“However the economy is doing, a challenge for leaders in the twenty-first century is attracting and retaining not just employees, but the best employees—and more important, how to motivate them so that they work with passion, energy, and enthusiasm. But very few people with brains, skills, and initiative appear. The timeless challenge in the real […]
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Changes – Time may change me, But I can’t change time (David Bowie)
There are those who say that people never change. And if you are talking strictly about personalities, that might be true, but I don’t think so. Everyone changes with time. Environments that we work in change so we change or alter our behaviors to match the changing environment. Most of us get married at some […]
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The Driver Engineer – What Drives Them
From the minute I completed my probation I wanted to be a driver engineer. I began shadowing the driver at the station I was at and asked questions, a lot of questions. I was fortunate enough to be at a station with one of the best drivers the department had at the time. Cliff took […]
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Forcible Entry
Without gaining entry into a structure where a suspected or confirmed fire is, the fire cannot be located and extinguished, searches cannot be made, and extension of fire cannot be checked. There may be one or more firefighters assigned to forcing entry (commercial property), or the first firefighter to the door (residence) is expected to […]
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Big City Thinking for Small Town USA
I have spent the last eleven years on a small combination department consisting of fourteen full time firefighters and ten volunteers. We seem to run into the same problems firefighters across the nation run into every day. We fight fires with less resources but are expected to more than what we are capable of doing. […]
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Can you be a fire employee and the leader and or member of a motorcycle gang?
There is a recent story out of Florida that’s has generated a lot of discussion. According to WFTS-TV’s I-Team, two fire captains, from two different departments, are chapter presidents of two different motorcycle gangs. One is with the Pagans and the other with the Outlaws. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) defines “outlaw motorcycle gangs” (OMG) […]
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Letter to the editor: Dwindling Fire Service Part 2
By Tom Carlin, Miami Valley Area Firefighter In regard to the last article I have wrote, I feel obligated to us all to write a second response to the first. Whilst in the first its easy to pick out problems and to table this and that as a negative cause or impact. I am […]
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Letter to the editor: Dwindling fire service
By Tom Carlin, Miami Valley Area Firefighter Why are the numbers in our (Dayton, Ohio) regions fire service dwindling? Well to answer that big question I’ll list my my reasons and expand on them. 1. High turn over rates: Why do we have such high turn over rates in our area? Several reasons, the […]
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A revisit to Women in the Fire Service
In April of 2015, I wrote an article on my perspective of women in the fire service. In the article I spoke regarding a local department that recently had harassment charges brought forward by several women. Some of those charges included the fact that there were not separate sleeping arrangements for men and women at […]
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