During my career, I have had a ringside seat to closely watching the birth of two brand new fire service characters: the paramedic and the incident commander (IC).
Given that I am unemployed and actively avoiding work, I now spend most of my time aimlessly wandering about seeking just about anything that makes sense to me.
Dive into the topics you can't ignore - everything from the role of emerging technology to leadership and management insights for today's fire service.
It must almost be springtime because it is now the time of year when we all begin to think about and get ready to make our annual pilgrimage to FDIC (as of this writing).
Last column, I reminisced about attending FDIC for the first time early in my career as a firefighter. I described the conference classes and the special experience of visiting the Memphis (TN) Fire Department (MFD).
I recently attended a one-day conference with about 150 firefighters present. There were four instructors, and the planners were nice enough to give me a small speaking part in the program.
In a recent discussion with a group of fire service bosses, we exchanged the mutual frustrations we had all experienced in attempting to deal with how the nature of our business creates a fertile environment for the energetic exchange of informal/unofficial communication among the members.
We have trudged through our monthly discussion about how the capability and personality of a boss can influence the internal environment of an organization.