I hope to see all of my loyal followers (both of them) at FDIC in a few short weeks. I’ll be presenting “From the X-Box to the Box Alarm” on Thursday-April 22, 2010 at 10:30am in Room 127-128. There’s room for 308 of my closest, most personal friends so there’s really no excuse for not joining me! LOL (more…)
I recently had the opportunity to tape a radio show titled: “Sound Magazine” with Carl Russo of 97Rock.
The segment focused on the recruitment of volunteer firefighters and will air on several Citadel Broadcasting affiliates in the Buffalo area.
Carl is a long-standing afternoon jock on 97Rock and is also a volunteer firefighter with the East Seneca Volunteer Fire Company in West Seneca NY. Carl isn’t just a firefighter, he’s also president of the fire company and a commissioner in the fire district.
It offered me the opportunity to talk about being a kid who “ran to the curb” whenever I heard a fire siren and all of the great things that come with being a volunteer firefighter.
This was the second installment of “Sound Magazine” that focused on volunteer recruitment and more are planned for the future.
Click here to listen to “Sound Magazine” VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER RECRUITMENTSept 09
Let me know what you think.
Firefighters must start living the Life Safety Initiatives for us to see an impact on LODDs.
The following article is a reprint from the June-2009 edition of Fire-Rescue magazine. It is also a companion piece to my blog titled: Clean the Litterbox.
I recently attended a seminar on preparation for line-of-duty deaths and firefighter funerals. If you’ve ever read one of my blogs here or at FirefighterNation.com, you know that I have very strong feelings about firefighter deaths.
But, for the first time, the subject really hit home with me. While it’s important to plan that stuff, if we really think about it, doesn’t the need for proper funeral planning only further acknowledge our acceptance of failure in protecting our own from the risks we face? (more…)
Dig in.
“Early on in my fire service career, we responded to a report of a tractor-trailer rolled over on a nearby state highway. We arrived on scene and found a truck lying on its passenger side. The wheels were facing the roadway and the top of the cab was on the shoulder of the road. The truck driver was being treated as walking wounded. It seemed like a relatively benign accident.
As we approached the curb side we realized that this was no ordinary call. It turned out that the truck driver had a young female traveling with him. When the tractor trailer tumbled on its passenger side, the girl apparently fell half way out the window. Only her right arm was now visible outside the overturned cab, turned up at a ninety-degree angle towards us, her hand motionless. (more…)
Fortune Tellers:
In my last blog titled “Dig In.” I talked about the importance of story telling in the fire service and how it serves as a means of sharing experiences, traditions and values from generation to generation. In this article I try to tell a story, and in that story, I hope you can find a lesson to share for generations to come.
Almost every firefighter I meet speaks of how they always knew, from the time they were a very young boy or girl – that they wanted to be a firefighter.
I was one of those kids. I call them the “run to the curb” kind of kids. (more…)
As I travel around the country talking with other firefighters, a commonly recurring theme of our chat is the future of the volunteer fire service.
The conversation always comes around to the topic of today’s firefighters and the next generation of firefighters. Some “more experienced” firefighters (notice I didn’t use the term older) share that they don’t understand the “kids” coming into the fire service today. (more…)
My family is motivation for much of what I do in the fire service. Alex, Laurie and Kathleen (l-r)
This blog is a companion piece to my article titled “Make it Personal” featured in the June edition of Fire-Rescue Magazine.
I was reading a not so tongue-in-cheek blog on FirefighterNation.com written by my good friend Art Goodrich titled: “Ordering From the Risk Menu” and it reminded me of a Saturday I spent recently, full of fire service activities.
I started the day by attending a heavy dose of an 8-hour seminar focusing on preparation for a Line of Duty Death. If you’ve ever read one of my blogs, you know I’m very passionate about fire service funerals and making sure that they’re planned and executed appropriately, always considering the family’s needs first.
In contrast to Art’s blog, it’s important to plan that stuff too, but if we really think about it, doesn’t the need for proper funeral planning only further acknowledge our acceptance of failure in protecting our own from the risks we face? (more…)
Joining on the heels of the recent well-attended presentation for Suffolk County, fire departments in three more New York State Counties have recently signed up for Tiger Schmittendorf’s “Leadership in the Firehouse” seminar series.
Tiger’s flagship presentation is a comprehensive review of the Recruitment and Retention Rescue vs. Recovery discussion. The highly interactive presentation engages the participants in a conversation to discover the root causes of the challenges we face, why we face them and what we can do about them; together.
Click on the links below to download the appropriate event flyer: (more…)
Continental Flight 3407 crashed into a home in Clarence Center around 10:20pm on Thursday-February 12, 2009 - killing 50 people and changing the lives of thousands more, including mine.
I responded in the first wave of emergency services personnel sent to help restore order to the chaos that the crash created.
Frankly, I’m not ready to write about this experience at length. Not because I’m deeply disturbed by what I saw (how can you not be?), but because I don’t want what I write to be about me, despite my being intimately involved.
I just didn’t want to go any longer without conveying my deep sense of pride, admiration and gratitude to the men and women and the families of the Clarence Center Volunteer Fire Company. (more…)
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