“Please don’t tell my parents I’m a volunteer fireman, they think I’m a piano player in a cat house.” That’s the tongue-in-cheek message printed on a bumper sticker that used to be pinned to the bulletin board in our chief’s office about 25 years ago. Decades later, have we overcome the stigma of being volunteer […]

Xbox Hack#160125: “Creating a work environment that meets the individual needs of your team members creates outcomes that will exceed your organization’s expectations.” I tell the participants in my facilitated conversation: “From the Xbox to the Box Alarm” that if they remember nothing else about our discussion, remember that ‘The greatest expectation of this XboxTM […]

I originally wrote “From the XboxTM to the Box Alarm” in 2008 as I stumbled upon what I saw as a direct correlation between Generation Y and the influence of video games on virtually every aspect of their lives. Based on my reading of some formal research conducted by those a lot smarter than I am […]

The term “Brotherhood” means different things to different people. Ask 100 firefighters what brotherhood is and you’ll get 100x different answers. You know it when you see it; you miss it when it’s gone and you certainly feel it when it’s turned against you. Used gender-generically to refer to this special, sometimes inexplicable bond that […]

Call me old-school but even with all the desktops and devices I own, I still love the feel and look of a print publication. [I hope the folks at FireRescue Magazine are reading this! lol] And I don’t know about you but, when I read a magazine I most often flip the pages from back to […]

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in what I thought was going to be a “speed recruiting” event at a local high school, unaware until I got there that the tables would be turned and I was the one who was going to be interviewed. More than 30 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors […]

This post, like many of my half-written, unpublished works has been brewing for a while now. It didn’t just dawn on me today, or yesterday or even necessarily a year ago. However, its being published is a direct result of singular action that I took recently and the decision that brought me to take the […]

In his February 17th Morning Lineup features (and updated on February 20th), FireGeezer.com's Bill Schumm discusses and demonstrates the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of using video as a recruitment tool. While his perspective on why we face the recruitment and retention challenges we do are certainly part of puzzle, the value of his commentary lies in […]

An article recently posted to FirefighterNation.com outlines the challenges faced by volunteer fire departments in Pennsylvania in recruiting and retaining their members. Although these types of articles are becoming all too frequent, this one in particular is better than most in that it focuses on the positives of being a volunteer firefighter — not all […]

The world is changing rapidly and the fire service is getting caught up in the tornado effect of technology on our society. More and more fire departments are smartly using web sites, e-mail and social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter to recruit new firefighters and to stay connected to their community. There isn't much you […]