Oj Kolodziej's Blog (5)

It’s just a seat!

The front right seat, company officer, lieu, cap, acting Officer, or whatever name you have for this seat it is not to be taken lightly. An officers position is to influence your people to be better, better at their craft, and better as a person. As an officer the right seat holds a tremendous amount of responsibility.

All too often when promotion time comes around you will see a majority of people running to…

Are We Skipping a Step? 

I love tactics, just as much as the next firefighter, but as we debate tactics are we missing a critical step, strategy. The strategic step is one that cannot be passed over. When we talk tactics we need to also talk strategy. 

 The reason we need to keep strategy in the conversation is you can throw all the tactics you have in your play book, but they will not fix any issues without a…

 Change, yup I said the dreaded C word.  This simple word with a simple meaning is one of the hardest things to do in life. If you are in the fire service it is even harder. Change in the fire service is one of those taboo processes that just cannot happen, but as a matter of fact the only thing in the fire service that happens more often than a medical run, is change. 

 When we speak of change the fire service ears perk up and we become a little defensive,…

I recently went to the UL-FSRI visitors day. The goal was to see what they were about and to find my own answers straight from them. You see I don't own a training company, I am not on any type of panels, but what I am and so was the rest of the firefighters that were there, we are students of the craft. We had the same goal and that was to gain knowledge and I believe that is exactly what happened.

The day started with what tests are going to be conducted,…

 Today’s reality: OJ Kolodziej

In the fire service lately, there seems to be this feeling that lines have been drawn in the sand. What I mean by this statement is either you are going aggressive through the front door every time, or you are standing outside to reset it from the yard. 

The reality that all of us are missing is this, fire does not really care what side of the line you are standing on. Fire has and always…