Holmes (January 6, 1927 – November 24, 2017) was an American firefighter, rising to the rank of assistant fire chief of the Oklahoma City Fire Department.
After retiring in 1981 he founded the Carl Holmes Executive Development Institute for Fire Management Training as an alternative to the National Fire Academy, an annual conference at Dillard University in New Orleans, La.
He was best known for mentoring thousands of African American firefighters in leadership training from 1981 to 2017.