Ad a source of conflict?
I am writing in regard to the November issue, page 72, on which there appears an ad endorsing tobacco. I can’t remember ever seeing an ad in Fire Engineering or any other fire service trade magazine endorsing or encouraging the use of tobacco products. I feel this ad is not in keeping with the magazine’s philosophy and beliefs. As an avid reader of Bobby Halton’s Editor’s Opinion, I find his information, opinions, and thoughts to be of great value and inspiration. I believe firefighter health and well-being are priority issues for Fire Engineering, as demonstrated by the content and editorial history.
The fire service is continually reminded that cardiac-related emergencies are the leading causes of firefighter fatalities annually. Any firefighter can tell you one of the major contributing factors to cardiac-related issues is tobacco use. With some employers actually offering cessation programs or not even considering hiring tobacco users altogether, one would have to recognize the level of conflict in running such an ad. I struggle trying to convince members who work with me to use the employee tobacco cessation program. Advertisements like this in a magazine that is well recognized make this an even more difficult battle. Fire Engineering has a great responsibility to the members of the fire service. Its messages advocating firefighter safety and well-being are extremely important; ads like this, I feel, undermine the very message the magazine is trying to convey.
Christopher M. Streamo
GS-08 Fire Captain Youngstown Air Reserve Station Fire and Emergency Services Vienna, Ohio
Editor in Chief Bobby Halton responds: Here at Fire Engineering, we have a very strict separation of editorial and sales. We do this so that we are never compromised editorially or influenced in any way by any manufacturer or vendor running ads in the magazine. We normally do not even allow the use of brand names in the articles we run so as not to unduly influence anyone.
To be clear, neither the editorial nor sales staff ever sees all of the ads until the magazine comes out; the ads are managed by our sales staff and are electronically processed. The salespeople enter the ad by company name, and the computer generates the ad pages.
Our publisher, who strongly supports all firefighter health and wellness initiatives, reviews the ad submissions; he informed me that this ad slipped by him; it was from one of our inexperienced salespersons who did not know our corporate policy of refusing these types of ads. We have never run an ad by a tobacco company before-ever. Our publisher has since spoken with our salesperson, and this oversight will not happen again.
We thank you and everyone else who took the time to write and call us on this important matter. Please rest assured that I, a cancer survivor and a member of the Firefighter Cancer Support Network; our publisher; and the rest of the editorial and sales staff share your concerns about conveying inappropriate messages related to health and wellness.
Veteran members invaluable
The Editor’s Opinion “Old and in the Way” by Bobby Halton (November 2013) hits close to home for me. As a relatively new member of the fire service and one who has progressed through the ranks at a quick clip, I lean on these so-called “old guys.” In our fast-paced, twitter, Facebook, news-at-the-speed-of-light world, we seldom slow down long enough to see what is really important or, in this case, who is important. Sure, I owe a lot of my successes to taking course after course, but I would trade many of those certificates for the years of experience, blood, sweat, and tears that the old guys I have known and know possess. They have seen fires, they have seen fatalities, they know what brotherhood means. It is one of the greatest tragedies, in my opinion, that these individuals are retired out-in some cases, pushed out-because they can’t stretch a line as fast anymore or carry the heavier equipment. Well, too bad! That part of their service is done, and rightly so. The new blood needs to step in and fill that role, but by no means are our senior members tapped out.
The new recruits should sit down, be quiet, and listen to what these people have to say. The knowledge they have is hard earned. The “me generation” needs to step back and respect those who have come before and can still contribute. Some of our neighboring departments use their semiretired members to do accountability, fill cylinders, help with preplanning, and even photograph and videotape the calls so that department members can look back on them and improve.
Who better is there to fill these roles? They are people with experience, they know what to look for, they have been there. Some new recruit, while filled with good intentions, cannot possibly be expected to be as effective in these roles. I know if I had a choice between someone with a year’s worth of experience and 60 calls under the belt and a senior member with 25 years and thousands of responses, it’s a no-brainer as to who would get the job of, perhaps, incident safety officer.
I tell our recruits that they should come to our station on a Sunday morning and listen to the senior members talk, LISTEN to them, maybe even top off their coffee mugs for them. It frightens me to think that, like pretty much every other profession, the fire service is going to see a mass exodus of experienced people in very short order. We need to do everything we can as a service responsible for the safety of our communities to ensure that we maintain a semblance of contact with our senior members. The next generation of Goldfeders, Brunacinis, Salkas, Laskys, and Haltons has got to listen to learn, or there won’t be another generation of great leaders. The fire service’s role is not going to get easier. Our older members can share more than operational information; they can help with budgeting, apparatus purchasing, and personnel issues, to name a few.
I have been extremely lucky to have had several senior members influence me, and I am lucky to have many of them still a phone call away. To ignore our senior members is to follow the rainbow only to ignore the pot of gold. I would like to end on a personal experience, one I am ashamed to admit but am proud to say that I learned from.
As a new firefighter, I thought I had the tiger by the tail. I knew it all, and God help any fire that should dare show up on my watch. We had an old guy who never seemed as if he would retire. I thought then, “If you can’t put on an SCBA, what good are you?” This firefighter would do all the tasks no one else wanted to do but that had to be done. He was still serving his community the same as I was, and I was too dumb to recognize it. My district chief brought me back down from my pedestal when he asked me, “You love being a firefighter, right?” “Of course,” I replied. “Well, so does that guy, and he has found a way to be a part of the team. l’d love to be around to see how ready you are to go when the new guy of the future thinks you should!”
He had me there. Remember the old guys and the new guys share at least one thing-we all love this job we get to do. There is nothing like it on the planet. Instead of retirement, think resource.
Jared Cayley
Deputy Chief
Bracebridge (Ont., Canada) Fire Department
Live-in program intro to fire life
This is in reference to “Live-in Firefighter Program” by Jonathon Steed (Volunteers Corner, November 2013). I have to tell you that I had quite the same experience here in the Midwest. I was attending Indiana State University (ISU)-Terre Haute, working on my B.S. degree in safety management, 12/99 graduate. Staying with family during the first semester at ISU, I stopped one evening at the Honey Creek Fire Department’s Davis Drive station and did some inquiring about its volunteer program for a nonresident member. They let me in on Sugar Creek (SCFD), West Terre Haute/St. Mary of the Woods, Indiana opportunities and what this department already had in place. I got a ride-a-long scheduled with SCFD, and that was pretty much it. The first day, we caught a structure fire, and I was very convinced about what I saw that afternoon-the department’s equipment, membership, and how it all came together under its chief (at that time Jim Holbert).
Of course, schooling was the priority, but once I got the day’s assignments taken care of, the rest of the evening was all about getting comfortable with SCFD’s equipment. At different days/nights, a couple of members stayed in the station. However, I did have one other constant live-in with me. I served through my graduation time with the department, attending its in-house classes as well as those off site. From instructor I through initial rapid intervention team courses to advanced extrication instruction, the department added to my confidence level in fire department operations. Even though my ultimate career goals were not exactly full-time fire employment, I still wanted to keep a bit of “fire life” in my routines.
James S. “Jace” Woodworth IV
Captain, Emergency Response Team
Marathon Petroleum Company
Robinson, Illinois, Refinery
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