The fire escapes industry, as specialized from iron or steel works, was in idea in Francisco Meneses’ head in the late 80’s when the Market Crash of 1987 forced him from a career in financial services back to running the family business, Meneses Ornamental Ironworks. It was clear that standardization of fire escape industry was essential to saving lives and an opportunity to specialize fire escapes from ornamental iron and steel works. Over 75% of fire escapes are 50 to 75 years old and many have never been maintained since fabrication/install and fire escapes built before 1978 are considered to be painted with lead paint. Cisco devised a system of fire escape inspection, documentation/reporting of issues and repair criteria which landed clients like Harvard, MIT, and Tufts locally as well as drawing clients from further and further afield, eventually servicing clients nationwide. Everywhere he went, the condition of fire escapes was the same, about to collapse. There were no laws – fire or building codes – to require fire escape maintenance or inspection. After a fire at a night club killed quite a few people, TV reporter – Hank Phillipi Ryan – did a feature story called “NO Way Out” with Cisco as the fire escape expert. Even though the laws or codes have not been specific about fire escapes, the courts have, in most cases, found that property owners are liable for their occupant’s safety when fire escapes have failed due to negligence. Cisco realized that injuries and deaths would keep occurring as long as building and fire codes did not require fire escape testing, maintenance and certification. He began giving free fire escape awareness seminars and inspection training classes to firemen, building and fire code officials. This then grew into the NationalFireEscapeAssociation.org. In 2012 a new national law was enacted making fire escape maintenance and testing (inspection/load test) a mandatory part of a property’s safety requirements.