What an honor it is to begin a regular electronic stream of thought about the fire service, fire and life safety, planning, performance management, leadership, and — well, you get the message. There is not much in the fire service that doesn’t interest me, so I have high expectations that we here at Mutual Aid will be able to tweak people’s interest.
Like many of you, I have been around a fire station since my early teens. My educational downfall began when I entered fourth grade and sat next to the windows in Mrs. Hartsock’s class facing Fire Station 18 in Glenmont, Md. Every time 18 turned out for a call that year, I witnessed it and was hooked. Their front-line engine was a 1959 Peter Pirsch. I do recall seeing them occasionally pushing it out the door and hearing it backfire as it jumpstarted.
If you spring forward to now I am part of the management team under Fire Chief Tom Carr at Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service. As division chief I am charged with all the community interface areas that don’t involve operations, including the Fire Marshal’s Office, Public Information, Community Outreach, Planning and Research, and Recruiting. This week we are meeting for the first time with our team that is evaluating our accreditation proposal.
Aside from the work stuff I enjoy being associated with the many men and women nationally who are pushing hard out there to reduce risk and improve fire and life safety. I have been involved as the moderator for the last three years of two Yahoo groups, ePARADE and National Fire and Life Safety Educators, and I am trying to get a third group off the ground: FDRD for Fire Department Recruitment and Diversity. I welcome anyone who has an interest in these electronic exchanges.
It is real easy to run on with a blog, so I’ll close now and look forward to an increasing exchange with our readers as we crank this baby up.
May 14th, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
New Jersey just became the 12th state to implement a fire-safe cigarette law. Why don’t other fire departments push their states to do it?
May 23rd, 2007 @ 10:32 pm
Tom: Good question and it can be looked at as an inquiry as well as rhetorical. There are a number of other states that have legislatures that have mandated the cigarette standards but are somewhere in the next steps to final action. Three days after your comment my home state of Maryland’s governor signed the legislation into law for a 2008 implementation. There are also many states that are close. Texas is working hard and will be there soon.