You're a chief, now what??? well ASK SOMEONE for advice!

August 27th 2015 was a big day for me as I was promoted to Assistant Fire Chief and in my department, this meant taking on the role as a shift commander in a department of three stations and roughly 20 people under me on shift, now I had been a Captain for almost 20 years prior and also served as the fire chief for a short time so I felt I knew the job of command but as of 1100 hours on August 27th I was the chief now and I took a good honest look at what it is I had to do to be successful, the words of Chief Billy Goldfeder rang in my head "what makes you qualified to command a fire?"  I also reached out to several of my mentors and asked for advice, in my opinion, the greatest thing of being part of the fire service and specifically the Penwell /Fire Engineering family is the feeling of being welcomed and having the ability to reach out to some of the best and brightest our country can offer in regards to fire service leadership and command. 

I get sick of hearing but it really is the truth that in many departments once you get the new gold that's it, there is nothing else many departments can or will offer newly promoted members, that in my opinion will continue to get many members injured and killed but we PERSONALLY CAN IMPROVE no excuses one great way is to ask others for advice! 

I continue daily to make myself better in terms of command and making Chief Goldfeder proud but its the suggestions also from other mentors that keep me going, I have laminated their responses and keep them in a book, one of my mentors made a suggestion of sharing all the responses I received and while I was a little leery at first I felt the right thing for our service and the future is to pay it forward and share their powerful advice with you here in this quick blog. Their tidbits of knowledge are not only for a chief but really any rank. I just finished listening to a Fire Engineering Google Hangout where the subject was training and making the future better, without a doubt if every firefighter heeded the advice offered below we would be so further along then where we are now. I also would like to add that if you ever have a question or concern do things the old fashion way and ask someone you look up to in our profession, social media is great but if you really want advice ask someone specifically and find someone who has "run the race" so to speak. This blog show it can be done step out of your comfort zone and ask!!!

Finally before I give you the suggestions given to me, they are not my words but the words of THE BEST I want to say thank you to the mentor up in the Northeast who suggested this blog to help others! Here you go they are in no specific order, I hope these help you also!