By Ray McCormack
Some of you didn’t even know we had such a thing as fire service executives did you? Well, they are around. Finding out more about them and what their ideas are is important to all future fire service executives and the rest of us stakeholders.
The fire service executive is part-business class, part-firefighter, a hybrid, a unique combination of selective academic achievement mixed with a smattering of business intellect, a type-A personality with a whole lot of ideas on how to correct and change all our collective shortcomings.
The fire service executive borrows heavily from the business world, looking for the next program adaptation. One of the strategies fire service executives concentrate on is marketing. Fire service executives believe marketing is vital, because they want our brand to remain strong. We can’t have people dialing up our competitors in their time of need, can we? Muzak-hold features for callers when dispatchers get busy is just one example of using a long-term business model of customer service, but that wouldn’t happen, would it?
The fire service executive knows that we must take our message to the people, however the saying “Firefighters Save Lives” has yet to take hold. Maybe it’s considered to self-serving, but who knows, maybe one day we will start to tell people that we do make rescues, save lives, and are vital to their safety. In the interim, we will shy away from the smoke and just concentrate on mirrors so as to project an image that the executive is comfortable with. A 360 could transition from a walk around the fire building to four handlines shooting 90 gallons per minute each onto the four sides of the fire building…remember, that adds up to 360, too. The ideas ire service executives put forth are often so progressive that many fail to see there relevance.
Many former members of the fire service are now fire service executives, trading shift work for greener pulpits. They have many ideas to combat contemporary firefighter shortcomings. All that culture being put forward by senior executives, you have to wonder where they were all those years they wore the uniform–no rallying for change then. Odd.
The fire service is currently involved with broadcasting the differences between legacy and contemporary fire status. The term “fire service executive” is an example of contemporary fire thought. Chief is so “legacy.”
Most fire departments don’t even have these new titles, but that will change as we progress further down this path. The modern fire service owes it to itself to create these wonderful executive positions so that we can be more businesslike. You may see them develop a risk hierarchy of “let it burn”–touted as “no risk, no pain”–finally bottom-lining firefighting. No idea or position is off the table. For fire service executives, anything is possible, because they see the big picture that working on committees provides.
Interested in the growing field of fire service executive leadership? Much sacrifice will be required, including taking part in education opportunities, table top exercises, research, and a smattering of riding backwards. The riding backwards requirement can be waved as long as you can mimic contemporary study ideas in a paper or two. The residual soot of fire duty should never stain an executive’s shoes as they climb the fire service corporate ladder. The rewards can be worth it, however. Just think of the impact you could have on the fire service, how much you could fix, how much you could reprogram. It’s so inspiring. Under the impulse of such thoughts, the nobility of the occupation thrills us and stimulates us to deeds of daring.
We must be mindful that even new recruits have executive skill sets, and it’s probably better to rescue them early from the firehouse and get them into other disciplines so that they can further educate the rest of us on how baroque our culture often is in comparison to insightful decisions made at the executive level. Providing executive-level tactical safety is good business.
Next Tactical Safety: Who Moved My Hoseline
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RAY McCORMACK is a 30-year veteran and a lieutenant with FDNY. He is the publisher and editor of Urban Firefighter Magazine. He delivered the keynote address at FDIC in 2009 and he is on the Editorial Board of Fire Engineering Magazine.
