Training and coaching

I know that I learned a great deal from everyone whom I facilitated, and my officers and their firefighters really looked forward to our short but productive sessions. They always said that they appreciated the time I spent with them because they learned how to be better initial incident commanders, and they learned what my expectations were for them at the emergency scene in that role.

I certainly support the idea of pursuing accreditation by those organizations that have the resources, e.g., people, time, and money, but what about those who don't? Well, for those departments I'd like to suggest that they use my "homegrown" template for identifying what's important in their service delivery so that they can then collect the data to determine, How are we doing?

If I were you, I’d spend my limited money on equipment to put CAFS into my firefighting arsenal instead of buying LDH; the 6” water mains in your town really don’t justify the use of LDH. I think that maintaining your 3” supply line cache and combining it with CAFS will give your department plenty of tactical firefighting capability.

Why EFOP? Don’t get me wrong, my course work in both of my degree programs provided me with the opportunity to acquire a vast amount of knowledge in a wide variety of subjects pertinent to Fire and EMS...It was during my four-year pursuit of that EFOP certification, however, that I acquired the skills and abilities that had a phenomenal impact on my growth as a fire officer.

I brought their concept home and immediately began using it with the company officers in my battalion. I was a new battalion chief at the time and found that it helped me establish credibility and trust with my new team. (I had a battalion at that time of six stations and eight company officers.)