“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am a reader - I have been since my days as a child staying up past midnight reading comic books. Why, because my mom was a reader and knew the value of learning new things and going on the wild adventures that only reading can take you on.

Now, I’m sure to…

Psalm, 133:1 “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

Crew unity provides members with a sense of cohesion and confidence during calls, and a natural support network when returning to, or at, the fire station. A close crew is one whose members share a strong bond, loyalty, and commitment to…

How BIG is your ego, and are you getting in the way of the very people you should be building up?



STAY FIRED UP, and remember, it is always about them!

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The Super Bowl - the pinnacle of professional football greatness, myth and lore, where there have been some amazing athletes who can claim to be the glorious victors, or the devastated runner-up. However, one thing is for certain, whether you are the winner or loser of the BIG game – they all got there by being 100% dedicated to their craft and lead by passionate…

     Every adversity you and the team you are leading will ever encounter is either a problem or an opportunity. Although one might think there are many different variables that would distinguish one from the other, there is really only one difference between the two – YOUR ATTITUDE. That’s right. Often times the difference between a problem and an opportunity has everything to do with how you look at the challenge at hand.

     Opportunities…

There are a few professions where you can fake it through an entire career and never be exposed as a fraud - whether career or volunteer, firefighting is NOT one of them. Sure, you might slide for a while, but sooner or later you're going to ride the bull and there's simply nowhere to hide when you do. So the message here is simple: Get serious, be dedicated,…

When considering the command process, there are numerous interferences that do not allow the Incident Commander to fully execute his or her battle plan. Let’s look at the ordinary every day citizen. When bad things happen, “people” usually band together and want to help. (The first major human behavior study for a large fire was performed by John L. Bryan after the MGM Grand hotel fire in Las Vegas in 1980) His theories have proven themselves time and time again, e.g. the WTC bombing in…

One of the questions that I am often asked is, “I’m am a newly promoted officer and I want to make some changes but I am encountering a lot of resistance, what should I do?”

Resistance can come in many forms – a micromanaging boss, a lazy or complacent culture, a core group of over inflated egos with “inner circle” mentality, and the all too common “because that’s the way we have always done it” mentality. Each…

What is passion? What does it look like, sound like, feel like? Is it something we instinctively know when we are around its presence, or can it be palpated like a strong radial pulse? Every so often a person comes into our lives whose passionate light shines so bright that comets pale in comparison, and much like a blazing comet or shooting star, their…

I want to talk about…. what is brotherhood?  Plain and simple. Brotherhood is treating others like family. In a family, sometimes you're there to prepare people and make them better. Sometimes you've got to be hard on them. Sometimes you just need to be there for them. I think a lot of that gets lost. Sometimes people think it's not their job. We're just co-workers and I think that's the wrong attitude because not everyone grows up the same.

Some of you…

Lets talk succession training. It always seems to be a hot topic when a bunch of firefighters get together. There is either a lack thereof or something that they always want to see happen within their departments.

I see as there's two types of succession training. There's formal and informal. Formal is going to be at department programs, maybe some larger agencies might be common. Even smaller ones are starting to get it.  You got to go through this program. It's 40…

This is a paper I wrote for a college class. I hope you enjoy.

We all know that one person, don’t we? The one who was promoted to a leadership role when they have no leadership qualities whatsoever. They have said all the right things to the right people, done the bare minimum to get ahead, and now find themselves in a position of management over firefighters that know all to well who this person really is. My grandfather used…

There's no real power to having knowledge that you refuse to share with others. Regardless of your reasons, you are not smarter or empowered by what you know when it's kept in your self-centered locked mind of superior denial. Knowledge only works when you use what you know to lift others, so they can in turn lift others, and so on...

If you know it,…

In July of 64 A.D., a fire ravaged Rome for six days, destroying 70 percent of the city and leaving half its population homeless. According to a well-known fable, Rome’s emperor, the unpopular and sadistic Nero, “fiddled while Rome burned.” As with all historical events, much can be learned from their triumphs and tragedies, and here we can apply the burning of one of…

Endurance is a discipline worth mastering. Those who do are often the same ones who succeed in life. Most of us have experienced the battle between the inner voice and the physical body. Take jogging for example. At some point in your life you had made the decision that you needed to get in better shape. Perhaps you drove down to the local sporting…

We can't all fight the volume of fires that some of the larger cities do, and if you don't, please don't act like you do! Some of the best instructors I've ever had the pleasure of meeting are volunteer/part-paid or work full-time in smaller departments - and they teach excellent classes despite not having a structure fire every shift. The one thing they all have in common…