extensive background in vehicle dynamics, large-vehicle operation, and professional driver training.

Ron brings an unusual depth of experience to The Driving Company: fire apparatus, law-enforcement EVOC, commercial vehicles, off-road operations, winching and recovery, motorcycles, towing, and advanced vehicle-control instruction.

For TDC students, particularly those learning off-road vehicle recovery or operating large emergency apparatus, that means learning from an instructor whose expertise extends far beyond recreational four-wheel driving.

 Lloyd Ogan brings more than 35 years of fire-service experience, decades of professional EVOC instruction, and extensive expertise operating and teaching in large emergency vehicles. His career includes service as a firefighter, professional driver trainer, Strike Team Leader, Incident Commander, Deputy Fire Chief, and Fire Chief.

Lloyd spent more than 33 years with the Sacramento Fire Department, ultimately serving as Deputy Fire Chief. Following his retirement from Sacramento, he was appointed Fire Chief of the El Dorado County Fire District, continuing an extensive career in fire-service leadership and emergency operations.

He also serves as a fire department chaplain, continuing his involvement with and support of fire-service personnel.

Lloyd brings more than classroom knowledge to TDC's fire apparatus training.

As a Strike Team Leader, he has hands-on operational experience leading fire strike teams in off-road environments involving a variety of emergency vehicles, particularly Type III wildland fire engines. That experience gives him firsthand knowledge of the challenges crews encounter when taking heavy fire apparatus into remote and unimproved terrain during actual incidents.

Route selection, changing terrain, vehicle positioning, traction, clearance, weight transfer, communications, access and egress, and protecting the apparatus all become operational considerations when crews are trying to accomplish a mission rather than simply complete a driving exercise.

Lloyd understands those decisions because he has made them in the field. That real-world strike team experience is incorporated directly into his instruction, helping students understand not only how to operate a Type III engine off road, but how off-road vehicle operations fit into the larger mission of a wildland fire response.

Lloyd has extensive experience with large fire apparatus, commercial vehicles, and specialized emergency vehicles, making him particularly valuable when TDC conducts off-road training involving equipment considerably larger than a typical SUV or pickup.

A good example came when The Driving Company was selected to provide off-road driver training for fire personnel at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. Lloyd served as the primary instructor responsible for teaching firefighters how to safely operate an approximately 81,000-pound, 8x8 aircraft rescue and firefighting crash vehicle off road.

Training a driver to negotiate unimproved terrain in a vehicle of that size requires a deep understanding of vehicle dynamics, weight transfer, traction, clearance, route selection, braking, spotting, and Mechanical Sympathy. The consequences of poor judgment become considerably more significant when the training vehicle weighs more than 40 tons.

Lloyd brings that heavy-apparatus expertise, combined with his real-world strike team experience, directly into TDC's training of Type III wildland fire engines and other specialized emergency vehicles.

Lloyd has been involved in professional emergency vehicle instruction for more than three decades. He has served as a DMV Commercial Driver's License Trainer and Examiner since 1989 and began instructing Emergency Vehicle Operations for the fire service in the early 1990s. He has been a California POST-certified EVOC instructor since 1994 and is also certified in Off-Road EVOC and off-road vehicle instruction.

His experience isn't limited to teaching individual drivers.

In 1997, Lloyd partnered with the Sacramento Police Department and Sacramento County Sheriff's Department to help establish the Sacramento Regional Driver Training Facility. He subsequently served as the facility's Supervising EVOC Instructor, helping oversee professional emergency vehicle training for multiple public-safety disciplines.

Lloyd's understanding of emergency operations extends well beyond vehicle training.

In addition to his roles as Deputy Fire Chief, Fire Chief, and Strike Team Leader, Lloyd served as an Incident Commander on the Sacramento Regional Incident Command Team, providing leadership during complex emergency operations. That command experience brings an important perspective to off-road EVOC instruction.

Emergency vehicle operation isn't simply about getting a vehicle through difficult terrain. Drivers must understand how their decisions affect crew safety, apparatus availability, operational objectives, access and egress, and the overall emergency response.

Lloyd understands those considerations from multiple perspectives: behind the wheel, leading strike teams in the field, teaching professional drivers, and commanding emergency operations.

His combination of wildland fire and strike team experience, fire-service leadership, incident command, commercial driver training, professional EVOC instruction, and extensive heavy-apparatus expertise gives TDC students access to an instructor who understands what it takes to safely operate some of the largest and most specialized emergency vehicles in demanding off-road environments.

From Type III engines on wildland fire strike teams to an 81,000-pound 8x8 crash rig, Lloyd brings real-world heavy-apparatus experience to the training area.

Rich MacDonald joined The Driving Company instructor team in 2026, bringing 30 years of fire-service experience, command leadership, and professional driver-training expertise to TDC. His career included service as a Battalion Chief, with leadership responsibilities involving operations, training, personnel development, safety, and organizational readiness. Rich has extensive experience developing and delivering firefighter driver/operator training, with an emphasis on risk management, sound decision-making, vehicle operations, and preparing firefighters to safely perform in demanding environments.

Rich teaches Off-Road EVOC for The Driving Company, bringing three decades of fire-service operational and leadership experience directly into the off-road training environment. His experience in both on-road emergency vehicle operations and off-road EVOC gives him a broad understanding of the challenges fire departments face when developing safe, competent emergency vehicle operators.

One of Rich's strengths as an instructor is his ability to take complex concepts and make them clear, practical, and immediately usable. His teaching style emphasizes calm instruction, sound judgment, risk recognition, and understanding the reason behind a technique rather than simply memorizing a procedure. Those qualities are particularly valuable in off-road EVOC, where drivers must continually assess terrain, traction, vehicle capabilities, changing conditions, and operational risk rather than simply follow a predetermined path.

Rich's years in command and training roles also give him an understanding of the larger objective behind professional driver training: developing personnel who can make good decisions when an instructor isn't standing beside them.

Rich may be the newest member of The Driving Company instructor team, but he certainly isn't new to professional training or the fire service. He arrived at TDC with 30 years of fire-service experience, command-level leadership, extensive driver/operator training experience, and a career spent developing firefighters and managing operational risk. That's indicative of the standard we maintain for the entire TDC instructor team.

At The Driving Company, even our newest instructor brings three decades of professional public-safety experience to the training area.