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This episode is sponsored by NuCalm.

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And as many of you know, I only bring sponsors onto this show

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whose products I truly swear by.

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Now we are an overworked and underslept population,

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especially those of us that wear uniform for a living.

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And trying to reclaim some of the lost rest and recovery is imperative.

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Now, the application of this product is as simple as putting on headphones and a sleep mask.

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As you listen to music on each of the programs,

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there is neuroacoustic software beneath that is tapping into the actual frequencies of your brain,

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whether to upregulate your nervous system or downregulate.

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Now, for most of us that come off shift, we are A, exhausted,

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and B, do not want to bring what we've had to see and do back home to our loved ones.

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So one powerful application is using the program Powernap,

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a 20 minute session that will not only feel like you've had two hours of sleep,

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but also downregulate from a hypervigilant state back into the role of mother or father, husband or wife.

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Now, there are so many other applications and benefits from this software,

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so I urge you to go and listen to episode 806 with CEO Jim Poole.

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And you can find even more information on New Calm dot com.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show

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veteran firefighter, USAR team leader and Fire Academy lead instructor, Chief Don Campbell.

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Now, in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his own father's fire service career,

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Don's journey into the fire department, firefighter fitness, leadership, some notable USAR deployments,

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the attributes that Gen Z applicants are bringing to the first responder professions,

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the hiring crisis, the pioneering shift change that Gainesville is making from 2448 to the 2472 shift schedule,

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mental health, the smoke diver program and so much more.

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Now, before he gets this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment,

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go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.

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And this is a free library of well over 950 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories

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so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Chief Don Campbell. Enjoy.

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Well, Don, I want to start by saying thank you so much for driving down and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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No problem, buddy. I'm glad to be here.

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So we have known each other from afar for several years.

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We've discussed doing this for a while and I'm really excited from a multiple range of perspectives of all the hats that you held.

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Let's start at the very beginning, though.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?

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OK, well, I was born in Gainesville, grew up most of my life out in Cedar Key, about 60 miles west of Gainesville on the coast, where my dad's from.

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My dad retired from City Gainesville Fire Department, so natural that I would end up there.

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My mom is from New York, so a little different having someone from Cedar Key, Florida meet someone from Queens, New York.

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But they met in Puerto Rico, got married.

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My mom is a retired school teacher, currently actually running for school board in Levy County.

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She taught for 45 plus years and I have one brother, Sean, who's also a district chief in Gainesville.

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So I know your brother, he's I think the person that taught me almost every class I took at the college, the VMR, the ropes, confined space and just an amazing, amazing man.

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Let's go back to the parents, though.

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So firstly, I love asking when people have either themselves or family members that are in education.

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What has been the discussions of the evolution or devolution of the way we teach children through your mother's eyes?

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Has she discussed that with you at all?

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I don't know if she's discussed that, but I know that she has staunchly advocated for children and not just having one model for one specific kid.

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But sometimes you have to teach to the child and not make the child fit into the educational system as we may model it.

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And everyone learns different. And she stayed in the classroom for all 45 plus years of her career,

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never wanting really until now to move into any other position because she wanted to directly impact those kids.

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And so I know that that she really believed in teaching to the student,

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not necessarily just applying what some bureaucrat educational person said was the model for that kid, because everyone learns differently.

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And when you can unlock that, people are capable of doing a lot of stuff.

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But when you just try to apply a model to a person, you may not be getting their full potential.

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Yeah, well, firstly, she needs to be on the school board.

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Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you.

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Commercial for her. Secondly, I mean, let's apply that concept.

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What have you seen as far as all the candidates?

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Because you work with firefighter recruits in the Florida Fire College.

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What have you seen with that application when it comes to the spectrum of men and women that we get coming into our profession?

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Yeah, I think that's one of the things that at Marion Technical College we've tried to do is we try to get really in tune with our students.

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If they have different learning methods or ways they learn, rather, we try to accommodate those the best that we can,

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because they may have a lot of potential that no one's unlocked and we can unlock it and give them the confidence to move forward.

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Because I think what you see a lot is when you're trying to apply a system to a person and it doesn't fit them,

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they kind of retract into themselves.

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And when you can unlock them and find the way that they learn and build their confidence,

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they open up and are capable of a lot of other things.

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So we've really tried to apply that to how we teach.

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And also along with that, I don't know that kids have changed.

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I think society has changed how we raise those kids.

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Kids are still the same.

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It's just as the adults that are the problem.

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But they come in with a lot less technical and mechanical skills.

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So we're having to really focus on teaching those where maybe 20 years ago you didn't necessarily have to worry about some of those mechanical skills

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because they were just inherent in almost everyone.

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That's something that you hear a lot of kids these days.

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It's like, well, Newsflash, it's our generation that raised them.

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So it's our fault.

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Absolutely.

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You know what I mean?

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And I think when I think about the good senior firefighters that I work with, the humility,

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like Al Benjamin, like an FDNY Rescue One legend.

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I mean, the humility of these men and women is exactly what's needed.

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If someone comes in and they don't know how to start a saw or whatever it is,

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then that should have obviously been taught in fire academy if it's outside of that,

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then the answer is to show them, not just belittle them from your lazy boy.

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So what are you seeing as far as the good qualities that society is forging in some of these young candidates?

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And what are some of the challenges that we're getting?

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I think what you get from today's new members is the level of just intelligence about their surroundings that they come with.

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You know, a long time ago when I went to Gainesville, I just wanted to go ride on a fire truck and go to a fire, right?

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That's all I really thought about.

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I didn't think about retirements necessarily money.

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At the time, I just, my dad worked there and so there, you know,

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some of the guys that I knew there were larger than life to me.

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And, you know, if I could ride on a fire truck with them and I can, you know, be on a nozzle or kick a door and go in a fire,

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that was really, that was it for me.

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You know, and nowadays I even had one of our former students who had applied in Gainesville and then he had applied some other places and he came and met with me.

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And he had pros and cons of every department written out on a big sheet of paper and trying to make a decision on where he wanted to go to work.

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And like you just didn't get that, you know, a long time ago, it was you were kind of a one shot deal.

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And then you might move on from there to other departments as you grew.

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But at least initially, maybe we just didn't have the information at our fingertips, you know,

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and in today's new candidates with the evolution of the NTN and some of these other ways that we hire,

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there's not as much skin in the game to apply multiple departments where when we applied, you had to show up there.

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You had to do a test there, maybe a written test and a physical test, and they may not be on the same day.

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So, you know, you had a lot of skin in the game to be able to apply.

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So you couldn't apply at a whole bunch of different departments at one time.

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You kind of had to take them one at a time and maybe you built from there.

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And now they can send their, you know, their their resume or their results from the NTN test and the CPAT to 20 or 30 different departments.

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And then they kind of pick. So a lot different over the past 20 years, you know, as people come in.

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Some of the challenges I think we faced was, like I said, with some of the mechanical aspects.

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And then, you know, also everyone wants instant gratification now.

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So they want you to give them what they want right now.

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And if not, you know, they want to know why where maybe more 20 years ago when you came in,

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you just kind of did what you were told, kept your mouth shut and worked hard.

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There's still a lot of that, but they also want some instant gratification.

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And I want to do this right now and I want to get this certification right now and I want to be promoted right now instead of,

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you know, kind of letting things play out and learn on the job.

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You can take all the classes you want and go to Best Fire Academy in the whole world.

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But until you get there and start working and understanding how your system works and you get experience,

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it's difficult to to move past, you know, to the next step.

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The list that you saw this young candidate have comparing different departments, do you remember any of the things that were on it?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was looking at, you know, at all of those departments at the time had similar schedules,

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but he had salary retirements, promotional opportunities.

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And he even knew a little bit about the contracts where some people had, you know,

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step plans and other departments did not have a step plan.

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And he knew that you could take a certain set of classes and get raises from this department and not others.

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So he had done his research on on each of the departments and had it in the pros and cons is a pretty mature, mature thing to do.

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I think that's one of the things that that I've done before is, you know, you might be feeling like you need to make a certain decision,

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but you can't really decide.

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And if you write those pros and cons out a lot of times, it helps you decide that.

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And at a young age, he was already doing that. So it was a mature move for him.

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Yeah, it's a powerful perspective.

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And we'll get into the recruitment crisis and becoming a destination department in a little bit.

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But I kind of want people to kind of think about that, like these young people get to choose now before we were scrambling for jobs.

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Let's go back two generations, though.

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What was your dad's recruitment story for Gainesville back then?

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Well, my parents met in the Coast Guard.

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And then when my dad got out of the Coast Guard, he was looking looking for a career.

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And, you know, at the time, there were a lot of people from my area of the world over in Levy County, West Levy, that worked at the Gainesville Fire Department.

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That was that was the thing a lot a lot of guys did.

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And so, you know, he was looking looking for a job and knew some of those guys that he had grown up with that were older than him.

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And so, you know, at the time, you didn't go to fire school and then get a job.

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You went and got a job and they sent you to the fire college.

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And so he went and applied and my mom even had to go with him to the interview.

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You know, when he interviewed and you get the job, went to fire college and just kind of went from there.

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What was the reason for bringing the spouse?

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I don't know, but it was it was a requirement.

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I guess they they wanted to, you know, if you had a spouse to know that you're signing on for this, too.

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And, you know, your your significant other was going to be gone every third day and kind of what you were getting into.

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So I think they were looking for stability, you know, and just to to see what you know, what the dynamic was like.

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I love that idea. Yeah, I got to say, I mean, obviously, it may not work for every.

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You know, there might be a really fired up candidate within a shitty marriage at that time.

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Yeah, but to to invite the family, whether it's the interview or part of that process before you ever pin the badge on to say,

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this is what you're getting into. This is what to expect.

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This is the good. This is the bad. I mean, it's kind of crazy that that was 50 years ago.

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And now that seems like a great new idea. So I did.

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Oh, yeah, absolutely.

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What about the mental and physical health impact of his career, what he was working?

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And that's kind of difficult to say.

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You know, my dad came from a generation where it was just all strength, right?

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You never show weakness. And, you know, he was a superhuman kind of guy.

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Big, fast, strong, you know, and and at that time at GFR, there were six six guys on an engine.

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And so there was one nozzleman.

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Well, that wasn't just because you got there early.

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You were assigned that based on your abilities.

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And so that's that's what everybody wanted to do.

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And, you know, he at the time when he was a fireman, he was a nozzleman.

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And so, you know, that was that was the premier spot.

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But those guys, there was there was no weakness ever shown us.

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You know, it's just toughness. So, you know, it was hard to read, if anything like that bothered him.

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I know that there there were some things because my mom would tell us things every now and then.

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And, you know, I know any you know, a couple of calls involving children that, you know, are rough for all of us.

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And, you know, he would want to call and check on us to make sure, you know, that that we were OK.

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And so, you know, those things are in there.

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But really outwardly, you know, you couldn't really tell a whole lot.

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Yeah, it's interesting. What about being the sons of a firefighter?

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What do you remember as far as, you know, being in the home when a parent was was working the shift?

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I mean, I guess because, you know, he started working there before I was born, you know, me or my brother.

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So I don't really ever remember it being it was just normal for us.

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You know, he just he went to work and and that was it.

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And, you know, he I'm kind of the same way now, but he he didn't just take take off randomly.

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You know, he only would take off work when, you know, it was something important to do with the family or,

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you know, we were going out of town or whatever, but just never randomly took off work.

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When it's time for him to go to work, he went to work and he missed things.

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And, you know, that was just part of it.

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And I don't I don't think it really affected us because we were so used to it.

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It was just a normal thing.

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And, you know, my mom, you know, was more than capable of dealing with stuff when he was gone.

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So I don't I don't think for my brother and I, it really impacted us at all.

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Yeah, because I think that's the the conversation for 14 years.

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You know, Christmas fell on whatever day I came home Christmas Eve or, you know,

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obviously try and get off of my birthday.

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But I mean, as a newer firefighter, I mean, there was no way I was getting Christmas for another decade.

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But that was OK. And I think this is the problem.

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That is a separate conversation from the constant mandatory overtime that we're seeing a lot of these people being forced to do.

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If this is, you know, if I may shift and know, you know, ten years from now, I know if I'm going to be home on this day or that day.

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But I'm supposed to be home tomorrow.

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And now, you know, seven, you tell me I can't go home to my child's birthday.

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You know, that's a whole different conversation.

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It is. That's tough. And we've we've dealt with that a lot.

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And I think covid really impacted that a lot that, you know, most people don't.

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I don't know if their perspective is that covid kind of really.

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But that broke it out. And it's tough and it's tough to to see people go through that.

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It's tough to go through it yourself.

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But to also try to keep people motivated, say, hey, man, like, you know, we have a job to do when at the same time,

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like, you know, you hurt for them because they they can't go home, you know, and then they're getting ordered in again and mandated again.

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And, you know, they have plans with their family, their kids are young.

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It's just tough, man. It really is.

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And people have really held the line. But, you know, you only can take so much.

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It breaks people down.

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It was interesting watching as I was out the fire service by that point.

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Thank God. And, you know, the whole time I was standing in the middle, like I tried to do in all conversations and just be like, look,

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we're not talking about the health of the people.

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We're not talking about the mental health of the people. Everything you're doing is making people more scared and vulnerable to a disease.

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Absolutely. And then now it comes out that Fauci apparently was making up the mask mandates and the distances.

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And none of that was actually based on on science.

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Surprise, surprise. But then we come out the other end and there's still no discussion on health.

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So then, you know, you look back at what was the impact and we know there was a massive mental health, you know, impact on just regular people.

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But all those needless force shifts.

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I mean, at the beginning, oh, you know, if you've been even exposed to someone that had covid, then you're going to be gone.

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And I remember standing there like I'm not a leader at all.

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I'm like, just understanding the math. That's going to last about four days and you're going to have no people left.

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And so what do they do? Oh, well, actually, oh, well, well, if it was well, actually, then why are we doing it in the first place?

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You got firefighters aren't out of sit in the station together.

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The very coping mechanism that they need after these calls.

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So from my lens, it was just maddening because there were certain groups of people that were very vulnerable that we should have fought to protect while the rest of us kept the world spinning.

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What was your perspective as a leader of of not even so much the kind of the impact on the civilians,

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but the impact of all the rules and regs and vaccine mandates or whatever you want to talk about on the men and women of Gainesville Fire Department?

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I think the first thing our deputy chief did a very good job of being able to manage that out in the beginning.

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There were a lot of rules that came out, the six feet, the mask.

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And I think for the most part, you know, at our shift level, we were able to manage that out.

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Like some things just don't make a lot of sense.

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We're already going on calls with with people like us sitting next to each other is probably not going to be a problem.

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And, you know, one of my big things is where did six feet come from?

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How did we come up with that? And obviously now we know that it was made up.

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But even then, it just didn't make a lot of sense, you know, why that number stuck.

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So I think for the most part, what we try to do in the stations is, hey, man, we're here for a reason.

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You know, sometimes our job is dangerous, but we have to go out and take care of people.

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And we try to take care, you know, the best we could when we were around sick people.

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But, you know, at the same time, people need us and that's what they depend on us for.

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And, you know, I didn't know if I thought about it at the time,

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but now looking back, like super proud of how everybody handled that because, you know, we didn't miss a call like anybody that needed us.

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And we showed up and we took care of them.

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And that that has nothing to do necessarily with the department.

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I think that goes to the individual humans that work there and what they stood for.

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And, you know, I think we rocked along pretty good.

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And Chief Hillhouse, our deputy chief, managed a lot of those things that came out very well, you know, for us.

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And, you know, of course, everybody that knows about Gainesville knows about the vaccine mandate that that tried to come down.

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And, you know, again, super proud of the people that stood up for that.

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That was probably tougher for us than actually going through covid.

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It was dealing with the mandate that that divided some of our members against each other,

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you know, people that had been very close before and had to take opposite sides, unfortunately.

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And and sometimes you have to do that.

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And I'm glad that how it turned out, you know, even even a lot of our guys that had been vaccinated still stood against a mandate.

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Because you can't just allow things to be forced upon you or, you know, it'll never stop.

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And so those guys were right there next to those of us who decided that we didn't want to do that fighting against that mandate.

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And, you know, at the time, it just it seemed like a isolated small fight.

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But I think it ended up turning into something a little bigger than that, because that was the first one, I think, in the state where, you know,

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municipality was going to put that on their employees and a lot of other cities and municipalities were watching that.

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And luckily, we were we were able able to defeat it and beat it down.

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And hopefully that saves some other people from, you know, not in every other state, but at least in Florida, except for a handful of people,

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I think saved a lot of people from having to deal with that.

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So well, again, during this time, I went back to England, which cost me eight hundred dollars just on covid tests alone.

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I had the vaccine because I was going to see my grandma, who was almost one hundred and five.

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So, again, I'm like, you know, I've had other vaccines, me personally, you know, I'm not too worried about this,

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but I'm not taking it because I have to. I'm taking it because I choose to absolutely for her selflessly.

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But, you know, we you look at the way the fire service, you know, it started, no PPE, no vaccines.

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Everyone was absolutely fine with them being out there.

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And then this vaccine thing comes along.

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And again, they're telling us trust the science.

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And for me personally, being in medicine, you know, as long as I have an exercise physiology and all these things, I'm like, that isn't the science.

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This literally isn't what they teach us in microbiology.

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And so then, you know, then as you said, there's this division.

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And at that time, again, that middle ground is like, all right, some of you want to have a vaccine, some of you don't.

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There's one truth. The healthier the person, the healthier response is to a virus or a vaccine.

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If you have a great immune system and you have a version of that virus, you're going to create an immune response that may or may not protect you against this thing.

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It's a gamble because it's more like a flu shot than, you know, tetanus.

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If you don't want the vaccine, then the healthier you are, the more resilient you are to this, because we know,

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contrary to what everyone wanted wanted to hear that, you know, the sicker you were as a human being, the more chance there was you're going to die when you got this virus.

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So the only truth, no matter which way, was let's make people healthier.

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And so everyone was like, oh, it's about, you know, it's about health.

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It's like, no, it was never about health.

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And then to turn around and say you're going to terminate the very people that had no protection when you were hiding in your homes.

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And now they're selfish and they're murderers and all this stuff.

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And then fast forward and the efficacy is basically the fiv of a coin.

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Fifty, fifty. And I had a guy, John Knox, who was just fired in November from L.A.

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They rather than just say I was wrong, they just carried on and ruined the guy's career.

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So this is the thing we need to make sure that we reflect on these and, you know,

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make sure it never happens again, because the very heroes, the very frontline workers,

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were the first one they threw under the bus.

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Yeah. And it was it was weird how, you know, all of that came about.

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And, you know, we live in the free state of Florida, thank goodness.

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But one of the things with the vaccine, and that's what we talked about internally in Gainesville, is like it's free country.

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And if you want to get it for whatever reason, then go get it.

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Like, good for you. But if you don't want to, you shouldn't have to.

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And, you know, when we were going kind of through that fight with the mandate,

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you know, one of the things that kept getting pushed on us is you have to do this for the person next to you.

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And so my question was, well, if it works that good and they have it, what does it matter if I get it?

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Right. I'm the one that's taking the risk and I'll I'll take that risk, you know,

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because of the decisions that I want to make or the research I've done, or it's just because how I feel.

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And so that was the weird part is how we were, you know, you have to do it for this other person.

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And like, well, we've all been doing a lot of stuff for other people because we've run every call for the last couple of years.

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We've never missed one call. So I think we've done our part for our neighbors.

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And that was the hard part to swallow that after we had done all of this,

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now they wanted to come and just get rid of my 20 years of service because I wouldn't take a shot.

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And that was that was that was it was a little hurtful, right,

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because you put a lot into serving a community or serving an organization.

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And then for them just immediately want to turn your back on you.

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But, you know, after you look back on it, it wasn't necessarily the organization or the people.

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There was just a handful of people that were involved in that decision.

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And, you know, sometimes things happen.

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But I think I think it also did some good stuff for us where, you know, it made it made some people closer.

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You know, at least at least for me, it helped even solidify my faith even more because that that helped me work through that.

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And, you know, I knew not not that I'm a super important person, pretty average in most areas,

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but I had been around, you know, Gainesville a long time.

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So I knew that whatever decision that I made as far as how to handle the mandate piece,

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that other people were going to look at that, not that they would decide to follow me,

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but they're going to look at what I did and that might swing them one way or the other.

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And so, you know, I felt that, you know, if if if I and a few other people like how we decide is going to determine other people,

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how they decide to. And that's it.

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That's kind of a big thing because I had some personal reasons why I wasn't going to take it.

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You know, so that that led me into asking God to to show me, right, show me what you want me to do.

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And so one day when I was driving to work and I asked him that and I had been having a little anxiety about,

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you know, what I was going to tell people.

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And it was like all of a sudden, man, all that anxiety was gone.

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And so that piece told me exactly what I needed to do.

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And then after that, I was I mean, whatever whatever happens, what this happens and and I'll find my way.

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And so luckily, it turned out it turned out good for us. And I hope that by us doing that,

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it kept other people from even having to go through it.

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So, yeah, I think then the other thing to reflect on is if you think about the messaging,

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because again, a lot of that division came from anxiety.

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And you understand it. I haven't met a person yet that didn't say when it first happened, we were like, oh, shit.

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Yeah, absolutely. Everyone, you know.

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But but then when you look, it was like, stay away from people, stay in your home,

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we'll deliver fast food and alcohol to your house, binge watch the Tiger King, you know,

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and we'll tell you when you can come out.

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So you've taken autonomy, you've put in poor nutrition, you've taken away nature and daylight and community.

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You couldn't have written a worse way of handling that.

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That's the opposite. And for people that still think it was about health,

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you had a captive audience for about two years, a possible,

348
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you know, a beautiful opportunity to get the soda machines out of schools,

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to put PE programs back where they should be, to bolster local farmers, to create healthy organic food, all the things.

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And look, nothing. So, like I said, it was never about health.

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No, absolutely. Whatever people stounce on the vaccine, I couldn't care less.

352
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But it was never about the nation's health.

353
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No, you're right. And you should have seen that immediately, like, hey, we need to be healthy.

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And you know, you haven't seen that for a long time.

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And that's not really how medicine is trending these days. They just want to kind of, you know,

356
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give you something to ease your symptoms.

357
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And, you know, we don't necessarily work to try to get rid of some of the things that are plaguing us.

358
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Yeah, exactly. Well, I want to get to fitness in the fire service, but to precursor that.

359
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Tell me about what sports and exercise you were doing school age.

360
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So I grew up in Cedar Key, so no football, but basketball, baseball, track, cross-country,

361
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you know, from the time I was a kid all through high school.

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I dabbled a little bit with some basketball in college, which was an abysmal failure on my part.

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But definitely some good lessons there, because I think that helped me develop some of my work ethic.

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That, you know, if you want something, you've really got to put time in it.

365
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It's not just going to be handed to you. But yeah, I played sports.

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You know, there's not a whole lot to do in Cedar Key other than fish and hang out and play sports.

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And so, you know, from the time I was a little kid, you know, that's what I did.

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I always ask people that, you know, played a spectrum of sports.

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What did you gain from the team sports and did that apply in the fire service?

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And then what about the individual sports? Because those are two very different dynamic.

371
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The opponent is an entire team sometimes.

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And then obviously on the track, yes, other people are racing against you,

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but really it's the voice in your head that you're fighting.

374
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Sure. I think, you know, any kind of a team sport or some of what you get at is just how you're going to interact

375
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with other people and how you are as a teammate. And, you know, as a young person,

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you probably have a lot of failures. I know I did as a teammate, not being a great teammate,

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being selfish, you know, not not focusing on other people, focus on yourself instead of team.

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And that gives you an opportunity to work to work those things out because, you know,

379
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when you come into the fire service, obviously it's a big team,

380
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but everybody there is a good athlete, if you will, right, like a fire department athlete.

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And so you have a lot of type A personalities.

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And so how you become part of a team and operate inside of a team, I think, is important.

383
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And you learn that, you know, when you're dealing with with team sports and, you know,

384
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my daughter plays play softball and her team and Trenton just won the one a softball state title

385
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and watching her and her teammates go through that, you know, you see you see it happening with with them

386
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trying to figure out, you know, how do you be a good teammate?

387
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How do you get along with others? And, you know, sometimes it's not always pretty and you have squabbles,

388
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but learning how to work through that, I think, as a young person,

389
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and you come into a job like the fire service, that's very important.

390
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And then, you know, the individual the individual sports like, you know, tracking cross country,

391
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I think all of that teaches you discipline.

392
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But there's there's individual sports really have to force you to focus on discipline,

393
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on your preparation, because, you know, if you're on a basketball court and you're having a bad day,

394
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maybe you can just pass the ball to somebody else or, you know, you can play good defense.

395
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But, you know, if you're just running or doing some kind of a track event,

396
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:48,440
there's nobody to hide what you're doing like it's right out there for everybody to see.

397
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:50,600
And so that discipline of preparing yourself properly.

398
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,120
And that also is very important.

399
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:56,720
You know, what we do if you you can, you know, not not to quote a movie,

400
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:59,800
but you can either do this job or you can do it right or whatever they say in backtrack.

401
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:03,200
But that's true. You know, you can show up and just kind of go through the motions, you know,

402
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:05,240
or you can try to do it right and be a difference maker.

403
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:08,080
And I think that's what the majority of us want to do.

404
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,040
So that takes teamwork. You have to be able to operate inside a team.

405
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:15,040
But also takes discipline for you to prepare yourself over your career to do that.

406
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,120
Both mentally and physically. And so I think you learn a lot of that.

407
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:20,120
You know, you can learn it in a lot of different places,

408
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,720
but I think sports definitely offer that for you.

409
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:24,120
What about career aspirations?

410
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,440
Were you thinking about the fire service when you were in high school?

411
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:27,560
Is there something else?

412
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:32,040
No, I had I mean, I wanted to I wanted to go into the military

413
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,920
and be like a Navy SEAL or something super cool like that.

414
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:39,280
I really had no career aspirations other than like I wanted to play in that sport,

415
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,040
you know, not not really thinking about what I was going to do in the future.

416
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:48,880
And then when I went to college, I realized I didn't necessarily enjoy college,

417
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:50,920
especially like the academic piece.

418
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,960
I just wasn't not that I wasn't challenged, but I didn't.

419
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:57,280
It just wasn't interesting to me that there were only a couple of things that I enjoyed.

420
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,800
And so like the thought of like getting a job and going to sit in an office,

421
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,160
well, maybe awesome for some people.

422
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,520
For me, like I just didn't I didn't view that as a man.

423
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,360
That's really that's really what I want to do.

424
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,920
And I studied business and some finance stuff.

425
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,920
And I was just like, man, there's no way I'm not interested in this.

426
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,920
And, you know, so my my dad being in the fire service, obviously,

427
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:21,400
I thought that was super cool, but I had never really considered it,

428
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:25,040
even though as a kid, I was always pretending to be a fireman.

429
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:31,240
As I grew a little older, it wasn't necessarily something I had viewed as something I wanted to do.

430
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,200
But then when I decided I want to leave where I was going to school and I came home,

431
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:38,320
you know, my parents were super worried that I was going to go off the wrong track

432
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,840
and not be a productive member of society.

433
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,720
And, you know, so one of the things my dad says, hey, man, like you go to fire college or something,

434
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,480
but you're not just going to not do anything like you're going to do something.

435
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:50,800
And and so I was like, all right, well, let's let's go to fire school.

436
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:52,640
And then I got there. I really enjoyed it.

437
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:54,560
I enjoyed the challenge.

438
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:58,640
And, you know, like when you had burn day, like I wanted to go in and do the burn.

439
00:31:58,640 --> 00:31:59,920
You know, that was what I look forward to.

440
00:31:59,920 --> 00:32:01,960
So it kind of grew on me once I got there.

441
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:05,280
And then, you know, that's that's what I wanted to do.

442
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:06,400
I've said this a lot on here.

443
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:08,880
I was a straight C student in school.

444
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,840
But, you know, that's been in a glass half full as well.

445
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:16,400
But when I got to fire school years later, because of the backstories, I was told I was

446
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:18,800
colorblind and so I could never be a firefighter in England.

447
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:23,440
And then you way later than I should have had a realization that I'm not colorblind.

448
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,040
I can just not see some colors as well.

449
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:31,040
So anyway, I was 26, I think, when I went to college.

450
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:32,040
But same thing.

451
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:33,760
I absolutely fell in love with it.

452
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:38,680
And I was an A student in that and in an EMT school and then paramedic school.

453
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:43,180
And this is back to the way that people learn what your mom was saying is that I can't sit

454
00:32:43,180 --> 00:32:46,080
in a classroom and make flashcards from a book.

455
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:47,360
That's just not me.

456
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:52,160
But if you show me how to take apart a chainsaw, you show me and let me screw it up a few times.

457
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,240
I'll be like, oh, now I get it.

458
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:58,780
You know, and then the maths makes sense because I'm thinking about drug calculations and pumping

459
00:32:58,780 --> 00:33:01,060
pressures and all these things.

460
00:33:01,060 --> 00:33:05,320
So this is I think going back to that previous conversation, this is why I think again, with

461
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:10,960
scholarship programs, it's such a great way of showing a kid, is this for me or is this

462
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:12,080
not for me?

463
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,600
But if you have just been down an academic route, and all of a sudden you're thrown

464
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,480
into a fire academy, it is a very different way of learning.

465
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:20,240
Obviously, we've got classroom stuff to do.

466
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:25,960
But you know, that hands on trade school mentality is just such a beautiful fit, especially for

467
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:29,240
arguably most of us that are, you know, born to do this position.

468
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:30,240
Sure.

469
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:31,240
Yeah.

470
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,760
And I think some of the people that, you know, that I work with and the people I've trained

471
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,360
with, you know, from different places are some of the smartest people that I've run

472
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:38,360
into.

473
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:42,760
You know, people with photographic memories, they could have been surgeons, you know, if

474
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:44,160
they had chosen to do that.

475
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:48,320
But that just wasn't what, you know, their interests were.

476
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,540
You know, so it is super challenging.

477
00:33:50,540 --> 00:33:51,800
And I was kind of similar.

478
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:53,240
I didn't make very good grades.

479
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:56,800
You know, I got by, I stayed eligible to play ball, but I just was never, I didn't have

480
00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:58,400
that photographic memory, number one.

481
00:33:58,400 --> 00:33:59,880
My brother actually possesses one of those.

482
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:00,880
I did not.

483
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,920
So I had to study, you know, if I wanted to make good grades, but I never really wanted

484
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:05,360
to study.

485
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:09,040
But when I went to fire school, you know, I was like, well, I probably need to try a

486
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,960
little harder doing this because this matters, right?

487
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:12,960
Like you could get hurt.

488
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:14,440
I could get somebody else hurt.

489
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:15,480
And so that motivated me.

490
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:17,640
And so I just studied more and I did good.

491
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:21,600
I did good in fire school, EMT and paramedic school, just because I thought it mattered

492
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,040
and I was interested and I wanted to do well.

493
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:25,680
I wanted to excel.

494
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,520
So then you just figure out what works for you and you just put as much effort as is

495
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:31,600
needed to make that happen.

496
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:32,600
Absolutely.

497
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,440
There's the thing, I wasn't born to do this job.

498
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:37,080
It was just like you said, it was that fire.

499
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:42,720
So I was working an office job in Orlando and going to the YMCA on my lunch break, you

500
00:34:42,720 --> 00:34:46,520
know, getting to the Academy early, doing the sled and stairs and just putting in the

501
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,160
work, you know, but I wouldn't have done that for calculus.

502
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:50,160
Right.

503
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:51,160
Exactly.

504
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:52,160
Yeah.

505
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:53,160
Yeah.

506
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:54,160
You want, it's something that you feel like you want.

507
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:55,680
And I kind of wanted to do something that was just bigger than me.

508
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:58,440
I didn't really know what that was.

509
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,800
But I wanted to do something and not make a difference, like, you know, look at me making

510
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:05,440
a difference, but make a difference for somebody somehow.

511
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:06,920
I just didn't know really how.

512
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:11,320
And then kind of when I got led into it, then, you know, that ended up being how it was,

513
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:12,320
but you know, by becoming a fireman.

514
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,960
And I just didn't know that, I think, you know, for a while as I was trying to seek

515
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:17,680
it out.

516
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:21,240
Talk to me about your kind of entry into the fire service, because people will look at

517
00:35:21,240 --> 00:35:24,720
all the positions that you hold now and, you know, oh, he must have just been snapped up

518
00:35:24,720 --> 00:35:26,040
straight away and easy.

519
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:30,160
So what was the hiring environment back when you were looking and then walk me through

520
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:32,400
your journey of EMS prior to fire?

521
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:33,400
All right.

522
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:37,000
So when I got done with fire school, I just immediately thought that Gainesville would

523
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:39,120
hire me because I'm me, right?

524
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:42,620
You know, my dad worked there and that wasn't the case.

525
00:35:42,620 --> 00:35:49,000
And so I tested a couple months after I got out of fire college and I didn't get hired.

526
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:55,000
So which was a good thing because I just assumed I would be and just made me realize that you're

527
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:58,840
not going to be given things like you have to go, you know, you earn them.

528
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,360
And you know, a little bit of humble pie life tends to do that to you from time to time

529
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,840
when you get too big for your britches, you know, it'll it'll beat you down.

530
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,920
And you know, sometimes we need that and including me, I've needed that, you know, quite a few

531
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:09,920
times.

532
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,920
And so when I didn't get hired, you know, Gainesville didn't hire every year at that

533
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:14,920
point.

534
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:19,520
It was three years from from that hiring process until my next one when I when I actually got

535
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:20,520
hired.

536
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:25,800
So I got a job working in EMS in Levy County where I live and ended up going to paramedic

537
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:31,600
school, which which was also a good experience because I was part time for for the majority

538
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:33,220
of that that paramedic year.

539
00:36:33,220 --> 00:36:34,280
So I didn't get leave time.

540
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:37,560
I had to take time off without pay to go to paramedic school.

541
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:39,560
So you know, we didn't make a lot of money in those days.

542
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,240
So things were lean, but that's OK.

543
00:36:41,240 --> 00:36:42,880
You know, no big deal.

544
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:47,360
You just have to like plan your meals a little a little better than maybe I do now.

545
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:51,000
And so became a paramedic, worked about a year in Levy County.

546
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:55,160
And then, you know, it was time, time for Gainesville to hire again.

547
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,760
And the first time I applied, they hired two paramedics and that paramedic wasn't really

548
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,960
something that was within my crosshairs at the time.

549
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:02,960
I was all right.

550
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:04,360
Well, if that's what I got to do, then I'll go do it.

551
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:06,320
And I was glad I did it, you know, learned a lot.

552
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,200
And it was a good experience.

553
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:11,360
And then the next time there were there were a few more openings.

554
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,240
But it was intimidating because, you know, I think like you said earlier before we got

555
00:37:14,240 --> 00:37:17,200
on here, you had tested somewhere as a thousand people tested.

556
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:19,960
And I don't think there were quite that many, but there were several hundred people in the

557
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,860
auditorium, you know, when I showed up to take the written test for Gainesville and

558
00:37:23,860 --> 00:37:27,280
seven of us ended up getting hired and only two of us still working games.

559
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:28,880
Everyone else has has left.

560
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:31,880
So, you know, it was good.

561
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:36,720
That couple of years difference, you know, led me to paramedic school and and I matured

562
00:37:36,720 --> 00:37:37,720
a little bit.

563
00:37:37,720 --> 00:37:41,800
And so I think it definitely helped prepare me a little bit more, you know, to go to Gainesville.

564
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,360
Gainesville is a very different place.

565
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,160
The department was at that time compared to now.

566
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:48,480
There just weren't a lot of new people.

567
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:52,000
You know, they had a couple of classes over the years, but they were a lot smaller.

568
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:55,920
Some of the majority of people you work with were 25, 30 years or even more.

569
00:37:55,920 --> 00:38:01,040
You know, one of the crews that I worked with, the lieutenant and the driver had had more

570
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:02,640
time than my dad in the fire department.

571
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:04,600
They had, you know, almost 35 years apiece.

572
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:09,240
And so, you know, it was it was so different interacting with them than, you know, the

573
00:38:09,240 --> 00:38:13,280
way it is now just because the dynamic of the department has changed.

574
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:17,080
Those guys fought so many fires in their younger years, you know, that as they got older, they

575
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:18,080
were so good at it.

576
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:22,080
Training wasn't necessarily what it is now, but it was because those guys had repped it

577
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,040
so much real time.

578
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:26,140
They were good, man.

579
00:38:26,140 --> 00:38:30,840
But I didn't get to rep it, you know, so like after the first handful of years I was there,

580
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:35,640
you know, you realize you're you're probably short and your knowledge and your skills in

581
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:36,640
some areas.

582
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:40,920
And so, you know, it kind of the department started to change, you know, after a couple

583
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:45,640
of years and a lot of those super talented, super experienced guys started to retire.

584
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:47,240
We lost a lot of that experience.

585
00:38:47,240 --> 00:38:50,920
You know, it started to change and there was like a younger group that kind of took over

586
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:53,840
and I think led us to, you know, to where we are now.

587
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,400
I want to go back to ask you this before.

588
00:38:56,400 --> 00:39:00,960
How did a six man engine end up becoming a four or three, whatever you ride now?

589
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:03,960
Yeah, I think just over time that, you know, the city grew.

590
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:09,720
So there are more stations now, but I think just over time it just cut down on cost, you

591
00:39:09,720 --> 00:39:13,320
know, the number of employees, but also how the fire service operates.

592
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:16,720
You know, when it was a six man engine company, you might send, you know, if you had a mobile

593
00:39:16,720 --> 00:39:20,280
home fire somewhere, you might just send one engine and with a tanker, they had a tanker

594
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:25,360
because Gainesville now used to cover a large area that's covered by, you know, Lots of

595
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:27,480
County Fire Department, even Newberry Fire Department.

596
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:30,640
So you would have a lot of rural area that the city covered and you might just send one

597
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:32,060
engine and a tanker.

598
00:39:32,060 --> 00:39:37,240
And so as those dynamics started to change and turn more into strictly, you know, an

599
00:39:37,240 --> 00:39:42,360
urban city response and, you know, it costs more to operate a fire department, those things

600
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:46,960
kind of started to get cut away where, you know, now we're at that three man engine companies,

601
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,200
but we still staff our ladders with four and we have four ladder trucks.

602
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:54,320
So, you know, we're adequately staffed there, but you know, over time those things kind

603
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:55,640
of just shrunk down.

604
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:56,640
Yeah.

605
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:58,760
What would be your ideal staffing thing for a day?

606
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:03,120
Well, I mean, an engine that you need a minimum of four and probably a ladder truck, you need

607
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:04,120
five.

608
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:08,000
But I don't know that I'll ever see that, but a minimum of four, you know, on an engine

609
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,200
company to really maximize their efficiency.

610
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,680
And you know, in Gainesville, I don't know that people say that we're aggressive or progressive.

611
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:19,840
I don't know what those words actually mean in terms of if we just do the job, man, like

612
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:22,640
you're supposed to do it.

613
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,680
But it definitely would increase your efficiency having that extra person, you know, on the

614
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:28,160
truck to, you know, stretch.

615
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,160
And even like, you know, when you're trying to stretch, you go in the front door and,

616
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:34,440
you know, you have a, the guy on the nozzle, the lieutenant having somebody that can stretch

617
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,080
from the door and feed you hose and make sure everything's played out right.

618
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:43,600
That's, that's an unbelievable amount of efficiency that, you know, we work through it, like as

619
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:48,000
all departments do, because a lot of places don't have that kind of staffing, but it does

620
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,240
definitely make you more efficient and things go a little bit easier.

621
00:40:51,240 --> 00:40:56,760
I had a fire in Orange County and they were three man engines and it was kind of around

622
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:57,880
one of the lake homes.

623
00:40:57,880 --> 00:41:00,240
So it was a long kind of dirt track into it.

624
00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:05,680
It's still, still, you know, suburban, but, and there's a train that runs down the Orange

625
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:06,680
Avenue.

626
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:12,040
And when, when there's a massive half mile long freight train, it stops and cuts everyone

627
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:13,040
off.

628
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,400
So my engineer was all the way at the top of this driveway at the panel.

629
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,480
My LT was, you know, walking down the size up.

630
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:24,640
So I was the one pulling two and a half, the bundles, you know, force entry tools, everything.

631
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:26,800
And then the initial fire attack.

632
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:28,120
Now there was no life safety.

633
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:29,840
It was a conventional construction house too.

634
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:34,360
It was hilarious watching them trying to vent, but, you know, there was no life safety hazards

635
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:39,600
so good, but had there been a trapment as well, it's, it's me, you know what I mean?

636
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,600
So this is what people don't understand is that, yeah, when, you know, when you go to

637
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:48,260
the rolled ankle that the school, you know, track, yeah, it might seem excessive that

638
00:41:48,260 --> 00:41:53,240
four people show up, but when your kids trapped in that back bedroom and you've only got a

639
00:41:53,240 --> 00:41:58,400
two or three man rig and for whatever reason, staffing, traffic, whatever the other rigs

640
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:02,480
aren't around, you know, that's when you kind of have to ask the question, is this how many

641
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:04,520
people should be on a fire engine?

642
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:05,520
Yeah, absolutely.

643
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:10,120
And that's, you know, I think we're, you know, the, the bureaucrats who determine how we're

644
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:11,120
going to be staffed.

645
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:15,660
Those are the things that they fight against, but a lot of times, you know, hopefully individually

646
00:42:15,660 --> 00:42:18,520
you've never had to experience us in action, right?

647
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:22,200
Because hopefully your house hasn't been on fire, but it gives you a different perspective

648
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:26,560
if you've ever been one of those people that needs us to be there, not just because your

649
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:31,160
stuff is on fire, but because you need us to rescue somebody that, that changes a lot

650
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:32,160
of stuff.

651
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:33,160
Absolutely.

652
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:36,520
Well, you mentioned about being a medic first.

653
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:42,160
One of the things that really turns my stomach is that kind of anti EMS rhetoric, especially

654
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:47,280
from our generation forward, because, you know, we all had to do EMS before fire.

655
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,400
You know, that was, that was part of the job.

656
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,920
And I always tell people that I can do the most heroic rescue, you know, climb through

657
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:57,440
a second story, you know, window and do a search and pull out a kid.

658
00:42:57,440 --> 00:42:58,440
But now what?

659
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,420
If I've got no EMS skills, all I did was retrieve a corpse, you know?

660
00:43:01,420 --> 00:43:03,880
So to me, it's so important.

661
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:07,160
Now, obviously you guys, you know, get to enjoy not transporting, which I think, you

662
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:11,840
know, that's an experience in itself, but you know, what do you say to these young candidates

663
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:17,160
that are kind of beating their chest like the Kurt Russell, you know, in a profession

664
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:22,200
where ultimately we do the most life saving actually in the back of a rescue?

665
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:23,200
Yeah.

666
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:27,840
Well, one of the things that I try to start with is, you know, the hero stuff, um, I don't

667
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:31,840
consider myself a hero or any, any of us, right, we're just normal people, but for the

668
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:36,600
lay people, the hero stuff, if you're rescuing somebody, that stuff is rare, right?

669
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:40,800
And in, even in EMS, where you're going to interact with people that are going to need

670
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,440
you to perform some kind of intervention for them a lot more than maybe somebody needs

671
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:46,680
you to rescue them out of a home.

672
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,800
Some of the biggest stuff you do has nothing to do with any of that.

673
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,960
But you know, if you go to, you know, an elderly couple that's been married for 60 years and

674
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:58,320
one of them is having chest pain and the other one's scared to death and you just go in and

675
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,960
with a good bedside manner, take good care of their loved one and hold their hand and

676
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:05,680
tell them it's going to be okay, man, you just made a difference.

677
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:09,200
And you know, so that's, that's really the stuff that matters.

678
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:10,560
That other stuff is cool.

679
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:15,160
And that's what we train for because you have to, because it's so rare and it's so high

680
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:17,440
risk and, and it takes a lot to do it.

681
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:21,520
But, but those are the interactions really to me that, that matter.

682
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:26,560
You know, if you go to somebody's child that's sick and you can, you know, not necessarily

683
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:29,640
diagnose them, but you can give them an idea of what's going on or you can give them a

684
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:33,000
breathing treatment and their kid gets better and you just made somebody's day.

685
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:36,840
And so those are the things that, that are really what it's all about.

686
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:41,520
And I think in Gainesville, our culture does a really good job with that.

687
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:47,120
That you know, we, we mixed what we do really well and, and our guys are excellent at EMS.

688
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:51,000
You know, we, we provide a really, really high level of service and, and you know, as

689
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:55,760
good as I thought I was as a medic and a fireman, you know, when I was a lot, a lot younger,

690
00:44:55,760 --> 00:45:00,080
I could not hold a candle to some of these, the guys that we have now and the knowledge

691
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:03,320
they have and, and how they can perform their skills are really good.

692
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:09,320
And so, you know, I think that just making a difference just with how you interact, you

693
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:11,520
know, with those people is really what it's all about.

694
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:13,160
And that's, that's what we try to push.

695
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:16,360
I know, you know, my shift, we try to push that is that, you know, we're going to go

696
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:20,960
out and just try to interact really well with people and whatever they need from us.

697
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,400
You know, we're going to give it to them.

698
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:27,840
And you know, one of the books that impacted me, especially, you know, when I made Lieutenant,

699
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,720
I'm like, Oh man, I'm, I'm going to make decisions that affect other people.

700
00:45:30,720 --> 00:45:35,400
Like who thought this was going to be a good idea to let me do that?

701
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,280
But one of the books I read was called the mission, the men and me by Pete Blaber, who

702
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:39,560
was a Delta Force officer.

703
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:46,320
And I really enjoyed the way that he built in the book, what his leadership philosophy

704
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:47,320
was.

705
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:51,360
He was the first and then his troops and then himself.

706
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:56,200
And I think that if you apply that leadership style to, to, especially what we do, where

707
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:58,960
we're trying to serve other people that you really can't go wrong.

708
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:03,760
And the mission for us are the citizens, you know, that, that we're supposed to take care

709
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:04,760
of and protect.

710
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:06,080
And for me, that's not cliche, right?

711
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:08,160
Like that's really why you're supposed to show up.

712
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,800
And so that's what we try to put out, you know, to our guys and our shift is let's take

713
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,920
care of the people that need us no matter what.

714
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:18,840
And then, you know, take care of the people that are working with you and then yourself,

715
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,760
you know, and if you can, if you can do it like that, especially if someone's in a leadership

716
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,800
position, you'll usually be making the right decision.

717
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,880
And that's why I tell the lieutenants that I work with is I don't want you to mother

718
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:31,320
may I mean, I want you to go be a leader, make decisions.

719
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:32,320
You're capable.

720
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:36,400
If you need help, of course you call me and you know, we'll, we'll figure it out.

721
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,640
And even if we don't make the right decision, we'll work through it because as long as we're

722
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:43,800
following the mission and then your people and then yourself, you're probably going to

723
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:46,200
be really close to what the right decision was.

724
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:50,700
Maybe we just need to adjust, you know, how we applied it or a tactic or something.

725
00:46:50,700 --> 00:46:54,360
And so that's what we really try to focus on is let's go out and just take really good

726
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:55,360
care of people.

727
00:46:55,360 --> 00:47:00,640
So we don't really have, I don't see us having that whole anti EMS, you know, behavior.

728
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:03,440
You'll have people that joke about it now and then, but some of those people are people

729
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,440
that have the best bedside manner.

730
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:07,960
They take the best care of people, you know, when they go to them.

731
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:11,960
And that's really to me what, what it's about is how we interact people when we're not doing

732
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:14,560
something that's a super high level.

733
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:18,560
It's just some, some basic care and we're, we're just treating them really good with

734
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:20,660
how we interact with them.

735
00:47:20,660 --> 00:47:24,920
One of my friends is a green beret fricking incredible story.

736
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:28,800
I mean, all kinds of battle wounds and then infections and all kinds of things.

737
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:32,420
And he's just amazing, but he's testing for the fire service.

738
00:47:32,420 --> 00:47:35,520
And he called me, he's like, Hey, I've got this interview, you know, just was looking

739
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:36,520
for some guidance.

740
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,320
I told him, well, firstly, when they look at your resume, they're going to realize,

741
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:41,720
okay, he fits a lot of the boxes.

742
00:47:41,720 --> 00:47:43,640
But I told him, but it's also got a heart of gold.

743
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:45,880
I said, that's a story you got to tell.

744
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:50,440
I said, because, you know, some of the most powerful things we'll do is pick up an eight

745
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:56,620
year old woman who's 85 year old husband who used to be a naval officer or whatever.

746
00:47:56,620 --> 00:48:00,680
And now is so weak, he can't pick his love of his life off the floor and you clean her

747
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:03,520
up and you change your clothes and you put it back to bed.

748
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:08,460
I'm like, that's, that's what this job's really about, you know, not rubbing so on your face

749
00:48:08,460 --> 00:48:12,500
and waiting for the paper to show up so you can lean on your pipe hole in front of someone's

750
00:48:12,500 --> 00:48:14,160
burnt out house.

751
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:18,100
It's the moments of kindness and compassion, the homeless, the sex workers, all the most

752
00:48:18,100 --> 00:48:22,600
desperate people that everyone else treats like shit and you're the only beacon of light

753
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:23,600
for them.

754
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:25,160
You know, so yeah, I absolutely love that.

755
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:26,160
Yeah.

756
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:29,640
And you know, those, those interactions are, are what matter because you, the chance you

757
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:31,640
get to do some of that other stuff is so rare.

758
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:34,520
Um, you know, you're not going to get your name in the newspaper, but that's not really

759
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:35,920
what you know, what this is all about.

760
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,280
You know, if you go through your whole career and people don't really know who you are,

761
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:40,280
that's awesome.

762
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:42,000
Um, because it isn't about that.

763
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:45,520
It's about the, you know, those things, like you said, that maybe at two in the morning,

764
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:49,560
no, nobody's going to know that you came in and you were super nice to, to Mrs. Smith.

765
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:52,880
Um, but you were, and you made her feel good and that, that, that's really what matters.

766
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,840
And you know, it's funny because, you know, if you know me really well, people, I don't

767
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:58,280
have the friendliest demeanor.

768
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:03,840
I'm a little, a little shy, maybe a little too intense, but, um, I've had people tell

769
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,040
me before, dude, where'd you get that bedside manner from?

770
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:10,020
That's completely, you know, alternate from how, you know, we view you, but, but that's

771
00:49:10,020 --> 00:49:13,920
really, you know, what, what counts is that, you know, you can go in and give that positive

772
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:16,280
impact on somebody that needs it.

773
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:22,720
My medic partner in Orange County, Ryan was a Navy corpsman in Afghanistan and he had

774
00:49:22,720 --> 00:49:24,040
a lot of shit he hadn't dealt with.

775
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,960
And we'll be on the way to the call and he'd be like punching the dashboard, mother fucker,

776
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:28,960
mother fucker.

777
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,080
The moment he stepped off, hello mom, my name's Ryan.

778
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:32,080
Completely different person.

779
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:37,480
So behind the scenes he was an absolute shit show, but every single call, no matter how

780
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:39,440
infuriating, he had that thing.

781
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:41,040
And that's what makes you a professional.

782
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:42,040
Absolutely.

783
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:43,040
Absolutely.

784
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:46,800
Well, you mentioned the mission, um, to be completely blunt.

785
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:50,680
There's many people wearing multiple bugles and their biography would be called me, me

786
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:51,680
and me.

787
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:56,920
Um, and you know, I think this is what's missing with the term mission.

788
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,680
I look back on the departments I work for.

789
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:04,120
Some were phenomenal, some the other side of the spectrum.

790
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:11,120
And over 14 years, I never really saw any mission as far as here's where we are and

791
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:14,320
here's where we want to be in five years, 10 years.

792
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,400
And it could be, you know, reducing fires.

793
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,000
It could be school safety, whatever, but there was never a thing.

794
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:20,600
There wasn't a mission.

795
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:23,520
You just kind of, and I've heard a lot of the veterans say this, you just, you know,

796
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:25,120
show up, put your gear on the rig.

797
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:28,640
If you take your job seriously, you train, you work out, you do all the things, but you're

798
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:30,600
not moving an actual needle.

799
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:33,320
And I feel like that's a conversation that's missing in the fire service.

800
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:35,960
So what's your kind of philosophy on that?

801
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:40,680
Well, I think it's easy to fall into that where you're not going anywhere.

802
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:46,560
Um, you know, if you back up, I don't know, 15 or a little more so years as our department

803
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:53,280
dynamic, you know, just, um, started to change with a lot of retirements, um, there, there

804
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:56,200
was an opportunity there to change, you know, how we viewed some things.

805
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:59,640
We lost a lot of the experience that there's, there's older employees had.

806
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:04,800
So like training became more important, um, for us, um, you know, and, and currently we're

807
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:09,600
going through some growing pains with, you know, how we view, um, and the equipment we

808
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:11,000
carry on our ladder trucks.

809
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:15,560
And you know, we, we keep, we keep getting more, uh, equipment and better equipment and

810
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:19,360
more efficient equipment, um, better, uh, extrication equipment.

811
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:24,000
Um, but with that comes the responsibility of understanding how to use it in the train.

812
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,720
And so one of the things we're trying to work out now is, you know, who possesses those

813
00:51:27,720 --> 00:51:32,280
skills or how do we, how do we determine, um, who has those skills or who has the best

814
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:36,080
skills and, you know, so we're, we're going through some stuff where we're trying to do

815
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:42,920
some, um, checkoff skill assessment, if you will, people don't like to use, um, certain

816
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:43,920
terms.

817
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:51,120
Um, but I think it's, it's important that, that we, um, continue to make sure that our

818
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:55,280
skills and, um, our abilities are where we want them to be.

819
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:58,960
And we don't just sit and rest on our laurels of, well, I was good at this 10 years ago,

820
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:02,760
so I'll be good at it now because, you know, some of the stuff we do is so technical, you

821
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:03,920
won't be good at it anymore.

822
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:06,080
And you have to continue to work and train.

823
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:11,200
Um, you know, and so, like I said, when you back up, you know, 20, 15, 20 years ago, um,

824
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:12,960
our fitness level started to take off.

825
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:17,360
Um, training became a lot more important because we couldn't rest on the laurels of, of the,

826
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,240
the people that came before us because we didn't have the skillsets that they had and

827
00:52:20,240 --> 00:52:21,400
we had to rebuild those.

828
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,440
And so training became very important.

829
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,040
Um, our ladder trucks got a lot of focus.

830
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:30,160
Um, you know, we, we put four guys on our ladder and we try to get there and we're going

831
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:31,160
to search, right?

832
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:34,200
Like that's, that's part of the mission is that we need to get there and we need to search

833
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,240
if there's somebody in there, we're going to get them.

834
00:52:36,240 --> 00:52:37,480
And that's kind of the way we view it.

835
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:40,920
And then, you know, the engine is driving the nozzle to the seat of the fire that, you

836
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,080
know, I tell, yeah, it's just like a ship, right?

837
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:46,440
You're trying to drive that ship right into the seat of the fire because if you don't

838
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:48,800
do that, the guys that are searching can't do anything.

839
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:49,800
Right.

840
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:54,440
So, so we really started to put a lot of emphasis on ladder trucks and search and enforceable

841
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:58,940
entry and you know, we have some guys now they're just phenomenal at, at, at building

842
00:52:58,940 --> 00:53:04,240
our skill level, um, in a lot of those, those areas, but you can't just, you can't just

843
00:53:04,240 --> 00:53:07,260
sit by and say, well, you know, 10 years ago we were, we were good at something.

844
00:53:07,260 --> 00:53:09,040
You've got to continue to grow.

845
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:13,400
And I think that's one of the things that, that we're trying to look at now is, is redesigning

846
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:17,240
some of that or making sure that, that we stay at that level where we're performing

847
00:53:17,240 --> 00:53:21,360
our skills at a level that will, that will allow us to be successful.

848
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:25,720
And you know, when you, a lot of people in today's society, we're very risk averse, right?

849
00:53:25,720 --> 00:53:27,160
And we talk about safety a lot.

850
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:30,720
Um, and those things are very important, but to me, the way you stay safe is that when

851
00:53:30,720 --> 00:53:35,220
you're, you're really well trained, you're in good shape and you're well motivated to

852
00:53:35,220 --> 00:53:38,200
do your job and the fire goes out, man, everybody's safe.

853
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:42,720
You know, all of these safety measures, two in and two out and, um, street on your, your

854
00:53:42,720 --> 00:53:46,520
feet on the street, vest on your chest and all these safety measures, those are cool.

855
00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:49,320
But that at the end of the day, that's not really, really keeps you safe.

856
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:53,800
It's that, that everybody is working together and can do their job and do it really efficiently

857
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:55,040
to mitigate whatever problem we have.

858
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:59,100
And as soon as we mitigate whatever's going on, everybody becomes safe.

859
00:53:59,100 --> 00:54:03,080
And so, you know, still driving towards trying to make sure that we're doing that, I think

860
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:05,000
is where that, that mission needs to go.

861
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,400
Um, and at the end of the day, it goes back to the people that we're supposed to serve.

862
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:11,320
Like they want us to be a professional fire department.

863
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:15,480
Then we owe it to them to be professionals when we show up and, and be really good.

864
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:18,880
Like professional means like a professional athlete, right?

865
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:22,220
Like you wouldn't want your professional football team to be terrible.

866
00:54:22,220 --> 00:54:24,120
You want them to show up and be good.

867
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:27,480
And that's kind of the way people, I think view us as they want us to show up and be

868
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:30,440
really good and, and intercede for them when they can't.

869
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:33,160
And we owe them that.

870
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:37,840
When it comes to, like you said, putting the fire out, I think one of the biggest kind

871
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:39,880
of misnomers or myths that I witnessed.

872
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:44,440
So I started trained in Orlando, worked in Hialeah, then went over to California, Anaheim

873
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:45,440
for a few years.

874
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:49,120
And, you know, Florida state trained, you know, lay the ladder down, pick it up, walk

875
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:52,040
it to the wall, you know, and then you realize no.

876
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:53,880
Wall ever looks like that in the real world.

877
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:54,880
For sure.

878
00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:56,880
And if I stand by the side of the ladder, it's going to fall over.

879
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:01,360
But, um, and then you go to a California department and you realize that you are so behind the

880
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:05,600
eight ball because all these guys were trained to spike ladders and, you know, roof ops and

881
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:06,680
all that stuff.

882
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:09,220
And I'm having to learn on the fly.

883
00:55:09,220 --> 00:55:13,700
And then you see this vertical ventilation as an, as an engine, you know, engine guy

884
00:55:13,700 --> 00:55:18,320
or as a roof guy and you're like, Oh my God, this actually works like really well.

885
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:21,680
If you put a hole in the ceiling, all the hot stuff comes out and then you can literally

886
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:23,960
walk up to the fire and put it out.

887
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:27,480
And then I come back to Florida because, uh, you know, I have a little boy and my ex wanted

888
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:29,480
to move back home.

889
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:33,500
And then you hear, Oh, we don't put anyone's, you know, California, you know, it's different

890
00:55:33,500 --> 00:55:34,500
over here.

891
00:55:34,500 --> 00:55:35,500
It's all lightweight construction.

892
00:55:35,500 --> 00:55:36,500
I'm like, I've just been there.

893
00:55:36,500 --> 00:55:39,920
The whole building is lightweight construction over there, you know, but well, they spend,

894
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:42,640
you know, years and years and years learning about building construction and different

895
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:45,480
types of cuts and when to vent and when not to vent.

896
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:47,800
So back to that principle.

897
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:51,040
So you're telling me that you won't put the fire out by taking all the superheated gases

898
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,840
out, but you'll put a bunch of people under that roof.

899
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:56,020
I don't understand what you're talking about.

900
00:55:56,020 --> 00:56:00,280
So what has been Gainesville's kind of philosophy on vertical ventilation?

901
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:01,280
So I don't know.

902
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:03,680
I would say we're probably not that aggressive with it.

903
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:07,760
I think the way that we try to apply it is when we need it, we use it.

904
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:12,100
But it's not something that we say when we show up, we're going to do, you know, every

905
00:56:12,100 --> 00:56:14,560
house is going to get a hole.

906
00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:22,760
So it's more of if the lieutenant or the district chief and then try to rely mostly on the

907
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:27,440
lieutenants, if they feel like that's needed early, then we call for it and we do it.

908
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:28,440
And then it's no big deal.

909
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:30,900
Our guys do a really good job with it.

910
00:56:30,900 --> 00:56:36,080
But with our staffing model, we don't necessarily say you're going to be assigned vertical vent

911
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:37,640
on every house.

912
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:41,740
We know who's going to do that when we call for it, but we call for it.

913
00:56:41,740 --> 00:56:45,920
So and there are some departments in Florida that they'll vent the majority of roofs that

914
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:47,960
they go to.

915
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:48,960
And that's fine.

916
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:53,960
My personal philosophy on it is I'm in favor of it.

917
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:59,820
However, what I see a lot of times is people struggle to get the vent in the right spot

918
00:56:59,820 --> 00:57:01,780
and that delays them.

919
00:57:01,780 --> 00:57:07,360
And I don't want that to delay us being inside rescuing somebody or getting that nozzle to

920
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:08,360
the fire.

921
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:12,080
But as you said, if you can do it right, it makes things a lot easier for you.

922
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:16,680
A lot of times I think we and I say we, we as a fire service as a whole, not there are

923
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:19,280
individual places that do great with it.

924
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:23,320
We miss on where we're going to put it and get it in a timely manner.

925
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:24,720
And so then we're delaying other things.

926
00:57:24,720 --> 00:57:29,200
And that does drive up the anxiety factor a little bit because like you said, being

927
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:33,020
under the roof is just as dangerous or more as being on it.

928
00:57:33,020 --> 00:57:36,480
But when you're up there and you can't see really what's going on below you because you're

929
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:40,000
not, you're searching and you're not getting the job done.

930
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:41,120
You're looking, where am I going to put the vent?

931
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:42,920
I'm trying to coordinate with everybody.

932
00:57:42,920 --> 00:57:45,920
And then you can't do it efficiently, then that does become a problem.

933
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:50,080
But I think our overall philosophy is when we need it, we call for it, then we just do

934
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:52,120
it and it works out well.

935
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:53,120
Yeah.

936
00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:55,320
I mean, just the level of training that they had out west was the difference.

937
00:57:55,320 --> 00:57:57,760
I mean, we never missed a hole.

938
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:02,160
Now bearing in mind, I had an extremely salty 30 year old captain telling me we made a cut.

939
00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:03,160
It's not me.

940
00:58:03,160 --> 00:58:04,160
I was just told the cut.

941
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:09,040
But you're constantly studying bowstrings and panelized and conventional and lightweight

942
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:13,240
and these different cuts and louvering and you're doing it at the fire academy all the

943
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:14,240
time.

944
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:16,720
You're up on all these props over and over and over again, tool time.

945
00:58:16,720 --> 00:58:18,760
So it was an orchestrated thing.

946
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:20,960
But like you said, and so was the engine work.

947
00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:22,560
Lay one, lay two, lay the bundles.

948
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:27,240
These were literal two words that meant an entire sequence of events that you just had

949
00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:30,360
to shout over to the back and we made it happen.

950
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:32,080
But that takes a high level of training.

951
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:33,360
And like you said, the right staffing.

952
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:38,280
And I think that's what's missing is that we've just stripped the fire service to a

953
00:58:38,280 --> 00:58:42,200
mere skeleton so that we are literally not able to do the things that actually make our

954
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:46,040
job safer because of staffing and training.

955
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:47,520
Absolutely.

956
00:58:47,520 --> 00:58:52,560
So what about the senior man and or experienced engineer, lieutenant, et cetera?

957
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:53,840
You mentioned your dad's era.

958
00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:56,480
You had people that stayed at that rank for a long time.

959
00:58:56,480 --> 00:59:02,220
I, earlier in my career, I was going to do 10, 10, 10, the firefighter, you know, captain

960
00:59:02,220 --> 00:59:06,040
in Anaheim and then BC and 14 years in, I was still a firefighter.

961
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:08,560
I didn't want to give up kicking indoors.

962
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:09,560
That's the most fun spot.

963
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:10,560
Yeah, exactly.

964
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:15,360
When you dream about, you don't dream about, you know, driving the rig or holding a radio.

965
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:19,040
So what have you seen as far as that shift?

966
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:23,000
Because through my perspective, I've seen a lot of very young people and it's like,

967
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:26,920
you know, you see those Asian competitions, but the firefighters are flying on the ladder.

968
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:29,920
That's, you know, career wise, that's what I feel people do.

969
00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:36,520
And you've got a terrifying like three year on, you know, engineer riding up as an LT

970
00:59:36,520 --> 00:59:40,800
with three years on, you know, commanding two rookies in the back and maybe a two year

971
00:59:40,800 --> 00:59:42,240
guy next to them.

972
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:43,580
That just to me is terrifying.

973
00:59:43,580 --> 00:59:51,080
So how do we temper that a bit and put pride back in staying in a position and getting

974
00:59:51,080 --> 00:59:52,640
really good at that job?

975
00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:55,520
Well, not to get into retention yet, because I know you're probably going to want to talk

976
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:56,520
about that.

977
00:59:56,520 --> 00:59:58,920
But I think one of the big things is that we just, we're not keeping people the way

978
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:01,280
we were, you know, 25 years ago.

979
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:04,280
When I went to work in Gainesville, for me, there was really, there was no other option.

980
01:00:04,280 --> 01:00:06,240
I wasn't, I wasn't going to leave and go anywhere else.

981
01:00:06,240 --> 01:00:09,760
I didn't want to really move anywhere else in the state, you know, stay where my family

982
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:11,600
was.

983
01:00:11,600 --> 01:00:15,480
But I think nowadays, what you see is you see a lot of portability from a lot of our

984
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:16,480
younger employees.

985
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:22,200
And so if you lose a lot of those, it's very difficult to find that senior firefighter

986
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:25,880
that wants to stay a firefighter or when they make driver, they want to, you know, want

987
01:00:25,880 --> 01:00:27,200
to stay a driver for a long time.

988
01:00:27,200 --> 01:00:32,760
And we have some of those, not, there's a few firefighters that have been firefighters

989
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:37,440
for a long time that do a really good job, but they're rare because they either get promoted

990
01:00:37,440 --> 01:00:41,560
at a necessity or want to, or people leave.

991
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:46,720
And a lot of our good, we've lost a lot of the employees we've lost were good, high performing,

992
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:49,880
you know, employees, and they're obviously going to be sought after when they apply to

993
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:50,880
their places.

994
01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:54,280
And so I think that's been the change is you just, you don't have as many people that are

995
01:00:54,280 --> 01:00:56,240
going portal to portal in their career.

996
01:00:56,240 --> 01:01:00,080
You know, we have a few drivers right now and some lieutenants that are, that are more

997
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:02,160
senior that are, that are outstanding.

998
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:06,440
You know, one of our, our ladder drivers, he's about to make lieutenant, but I mean,

999
01:01:06,440 --> 01:01:11,640
he's as good as it gets, you know, being a driver and he helps, you know, so many people

1000
01:01:11,640 --> 01:01:15,560
learn a lot of things about, about going to fires, about the tools that we use.

1001
01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:18,140
He's a great teacher.

1002
01:01:18,140 --> 01:01:23,080
So you have a few of those, but at least in my experience in Gainesville, like you just,

1003
01:01:23,080 --> 01:01:26,760
you don't see as many of those anymore because of the portability of people and they're just

1004
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:27,760
leaving.

1005
01:01:27,760 --> 01:01:31,520
You know, our turnover is, is more than it's ever been.

1006
01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:36,160
And so it's hard to nurture people in those positions so that they can, you know, train

1007
01:01:36,160 --> 01:01:37,720
the people that come in under them.

1008
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:41,840
It's fall, a lot of it falls to the drivers as, as they move up and then to the, to the

1009
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:46,720
officers to, to handle all of that, because you don't, you just don't have a lot of senior,

1010
01:01:46,720 --> 01:01:51,760
senior firefighters that, and which is probably one of the more important areas to have a

1011
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:58,640
senior person because they, that's direct experience talking to the new person that's

1012
01:01:58,640 --> 01:01:59,640
coming in, right?

1013
01:01:59,640 --> 01:02:03,120
Like I can go teach somebody my experience, which, you know, if I have a little bit of

1014
01:02:03,120 --> 01:02:07,680
it, but coming from me not being a firefighter anymore, it's a little bit different.

1015
01:02:07,680 --> 01:02:12,360
Well back when I was a firefighter, you know, this versus you're in that position and you've

1016
01:02:12,360 --> 01:02:17,080
done it for 10, 15 years and you're teaching the new guy, that's a whole different ball

1017
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:21,840
game of being able to relay information and just behaviors and an example of, you know,

1018
01:02:21,840 --> 01:02:22,840
how you're supposed to act.

1019
01:02:22,840 --> 01:02:25,720
And that's, you just don't see as much of it.

1020
01:02:25,720 --> 01:02:31,640
You made a really interesting comment before we hit record and I want to get it on tape.

1021
01:02:31,640 --> 01:02:37,400
We see a lot of people that there's a massive disconnect when they're in an administrative

1022
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:41,440
position, when they're wearing the, you know, the gold badge and people say the same thing,

1023
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:44,240
like they forgot where they came from.

1024
01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:49,600
Talk to me about the fact that some of these, you know, people that have been on a while

1025
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:53,620
now that are in these leadership positions, you're talking about identifying as when they

1026
01:02:53,620 --> 01:02:54,620
first got hired.

1027
01:02:54,620 --> 01:02:55,880
I thought it was an interesting lens.

1028
01:02:55,880 --> 01:02:56,880
Yeah.

1029
01:02:56,880 --> 01:03:01,120
So it seems, you know, after I've been around a little bit now and you watch, and I don't

1030
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:07,880
mean just senior people, but more of those who are fire chief level or deputy chief level,

1031
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:12,160
and it's not all of them, but it is a large majority of them are stuck in whatever timeframe

1032
01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:15,480
that they were hired in, which is 25 to 30 years ago.

1033
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:19,720
You know, how they view your uniform should look, you know, what, what they, how they

1034
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:26,160
expect a behavior of a young person, what they think young people are looking for in

1035
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:27,780
your department, right?

1036
01:03:27,780 --> 01:03:30,440
Or what they want to get out of the fire service.

1037
01:03:30,440 --> 01:03:34,680
So you know, if you were hired in 1990, right?

1038
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:38,360
And you know, it's 2015, things have changed a lot.

1039
01:03:38,360 --> 01:03:42,880
And if your views are still what, well, when I got hired, this is what I wanted to get

1040
01:03:42,880 --> 01:03:44,120
out of the job.

1041
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:47,960
You're probably out of tune with what today's young person wants to get out of the job or

1042
01:03:47,960 --> 01:03:50,840
what they view as important.

1043
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:54,240
And so I think I'd mentioned to you, I might've mentioned on here already, but, but a young

1044
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:58,880
person that came to me with pros and cons of my department versus another department.

1045
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:01,640
And then when you try to relay that to your administration, like, no, they don't care

1046
01:04:01,640 --> 01:04:02,640
about any of that stuff.

1047
01:04:02,640 --> 01:04:07,140
And I'm like, no, I'm telling you like this, this kid just told me these things.

1048
01:04:07,140 --> 01:04:11,440
But then when I realized is that these people are stuck in 30 years ago.

1049
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:14,920
And so sometimes their perspective is a little bit different than we get frustrated with,

1050
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:19,000
you know, administrators when they're not seeing the things that that maybe we see.

1051
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:23,040
And you see it with people who leave and go to fire chief somewhere else.

1052
01:04:23,040 --> 01:04:27,880
And so I'm always kind of in favor of, you know, fire chiefs coming from within is very

1053
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:31,760
important because they understand the culture and your organization.

1054
01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:33,760
Now there are some, some negatives to that.

1055
01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:39,240
Like I said, you might be stuck in 25 or 30 years ago, but a lot of times you'll see those

1056
01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:43,200
some people as they move up, they'll move somewhere else to be the fire chief.

1057
01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:48,400
And instead of going into that new job and understanding the culture of that department,

1058
01:04:48,400 --> 01:04:51,940
getting buying from people by showing them, you know, that, that you care about them and

1059
01:04:51,940 --> 01:04:55,280
all these things, instead of just try to come in and change it to your way, they're going

1060
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,300
to be resistant to that.

1061
01:04:57,300 --> 01:05:01,400
But as you build a relationship with them and identify issues, get them to give you

1062
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:05,320
the solutions to those issues, right, so that they have buying and then you're not like

1063
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:06,800
an outsider.

1064
01:05:06,800 --> 01:05:09,640
And you just can't get some of those fire chief type.

1065
01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:13,160
And I'm not saying that negatively against any fire chiefs, but it's hard to get them

1066
01:05:13,160 --> 01:05:14,680
to understand that.

1067
01:05:14,680 --> 01:05:18,320
And so I think it's important for us that have been around for a long time, that you've

1068
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:22,120
got to make sure that you're trying to understand from the point of view of the younger people

1069
01:05:22,120 --> 01:05:26,540
or the people that are coming in, what they expect from your department or what they need.

1070
01:05:26,540 --> 01:05:29,560
And then also it's important to try to get them to understand what we need from them,

1071
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:32,080
you know, that kind of goes both ways.

1072
01:05:32,080 --> 01:05:36,180
But definitely you can see that, you know, as, as you age, you kind of get stuck in how

1073
01:05:36,180 --> 01:05:39,560
things were a long time ago.

1074
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:44,480
You know, in Gainesville for a long time, we were super strict on, on a certain uniform

1075
01:05:44,480 --> 01:05:47,040
types and what socks you could wear.

1076
01:05:47,040 --> 01:05:50,520
And those things just don't really matter.

1077
01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:51,520
Professionalism matters, right?

1078
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:53,680
We want to look professional and present ourselves that way.

1079
01:05:53,680 --> 01:05:56,680
But I don't think my sock color matters, right?

1080
01:05:56,680 --> 01:05:59,880
But if I get on the, off the truck, I need to look like I can perform the job.

1081
01:05:59,880 --> 01:06:04,200
I don't need to be grotesquely overweight or not look like I can perform physically.

1082
01:06:04,200 --> 01:06:06,340
I need to look professional.

1083
01:06:06,340 --> 01:06:07,560
But again, sock color doesn't matter.

1084
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:09,000
And we focused a lot more on that.

1085
01:06:09,000 --> 01:06:13,920
And then we did my ability to throw a ladder or stretch a line or force a door.

1086
01:06:13,920 --> 01:06:15,160
And those are the things that really matter.

1087
01:06:15,160 --> 01:06:18,520
Like if I go to someone's home, they don't care if I have white socks on, they want me

1088
01:06:18,520 --> 01:06:20,880
to be able to do my job really well for them.

1089
01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:26,660
So, but at certain times in history, those things were very important because.

1090
01:06:26,660 --> 01:06:31,080
Everything was a little more military, like a peacetime military, right?

1091
01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:33,240
Where it only matters what I look like.

1092
01:06:33,240 --> 01:06:38,240
Well, when you go to, those guys go to war and no one wants to go to war with America,

1093
01:06:38,240 --> 01:06:40,520
by the way, in case anybody wonders.

1094
01:06:40,520 --> 01:06:42,480
But when they go to war, like it doesn't matter.

1095
01:06:42,480 --> 01:06:44,420
It just matters that they can fight, right?

1096
01:06:44,420 --> 01:06:48,880
That's what, and so it says the same thing is yes, we want to look professional, but

1097
01:06:48,880 --> 01:06:52,900
are those things super important or our ability to do the job the most important?

1098
01:06:52,900 --> 01:06:54,360
And I made the mistake one time.

1099
01:06:54,360 --> 01:06:59,040
I don't know if this chief will hear this podcast or not, but they asked me one of the

1100
01:06:59,040 --> 01:07:01,880
things that if I could change what I would change.

1101
01:07:01,880 --> 01:07:04,200
And I was like the uniform policy, I think it's stupid.

1102
01:07:04,200 --> 01:07:08,080
We focus on, well, he was really into uniforms and kind of had wrote that policy.

1103
01:07:08,080 --> 01:07:12,520
So it was not a good way to answer that interview question that luckily it was the truth.

1104
01:07:12,520 --> 01:07:16,760
He didn't hold it against me too bad, but those are the things I think we get stuck

1105
01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:22,320
as we get older in the ways of when we came in and we have to be still be open to that.

1106
01:07:22,320 --> 01:07:23,680
There are other ways to do things.

1107
01:07:23,680 --> 01:07:25,320
Well, this is what I'm seeing.

1108
01:07:25,320 --> 01:07:30,200
So you tested against hundreds of people, you know, I tested against thousands of Anaheim

1109
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:32,680
and then hundreds prior to that.

1110
01:07:32,680 --> 01:07:37,880
And it was funny, I was in Orlando going to Miami and I was told by many people in the

1111
01:07:37,880 --> 01:07:41,720
fire academy, you'll never get hired unless you're Hispanic or you speak Spanish, let

1112
01:07:41,720 --> 01:07:43,120
say, and you're a paramedic.

1113
01:07:43,120 --> 01:07:48,120
And I got hired in about four months at Hialeah because they were scooping up all the scraps

1114
01:07:48,120 --> 01:07:51,280
because no one wanted to work for them because they got paid like shit.

1115
01:07:51,280 --> 01:07:55,120
But amazing, amazing group of people though.

1116
01:07:55,120 --> 01:08:00,400
But then I look back now 20 years later and, you know, it couldn't be further from the

1117
01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:01,400
environment that we were in.

1118
01:08:01,400 --> 01:08:04,040
And, you know, so I'm analyzing like why?

1119
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:07,980
Well, it's exactly what's so beautiful with that story with the guy with the list.

1120
01:08:07,980 --> 01:08:11,000
This illustrates perfectly what I'm talking about.

1121
01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:16,160
A young person now has access to everything because our generation began unpacking the

1122
01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:17,760
bad side as well.

1123
01:08:17,760 --> 01:08:22,400
We came in, you know, ladder 49 and backdraft, you know, rah rah rah, and rightly so because

1124
01:08:22,400 --> 01:08:26,040
I freaking love this job otherwise I wouldn't be advocating for it six years after taking

1125
01:08:26,040 --> 01:08:27,880
the uniform off.

1126
01:08:27,880 --> 01:08:32,320
But when you actually lay it out on the table and go, you have these calls, you have this

1127
01:08:32,320 --> 01:08:35,800
purpose, you have this tribe, you have firehouse jokes, you have all the things.

1128
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:39,000
But then the other side, you have divorce, you have addiction, you have suicide, you

1129
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:40,340
have cancer.

1130
01:08:40,340 --> 01:08:44,340
And then you look at, oh, and by the way, now, you know, at 7.30 you get a phone call

1131
01:08:44,340 --> 01:08:47,040
saying you can't go home for another 24 hours.

1132
01:08:47,040 --> 01:08:51,100
Not COVID like anytime, because that's how they're staffing it now.

1133
01:08:51,100 --> 01:08:53,320
This is why we have a recruitment crisis.

1134
01:08:53,320 --> 01:08:57,480
It's a recruitment crisis is simply because people don't want to do your job anymore.

1135
01:08:57,480 --> 01:09:00,600
And that's because they've learned about the good and the bad.

1136
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:07,440
So talk to me about, you know, your, the journey to 2472 in your eyes, because to me, this

1137
01:09:07,440 --> 01:09:08,440
is the answer.

1138
01:09:08,440 --> 01:09:10,080
People say, oh, well, we can't even hire now.

1139
01:09:10,080 --> 01:09:11,080
Exactly.

1140
01:09:11,080 --> 01:09:12,560
You have to fix the things that are broken.

1141
01:09:12,560 --> 01:09:15,920
And it's like you said, growing pains, it's gonna, we're gonna be fumble fucking a little

1142
01:09:15,920 --> 01:09:21,320
bit because we're undoing decades of mistakes basically.

1143
01:09:21,320 --> 01:09:26,120
So what were you seeing through your perspective of, you know, what needed to change and then

1144
01:09:26,120 --> 01:09:29,960
walk me through, through your eyes, you know, the, the resistance and how you were able

1145
01:09:29,960 --> 01:09:33,680
to move the needle on getting that very progressive shift pattern to your department.

1146
01:09:33,680 --> 01:09:38,000
Well, I think we saw what you're talking about is, you know, we were having trouble retaining

1147
01:09:38,000 --> 01:09:40,680
people were, were smoking people on overtime.

1148
01:09:40,680 --> 01:09:46,800
And a 24 48 model, I think is, is outdated, you know, by probably a couple of decades,

1149
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:52,280
just because of the call volume and with the amount of EMS that, that we run now just adds

1150
01:09:52,280 --> 01:09:59,360
to that, that volume and, and, and the specific calls will, you know, weigh on you over time.

1151
01:09:59,360 --> 01:10:02,840
And so this job is kind of like, you know, breathing concrete dust.

1152
01:10:02,840 --> 01:10:05,040
If you only breathe a little bit and then you don't breathe anymore, you're going to

1153
01:10:05,040 --> 01:10:06,040
be fine.

1154
01:10:06,040 --> 01:10:09,000
But if you keep breathing it for, you know, over time, it, it, it has an effect on you.

1155
01:10:09,000 --> 01:10:10,840
And, and this job is the same way.

1156
01:10:10,840 --> 01:10:14,000
And I don't think anybody that starts it ends the same way.

1157
01:10:14,000 --> 01:10:17,120
Like it affects everybody.

1158
01:10:17,120 --> 01:10:21,640
Hopefully we're, we're doing better or we're going to start doing better at how it affects

1159
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:23,880
people we're being able to work on how it affects you.

1160
01:10:23,880 --> 01:10:24,880
Right.

1161
01:10:24,880 --> 01:10:26,440
Like I think before we just didn't.

1162
01:10:26,440 --> 01:10:32,040
So I think we started to see that and we saw the, all the strains of the overtime and,

1163
01:10:32,040 --> 01:10:37,760
and being really busy and COVID and you know, this idea of 24 72 because we couldn't, you

1164
01:10:37,760 --> 01:10:41,320
know, we weren't getting the raises maybe that we wanted our retirement, you know, we

1165
01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:42,400
wish could improve.

1166
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:47,560
But so we started thinking about this 24 72 thing and there were a lot of, you know, like

1167
01:10:47,560 --> 01:10:49,960
anything new, like, oh, we'll never get that.

1168
01:10:49,960 --> 01:10:50,960
That's stupid.

1169
01:10:50,960 --> 01:10:51,960
We don't need to do that.

1170
01:10:51,960 --> 01:10:54,560
But you know, the more we talked about it and, you know, people inside our department

1171
01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:58,720
that had influenced that started to talk about it, it kind of gained some traction, you know,

1172
01:10:58,720 --> 01:11:04,740
and then it, you know, the union kind of caught onto it and, and our deputy chief.

1173
01:11:04,740 --> 01:11:06,200
And so he, he's a numbers guy.

1174
01:11:06,200 --> 01:11:12,000
And so they started looking at numbers and realize it's not that big of a stretch monetarily

1175
01:11:12,000 --> 01:11:13,960
for us because you know, we had a K-day.

1176
01:11:13,960 --> 01:11:18,800
So our staffing factor was at a 1.3, you know, per per position.

1177
01:11:18,800 --> 01:11:22,320
So when you eliminate the K-days, which is one of the things that, you know, that we

1178
01:11:22,320 --> 01:11:26,960
got rid of to get this, it gets you real close to having that other shift.

1179
01:11:26,960 --> 01:11:33,280
So I don't, I don't think there was a lot of resistance with, with how fire department

1180
01:11:33,280 --> 01:11:36,320
things go, because usually you get anything new gets a lot of resistance, right?

1181
01:11:36,320 --> 01:11:38,980
We don't like the way things are and we don't like change either.

1182
01:11:38,980 --> 01:11:43,600
And so I think you see that a lot, but there wasn't, I don't think there was a ton of resistance,

1183
01:11:43,600 --> 01:11:48,560
you know, even in our negotiations with the city, which, you know, the way that that worked

1184
01:11:48,560 --> 01:11:52,920
out is it ended up kind of like weaving itself into the district chief contract.

1185
01:11:52,920 --> 01:11:57,800
So like when the district chiefs were negotiating their next three year contract 2472 just kind

1186
01:11:57,800 --> 01:12:02,560
of had, you know, the safer staffing model, I think is what we're calling it, but it kind

1187
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:06,520
of just exploded at the same time and they kind of got tied together.

1188
01:12:06,520 --> 01:12:12,680
And so, you know, our union is having to negotiate for our contract and the safer staffing at

1189
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:13,680
the same time.

1190
01:12:13,680 --> 01:12:15,920
So we kind of all got on board with that.

1191
01:12:15,920 --> 01:12:19,560
And even with the city, which can give us, you know, a lot of resistance, I don't think

1192
01:12:19,560 --> 01:12:23,480
there was a huge amount of resistance because I think they saw the benefit of it, of to

1193
01:12:23,480 --> 01:12:28,240
try to solve some of the retention and the recruitment.

1194
01:12:28,240 --> 01:12:33,400
And I think I said off the air, I don't know that the recruitment has shown up the way

1195
01:12:33,400 --> 01:12:37,440
that we hoped it would by, you know, hundreds of people applying, but also think that it's

1196
01:12:37,440 --> 01:12:40,880
probably going to take a little bit of time for us to be able to get it instituted and

1197
01:12:40,880 --> 01:12:42,840
people to see the benefit of it.

1198
01:12:42,840 --> 01:12:47,760
And it will start, it'll start to work, but it isn't an end all be all.

1199
01:12:47,760 --> 01:12:50,680
It's a step, a really good step in the right direction.

1200
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:54,040
There are other things that, you know, municipalities and departments are going to have to continue

1201
01:12:54,040 --> 01:12:58,440
to do and that's pay their people, you know, take care of them and, you know, one of the

1202
01:12:58,440 --> 01:13:02,280
things that separate from this that we do in Gainesville, I think that is, is probably

1203
01:13:02,280 --> 01:13:06,640
the best thing that we do is that we don't just have the employee assistance program

1204
01:13:06,640 --> 01:13:11,920
is that the department pays, has a counselor service on retainer.

1205
01:13:11,920 --> 01:13:15,880
And so you can access that counselor and the department doesn't know you go there.

1206
01:13:15,880 --> 01:13:20,080
All the department knows is how many people accessed that service during a quarter, the

1207
01:13:20,080 --> 01:13:23,680
quarter or then, or through the year, but they don't know individuals.

1208
01:13:23,680 --> 01:13:29,280
So you can go there individually to meet with them and, and nobody knows.

1209
01:13:29,280 --> 01:13:31,680
And they're, they're a fantastic company.

1210
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:35,440
I don't know if we, we picked them because we knew they were good or that, you know,

1211
01:13:35,440 --> 01:13:36,440
it just worked out.

1212
01:13:36,440 --> 01:13:40,960
That was a little before, you know, I was involved with, with that piece of it, but

1213
01:13:40,960 --> 01:13:43,080
the service they picked is, is excellent.

1214
01:13:43,080 --> 01:13:48,260
They have excellent therapists that are trained military and first responders specifically.

1215
01:13:48,260 --> 01:13:51,120
So they kind of understand some of the stuff that we go through.

1216
01:13:51,120 --> 01:13:56,960
And when you start peeling back the onion of us, you know, there's a lot of stuff in

1217
01:13:56,960 --> 01:13:59,680
there that people don't even realize.

1218
01:13:59,680 --> 01:14:03,380
And that's where all of the things that you talked about with the addiction and suicide

1219
01:14:03,380 --> 01:14:07,240
and family problems can all manifest out of those.

1220
01:14:07,240 --> 01:14:10,920
And we don't even know it's like, you don't even know why these things are happening.

1221
01:14:10,920 --> 01:14:17,640
So and I say that to say that I hope what we get out of 24 72 is longevity of us, right?

1222
01:14:17,640 --> 01:14:21,760
Where you're going to get extra rest, you're going to get extra time with your family.

1223
01:14:21,760 --> 01:14:25,320
And with that rest and time away from work will hopefully allow your brain to process

1224
01:14:25,320 --> 01:14:27,720
some of the traumas that, that we see every day.

1225
01:14:27,720 --> 01:14:31,960
And when I say traumas, I don't mean some catastrophic event, but just repetitive call,

1226
01:14:31,960 --> 01:14:32,960
call, call.

1227
01:14:32,960 --> 01:14:38,240
And you are seeing things that, that the rest of the public is not interacting with and

1228
01:14:38,240 --> 01:14:40,360
it affects you no matter what you think.

1229
01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:41,360
Right.

1230
01:14:41,360 --> 01:14:47,400
But I hope the hope is, is that more than it will just retain people or get recruitment

1231
01:14:47,400 --> 01:14:50,560
is that the people that are here will make us healthier longterm.

1232
01:14:50,560 --> 01:14:55,760
And so that as you get to retirement, you retire healthier, happier, families intact,

1233
01:14:55,760 --> 01:15:00,880
the best we can not addicted, not, you know, committing suicide or even trying to go down

1234
01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:01,880
that road.

1235
01:15:01,880 --> 01:15:05,800
And you know, you don't, you don't need a lot of life to push you into a bad place.

1236
01:15:05,800 --> 01:15:10,360
And then when you put some of the stresses that we have at work on top of that, you know,

1237
01:15:10,360 --> 01:15:12,060
people can get, get downhill quick.

1238
01:15:12,060 --> 01:15:15,440
And so we've got to try to, to fix that problem.

1239
01:15:15,440 --> 01:15:23,400
And so, you know, what, what we've done with having that, that counseling service on retainer,

1240
01:15:23,400 --> 01:15:26,360
I think has paid dividends for us.

1241
01:15:26,360 --> 01:15:29,760
And I don't even want to mention why I think that I just, I think it does when you look

1242
01:15:29,760 --> 01:15:33,360
at the overall health of our department and I've had people reach out and be like, Hey

1243
01:15:33,360 --> 01:15:36,240
man, I need the number and you give it to them and then you just get a text back and

1244
01:15:36,240 --> 01:15:38,240
be like, that was a, that was great.

1245
01:15:38,240 --> 01:15:41,160
And so that, that lets you know that you're going in the right direction there.

1246
01:15:41,160 --> 01:15:48,000
And I think 24 72 is another step in that direction that we can't even make it tangible

1247
01:15:48,000 --> 01:15:49,000
yet.

1248
01:15:49,000 --> 01:15:50,000
Like, you know what I mean?

1249
01:15:50,000 --> 01:15:53,540
You can't say, Hey, we're going to get this result from going to the safer staffing model

1250
01:15:53,540 --> 01:15:55,120
with this extra day off.

1251
01:15:55,120 --> 01:15:58,240
But I think that's what we're going to end up seeing in the future.

1252
01:15:58,240 --> 01:16:02,920
And I, and I hope that's where other people will grab onto that too, not just for the,

1253
01:16:02,920 --> 01:16:04,160
the numbers, right?

1254
01:16:04,160 --> 01:16:07,520
But the human element element of it is let's take care of the people that are going out

1255
01:16:07,520 --> 01:16:12,200
there and doing this stuff and make them healthier in their mind and their body as, as they move

1256
01:16:12,200 --> 01:16:13,200
through their career.

1257
01:16:13,200 --> 01:16:14,200
Yeah.

1258
01:16:14,200 --> 01:16:15,200
And I couldn't agree more.

1259
01:16:15,200 --> 01:16:19,680
I'm talking before, you know, that is my motivator, you know, the, the, the suffering and the

1260
01:16:19,680 --> 01:16:24,360
deaths is the nucleus of this product, this podcast.

1261
01:16:24,360 --> 01:16:29,000
However, when you're trying to tell the story and, you know, almost like a legal case, like

1262
01:16:29,000 --> 01:16:34,760
put your, you know, uh, show the evidence as it were, then, you know, the financial

1263
01:16:34,760 --> 01:16:38,880
savings and all these other things, they come into it and their recruitment and retention,

1264
01:16:38,880 --> 01:16:40,180
but ultimately is about that.

1265
01:16:40,180 --> 01:16:43,200
If you're going to ask people and think about what they do with the military, it may not

1266
01:16:43,200 --> 01:16:47,700
be perfect, but you ask someone to serve, then there's a thing called the VA that will

1267
01:16:47,700 --> 01:16:50,200
take care of you the rest of your life.

1268
01:16:50,200 --> 01:16:53,240
You don't have to think about, you know, medical care and everything.

1269
01:16:53,240 --> 01:16:57,340
And the fire service, the door closes on your last day and it's like, all right, bye Cobra

1270
01:16:57,340 --> 01:16:58,800
for a year.

1271
01:16:58,800 --> 01:17:03,320
You know, so this is the thing is that if you, I think we've been so skewed and this

1272
01:17:03,320 --> 01:17:06,960
is what's beautiful about these dominoes that are starting to fall.

1273
01:17:06,960 --> 01:17:10,480
And I think when the word gets out, you guys are probably going to start to be inundated.

1274
01:17:10,480 --> 01:17:15,440
I might just posted Matt and Brian's episode today and that's, you're going to, there's

1275
01:17:15,440 --> 01:17:17,160
August 17th, 19th.

1276
01:17:17,160 --> 01:17:18,160
Yeah.

1277
01:17:18,160 --> 01:17:23,200
So, you know, I've got a funny feeling that it's going to be, you know, a cascade, but

1278
01:17:23,200 --> 01:17:24,820
this is, this is the solution.

1279
01:17:24,820 --> 01:17:28,280
And for the ones that don't have the Kelly, you know, I remember when I worked for orange

1280
01:17:28,280 --> 01:17:33,000
county, we accrued more vacation days than people that had Kelly's.

1281
01:17:33,000 --> 01:17:34,560
So the time is still there.

1282
01:17:34,560 --> 01:17:36,440
You're still kind of the Manning is there.

1283
01:17:36,440 --> 01:17:38,120
You're still paying.

1284
01:17:38,120 --> 01:17:42,480
So you would negotiate some of those away in lieu of the 24 72, you know what I mean?

1285
01:17:42,480 --> 01:17:47,400
But when you look downstream at all the money that's being wasted, that's your budget.

1286
01:17:47,400 --> 01:17:52,000
You just have to proactively put it at the front, you know, the overtime, the Matt, the

1287
01:17:52,000 --> 01:17:55,440
workman's comp claims and all the things that you're bleeding money.

1288
01:17:55,440 --> 01:17:58,520
And you probably be able to put that fourth person on an engine with the money that you

1289
01:17:58,520 --> 01:17:59,520
save.

1290
01:17:59,520 --> 01:18:04,360
So this is what excites me and I think when word gets out that you guys are doing it,

1291
01:18:04,360 --> 01:18:08,800
firstly, you're going to see I think a massive increase in in applicants.

1292
01:18:08,800 --> 01:18:14,240
But secondly, I hope it drives Ocala and Marion these other ones to pull their finger out

1293
01:18:14,240 --> 01:18:19,880
their rear end and follow because we've got a pipeline in this, the very Academy that

1294
01:18:19,880 --> 01:18:22,760
you teach at Florida fire college.

1295
01:18:22,760 --> 01:18:26,320
And these young men and women are coming out bright eyed and bushy tail going right now

1296
01:18:26,320 --> 01:18:30,960
would I want to work and then they pull out their little comparison sheet and they're

1297
01:18:30,960 --> 01:18:36,480
like, well, Gainesville, great training, Marion County, great training, Gainesville 2472 Marion

1298
01:18:36,480 --> 01:18:41,280
County 2448 with mandatories all the time.

1299
01:18:41,280 --> 01:18:45,040
All right, Gainesville it is, you know, it's just it's simple economics.

1300
01:18:45,040 --> 01:18:48,980
So what really excites me is your kind of, you know, like you said, you're pushing the

1301
01:18:48,980 --> 01:18:55,080
first domino in this area and people can either join or they can be the one responsible for

1302
01:18:55,080 --> 01:18:56,480
the collapse of their fire department.

1303
01:18:56,480 --> 01:18:58,000
And it's it's harsh, but it's the truth.

1304
01:18:58,000 --> 01:19:01,680
Yeah, I think one of the things I think you saw with us with the COVID mandate in with

1305
01:19:01,680 --> 01:19:07,240
with the safer staff in the 2472 is that the leadership in our department and I don't mean

1306
01:19:07,240 --> 01:19:11,760
necessarily from the top, although we did get a lot of support from from our administration.

1307
01:19:11,760 --> 01:19:15,840
So you got to give them their flowers when they're due is that but the leaders inside

1308
01:19:15,840 --> 01:19:21,120
the department really started to push for some of these things.

1309
01:19:21,120 --> 01:19:25,340
And you know, the local departments Marion County, OK, they have great leaders inside

1310
01:19:25,340 --> 01:19:26,340
their department.

1311
01:19:26,340 --> 01:19:30,060
So I think I think it'll just be a matter of time with some things before you see those

1312
01:19:30,060 --> 01:19:32,120
guys start to push for it.

1313
01:19:32,120 --> 01:19:37,080
And they'll figure out a way you know, everybody will figure out a way and maybe not that we

1314
01:19:37,080 --> 01:19:38,200
have everything figured out.

1315
01:19:38,200 --> 01:19:41,100
We just happen to be the first people to jump into the deep end.

1316
01:19:41,100 --> 01:19:46,120
But maybe us being able to figure it out will give people a way somewhere to look to say,

1317
01:19:46,120 --> 01:19:47,680
hey, look, you know, it was done over here.

1318
01:19:47,680 --> 01:19:54,120
So we definitely can do it and I've heard some people say that inside some departments

1319
01:19:54,120 --> 01:19:59,680
that the culture is where we would rather get better raises if they're you know, if

1320
01:19:59,680 --> 01:20:06,600
they're in a a temperature with their municipality where they're they're getting good raises.

1321
01:20:06,600 --> 01:20:07,600
And that is important.

1322
01:20:07,600 --> 01:20:08,600
You know, money is important.

1323
01:20:08,600 --> 01:20:12,280
But I think down the road, what you'll see is this is going to be equally as important

1324
01:20:12,280 --> 01:20:15,240
because you want to get to retire and be able to spend the money that you make.

1325
01:20:15,240 --> 01:20:16,240
Right.

1326
01:20:16,240 --> 01:20:19,940
And you want to be broken and sick and you know, all of us are going to have to face

1327
01:20:19,940 --> 01:20:26,040
some of that, you know, at some point life is tough enough, you know, just just normally.

1328
01:20:26,040 --> 01:20:30,560
So we want to make sure that we can capitalize on on what we're going to get when we retire.

1329
01:20:30,560 --> 01:20:35,800
And what I what I mean by that is what experience are we going to have when we retire, not just

1330
01:20:35,800 --> 01:20:40,480
we have a lot of money, but that we're we're healthy and we're happy and you know, we're

1331
01:20:40,480 --> 01:20:46,080
intact and we can go out and enjoy the retirement that you've earned after working a whole career.

1332
01:20:46,080 --> 01:20:48,040
So I hope to see that.

1333
01:20:48,040 --> 01:20:49,480
I think it's going to be a good thing.

1334
01:20:49,480 --> 01:20:54,840
And you know, not everybody may agree, but I hope that we will we will show that it can

1335
01:20:54,840 --> 01:20:58,960
be done and that it'll be it'll be a benefit and you know that we're going to increase

1336
01:20:58,960 --> 01:21:03,640
retention, we're going to increase recruitment, but also we're going to most importantly,

1337
01:21:03,640 --> 01:21:08,920
increase the health and the mental capacity of our of our people.

1338
01:21:08,920 --> 01:21:09,920
Yeah.

1339
01:21:09,920 --> 01:21:12,680
Well, I mean, it's something I've talked about a lot is, you know, we've always viewed currency

1340
01:21:12,680 --> 01:21:13,680
as money.

1341
01:21:13,680 --> 01:21:18,560
You know, you chase the 50 50 cent pay raise, but your currency is a time with your family.

1342
01:21:18,560 --> 01:21:23,080
That's why you did this initially is to be a part of the solution in your community.

1343
01:21:23,080 --> 01:21:27,880
And so if you think about what you guys are going to every shift cycle, your home another

1344
01:21:27,880 --> 01:21:31,240
24 hours, that's more softball games with your daughter.

1345
01:21:31,240 --> 01:21:34,100
That's more birthdays and Christmases and all those things.

1346
01:21:34,100 --> 01:21:38,620
And then again, when you have a destination department, you fill all the holes.

1347
01:21:38,620 --> 01:21:40,600
There's no mandatory overtime or hardly any.

1348
01:21:40,600 --> 01:21:41,840
And it comes when there's a hurricane.

1349
01:21:41,840 --> 01:21:45,520
It comes when there's something where we're supposed to be all hands and no one will complain

1350
01:21:45,520 --> 01:21:46,520
about that.

1351
01:21:46,520 --> 01:21:50,320
But I think the other side is because there's nothing worth it.

1352
01:21:50,320 --> 01:21:55,760
I hear this all the time with with some, you know, chiefs and it's so arrogant and they'll

1353
01:21:55,760 --> 01:21:58,120
say, well, if we give them more time off, they'll just work more overtime.

1354
01:21:58,120 --> 01:22:02,200
And it's like, well, firstly, who the hell made you king of their entire life?

1355
01:22:02,200 --> 01:22:06,480
And secondly, if there's no overtime in your department, they can't work more overtime.

1356
01:22:06,480 --> 01:22:07,480
See how that works.

1357
01:22:07,480 --> 01:22:09,120
It's basic economics.

1358
01:22:09,120 --> 01:22:15,520
So you fill those gaps and then that then encourages the men and women that want to

1359
01:22:15,520 --> 01:22:20,300
earn a little bit more money than their basic firefire salary to go do something else.

1360
01:22:20,300 --> 01:22:24,680
So now, you know, you're in construction or you're a landscaper or you're a singer or

1361
01:22:24,680 --> 01:22:26,240
whatever it is.

1362
01:22:26,240 --> 01:22:31,960
Now you create another entrepreneurial project of your own, which firstly gives you another

1363
01:22:31,960 --> 01:22:36,080
new tribe where you're not talking about beheaded babies and all the horrible things that you

1364
01:22:36,080 --> 01:22:37,700
saw with your crew.

1365
01:22:37,700 --> 01:22:42,320
And secondly, if you get hurt, if you get fired or if you simply retire, you've got

1366
01:22:42,320 --> 01:22:47,520
something to transition into now versus, as you said, you know, you're on the 24 48 with

1367
01:22:47,520 --> 01:22:50,120
mandatory now, you know, your marriage is falling apart.

1368
01:22:50,120 --> 01:22:51,680
You're in an apartment on your own.

1369
01:22:51,680 --> 01:22:54,640
You retire and now it's you in a bottle of Jack Daniels.

1370
01:22:54,640 --> 01:22:59,480
Instead, you build a business as a computer programmer on the side and now you transition

1371
01:22:59,480 --> 01:23:00,480
to that.

1372
01:23:00,480 --> 01:23:03,800
So if we need more money, it doesn't have to be from the fire service.

1373
01:23:03,800 --> 01:23:06,440
I would argue it's healthier to be not from the fire service.

1374
01:23:06,440 --> 01:23:11,160
And as long as you're in your bed every night, so don't go sign up for overnight ER shifts,

1375
01:23:11,160 --> 01:23:15,640
you know, but do something intelligent that solves the money issue.

1376
01:23:15,640 --> 01:23:19,160
And you know, newsflash, a lot of people earn a lot more money than us.

1377
01:23:19,160 --> 01:23:23,480
So it's it would be easy to actually make as much money doing something different on

1378
01:23:23,480 --> 01:23:24,960
the side if that's what you need to do.

1379
01:23:24,960 --> 01:23:25,960
Yeah.

1380
01:23:25,960 --> 01:23:32,840
And I think, you know, one of the things that I hope will come out of our new schedule is,

1381
01:23:32,840 --> 01:23:36,560
you know, if there's going to be overtime, at least for a little while for us until we

1382
01:23:36,560 --> 01:23:38,520
kind of get everything worked out.

1383
01:23:38,520 --> 01:23:42,760
But with that extra day off, if everyone kind of joins in and plans it, like maybe you could

1384
01:23:42,760 --> 01:23:45,160
never have to work two shifts in a row, right?

1385
01:23:45,160 --> 01:23:46,560
You don't have to work a double.

1386
01:23:46,560 --> 01:23:50,240
You could say, I'll pick up half a shift or whatever on my middle day off.

1387
01:23:50,240 --> 01:23:54,800
And then you may still work more, but you're still home more at the same time, right?

1388
01:23:54,800 --> 01:23:57,160
You're not gone for that 48 hours.

1389
01:23:57,160 --> 01:24:01,080
And you know, we see a lot of we have a lot of younger members that have younger children.

1390
01:24:01,080 --> 01:24:04,940
And that's the thing I hear the most is that that's rough for them.

1391
01:24:04,940 --> 01:24:10,680
Because again, as the generations have changed, all of their significant others have important

1392
01:24:10,680 --> 01:24:15,720
jobs to, you know, where maybe in another generation, your wife might have stayed home

1393
01:24:15,720 --> 01:24:18,840
with the kids for a certain amount of time or whatever.

1394
01:24:18,840 --> 01:24:20,880
And so that too has changed.

1395
01:24:20,880 --> 01:24:22,760
So that just is added pressure on them.

1396
01:24:22,760 --> 01:24:28,400
So I hope at least in lieu of, you know, it would be where you only have to work, you

1397
01:24:28,400 --> 01:24:34,640
know, every every fourth day, that we will at least plan a little bit better and take

1398
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:36,240
care of each other better.

1399
01:24:36,240 --> 01:24:39,000
And not just say, well, I don't want to work, I'm going to make this younger person work

1400
01:24:39,000 --> 01:24:40,800
all of all of the overtime.

1401
01:24:40,800 --> 01:24:44,760
But we'll all kind of join in and then maybe we can make it where it's less impactful,

1402
01:24:44,760 --> 01:24:45,760
right?

1403
01:24:45,760 --> 01:24:49,040
And the other thing that I hope will come back is, you know, we're allowed to trade

1404
01:24:49,040 --> 01:24:51,720
times with people in our own rank.

1405
01:24:51,720 --> 01:24:53,040
And that has kind of gone away a little bit.

1406
01:24:53,040 --> 01:24:56,760
A lot of a lot of the reason is because we work so much overtime, like it's just another

1407
01:24:56,760 --> 01:24:58,480
day you have to work.

1408
01:24:58,480 --> 01:25:02,680
But if you think about you could you could trade with someone on the go shift, right?

1409
01:25:02,680 --> 01:25:05,640
Because with four shifts, there's going to be somebody that you don't see.

1410
01:25:05,640 --> 01:25:10,200
And so if you just do three trade times, if you and I do three trade times a year, and

1411
01:25:10,200 --> 01:25:14,760
we you pay me back, that's three weeks out of the year that I don't even show up to work.

1412
01:25:14,760 --> 01:25:17,620
But I never even worked 48 hours in a row.

1413
01:25:17,620 --> 01:25:23,800
So inside, you know, outside of being able to do, you know, go and start entrepreneurial

1414
01:25:23,800 --> 01:25:29,320
projects, or have different careers, we can even make it better inside of what we're doing,

1415
01:25:29,320 --> 01:25:32,440
where it impacts us less, even if we're still having to do some of those things.

1416
01:25:32,440 --> 01:25:37,680
So I think again, those are benefits of this this model that you can't make tangible until

1417
01:25:37,680 --> 01:25:38,860
we start to do it.

1418
01:25:38,860 --> 01:25:42,280
And then I think you'll see that that's going to pay dividends down the road.

1419
01:25:42,280 --> 01:25:43,280
Absolutely.

1420
01:25:43,280 --> 01:25:46,320
Well, I want to get to the kind of the fitness side.

1421
01:25:46,320 --> 01:25:49,280
Let's start with fitness standards in the fire service.

1422
01:25:49,280 --> 01:25:52,280
I mean, you're sitting across from me still in incredible shape.

1423
01:25:52,280 --> 01:25:56,960
You know, I know, you know, smoke diver and all the other things as well.

1424
01:25:56,960 --> 01:26:02,400
I talked to so many people, SAS, Navy SEALs, you know, and ocean lifeguards, and they're

1425
01:26:02,400 --> 01:26:06,960
all blown away that fire and police have no fitness standard EMS as well.

1426
01:26:06,960 --> 01:26:12,160
I mean, they do have to move very heavy things and sometimes, you know, running from gunfire.

1427
01:26:12,160 --> 01:26:13,160
What is your perspective?

1428
01:26:13,160 --> 01:26:19,680
I'll just leave it at that, at that concept of setting a standard of operational fitness

1429
01:26:19,680 --> 01:26:23,600
within our profession throughout our career, not just at the fire academy.

1430
01:26:23,600 --> 01:26:28,320
Yeah, I think it's it's 100 percent vital that that we have that.

1431
01:26:28,320 --> 01:26:31,080
I'm lucky in Gainesville, you know, before I even got hired.

1432
01:26:31,080 --> 01:26:36,160
So going back 30, 35 years, there's a mandatory fitness hour.

1433
01:26:36,160 --> 01:26:40,360
So you're required to exercise, you know, while you're on duty.

1434
01:26:40,360 --> 01:26:44,960
And I think that over time, and it wasn't always the way it is now, like you had people

1435
01:26:44,960 --> 01:26:51,720
that were just studs, but now I think our per capita of that is a lot more.

1436
01:26:51,720 --> 01:26:55,440
And our department is super fit.

1437
01:26:55,440 --> 01:26:56,440
But it isn't just coming.

1438
01:26:56,440 --> 01:27:00,680
It isn't just the new people like you have to stay fit through your whole career.

1439
01:27:00,680 --> 01:27:06,760
I just think it's no matter what your position is, it's unbelievably vital for you to do

1440
01:27:06,760 --> 01:27:07,760
that.

1441
01:27:07,760 --> 01:27:10,380
And even me, I don't put my bunker gear on on every call and go in.

1442
01:27:10,380 --> 01:27:15,760
But there are times like the way that we deploy our chiefs is one of the chiefs on a significant

1443
01:27:15,760 --> 01:27:20,000
fire has to put their gear on and go and do things.

1444
01:27:20,000 --> 01:27:27,640
So and it's not just about being able to perform a skill, but it's also how healthy you're

1445
01:27:27,640 --> 01:27:30,920
going to be after you have to do that and how healthy you're going to be at the end

1446
01:27:30,920 --> 01:27:31,920
of your career.

1447
01:27:31,920 --> 01:27:36,380
And so it it matters right now, but it also matters as you age.

1448
01:27:36,380 --> 01:27:39,720
And then when you retire out that you stay in that kind of shape.

1449
01:27:39,720 --> 01:27:43,080
My dad was in phenomenal shape even now for his age.

1450
01:27:43,080 --> 01:27:44,640
He's got some bad shoulders.

1451
01:27:44,640 --> 01:27:49,940
But when he left, like he was still more than capable of doing the job because he kept kept

1452
01:27:49,940 --> 01:27:51,120
himself so fit.

1453
01:27:51,120 --> 01:27:59,840
And so, you know, I wish that the standard was a little more.

1454
01:27:59,840 --> 01:28:03,940
I don't know what the word I want to use is, but I wish it was a little more rigid because

1455
01:28:03,940 --> 01:28:07,440
we don't have a like fit for duty and people freak out.

1456
01:28:07,440 --> 01:28:11,600
You know, whenever you say fit for duty, but at the end of the day, like that, that's what

1457
01:28:11,600 --> 01:28:12,600
it is.

1458
01:28:12,600 --> 01:28:16,600
And I think we're lucky in Gainesville, our culture kind of drives that.

1459
01:28:16,600 --> 01:28:19,080
So like we don't you don't see people get off our fire trucks.

1460
01:28:19,080 --> 01:28:20,080
They're like, who is that?

1461
01:28:20,080 --> 01:28:21,820
You know, they're they can't do that.

1462
01:28:21,820 --> 01:28:22,820
You just don't see that.

1463
01:28:22,820 --> 01:28:26,440
And even you know, we do life scan now every other year.

1464
01:28:26,440 --> 01:28:28,720
And we actually hired one of their techs.

1465
01:28:28,720 --> 01:28:33,300
He ended up applying with us because he's like, man, you guys are unbelievable.

1466
01:28:33,300 --> 01:28:35,160
And he's like, he's been around all over the state.

1467
01:28:35,160 --> 01:28:39,080
And he says, you know, a couple other departments that are are this in shape.

1468
01:28:39,080 --> 01:28:41,920
But overall, you guys are in very, very good shape.

1469
01:28:41,920 --> 01:28:42,920
And he wanted to be a part of that.

1470
01:28:42,920 --> 01:28:43,920
And he's doing really good.

1471
01:28:43,920 --> 01:28:45,180
A new guy is doing really well.

1472
01:28:45,180 --> 01:28:49,960
But I think that that that culture is super important.

1473
01:28:49,960 --> 01:28:55,200
You know, I think sometimes people want to lean against it because they they slack off

1474
01:28:55,200 --> 01:28:58,920
a little bit and then they don't want to be exposed and nobody wants to look back in front

1475
01:28:58,920 --> 01:28:59,920
of their peers.

1476
01:28:59,920 --> 01:29:02,880
But I think we have to look past that.

1477
01:29:02,880 --> 01:29:08,960
And you know, like if you fall off a little bit and your peers make you not look as good,

1478
01:29:08,960 --> 01:29:12,320
right, because because you haven't kept up, that's OK.

1479
01:29:12,320 --> 01:29:13,720
That's OK that you look bad.

1480
01:29:13,720 --> 01:29:16,600
You just have to be able to identify it and fix it.

1481
01:29:16,600 --> 01:29:22,080
You know, we're not always going to be you know, like when you go to a training evolution,

1482
01:29:22,080 --> 01:29:24,360
you're not always going to perform 100 percent, right?

1483
01:29:24,360 --> 01:29:25,360
You're going to make mistakes.

1484
01:29:25,360 --> 01:29:26,800
You're going to have a bad run.

1485
01:29:26,800 --> 01:29:29,960
You're not going to have performed this skill enough because you've been focused on something

1486
01:29:29,960 --> 01:29:30,960
else.

1487
01:29:30,960 --> 01:29:33,640
You've got the opportunity to say, OK, well, this didn't go that well.

1488
01:29:33,640 --> 01:29:34,640
I have to get that fixed.

1489
01:29:34,640 --> 01:29:36,160
And it's the same way with our fitness.

1490
01:29:36,160 --> 01:29:39,000
Like you're you're never going to stay peaked out, right?

1491
01:29:39,000 --> 01:29:42,420
But you want to stay where your lows aren't that low.

1492
01:29:42,420 --> 01:29:45,520
And then it's easier for you to get back to a peak.

1493
01:29:45,520 --> 01:29:48,880
I can tell you, though, like as we know, as you get older, that gets tougher.

1494
01:29:48,880 --> 01:29:50,860
I had my knee cleaned up in December.

1495
01:29:50,860 --> 01:29:55,260
And so trying to get back to where I felt I was before is exponentially harder than

1496
01:29:55,260 --> 01:29:57,920
it was, you know, 15 or 20 years ago.

1497
01:29:57,920 --> 01:30:03,160
And trying to compete or work out with our younger folks is a pipe dream.

1498
01:30:03,160 --> 01:30:04,160
Right.

1499
01:30:04,160 --> 01:30:06,400
But I still want I still feel like I should be able to do that.

1500
01:30:06,400 --> 01:30:11,400
And it becomes harder and harder and less and less of a competition for them.

1501
01:30:11,400 --> 01:30:12,400
Every year we get older.

1502
01:30:12,400 --> 01:30:19,000
But I think the strive to stay in that top tier fitness level is super important.

1503
01:30:19,000 --> 01:30:20,760
And it can't just be the new people.

1504
01:30:20,760 --> 01:30:22,920
It has to be all the way up.

1505
01:30:22,920 --> 01:30:25,640
That culture has to be there.

1506
01:30:25,640 --> 01:30:26,640
It's so weird.

1507
01:30:26,640 --> 01:30:29,240
I see talking to somebody, they had an allergy kind of popped in my head.

1508
01:30:29,240 --> 01:30:34,880
The way that we've viewed standards hiring and then fitness standards would be the same

1509
01:30:34,880 --> 01:30:38,000
as going to that ocean lifeguard and saying I want a job.

1510
01:30:38,000 --> 01:30:40,280
And they're like, you know, are you a really good swimmer?

1511
01:30:40,280 --> 01:30:41,280
No.

1512
01:30:41,280 --> 01:30:42,280
Well, can you doggy paddle?

1513
01:30:42,280 --> 01:30:43,280
Yeah.

1514
01:30:43,280 --> 01:30:44,280
OK, that'll do.

1515
01:30:44,280 --> 01:30:51,000
You know, like I did a fundraiser for a trucker, Jukes, a little boy, son of a Maui firefighter

1516
01:30:51,000 --> 01:30:53,800
and put together a little kind of evolution.

1517
01:30:53,800 --> 01:30:58,480
And it was next to the station at Reedy Creek I worked at, it was a 28 story tower.

1518
01:30:58,480 --> 01:31:00,000
So just put a high rise strip on.

1519
01:31:00,000 --> 01:31:05,000
So full gear and pack and then, you know, a section of hose, two air bottles slung on

1520
01:31:05,000 --> 01:31:08,400
the back because obviously you're climbing all that way and then working on a tool.

1521
01:31:08,400 --> 01:31:11,000
That was 100 pounds on my skinny ass.

1522
01:31:11,000 --> 01:31:13,640
And then you climb 28 stories and then you go to work.

1523
01:31:13,640 --> 01:31:18,080
And I created some evolutions and a search and a dummy drag and an intubate and all these

1524
01:31:18,080 --> 01:31:19,780
things.

1525
01:31:19,780 --> 01:31:24,920
So the point being, you can't say, well, you know, you don't need to be fit for this job

1526
01:31:24,920 --> 01:31:31,440
when you've got to put 100 pounds on your back and climb 28 stories and then go to work.

1527
01:31:31,440 --> 01:31:37,240
You know, and I actually was when I started this podcast and I transitioned out, there

1528
01:31:37,240 --> 01:31:40,720
was a point where I'm like, oh, shit, I might have to go to the fire service again because

1529
01:31:40,720 --> 01:31:42,680
I don't have any money.

1530
01:31:42,680 --> 01:31:45,960
Thank God, 511 stepped in as a sponsor right last minute.

1531
01:31:45,960 --> 01:31:47,720
But so I went and did the CPAT here.

1532
01:31:47,720 --> 01:31:49,880
I'm like, all right, well, let me get ready again.

1533
01:31:49,880 --> 01:31:52,720
You know, this will be number five.

1534
01:31:52,720 --> 01:31:57,560
And I forget what it was, but they told me it was like the record that I did seven something

1535
01:31:57,560 --> 01:31:58,920
seven low.

1536
01:31:58,920 --> 01:32:00,680
And it's not about wow, Jane, that's amazing.

1537
01:32:00,680 --> 01:32:07,720
It's about 40, whatever that was then 47 years old, 46 that I wasn't barely able to pass

1538
01:32:07,720 --> 01:32:11,920
CPAT, but I could still smash the CPAT, which I don't think is the best test in the world,

1539
01:32:11,920 --> 01:32:14,020
but it does mimic what we're supposed to do.

1540
01:32:14,020 --> 01:32:19,000
And that is the point I'm not going to be able to outlift the strong guy in the station,

1541
01:32:19,000 --> 01:32:20,920
not going to be able to outrun the triathlete.

1542
01:32:20,920 --> 01:32:23,120
You know, everyone's going to beat me in their area of way.

1543
01:32:23,120 --> 01:32:26,640
But when we're on a fire ground, I can still throw that 24 on my own.

1544
01:32:26,640 --> 01:32:27,840
I can still advance that line.

1545
01:32:27,840 --> 01:32:32,440
I can still drag the heaviest person in my department out with their gear on.

1546
01:32:32,440 --> 01:32:34,080
That's what it's about.

1547
01:32:34,080 --> 01:32:36,040
But as you said, that's a cultural thing.

1548
01:32:36,040 --> 01:32:40,160
You and I obviously are sitting across from each other, still healthy, still able to because

1549
01:32:40,160 --> 01:32:42,300
we understand that.

1550
01:32:42,300 --> 01:32:47,440
But when you create an environment that allows people to slip, and again, I'm always very

1551
01:32:47,440 --> 01:32:48,440
fair on here.

1552
01:32:48,440 --> 01:32:53,560
I do many, many episodes on why this environment causes us to gain weight, to have heart problems,

1553
01:32:53,560 --> 01:32:56,640
to get hurt, all the things.

1554
01:32:56,640 --> 01:33:00,160
But by having no fitness standards, we've done a massive disservice.

1555
01:33:00,160 --> 01:33:03,560
And I always tell people there's that phrase, you know, would you want you rescuing you?

1556
01:33:03,560 --> 01:33:06,120
I say, forget that because that's about you.

1557
01:33:06,120 --> 01:33:11,440
How would you feel if your family died because the firefighter hadn't trained?

1558
01:33:11,440 --> 01:33:12,440
Let that sink in.

1559
01:33:12,440 --> 01:33:13,440
Yeah, it's unfathomable.

1560
01:33:13,440 --> 01:33:17,120
Yeah, I don't know.

1561
01:33:17,120 --> 01:33:21,080
I think the majority of people that push back against fitness standard are people that have

1562
01:33:21,080 --> 01:33:22,560
let themselves slip.

1563
01:33:22,560 --> 01:33:28,360
And so they need to hang on to something because they don't want to be exposed for that.

1564
01:33:28,360 --> 01:33:29,360
But again, I say that's okay.

1565
01:33:29,360 --> 01:33:33,880
Like you let yourself slip, let's figure it out and let's get you fixed so you can get

1566
01:33:33,880 --> 01:33:37,360
back because at the end of the day, you still have to do the job.

1567
01:33:37,360 --> 01:33:42,080
Whether you're 25 or 55, if you're riding on a truck and you have to stretch a line

1568
01:33:42,080 --> 01:33:45,040
and throw a ladder, it still has to be done.

1569
01:33:45,040 --> 01:33:47,800
There's not a sliding scale when you go to a call.

1570
01:33:47,800 --> 01:33:51,000
And you're right, you're not going to keep up with a 25-year-old stud athlete.

1571
01:33:51,000 --> 01:33:52,480
I'm not going to be able to run as fast.

1572
01:33:52,480 --> 01:33:53,920
I can't lift as much.

1573
01:33:53,920 --> 01:33:57,260
But it's not about how fast I can do a workout.

1574
01:33:57,260 --> 01:33:59,800
Can I do my job?

1575
01:33:59,800 --> 01:34:03,780
And that fitness level is super important to keep you there.

1576
01:34:03,780 --> 01:34:09,800
And I think it's just something that we try to instill that in our candidates at the fire

1577
01:34:09,800 --> 01:34:16,560
college at MTC is we PT them not every day, but it's almost every day.

1578
01:34:16,560 --> 01:34:21,160
And one of the reasons is because we want to build that in them so that they take it

1579
01:34:21,160 --> 01:34:23,360
with them, that fitness is super important.

1580
01:34:23,360 --> 01:34:26,840
And whether you're in the fire service or not, fitness is important.

1581
01:34:26,840 --> 01:34:30,840
One of the things that you're supposed to be able to do is physically protect your family

1582
01:34:30,840 --> 01:34:32,480
if you're a man.

1583
01:34:32,480 --> 01:34:36,760
And you can't do that if you're physically incapable of ever doing anything.

1584
01:34:36,760 --> 01:34:41,320
And so just as a human, you need to maximize what you have.

1585
01:34:41,320 --> 01:34:46,640
God gave us all this body and what we have in it, and he wants us to maximize it to the

1586
01:34:46,640 --> 01:34:48,040
best use.

1587
01:34:48,040 --> 01:34:51,220
And for us that are in the fire service, that means we really have to try to maximize it

1588
01:34:51,220 --> 01:34:55,480
because when you put on all your gear and it's in Florida, it's 100 degrees, man, that's

1589
01:34:55,480 --> 01:34:58,480
a physically demanding activity.

1590
01:34:58,480 --> 01:35:03,040
And you're asking for something bad to happen to yourself if you haven't prepared.

1591
01:35:03,040 --> 01:35:09,560
And so keeping yourself in shape, it's almost a no brainer and a mandatory thing.

1592
01:35:09,560 --> 01:35:13,920
I don't know why we can't figure out what that standard needs to be and then apply it

1593
01:35:13,920 --> 01:35:14,920
to people.

1594
01:35:14,920 --> 01:35:19,560
But when we don't do a good job of officially doing it, I think it's more of an unofficial

1595
01:35:19,560 --> 01:35:21,960
culture in a lot of places.

1596
01:35:21,960 --> 01:35:24,840
What I've seen is some people will then take the bull by the horns and go, okay, we're

1597
01:35:24,840 --> 01:35:26,720
going to make a test.

1598
01:35:26,720 --> 01:35:30,880
And then they're doing vertical jumps and max deadlifts.

1599
01:35:30,880 --> 01:35:32,760
And this is when people go, oh, but it's not fair.

1600
01:35:32,760 --> 01:35:33,760
I agree.

1601
01:35:33,760 --> 01:35:36,360
That only fits a certain kind of person.

1602
01:35:36,360 --> 01:35:38,720
But the answer is the tools on the fire ground.

1603
01:35:38,720 --> 01:35:41,360
Move this ladder, pull this hoe, drag this dummy and make it a dummy.

1604
01:35:41,360 --> 01:35:46,200
It's actually a real American please, not a freaking 60 pounder.

1605
01:35:46,200 --> 01:35:47,200
And go through those sequence.

1606
01:35:47,200 --> 01:35:50,760
And it doesn't matter if you're male, female, black, white, gay, straight, whatever, you

1607
01:35:50,760 --> 01:35:52,320
either can or you can't.

1608
01:35:52,320 --> 01:35:53,400
And that is the bar.

1609
01:35:53,400 --> 01:35:58,560
And the SEALs don't have a master's version of their things.

1610
01:35:58,560 --> 01:35:59,560
You know what I mean?

1611
01:35:59,560 --> 01:36:00,920
It's like you can or you can't.

1612
01:36:00,920 --> 01:36:04,800
So this again, it serves you in so many ways.

1613
01:36:04,800 --> 01:36:07,360
Obviously, like you said, when you go home, you're a protector as well.

1614
01:36:07,360 --> 01:36:08,360
And I agree 100%.

1615
01:36:08,360 --> 01:36:10,880
Like I don't work for a fire department anymore.

1616
01:36:10,880 --> 01:36:14,120
But yesterday, someone tried to kick in my wife's door.

1617
01:36:14,120 --> 01:36:17,480
So there's still those real threats out there.

1618
01:36:17,480 --> 01:36:19,060
But then you have a longevity piece.

1619
01:36:19,060 --> 01:36:22,000
There's no downside to being healthy through your career.

1620
01:36:22,000 --> 01:36:28,360
And I think just to go back to the 2472, that's going to create an environment that's going

1621
01:36:28,360 --> 01:36:31,800
to absolutely pull more people into owning their weight.

1622
01:36:31,800 --> 01:36:34,160
They're not going to be as hormonally destroyed.

1623
01:36:34,160 --> 01:36:35,360
They are going to be more motivated.

1624
01:36:35,360 --> 01:36:37,400
They're going to be less sleep deprived.

1625
01:36:37,400 --> 01:36:40,080
And you're going to have a lot more people that are going to go, I actually feel like

1626
01:36:40,080 --> 01:36:41,080
working out now.

1627
01:36:41,080 --> 01:36:43,200
Let's have a healthy dinner today.

1628
01:36:43,200 --> 01:36:46,760
But you know, I understand like in Marion where they're doing 56 No Kelly and getting

1629
01:36:46,760 --> 01:36:51,360
mandatory eight-hour weeks, you're probably not feeling about having a salad and going

1630
01:36:51,360 --> 01:36:52,360
to CrossFit.

1631
01:36:52,360 --> 01:36:55,000
You know, so we have to change that environment too.

1632
01:36:55,000 --> 01:36:57,000
Yeah, it's tough.

1633
01:36:57,000 --> 01:36:58,000
And you're right.

1634
01:36:58,000 --> 01:37:01,360
And I think, you know, one of the things that is, you know, I think you talk about it a

1635
01:37:01,360 --> 01:37:08,680
lot, but it's not well known is how this sleep deprivation and the constant strain affects

1636
01:37:08,680 --> 01:37:09,680
your hormonal balance.

1637
01:37:09,680 --> 01:37:14,600
It affects your sleep cycle and how important sleep is to staying healthy and physically

1638
01:37:14,600 --> 01:37:16,520
fit and mentally fit.

1639
01:37:16,520 --> 01:37:21,720
And those are things that we as a service and maybe even as a society have just scratched

1640
01:37:21,720 --> 01:37:26,160
the surface of and don't fully understand that.

1641
01:37:26,160 --> 01:37:33,600
And actually, and I don't know if Brian and Matthew mentioned it, but we're doing a study

1642
01:37:33,600 --> 01:37:38,320
with Florida State University where they're going to, I don't know, 25 or so of our guys,

1643
01:37:38,320 --> 01:37:42,520
and they're going to give questionnaires and measure vital signs and try to do that through

1644
01:37:42,520 --> 01:37:47,600
this transition into the new schedule and then see what kind of difference there is.

1645
01:37:47,600 --> 01:37:53,800
And so hopefully as that starts to happen, there can become some real data on, hey, this

1646
01:37:53,800 --> 01:37:56,920
is why it's also a benefit because now we have tangible data.

1647
01:37:56,920 --> 01:37:59,400
Our sleep patterns are better.

1648
01:37:59,400 --> 01:38:02,400
More hormonally normal.

1649
01:38:02,400 --> 01:38:03,760
We're behaving better.

1650
01:38:03,760 --> 01:38:04,760
We're healthier.

1651
01:38:04,760 --> 01:38:07,120
And so hopefully we'll be able to gather some of that.

1652
01:38:07,120 --> 01:38:11,560
But I think we've just scratched the surface of what a lot of that stuff means.

1653
01:38:11,560 --> 01:38:13,200
What would be amazing, because you mentioned LifeScan.

1654
01:38:13,200 --> 01:38:14,840
I think they're a great organization.

1655
01:38:14,840 --> 01:38:19,040
I had them a few times and excellent in a medical.

1656
01:38:19,040 --> 01:38:23,960
If they could look at the blood work pre and post as well, if some of those 25 would say,

1657
01:38:23,960 --> 01:38:27,800
yeah, okay, here's my testosterone, here's my cortisol, here's my cholesterol and all

1658
01:38:27,800 --> 01:38:29,360
the things, because you are.

1659
01:38:29,360 --> 01:38:30,360
And this is the thing.

1660
01:38:30,360 --> 01:38:35,320
I had Sarah Jenke on the show and it was to talk about the research and lots of research

1661
01:38:35,320 --> 01:38:36,320
in some areas.

1662
01:38:36,320 --> 01:38:38,640
But when it came to sleep deprivation, there was basically nothing.

1663
01:38:38,640 --> 01:38:41,520
So it was a great episode because I could show everyone that said, oh, I need studies.

1664
01:38:41,520 --> 01:38:42,520
Like there are none.

1665
01:38:42,520 --> 01:38:48,280
And I always say, I've got a thousand of a tiny house with opening this door and closing

1666
01:38:48,280 --> 01:38:49,280
flow patterns and everything.

1667
01:38:49,280 --> 01:38:53,320
But the thing that's actually put in our firefighters and coffins, there's nothing.

1668
01:38:53,320 --> 01:38:59,800
So really we don't need to study to show that 42 hours a week is going to be healthier than

1669
01:38:59,800 --> 01:39:00,800
56.

1670
01:39:00,800 --> 01:39:06,440
However, what a beautiful opportunity now to follow that and actually see the things

1671
01:39:06,440 --> 01:39:07,640
that did change.

1672
01:39:07,640 --> 01:39:12,680
And then that, like you said, would be another layer in this case to finally make our environment

1673
01:39:12,680 --> 01:39:13,680
healthy again.

1674
01:39:13,680 --> 01:39:14,680
Yeah.

1675
01:39:14,680 --> 01:39:15,680
And sleep is important.

1676
01:39:15,680 --> 01:39:18,800
I was always somebody that was like, oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead or I'll sleep some other

1677
01:39:18,800 --> 01:39:19,800
time.

1678
01:39:19,800 --> 01:39:22,000
And I've kind of grown out of that.

1679
01:39:22,000 --> 01:39:27,360
And even more recently, I've really tried to, I still don't sleep great a lot of times,

1680
01:39:27,360 --> 01:39:30,080
but try to maximize the time that I do have to sleep.

1681
01:39:30,080 --> 01:39:34,680
And for years, my eyes would pop open, five, 36 o'clock in the morning, whether I was on

1682
01:39:34,680 --> 01:39:35,680
duty or not.

1683
01:39:35,680 --> 01:39:36,680
Boom, I got to be up.

1684
01:39:36,680 --> 01:39:37,680
I couldn't be still.

1685
01:39:37,680 --> 01:39:43,640
And so I've really worked on trying to get that extra time when it's available because

1686
01:39:43,640 --> 01:39:49,120
I think it's super important to just be able to process things in your brain.

1687
01:39:49,120 --> 01:39:54,120
And so I think as we get more information or if we can get any information about how

1688
01:39:54,120 --> 01:39:59,100
important that sleep is, that'll reinforce the schedule.

1689
01:39:59,100 --> 01:40:03,000
And then also giving people the tools they need to be able to maximize, to understand

1690
01:40:03,000 --> 01:40:04,080
why they need to sleep.

1691
01:40:04,080 --> 01:40:05,720
And then how do we get people to do it?

1692
01:40:05,720 --> 01:40:11,160
And you mentioned blood work and you see a lot of our guys that have low testosterone

1693
01:40:11,160 --> 01:40:15,480
or have had, including me, mine was pretty low.

1694
01:40:15,480 --> 01:40:21,040
Luckily, I was able to bring mine up naturally just through fasting and got it back going.

1695
01:40:21,040 --> 01:40:25,280
But a lot of people that you wouldn't think, that are the most fit humans that you could

1696
01:40:25,280 --> 01:40:27,280
think of and their testosterone is low.

1697
01:40:27,280 --> 01:40:31,440
And I think you see that a lot in some of the military, especially in some of the more

1698
01:40:31,440 --> 01:40:36,840
specialized units where these guys are like robots, but they suffer from low testosterone.

1699
01:40:36,840 --> 01:40:42,200
And I think a lot of that is coming out as because of how interrupted and how wrecked

1700
01:40:42,200 --> 01:40:44,800
our sleep patterns are and your body just can't recover.

1701
01:40:44,800 --> 01:40:45,800
Yeah.

1702
01:40:45,800 --> 01:40:52,240
I just had a good friend of mine come yesterday and he got into steroids in a previous department

1703
01:40:52,240 --> 01:40:57,400
and back then it was pro-science locker room steroids and it's ruined him.

1704
01:40:57,400 --> 01:41:03,580
He's on TRT now the rest of his life, hair loss, fertility issues, all kinds of things.

1705
01:41:03,580 --> 01:41:08,140
And so this is what scares me is you've got these firefighters that are totally disrupted

1706
01:41:08,140 --> 01:41:09,320
and they're young.

1707
01:41:09,320 --> 01:41:14,840
I know several people that are in their early 30s that are on TRT.

1708
01:41:14,840 --> 01:41:19,560
And there's one company that I absolutely adore called Transcend and they have peptides.

1709
01:41:19,560 --> 01:41:23,680
So there are things you can take to just boost your own testosterone a little bit.

1710
01:41:23,680 --> 01:41:25,840
The TRT, once you start, that's it.

1711
01:41:25,840 --> 01:41:26,840
You're on it forever.

1712
01:41:26,840 --> 01:41:31,080
That's absolute application for some people, especially TBIs and some other areas where

1713
01:41:31,080 --> 01:41:33,840
you're physically not able to make it anymore.

1714
01:41:33,840 --> 01:41:36,720
But what scares me is all these men's clinics are popping up everywhere.

1715
01:41:36,720 --> 01:41:40,040
A young firefighter goes in like, oh, your T is low.

1716
01:41:40,040 --> 01:41:41,140
We'll just give you this.

1717
01:41:41,140 --> 01:41:45,080
And they're not telling them about the fact that it's going to be expensive and it's going

1718
01:41:45,080 --> 01:41:46,460
to be forever.

1719
01:41:46,460 --> 01:41:51,240
And if you're planning on having kids or keeping your hair or whatever it is, there's a detriment

1720
01:41:51,240 --> 01:41:52,300
to that.

1721
01:41:52,300 --> 01:41:57,320
So there are other nuanced things, but like you said, the first step is sleep.

1722
01:41:57,320 --> 01:42:02,240
And so this again, the shift schedule is absolutely going to improve the hormonal side.

1723
01:42:02,240 --> 01:42:06,960
And then the less compounding of the overall stress is going to have another effect.

1724
01:42:06,960 --> 01:42:08,740
And then now you're more likely to exercise.

1725
01:42:08,740 --> 01:42:12,640
Now you're doing strength training and now you have testosterone is growing up more.

1726
01:42:12,640 --> 01:42:17,000
Now you're eating better and now you're loving better and all these things kind of come together

1727
01:42:17,000 --> 01:42:19,960
and you fixed your own hormones and it didn't cost you a penny.

1728
01:42:19,960 --> 01:42:25,520
But the opposite sadly is there are people preying on our, not even middle-aged young

1729
01:42:25,520 --> 01:42:32,760
people now getting them on this shit without with little or no testing and no coaching

1730
01:42:32,760 --> 01:42:36,320
and they're finding out when it's too late that they're stuck with that forever now.

1731
01:42:36,320 --> 01:42:37,320
Yeah.

1732
01:42:37,320 --> 01:42:38,320
And that's unfortunate.

1733
01:42:38,320 --> 01:42:42,820
I mean, I'm not a big medicine taker or don't like to take medicine as much as I don't have

1734
01:42:42,820 --> 01:42:48,720
to, but there's definitely got to be a better way than just having to get to TRT and other

1735
01:42:48,720 --> 01:42:50,220
stuff sooner.

1736
01:42:50,220 --> 01:42:54,200
At some point for some people, like you said, it's completely applicable, but we need to

1737
01:42:54,200 --> 01:43:00,120
make sure we get to that point not just because we can't sleep or our sleep is broken when

1738
01:43:00,120 --> 01:43:03,440
we've got to figure out a way to maximize that.

1739
01:43:03,440 --> 01:43:07,400
And so hopefully we're going to be moving in the right direction, being optimistic about

1740
01:43:07,400 --> 01:43:09,600
things that it's coming to light.

1741
01:43:09,600 --> 01:43:10,600
People are talking about it.

1742
01:43:10,600 --> 01:43:17,640
You're talking about it that it'll come out and we'll start to prioritize the sleep now

1743
01:43:17,640 --> 01:43:24,760
with more time off or make it where it is culturally acceptable to sleep.

1744
01:43:24,760 --> 01:43:27,360
Instead of that, we don't ever need to sleep and stuff like that.

1745
01:43:27,360 --> 01:43:30,500
So hopefully we'll be moving in the right direction.

1746
01:43:30,500 --> 01:43:36,400
If anyone heard a strange noise, that was my dog, by the way, not Don's bum.

1747
01:43:36,400 --> 01:43:38,600
So I want to hit two more things and then we'll wrap up.

1748
01:43:38,600 --> 01:43:40,160
Firstly, Smoke Diver.

1749
01:43:40,160 --> 01:43:44,900
I heard you again on the Can Man podcast.

1750
01:43:44,900 --> 01:43:49,960
You have a unique kind of perspective because you're kind of spearheading the second version

1751
01:43:49,960 --> 01:43:52,800
of it, but your dad was in the generation of the first one.

1752
01:43:52,800 --> 01:43:56,480
And obviously there was a tragic reason for that kind of hitting pause.

1753
01:43:56,480 --> 01:44:01,160
So talk to me about what you've heard as far as the beginning of it, what it was intended

1754
01:44:01,160 --> 01:44:07,040
to, what was the tragedy and then let's move back to reinventing it and where you are now.

1755
01:44:07,040 --> 01:44:13,120
So the reason it was invented was when Airpac started to become more popular or prevalent

1756
01:44:13,120 --> 01:44:16,720
and to teach people to be experts, if you will, with their Airpac.

1757
01:44:16,720 --> 01:44:20,320
And that's kind of how the program was born.

1758
01:44:20,320 --> 01:44:24,480
And that's really what it's surrounded by is becoming an expert with that piece of equipment

1759
01:44:24,480 --> 01:44:28,960
and being able to test its limits, maximize its capabilities.

1760
01:44:28,960 --> 01:44:30,640
And it kind of went from there.

1761
01:44:30,640 --> 01:44:37,620
And I wasn't around when there was a death in the program, but I know some of the instructors

1762
01:44:37,620 --> 01:44:38,620
that were.

1763
01:44:38,620 --> 01:44:43,680
And I think the program takes a big beating for that, but that person was excelling in

1764
01:44:43,680 --> 01:44:51,140
that program and possibly had some kind of a defect that they didn't know about.

1765
01:44:51,140 --> 01:44:56,480
But from what I heard, I don't want to put that on the program caused it because it wasn't

1766
01:44:56,480 --> 01:44:59,120
like that person was suffering and not doing good in the class.

1767
01:44:59,120 --> 01:45:02,560
They were one of the stronger people and were just wrecking it.

1768
01:45:02,560 --> 01:45:07,600
And so I think there was that and there was a lot of other reasons that the program kind

1769
01:45:07,600 --> 01:45:10,400
of slid to an end.

1770
01:45:10,400 --> 01:45:13,760
And then there was a large gap, just couldn't seem to get momentum back.

1771
01:45:13,760 --> 01:45:20,960
And probably around 2010 or so, I think some momentum came back and you've had Chad Belger

1772
01:45:20,960 --> 01:45:25,320
on your show and he probably deserves the majority of the credit for getting that back

1773
01:45:25,320 --> 01:45:26,320
going.

1774
01:45:26,320 --> 01:45:31,880
He put a lot of effort and resources into research and how the program was reborn and

1775
01:45:31,880 --> 01:45:37,360
what we needed to keep from the old program, what would work for today's time and put a

1776
01:45:37,360 --> 01:45:41,640
lot of effort into it and got a lot of support from Shane Alexander when he was doing my

1777
01:45:41,640 --> 01:45:44,720
job at the fire college and from everybody.

1778
01:45:44,720 --> 01:45:48,880
And he got the ball rolling and it's kind of taken off over the last 11 years.

1779
01:45:48,880 --> 01:45:55,480
And now you got Willisiz Mejia and George Vazulis who were kind of running with that

1780
01:45:55,480 --> 01:46:02,880
program and they're all doing a great job of trying to make it current for now.

1781
01:46:02,880 --> 01:46:06,560
I think what you get out of that is a lot of people like, well, why do you need to do

1782
01:46:06,560 --> 01:46:07,560
that?

1783
01:46:07,560 --> 01:46:08,920
Does it give you money or this or that?

1784
01:46:08,920 --> 01:46:11,720
And for at least at my department, it does not.

1785
01:46:11,720 --> 01:46:13,960
But for me, it was an internal thing.

1786
01:46:13,960 --> 01:46:19,000
I wanted to know where my limits were, what my capabilities were and Chad put together

1787
01:46:19,000 --> 01:46:24,080
a great program and it was again, where life will humble you a little bit.

1788
01:46:24,080 --> 01:46:27,120
I kind of thought I would walk in there and be like, well, I'm going to wreck everything

1789
01:46:27,120 --> 01:46:30,480
here and that wasn't really the way that it turned out.

1790
01:46:30,480 --> 01:46:31,480
But that's good.

1791
01:46:31,480 --> 01:46:36,120
It was good to be humbled in that way because it gave you some ideas of where you were strong

1792
01:46:36,120 --> 01:46:38,840
and where you were weak and what you need to work on.

1793
01:46:38,840 --> 01:46:44,760
But I think the thing that it does most is it shows you what you've got inside.

1794
01:46:44,760 --> 01:46:46,760
It isn't about the physical piece.

1795
01:46:46,760 --> 01:46:51,440
And I know a lot of people really focus on that and that's a big component of it, but

1796
01:46:51,440 --> 01:46:55,100
what's really important is what's in your mind and in your heart and it teaches you

1797
01:46:55,100 --> 01:46:58,080
what you can do when you're tired.

1798
01:46:58,080 --> 01:47:02,440
And so people are like, well, I don't understand why it's this hard.

1799
01:47:02,440 --> 01:47:05,120
And to me, it isn't this hard.

1800
01:47:05,120 --> 01:47:09,260
All of the evolutions we're doing, except for maybe a couple, are all standards level

1801
01:47:09,260 --> 01:47:10,920
evolutions.

1802
01:47:10,920 --> 01:47:14,840
We're just putting you in a situation where you have been physically and mentally depleted

1803
01:47:14,840 --> 01:47:22,040
and can you still perform at the same level mentally, make the same high level decisions

1804
01:47:22,040 --> 01:47:25,720
and be able to work through when your body is tired?

1805
01:47:25,720 --> 01:47:29,860
Because that is what can make you a force multiplier on a call and that's really kind

1806
01:47:29,860 --> 01:47:30,860
of what it's all about.

1807
01:47:30,860 --> 01:47:35,720
What I tell people is like, if you attempt it, even if you say, hey, I'm going to go

1808
01:47:35,720 --> 01:47:39,040
and you train for it and you for whatever reason you don't get to go, you're still

1809
01:47:39,040 --> 01:47:40,960
better than you were when you started.

1810
01:47:40,960 --> 01:47:45,560
And so it's not about that you run around with a patch or a helmet stick or whatever.

1811
01:47:45,560 --> 01:47:49,000
It's the journey that you go on to get you there because that's where you're finding

1812
01:47:49,000 --> 01:47:51,000
out a lot about yourself.

1813
01:47:51,000 --> 01:47:54,520
And so whether you're successful or not, to me, doesn't necessarily matter.

1814
01:47:54,520 --> 01:47:58,040
It'll matter to you because we all want to be successful at anything, but it doesn't

1815
01:47:58,040 --> 01:47:59,040
matter to me.

1816
01:47:59,040 --> 01:48:02,840
I see people take the journey to push themselves to see what they have and what they're capable

1817
01:48:02,840 --> 01:48:06,720
of and that's really is what it's all about.

1818
01:48:06,720 --> 01:48:09,480
And I think the guys do a great job.

1819
01:48:09,480 --> 01:48:12,800
I don't want to call it a gentleman's course, maybe in the military, but that's kind of

1820
01:48:12,800 --> 01:48:16,420
what it is, is that nobody's yelling and screaming at you.

1821
01:48:16,420 --> 01:48:18,580
Everybody that comes here is a high performer.

1822
01:48:18,580 --> 01:48:23,440
We just give you the program and it's for you, it's your program.

1823
01:48:23,440 --> 01:48:26,440
And then hopefully you learn to navigate through it.

1824
01:48:26,440 --> 01:48:31,600
And the people that have been successful, I think that's what they draw out of it is

1825
01:48:31,600 --> 01:48:35,360
some of the best firefighters I know in the whole world are not smoke divers.

1826
01:48:35,360 --> 01:48:41,080
It doesn't automatically give you this awesomeness now, but what it does give you is it gives

1827
01:48:41,080 --> 01:48:47,160
you that mental understanding of what your body and your mind can do when you get into

1828
01:48:47,160 --> 01:48:49,760
a depleted state.

1829
01:48:49,760 --> 01:48:54,640
If we brought anybody that shows up for that and says, hey, do this evolution fresh out

1830
01:48:54,640 --> 01:48:56,880
of the in the morning, you're going to crush it, right?

1831
01:48:56,880 --> 01:49:00,320
Because everybody's already a stud at their department, they're a very high performer.

1832
01:49:00,320 --> 01:49:03,640
But what this does is it breaks away some of those layers, peels away some of the layers

1833
01:49:03,640 --> 01:49:07,840
of the onion and gets down to what is underneath.

1834
01:49:07,840 --> 01:49:11,120
And then can you still perform at that level?

1835
01:49:11,120 --> 01:49:18,400
And so I think the guys have done a great job of holding on to the tradition of smoke

1836
01:49:18,400 --> 01:49:23,040
diver and the Florida Fire Service and then meshing it with what we need now, because

1837
01:49:23,040 --> 01:49:26,520
it's a different need than it was 40 or 50 years ago.

1838
01:49:26,520 --> 01:49:29,880
So I think they've done a great job of meshing that together.

1839
01:49:29,880 --> 01:49:34,920
And we have a ton of interest, so much so that the guys have had to start doing a selection

1840
01:49:34,920 --> 01:49:39,720
process in September for the class because there's so many people that want to attend.

1841
01:49:39,720 --> 01:49:45,440
And I think that's just awesome because there's that much interest.

1842
01:49:45,440 --> 01:49:51,200
Also not so awesome because I wish we could keep everybody that signs up for selection

1843
01:49:51,200 --> 01:49:54,440
because all of those people are really, really, really good.

1844
01:49:54,440 --> 01:49:57,760
They've made themselves better, they made their departments better even if they don't

1845
01:49:57,760 --> 01:50:00,560
get into the program or if they're not successful.

1846
01:50:00,560 --> 01:50:04,600
I think that's really the goal of it is I know that some people try to look at it from

1847
01:50:04,600 --> 01:50:08,640
different and it's a kick them and kill them thing and that's really not what it's all

1848
01:50:08,640 --> 01:50:10,840
about at all.

1849
01:50:10,840 --> 01:50:14,040
It's not a PT contest.

1850
01:50:14,040 --> 01:50:18,400
There is a lot of physical activity involved, but it's like some of the military units where

1851
01:50:18,400 --> 01:50:20,980
you can say, hey man, who's going to get through smoke diver?

1852
01:50:20,980 --> 01:50:24,220
You can't point to a person and say that guy will get through.

1853
01:50:24,220 --> 01:50:31,120
We've had bigger muscular guys, little tiny guys, skinny guys, older guys, younger guys,

1854
01:50:31,120 --> 01:50:34,520
people with a lot of experience, people with no experience.

1855
01:50:34,520 --> 01:50:38,520
And so I don't think you can point to somebody and say that is the person.

1856
01:50:38,520 --> 01:50:43,280
I think that's why you have to peel away that onion and find out what's underneath or they

1857
01:50:43,280 --> 01:50:47,960
need to peel it away and find out what's underneath for them.

1858
01:50:47,960 --> 01:50:56,360
So it's evolved from just being like an SCBA class and the limits of it to now where we're

1859
01:50:56,360 --> 01:51:04,440
trying to get people that are very disciplined and hold themselves to a standard that will

1860
01:51:04,440 --> 01:51:06,720
hopefully make them a force multiplier on a call.

1861
01:51:06,720 --> 01:51:08,640
That's kind of what we're looking for.

1862
01:51:08,640 --> 01:51:11,040
I had quite a few people on here that went through it.

1863
01:51:11,040 --> 01:51:15,760
Obviously Chad was on here, Basil, Julian Serrano, who I actually got to watch him.

1864
01:51:15,760 --> 01:51:17,120
I went and visited.

1865
01:51:17,120 --> 01:51:20,760
I was talking to, I was there to see now, but he happened to be one of the candidates

1866
01:51:20,760 --> 01:51:23,360
that was, and he was struggling at the time and he made it through.

1867
01:51:23,360 --> 01:51:24,440
Good for him.

1868
01:51:24,440 --> 01:51:28,520
But I think the most interesting one, I had Nicole Coppo and it was, I think just a few

1869
01:51:28,520 --> 01:51:31,920
weeks and Tony Ortiz was like, Hey James, just so you know, Nicole just passed smoke

1870
01:51:31,920 --> 01:51:35,720
drivers on my, and we'd already trained together for the hero challenge.

1871
01:51:35,720 --> 01:51:36,720
So she'd be my teammate.

1872
01:51:36,720 --> 01:51:38,940
So just sitting down with her.

1873
01:51:38,940 --> 01:51:44,440
But what are you seeing as far as how to successfully prepare for it?

1874
01:51:44,440 --> 01:51:50,840
In the big, I'll say this over and over again, my Achilles heel was the heat in the gear.

1875
01:51:50,840 --> 01:51:51,840
I never got tired.

1876
01:51:51,840 --> 01:51:57,120
I don't remember ever being too tired to work, but sometimes I feel like my frigging organs

1877
01:51:57,120 --> 01:51:58,780
were cooking when I was in there.

1878
01:51:58,780 --> 01:52:03,780
So what is the kind of common denominator is of some of the things that you're seeing

1879
01:52:03,780 --> 01:52:05,920
that makes people successful.

1880
01:52:05,920 --> 01:52:07,720
And then I know you spend a lot of time in gear.

1881
01:52:07,720 --> 01:52:10,320
How will people mitigate in that, in the heat?

1882
01:52:10,320 --> 01:52:15,000
Well, I think the first thing you have to do is you have to start off with a very good

1883
01:52:15,000 --> 01:52:16,960
base of fitness, right?

1884
01:52:16,960 --> 01:52:21,200
Like if you're not fit, like we talked about earlier, how important that is in the fire

1885
01:52:21,200 --> 01:52:22,200
service.

1886
01:52:22,200 --> 01:52:24,720
But if you don't have a high level of fitness already, it's going to be very difficult for

1887
01:52:24,720 --> 01:52:27,800
you to prepare your body for that week, right?

1888
01:52:27,800 --> 01:52:30,560
There's a lot of repetition during that week.

1889
01:52:30,560 --> 01:52:35,480
And then I think, I think what people tend to do is over train.

1890
01:52:35,480 --> 01:52:39,760
They go crazy a year ahead of time and they get hurt or burn themselves out.

1891
01:52:39,760 --> 01:52:41,400
And it's very easy to do that.

1892
01:52:41,400 --> 01:52:44,520
Like we probably all have been guilty of that at some point, especially if you're trying

1893
01:52:44,520 --> 01:52:47,100
to prepare for a class like that.

1894
01:52:47,100 --> 01:52:52,800
And so I think you have to try to mitigate your enthusiasm, right?

1895
01:52:52,800 --> 01:52:58,040
And build a plan and not just go crazy from the beginning, but build a plan similar to

1896
01:52:58,040 --> 01:53:01,960
the way someone would prepare for a marathon where you build into that.

1897
01:53:01,960 --> 01:53:05,280
And then you have to incorporate time in your gear.

1898
01:53:05,280 --> 01:53:10,200
You just can't simulate that just by exercising.

1899
01:53:10,200 --> 01:53:16,280
So one of the things that I did, and it was a little different because I went to the original

1900
01:53:16,280 --> 01:53:19,560
program so that the time compression was a little bit more.

1901
01:53:19,560 --> 01:53:20,960
We didn't have as much lead time.

1902
01:53:20,960 --> 01:53:22,920
Also, some of the evolutions have changed.

1903
01:53:22,920 --> 01:53:24,800
So we'll call it a wash, right?

1904
01:53:24,800 --> 01:53:28,160
A lot of the guys now, because it's six days, say, well, my class is way harder.

1905
01:53:28,160 --> 01:53:29,640
And that's fair.

1906
01:53:29,640 --> 01:53:32,880
They're way better than I am.

1907
01:53:32,880 --> 01:53:36,200
But I think you have to work into volume.

1908
01:53:36,200 --> 01:53:38,880
And I heard my brother say this when he trained.

1909
01:53:38,880 --> 01:53:42,560
And I never thought about it like that, but it makes a lot of sense is that a lot of people

1910
01:53:42,560 --> 01:53:48,320
will train really hard, but most people can't push themselves over the limit, right?

1911
01:53:48,320 --> 01:53:52,240
Or over the crest of the hill, if you will, is that they'll train pretty hard right up

1912
01:53:52,240 --> 01:53:55,280
till it gets really hard and they kind of drop down.

1913
01:53:55,280 --> 01:53:59,200
And you've got to learn to push yourself a little further than that, right?

1914
01:53:59,200 --> 01:54:03,220
And I don't mean like you go until you get into the hospital or you die or you pass out.

1915
01:54:03,220 --> 01:54:04,320
That's not what I'm talking about.

1916
01:54:04,320 --> 01:54:09,800
But say you've developed a 30 minute gear or circuit workout, just for an example, you've

1917
01:54:09,800 --> 01:54:15,360
got to be able to push yourself past that comfort zone of what you feel like you can,

1918
01:54:15,360 --> 01:54:16,760
wherever your fitness level is.

1919
01:54:16,760 --> 01:54:19,720
If you're really fit, you can operate at a high level and do a lot of stuff.

1920
01:54:19,720 --> 01:54:23,240
You've got to push yourself past that because that's where the class is going to end up

1921
01:54:23,240 --> 01:54:24,240
taking you.

1922
01:54:24,240 --> 01:54:28,380
And if you've never done that, your body and your mind are not going to respond to that.

1923
01:54:28,380 --> 01:54:32,760
One of the things that I did, because I went through with Willisie's Mejia, is that we

1924
01:54:32,760 --> 01:54:38,160
did a lot of two a day stuff where we would do just straight exercising maybe in the morning

1925
01:54:38,160 --> 01:54:40,720
and gear at night or vice versa.

1926
01:54:40,720 --> 01:54:45,760
And he would come up a lot when I was on shift and force me into doing things.

1927
01:54:45,760 --> 01:54:48,080
And so that's what we did.

1928
01:54:48,080 --> 01:54:53,100
But we did a lot of work in our gear and the guys now are really doing a lot.

1929
01:54:53,100 --> 01:54:55,400
I think that's one of those things you have to be careful with.

1930
01:54:55,400 --> 01:54:59,040
You can overdo it and you can cause your body some problems.

1931
01:54:59,040 --> 01:55:02,840
So you have to be very intelligent about how you're applying that, your hydration, your

1932
01:55:02,840 --> 01:55:04,120
food.

1933
01:55:04,120 --> 01:55:08,340
It's got to be like a full court press on yourself.

1934
01:55:08,340 --> 01:55:12,720
It can't just be, hey, follow this training regimen.

1935
01:55:12,720 --> 01:55:17,320
Personally, I used a sealfit.com.

1936
01:55:17,320 --> 01:55:18,800
Mark Devine runs that.

1937
01:55:18,800 --> 01:55:19,800
I used his-

1938
01:55:19,800 --> 01:55:20,800
I had him on years ago.

1939
01:55:20,800 --> 01:55:21,800
Yeah.

1940
01:55:21,800 --> 01:55:26,760
And a lot of guys did, used his operator program to try to build up that fitness and the way

1941
01:55:26,760 --> 01:55:30,600
that I figured, because the operator program is supposed to prepare people for one of the

1942
01:55:30,600 --> 01:55:35,320
special forces or special operations pipelines.

1943
01:55:35,320 --> 01:55:39,680
And so I was like, well, if he's preparing people for that level of conditioning, that'll

1944
01:55:39,680 --> 01:55:42,180
definitely work for what we're trying to do.

1945
01:55:42,180 --> 01:55:48,440
And so some of us use that and then our gear on top of that or alternate, not on top of

1946
01:55:48,440 --> 01:55:51,360
it, but alternate of those workouts.

1947
01:55:51,360 --> 01:55:53,840
And I think that that prepared people really well.

1948
01:55:53,840 --> 01:55:55,360
But again, it's hard, man.

1949
01:55:55,360 --> 01:55:56,840
Like I've seen people training.

1950
01:55:56,840 --> 01:56:00,920
I'm like, man, this person is a physical specimen.

1951
01:56:00,920 --> 01:56:06,680
And then they're unsuccessful for whatever reason and not a knock on them by any stretch.

1952
01:56:06,680 --> 01:56:10,000
And then you'll see a guy show up and you're like, this dude's not going to make it.

1953
01:56:10,000 --> 01:56:12,000
And then they do fine.

1954
01:56:12,000 --> 01:56:16,440
So it's very difficult to put your finger on that.

1955
01:56:16,440 --> 01:56:22,120
I know the Navy had a study done a bunch of years ago to try to increase the number of

1956
01:56:22,120 --> 01:56:23,660
guys that got through BUDs.

1957
01:56:23,660 --> 01:56:30,560
And so they had a former team guy who was a fitness guru try to figure out like, hey,

1958
01:56:30,560 --> 01:56:31,960
who can we recruit?

1959
01:56:31,960 --> 01:56:35,800
And after he did, he's like, you can't really figure it out.

1960
01:56:35,800 --> 01:56:37,040
Like there isn't.

1961
01:56:37,040 --> 01:56:44,160
He said there were two types of athletes that may have a little better possibility.

1962
01:56:44,160 --> 01:56:50,280
And those were wrestlers and soccer players just because of their level of cardio fitness.

1963
01:56:50,280 --> 01:56:54,720
But he's like, that doesn't mean that those people are going to get through, but that

1964
01:56:54,720 --> 01:56:56,360
level of physical training can help.

1965
01:56:56,360 --> 01:57:00,440
And it's the same way with just being fit in the fire service or smoke diver.

1966
01:57:00,440 --> 01:57:06,200
It's very difficult to draw down one training regiment or this person is going to make it.

1967
01:57:06,200 --> 01:57:11,200
Other than somebody like Basil or Chad, Matt McGee, those guys are on another level of

1968
01:57:11,200 --> 01:57:13,120
humanity.

1969
01:57:13,120 --> 01:57:15,400
They were obviously going to make it.

1970
01:57:15,400 --> 01:57:19,560
But for the rest of us mortals, I don't know that you can pick that out.

1971
01:57:19,560 --> 01:57:23,720
I think you have to find something that works for you, but it's an internal thing where

1972
01:57:23,720 --> 01:57:28,260
you really have to be able to push yourself past where you feel comfortable.

1973
01:57:28,260 --> 01:57:30,800
And that's what will get you there.

1974
01:57:30,800 --> 01:57:33,260
And the heat, man, I don't know.

1975
01:57:33,260 --> 01:57:34,260
It's hard.

1976
01:57:34,260 --> 01:57:35,800
It's hard.

1977
01:57:35,800 --> 01:57:41,560
But I think you have to spend time in your gear and you have to be out in the heat of

1978
01:57:41,560 --> 01:57:43,160
the day when you're doing it.

1979
01:57:43,160 --> 01:57:49,080
It's important to train, obviously, leading up during the summers because it's so hot.

1980
01:57:49,080 --> 01:57:54,600
And I think that is important just for the regular fire service.

1981
01:57:54,600 --> 01:57:58,560
When we train, do training evolutions in the summertime, you see people have a diminished

1982
01:57:58,560 --> 01:58:03,400
capacity to perform because they haven't spent a lot of time in their gear and it's hot.

1983
01:58:03,400 --> 01:58:05,160
It's hot as Hades out.

1984
01:58:05,160 --> 01:58:09,720
And so as soon as they start exerting themselves, their ability to perform goes way down from

1985
01:58:09,720 --> 01:58:14,560
what they would normally consider their capacity or what they're able to perform.

1986
01:58:14,560 --> 01:58:16,800
But we have fires in the summer.

1987
01:58:16,800 --> 01:58:19,760
We have real calls and you're still expected to perform at the same level.

1988
01:58:19,760 --> 01:58:23,440
So those things are super important.

1989
01:58:23,440 --> 01:58:27,680
I know some people nowadays with possible chemicals in our gear, they don't really want

1990
01:58:27,680 --> 01:58:30,840
us to even train in our gear, much less we're dirty gear.

1991
01:58:30,840 --> 01:58:33,000
And so we have to be sensitive to those things too.

1992
01:58:33,000 --> 01:58:38,020
But if you want to push yourself to that next level, you've got to put in the effort to

1993
01:58:38,020 --> 01:58:40,400
condition your body for that.

1994
01:58:40,400 --> 01:58:44,280
There's one guy that I know that he's in great shape now and he did really good in smoke

1995
01:58:44,280 --> 01:58:46,320
diver on his second try.

1996
01:58:46,320 --> 01:58:50,120
First try, he had not been very physically fit.

1997
01:58:50,120 --> 01:58:54,640
A capable guy, but not super physically fit, wanted to change his whole lifestyle.

1998
01:58:54,640 --> 01:58:59,720
Went paleo, lost 40 pounds over the course of a year, got in great shape, was doing really

1999
01:58:59,720 --> 01:59:00,720
well.

2000
01:59:00,720 --> 01:59:04,280
Shut up the smoke diver and body shut down on day two.

2001
01:59:04,280 --> 01:59:07,400
Came back the next year and he has really good firefighting skills.

2002
01:59:07,400 --> 01:59:09,040
Did really well.

2003
01:59:09,040 --> 01:59:13,120
And I'm not a scientist, but I've also seen scientists that aren't very good at science.

2004
01:59:13,120 --> 01:59:14,600
So I'm going to throw this out there.

2005
01:59:14,600 --> 01:59:16,600
Especially after 2020.

2006
01:59:16,600 --> 01:59:17,920
Yeah, absolutely.

2007
01:59:17,920 --> 01:59:22,760
But I think that his body after that first year of him transforming it into being very

2008
01:59:22,760 --> 01:59:26,720
physically fit, changing his diet, losing all that weight, his body needed to adjust

2009
01:59:26,720 --> 01:59:27,720
to that.

2010
01:59:27,720 --> 01:59:28,720
Right?

2011
01:59:28,720 --> 01:59:32,200
And so the second year, his body had adjusted to what he had done to it.

2012
01:59:32,200 --> 01:59:37,720
And so now his base level was way above where his top level was the year before and his

2013
01:59:37,720 --> 01:59:42,240
body was able to accept the challenge of smoke diver and being able to get through it and

2014
01:59:42,240 --> 01:59:43,820
the load that goes on your body.

2015
01:59:43,820 --> 01:59:44,820
And he did well.

2016
01:59:44,820 --> 01:59:45,900
Did real well.

2017
01:59:45,900 --> 01:59:50,080
So I think that's important for people to understand is that you got to take inventory

2018
01:59:50,080 --> 01:59:53,600
of where you are physically and what your fitness looks like.

2019
01:59:53,600 --> 01:59:57,160
And if you're not, don't feel like you're in a great place, it may take you a little

2020
01:59:57,160 --> 01:59:58,160
more time.

2021
01:59:58,160 --> 01:59:59,780
So don't let that set you back.

2022
01:59:59,780 --> 02:00:04,460
Just understand it may take you a while before your body to adjust to some of those things.

2023
02:00:04,460 --> 02:00:09,200
But you really have to be able to push yourself over the top of that hill if you want to get

2024
02:00:09,200 --> 02:00:12,440
conditioned enough to be successful.

2025
02:00:12,440 --> 02:00:16,560
I made the decision to try for smoke diver basically at the end of my career.

2026
02:00:16,560 --> 02:00:19,340
So again, I was mid forties by that point.

2027
02:00:19,340 --> 02:00:23,340
And I'd love what you said about even if you don't make it, it was still worth it because

2028
02:00:23,340 --> 02:00:27,160
what happened for me, I was out and I was at the creek, but I was out in the back middle

2029
02:00:27,160 --> 02:00:32,360
of the day, full gear doing sleds and sandbags and you know, so about, you know, either side

2030
02:00:32,360 --> 02:00:33,360
of an hour.

2031
02:00:33,360 --> 02:00:36,300
So not, you know, this is the beginning of the journey.

2032
02:00:36,300 --> 02:00:38,640
But then I ended up tearing my meniscus.

2033
02:00:38,640 --> 02:00:43,080
I then, you know, rehab it back to full duty, made the decision then to transition out to

2034
02:00:43,080 --> 02:00:44,460
do this full time.

2035
02:00:44,460 --> 02:00:46,680
And then my why was just not there anymore.

2036
02:00:46,680 --> 02:00:51,440
You know, just it wasn't, you've got to be 100% to go through that.

2037
02:00:51,440 --> 02:00:55,160
But when I look back, I love what you said, because it made me be in gear.

2038
02:00:55,160 --> 02:00:59,000
I mean, I always train, but it made me do a lot more, you know, in gear in the middle

2039
02:00:59,000 --> 02:01:02,200
of the day, you know, and it held the bar up high.

2040
02:01:02,200 --> 02:01:07,160
When you talk about fires in the summer, the same department, I forget what it was 100

2041
02:01:07,160 --> 02:01:09,140
degrees or something.

2042
02:01:09,140 --> 02:01:10,320
You couldn't train.

2043
02:01:10,320 --> 02:01:11,320
It's not safe.

2044
02:01:11,320 --> 02:01:15,240
And I just remember thinking, like you said, firstly, outside in the summer is 100 and

2045
02:01:15,240 --> 02:01:16,600
whatever.

2046
02:01:16,600 --> 02:01:20,520
Inside the fire is way hotter than that, you know, and you're telling us that we can't

2047
02:01:20,520 --> 02:01:21,520
train.

2048
02:01:21,520 --> 02:01:22,520
I know guys literally would be checking it.

2049
02:01:22,520 --> 02:01:23,520
Oh, we can't train.

2050
02:01:23,520 --> 02:01:24,520
It just, it just went up to 100.

2051
02:01:24,520 --> 02:01:28,040
I'm like, you just, what the fuck is this?

2052
02:01:28,040 --> 02:01:34,880
And you know, it's such a disservice because, you know, now you're creating this apathy

2053
02:01:34,880 --> 02:01:36,840
when it comes to training.

2054
02:01:36,840 --> 02:01:40,920
And you know, they say about, you know, bleed in the, in the, the drill grounds, you don't

2055
02:01:40,920 --> 02:01:43,520
fuck that up completely.

2056
02:01:43,520 --> 02:01:45,080
They say sweat on the drill grounds.

2057
02:01:45,080 --> 02:01:46,580
You don't bleed on the battleground.

2058
02:01:46,580 --> 02:01:47,720
It's the same kind of thing.

2059
02:01:47,720 --> 02:01:49,720
So that, oh, we can't train because it's raining.

2060
02:01:49,720 --> 02:01:51,080
We can't train because it's too hot.

2061
02:01:51,080 --> 02:01:55,120
I mean, yes, you have to rest and hydrate properly and get in the shade and use cooling

2062
02:01:55,120 --> 02:01:59,600
fans or whatever, but to tell firefighters that they can't train because it's a hundred

2063
02:01:59,600 --> 02:02:02,120
degrees outside, that's just stupid.

2064
02:02:02,120 --> 02:02:06,760
Now if you have some insane never happened before 140 degree heat wave, then okay, I

2065
02:02:06,760 --> 02:02:07,840
get that.

2066
02:02:07,840 --> 02:02:12,040
But if you're, you know, your, where you live in the summer is this or in the winter is

2067
02:02:12,040 --> 02:02:17,760
that and you're not training in those environments, then that just does a disservice to everything.

2068
02:02:17,760 --> 02:02:21,580
You have to learn how to train and get good at the recovery.

2069
02:02:21,580 --> 02:02:24,500
So between bottles, how do I cool my firefighters down?

2070
02:02:24,500 --> 02:02:26,600
You know, with, I mean, Hialeah did a great job of that.

2071
02:02:26,600 --> 02:02:31,420
Wet, you know, icy towels on the head and, you know, cooling chairs and fans.

2072
02:02:31,420 --> 02:02:33,180
So it's not don't train.

2073
02:02:33,180 --> 02:02:39,400
It's like, how do I train in an intelligent way, but still keep training in this environment

2074
02:02:39,400 --> 02:02:40,400
that I live in?

2075
02:02:40,400 --> 02:02:41,400
Yeah.

2076
02:02:41,400 --> 02:02:45,440
You know, one of the things for me, one of the motivating factors I've had is I've never

2077
02:02:45,440 --> 02:02:50,160
wanted to be the guy to fire that, you know, if it was a bigger one where we're having

2078
02:02:50,160 --> 02:02:54,200
to do multiple bottles or, you know, it's going to take a while to be like, Hey man,

2079
02:02:54,200 --> 02:02:55,200
I can't go right now.

2080
02:02:55,200 --> 02:02:57,320
I need more time.

2081
02:02:57,320 --> 02:02:59,560
I've never wanted to do that.

2082
02:02:59,560 --> 02:03:05,240
So that's always motivated me to try to, you know, stay away from too much complacency

2083
02:03:05,240 --> 02:03:09,480
and make sure that I'm capable.

2084
02:03:09,480 --> 02:03:16,840
You're right, like it's kind of confusing or hard to understand why we would say, Oh,

2085
02:03:16,840 --> 02:03:17,840
we can't train now.

2086
02:03:17,840 --> 02:03:18,840
Like, well, what do you mean?

2087
02:03:18,840 --> 02:03:19,920
We might train a little smarter.

2088
02:03:19,920 --> 02:03:25,300
We might do a little less or we maybe do some shorter work to rest cycles.

2089
02:03:25,300 --> 02:03:26,300
We may hydrate more.

2090
02:03:26,300 --> 02:03:30,540
We may do it in the morning where it's only 99 degrees and not 106, but we still have

2091
02:03:30,540 --> 02:03:36,020
to expose ourselves to that because when we go to, when you go to a real call, like you

2092
02:03:36,020 --> 02:03:37,520
have to perform until the job's done.

2093
02:03:37,520 --> 02:03:40,320
You can't be like, Oh, I'll do 20 minutes and then go sit down for a little while.

2094
02:03:40,320 --> 02:03:42,180
Like most of us don't have enough personnel.

2095
02:03:42,180 --> 02:03:46,340
Like we can do rehab, but at the end of the day we have to work, you know, and then you're

2096
02:03:46,340 --> 02:03:48,880
setting yourself up for failure if you're not prepared for that.

2097
02:03:48,880 --> 02:03:53,400
And that's how people get in, get into trouble, you know, with, with heat injuries and other

2098
02:03:53,400 --> 02:03:54,400
things.

2099
02:03:54,400 --> 02:03:59,880
And so you have to prepare yourself in that we can train smart when the weather's really

2100
02:03:59,880 --> 02:04:03,280
bad, but just saying we're not going to train just doesn't make a lot of sense.

2101
02:04:03,280 --> 02:04:06,680
I mean, I think we need to maximize the time to be able to do that because that's going

2102
02:04:06,680 --> 02:04:11,240
to, like you said, it's going to make us, it's going to make the job easier and us more

2103
02:04:11,240 --> 02:04:13,520
successful when we have to do it for real.

2104
02:04:13,520 --> 02:04:17,420
And if we're doing it for training, like that's way easier than when we do it for real.

2105
02:04:17,420 --> 02:04:19,240
So that's kind of a foreign thing.

2106
02:04:19,240 --> 02:04:25,320
And you know, luckily in Gainesville, like we have a, we have heat SOGs, but we also

2107
02:04:25,320 --> 02:04:28,960
train, we train smart where it doesn't just shut us down and just say, Hey, we just need

2108
02:04:28,960 --> 02:04:31,920
to do these other things and make sure that we hydrate.

2109
02:04:31,920 --> 02:04:35,960
And even this year, which I think is great for our orientation that just started this

2110
02:04:35,960 --> 02:04:41,720
week, you know, they've got the recovery chairs and they've got, you know, ice and water available

2111
02:04:41,720 --> 02:04:45,040
all the time so we can keep rehabbing people.

2112
02:04:45,040 --> 02:04:48,200
And then, I mean, cause humans are a consumable resource, right?

2113
02:04:48,200 --> 02:04:52,240
We are, but we want to keep you, so we keep filling them up and we keep rehabbing them

2114
02:04:52,240 --> 02:04:55,800
and we can continue to use them and, and they can operate more.

2115
02:04:55,800 --> 02:05:01,600
And you know, we're trying to do that at the fire college too, when we do burn days with

2116
02:05:01,600 --> 02:05:06,760
the rehab chairs and making sure that we're trying to cool, cool the students down so

2117
02:05:06,760 --> 02:05:09,200
that they can recover and go again.

2118
02:05:09,200 --> 02:05:14,080
And you know, so that they, one can be successful, but two, they learn how to care for themselves

2119
02:05:14,080 --> 02:05:18,320
in a hot environment because we can't just stop work because it's hot out in Florida.

2120
02:05:18,320 --> 02:05:19,960
We would never work like nine months out of the year.

2121
02:05:19,960 --> 02:05:21,160
We wouldn't be able to do anything.

2122
02:05:21,160 --> 02:05:25,320
So we've got to figure out, you know, smart ways to still be able to do those things and

2123
02:05:25,320 --> 02:05:27,400
not just say, Oh, we can't do things.

2124
02:05:27,400 --> 02:05:32,280
I think that's a cop out that, you know, an excuse make that we need to go away.

2125
02:05:32,280 --> 02:05:33,280
Absolutely.

2126
02:05:33,280 --> 02:05:37,280
There's one more area I just want to kind of pull a story from, and because I want to

2127
02:05:37,280 --> 02:05:40,760
be mindful of your time, we've been talking for two hours now.

2128
02:05:40,760 --> 02:05:43,600
You're also deeply involved now in the world of USAR.

2129
02:05:43,600 --> 02:05:49,160
So talk to me about, you know, any stories from any deployments that really, you know,

2130
02:05:49,160 --> 02:05:51,680
you do look back and think of as a career call.

2131
02:05:51,680 --> 02:05:58,360
Well, one, Gainesville is part of Florida Task Force 8, which I can't say enough about,

2132
02:05:58,360 --> 02:06:00,560
you know, Marion County is the lead agency for that.

2133
02:06:00,560 --> 02:06:05,440
So Rob Graff, you know, has managed that for a while and does a great job.

2134
02:06:05,440 --> 02:06:12,600
Chris Whitler is the task force leader currently, and they have done a fantastic job of managing

2135
02:06:12,600 --> 02:06:13,600
the program.

2136
02:06:13,600 --> 02:06:15,480
And then Ocala and Gainesville also are a part of it.

2137
02:06:15,480 --> 02:06:19,680
But you know, we've worked with a bunch of task force and there are some great, great

2138
02:06:19,680 --> 02:06:23,040
USAR guys in Florida, but man, I'll take Task Force 8 with anybody.

2139
02:06:23,040 --> 02:06:27,200
The guys do a do a fantastic job.

2140
02:06:27,200 --> 02:06:30,200
There's been a lot of deployments that Task Force 8 has been involved with.

2141
02:06:30,200 --> 02:06:33,440
I think that were that were really interesting.

2142
02:06:33,440 --> 02:06:39,760
For me, the most interesting one was during Hurricane Hermine.

2143
02:06:39,760 --> 02:06:41,620
They run together for me.

2144
02:06:41,620 --> 02:06:47,240
Maybe not her mean Irma Hurricane Irma, where it came up, you know, through the keys.

2145
02:06:47,240 --> 02:06:50,480
And some of the initial reports were that people weren't going to leave and they were

2146
02:06:50,480 --> 02:06:53,640
like, I mean, like, it's going to completely devastate the keys and there's, you know,

2147
02:06:53,640 --> 02:06:54,640
there could be a lot of deaths.

2148
02:06:54,640 --> 02:06:59,960
And so, you know, the governor and state leadership's like, hey, we want people down there now.

2149
02:06:59,960 --> 02:07:04,200
And so, you know, they called Task Force 8 and said, hey, we want to we want to fly you

2150
02:07:04,200 --> 02:07:05,200
guys into the keys.

2151
02:07:05,200 --> 02:07:10,200
You know, will you go and, you know, Task Force 8's answer is we'll always go.

2152
02:07:10,200 --> 02:07:12,080
So yes, we'll go.

2153
02:07:12,080 --> 02:07:17,200
And at the time, I think there were going to be two two task force that flew, flew down

2154
02:07:17,200 --> 02:07:22,800
to the keys and they were going to send us in Marine Corps Ospreys and fly us out either

2155
02:07:22,800 --> 02:07:26,400
to a ship or out around the storm and come in underneath it.

2156
02:07:26,400 --> 02:07:30,480
Unfortunately, the Ospreys never showed up due to some technical, you know, military

2157
02:07:30,480 --> 02:07:31,480
thing.

2158
02:07:31,480 --> 02:07:33,760
We we fight wars good, but you know, over here at peacetime, we couldn't even get a

2159
02:07:33,760 --> 02:07:35,800
couple of helicopters over to us.

2160
02:07:35,800 --> 02:07:43,720
So we ended up driving through some of the storm back to Orlando and and Scott Chappell,

2161
02:07:43,720 --> 02:07:44,720
who I don't know.

2162
02:07:44,720 --> 02:07:45,720
Do you know Scott?

2163
02:07:45,720 --> 02:07:46,720
Scott was on the water.

2164
02:07:46,720 --> 02:07:48,360
Okay, so Scott, Scott's awesome.

2165
02:07:48,360 --> 02:07:54,160
Well, Scott worked at the 49 desk in the OC in Tallahassee or he may have been in Orlando.

2166
02:07:54,160 --> 02:07:58,760
But anyway, they got us a ride on a Coast Guard C 130.

2167
02:07:58,760 --> 02:08:00,880
And so we flew into Key West.

2168
02:08:00,880 --> 02:08:03,840
And so the mission was is we want you get down there.

2169
02:08:03,840 --> 02:08:06,960
And basically, we don't know what else to tell you like we don't we don't know who really

2170
02:08:06,960 --> 02:08:07,960
you're going to link up with.

2171
02:08:07,960 --> 02:08:10,320
We don't know what happened down there.

2172
02:08:10,320 --> 02:08:12,400
But we want you guys to figure it out.

2173
02:08:12,400 --> 02:08:14,520
We don't know if we'll be able to talk to you on your sat phone.

2174
02:08:14,520 --> 02:08:16,840
And if you get hurt, we don't know if we can get you out.

2175
02:08:16,840 --> 02:08:19,360
And so we're like, cool, sounds like a great time.

2176
02:08:19,360 --> 02:08:21,560
And so that was super interesting.

2177
02:08:21,560 --> 02:08:25,960
It's way outside of the way that you know, you saw normally operates or the fire department's

2178
02:08:25,960 --> 02:08:30,040
operate but you know, something that we felt like, you know, we were equipped to do.

2179
02:08:30,040 --> 02:08:35,120
So we took a couple of side by sides and a trailer and the gear we could carry on our

2180
02:08:35,120 --> 02:08:37,560
back and we flew into Key West.

2181
02:08:37,560 --> 02:08:42,080
And you know, we we immediately linked up with a couple of DEA agents that were supposed

2182
02:08:42,080 --> 02:08:44,160
going to be down there for security.

2183
02:08:44,160 --> 02:08:47,080
We had lost our security detail through all of this.

2184
02:08:47,080 --> 02:08:48,840
So we took them with us.

2185
02:08:48,840 --> 02:08:52,920
And then right at the airport, we met up with a couple of sheriff's deputies from the keys

2186
02:08:52,920 --> 02:08:54,520
and told them what we were doing.

2187
02:08:54,520 --> 02:08:56,880
And like, yeah, man, we can take you to some places right now.

2188
02:08:56,880 --> 02:09:02,120
And so they knew the area took us to a bunch of places that had, you know, most of the

2189
02:09:02,120 --> 02:09:03,120
devastation.

2190
02:09:03,120 --> 02:09:06,520
Luckily, almost everybody had left the keys.

2191
02:09:06,520 --> 02:09:10,720
And so, you know, we there were a few people that stayed and we tried to get them hooked

2192
02:09:10,720 --> 02:09:12,640
up with with resources.

2193
02:09:12,640 --> 02:09:15,880
But we searched all the way up to Big Pine.

2194
02:09:15,880 --> 02:09:20,520
Over a couple of days, we linked up with Task Force Two, who are awesome, have great leadership

2195
02:09:20,520 --> 02:09:24,200
and they took us in treat us well, fed us, you know, in a couple of days later, we flew

2196
02:09:24,200 --> 02:09:25,960
out on Chinooks and flew back home.

2197
02:09:25,960 --> 02:09:31,560
And so nothing, nothing super spectacular that happened other than just that, you know,

2198
02:09:31,560 --> 02:09:35,720
experience where we took 10 guys and we flew down and we had done something that we hadn't

2199
02:09:35,720 --> 02:09:36,720
hadn't done before.

2200
02:09:36,720 --> 02:09:39,560
And, you know, the system, the system worked.

2201
02:09:39,560 --> 02:09:45,120
And since then, there have been a handful of air missions with the Florida National Guard,

2202
02:09:45,120 --> 02:09:48,480
you know, flying some of our USAR people on different deployments.

2203
02:09:48,480 --> 02:09:55,160
And so the the idea that Florida has and the way that the system works, you know, it is

2204
02:09:55,160 --> 02:09:56,160
awesome.

2205
02:09:56,160 --> 02:09:57,340
We're self sustained.

2206
02:09:57,340 --> 02:10:00,240
We don't depend on FEMA.

2207
02:10:00,240 --> 02:10:03,720
You know, there may come times where we have to use FEMA teams, but our teams are more

2208
02:10:03,720 --> 02:10:04,720
than capable.

2209
02:10:04,720 --> 02:10:08,720
You know, with the Guard, we can we can fly places if we need to.

2210
02:10:08,720 --> 02:10:13,320
And so that was kind of the, you know, proof of concept that that that would work.

2211
02:10:13,320 --> 02:10:14,640
And it worked great.

2212
02:10:14,640 --> 02:10:17,720
We did a lot of walking and it was super hot.

2213
02:10:17,720 --> 02:10:21,040
So another reason you got to be in super good shape because there was nowhere to fall out

2214
02:10:21,040 --> 02:10:22,040
down there.

2215
02:10:22,040 --> 02:10:24,000
You'd just been laying around with one of the iguanas or something.

2216
02:10:24,000 --> 02:10:26,040
But nobody was coming to get you.

2217
02:10:26,040 --> 02:10:30,880
And anyway, so it was it was a great experience to exercise that part of the USAR system that

2218
02:10:30,880 --> 02:10:35,120
was a little outside of what we would normally do and it being successful.

2219
02:10:35,120 --> 02:10:38,960
And we did a lot of search and search a lot of neighborhoods, gave a lot of data back

2220
02:10:38,960 --> 02:10:40,560
to the state.

2221
02:10:40,560 --> 02:10:45,600
So that was that was probably one of the cooler experiences that was a little outside the

2222
02:10:45,600 --> 02:10:47,520
norm of what we do.

2223
02:10:47,520 --> 02:10:49,760
I've heard so many incredible stories.

2224
02:10:49,760 --> 02:10:50,760
This is the problem.

2225
02:10:50,760 --> 02:10:56,560
Ian Hat came, for example, you know, the way it was sold on the TV seemed to be like, it

2226
02:10:56,560 --> 02:10:57,560
wasn't that bad.

2227
02:10:57,560 --> 02:11:00,720
And I've got, you know, one of the friends I was talking about, he's on that side of

2228
02:11:00,720 --> 02:11:03,620
the coast and where he worked was devastated.

2229
02:11:03,620 --> 02:11:07,640
But then you hear some of the USAR guys that have come on, you know, and, you know, the

2230
02:11:07,640 --> 02:11:11,880
ones that were there right after Ian hit and they were there for a day and a half on their

2231
02:11:11,880 --> 02:11:13,880
own just searching high rises.

2232
02:11:13,880 --> 02:11:18,020
You know, again, you talk about fitness, you know, stair chairing people down.

2233
02:11:18,020 --> 02:11:23,680
And then you hear about Surfside, you know, and that just I mean, so many different stories.

2234
02:11:23,680 --> 02:11:27,120
Like one of my friends was having to counsel the construction workers that were working

2235
02:11:27,120 --> 02:11:29,280
the diggers because they'd never seen anything like that.

2236
02:11:29,280 --> 02:11:33,720
You know, so the human stories that you hear from some of these, you know, Haiti and, you

2237
02:11:33,720 --> 02:11:38,600
know, all these other areas, it's incredible, you know, what you guys do when you're deployed.

2238
02:11:38,600 --> 02:11:39,600
It really is amazing.

2239
02:11:39,600 --> 02:11:43,840
Well, I think, you know, the takeaway from it is, and I know some of the guys that were

2240
02:11:43,840 --> 02:11:49,080
in Haiti and, you know, some of our guys were Task Force 8, not me, but Task Force 8 was

2241
02:11:49,080 --> 02:11:55,620
at Surfside is that the unbelievable humans that are willing to go out and do whatever

2242
02:11:55,620 --> 02:11:59,600
for people that they've never met, that's hard to quantify.

2243
02:11:59,600 --> 02:12:03,320
And I think a lot of society takes that for granted.

2244
02:12:03,320 --> 02:12:06,640
You know, who those people are, they're, none of us are anything special.

2245
02:12:06,640 --> 02:12:10,400
We're just normal people.

2246
02:12:10,400 --> 02:12:12,480
But those guys that go out and do that are just phenomenal.

2247
02:12:12,480 --> 02:12:17,440
And when you talk to the guys that went to Haiti, these are the most quality humans,

2248
02:12:17,440 --> 02:12:21,680
you know, that can be around and the things that they experienced are tough, right?

2249
02:12:21,680 --> 02:12:24,600
They still have to process through that.

2250
02:12:24,600 --> 02:12:28,120
But just great people, man, that would go down and do something for somebody, not even

2251
02:12:28,120 --> 02:12:33,520
in our country, that they've never met and just do whatever they could to try to assist

2252
02:12:33,520 --> 02:12:34,520
them.

2253
02:12:34,520 --> 02:12:36,080
And it's the same thing that was happening at Surfside.

2254
02:12:36,080 --> 02:12:41,320
I remember when I called to try to put that team together, everybody wanted to go.

2255
02:12:41,320 --> 02:12:45,280
Like, there was nobody that said, no, you know, I don't want to go do that.

2256
02:12:45,280 --> 02:12:51,000
You know, and even outside of USAR a few years ago when I don't even remember what hurricane

2257
02:12:51,000 --> 02:12:53,840
now was, it came through the Bahamas.

2258
02:12:53,840 --> 02:12:56,760
But Gainesville wanted to go down and help.

2259
02:12:56,760 --> 02:13:02,200
And so we put a team together and found a private plane to fly them over.

2260
02:13:02,200 --> 02:13:05,360
And they just showed up and started working and did a lot of work.

2261
02:13:05,360 --> 02:13:09,600
And, you know, there were people beating down the door that wanted to go on that mission.

2262
02:13:09,600 --> 02:13:12,640
And we couldn't send everybody, so we just sent a handful.

2263
02:13:12,640 --> 02:13:14,680
But like, who does that, right?

2264
02:13:14,680 --> 02:13:17,640
Like, just the quality of humans is outstanding.

2265
02:13:17,640 --> 02:13:22,080
And that gives you, you know, with all of the negative stuff that goes on in society,

2266
02:13:22,080 --> 02:13:25,840
that kind of gives you hope that, you know, there's good people everywhere and not everything

2267
02:13:25,840 --> 02:13:28,280
that you see.

2268
02:13:28,280 --> 02:13:30,960
You're inundated with negativity, but it doesn't mean that everything's negative.

2269
02:13:30,960 --> 02:13:33,840
There's a lot of positive that's going on all around us.

2270
02:13:33,840 --> 02:13:36,120
That just doesn't, it doesn't get a lot of press, right?

2271
02:13:36,120 --> 02:13:38,000
You know, the negative stuff gets more press.

2272
02:13:38,000 --> 02:13:42,320
But, you know, all the guys that you've spoke of and the people that go out and do this

2273
02:13:42,320 --> 02:13:45,160
are just unbelievably quality human beings.

2274
02:13:45,160 --> 02:13:46,160
Yeah.

2275
02:13:46,160 --> 02:13:48,640
And this underlines the whole point of this conversation again.

2276
02:13:48,640 --> 02:13:53,120
You know, this is my mission is I see the incredible humans.

2277
02:13:53,120 --> 02:13:56,400
And I always say, like, I'm not impressed by the fire service because I did it and I'm

2278
02:13:56,400 --> 02:13:57,400
nothing special.

2279
02:13:57,400 --> 02:14:03,000
You know, I did certain things, obviously, but I adore who they are and they do need

2280
02:14:03,000 --> 02:14:04,000
to be protected.

2281
02:14:04,000 --> 02:14:05,360
And so this is why it's so important.

2282
02:14:05,360 --> 02:14:10,000
And it was the one thing I've been talking recently is operationally, we're so courageous,

2283
02:14:10,000 --> 02:14:14,840
but there's a lot of cowardice in the application for the things that will actually help our

2284
02:14:14,840 --> 02:14:18,040
mental and physical health and solidify our families.

2285
02:14:18,040 --> 02:14:22,800
So that's where I feel this, you know, to look in the mirror and go, you're worth it

2286
02:14:22,800 --> 02:14:27,840
and then take that same courage that you have with a halogen in your hand and put it into

2287
02:14:27,840 --> 02:14:30,480
creating an environment that actually allows you to thrive.

2288
02:14:30,480 --> 02:14:31,480
It's that simple.

2289
02:14:31,480 --> 02:14:32,480
Yeah, it is.

2290
02:14:32,480 --> 02:14:38,160
And I think we're, you know, what you're doing and with the safer staffing model and the

2291
02:14:38,160 --> 02:14:41,800
counseling services and the mental health, more mental health awareness, it's allowing

2292
02:14:41,800 --> 02:14:47,440
people to get the resources they need to process through a lot of the things, you know, because

2293
02:14:47,440 --> 02:14:51,240
as good as people as they are, like you're still human and you're susceptible to all

2294
02:14:51,240 --> 02:14:55,600
of these traumas that are, you know, adding up in your brain and in your heart.

2295
02:14:55,600 --> 02:14:59,760
And you have to have some way to process those out.

2296
02:14:59,760 --> 02:15:02,080
You have to have some way to shed the stress.

2297
02:15:02,080 --> 02:15:06,880
And if you don't, then it consumes you and you can have bad results.

2298
02:15:06,880 --> 02:15:11,200
And so everybody's got to find, you know, what works for them, you know, whether it's

2299
02:15:11,200 --> 02:15:15,920
counseling, increased sleep, your faith, which is what works for me, or a combination of

2300
02:15:15,920 --> 02:15:17,520
those is what works for me.

2301
02:15:17,520 --> 02:15:18,520
Right.

2302
02:15:18,520 --> 02:15:24,080
And, you know, understand you were put here by a higher power for a higher purpose.

2303
02:15:24,080 --> 02:15:26,160
But that doesn't mean that you get off scot-free.

2304
02:15:26,160 --> 02:15:29,960
There are things that come with that and you have to learn how to manage through them.

2305
02:15:29,960 --> 02:15:33,860
We have to learn how to manage each other and encourage each other through that.

2306
02:15:33,860 --> 02:15:36,200
And then not always just have to be tough.

2307
02:15:36,200 --> 02:15:37,200
Right.

2308
02:15:37,200 --> 02:15:42,000
Like you have to be tough, but there's, there's times where you can be vulnerable to us, to

2309
02:15:42,000 --> 02:15:43,000
each other.

2310
02:15:43,000 --> 02:15:46,000
And we need to create more of an environment, you know, of that.

2311
02:15:46,000 --> 02:15:51,360
And that's, you know, for very years or for a lot of years was very foreign to me.

2312
02:15:51,360 --> 02:15:52,360
Like nobody's vulnerable.

2313
02:15:52,360 --> 02:15:53,880
We're not vulnerable around here.

2314
02:15:53,880 --> 02:15:54,880
Right.

2315
02:15:54,880 --> 02:15:56,520
We're just, we're just tough and we ram our head through doors.

2316
02:15:56,520 --> 02:16:00,360
But, you know, as you get older and you kind of learn more is that, you know, it's okay

2317
02:16:00,360 --> 02:16:05,360
to be vulnerable to each other because if someone knows they can be vulnerable to me

2318
02:16:05,360 --> 02:16:09,840
because they've seen me be vulnerable, maybe that's the phone call they make, you know,

2319
02:16:09,840 --> 02:16:13,640
to me or to somebody else that helps them get through a rough patch.

2320
02:16:13,640 --> 02:16:17,640
And we all have them, you know, like nobody is, is immune to that.

2321
02:16:17,640 --> 02:16:22,200
And so finding out, you know, what do you need to be able to get through that?

2322
02:16:22,200 --> 02:16:25,800
You know, and, you know, I've had guys call me and I, you know, I have talked to people

2323
02:16:25,800 --> 02:16:31,600
and, you know, just talk about a Bible verse I read or a song that I heard and he's like,

2324
02:16:31,600 --> 02:16:32,600
dude, I heard that song too.

2325
02:16:32,600 --> 02:16:34,080
And I'm like, you did?

2326
02:16:34,080 --> 02:16:35,920
And like, this guy's like the toughest guy that I know.

2327
02:16:35,920 --> 02:16:36,920
Right.

2328
02:16:36,920 --> 02:16:40,840
But, you know, we're talking about, you know, Bible verses and, and songs and what, you

2329
02:16:40,840 --> 02:16:43,440
know, he was upset about this or I was upset about that.

2330
02:16:43,440 --> 02:16:48,400
And more of a culture of that, I think bring, it peels back that, that onion, a different

2331
02:16:48,400 --> 02:16:49,400
onion, right.

2332
02:16:49,400 --> 02:16:53,560
Of what goes on with us, you know, inside the job and the things that are going to be

2333
02:16:53,560 --> 02:16:58,920
able to make our longevity better and make us healthier, you know, as we get older, instead

2334
02:16:58,920 --> 02:17:03,920
of getting unhealthier and all of these devastating things that, you know, have happened to, you

2335
02:17:03,920 --> 02:17:08,240
know, people that we know or people around us is that we can, we can try to avoid those

2336
02:17:08,240 --> 02:17:10,680
or stop them from happening.

2337
02:17:10,680 --> 02:17:13,200
I think what people understand is vulnerability is courage.

2338
02:17:13,200 --> 02:17:16,440
You know, that's what a, that's what a real man does.

2339
02:17:16,440 --> 02:17:17,440
They don't bottle it up.

2340
02:17:17,440 --> 02:17:21,200
You know, they, they, again, we're not, you know, weeping constantly and writing poetry

2341
02:17:21,200 --> 02:17:22,200
24 hours a day.

2342
02:17:22,200 --> 02:17:25,760
But, you know, I always say it's supposed to be a yin yang, you know, when you're on

2343
02:17:25,760 --> 02:17:28,880
scene and it's a horrible extrication, you've got your game face on.

2344
02:17:28,880 --> 02:17:29,880
It is what it is.

2345
02:17:29,880 --> 02:17:33,880
But you've also got to remember that it was kindness and compassion and empathy that sent

2346
02:17:33,880 --> 02:17:35,360
you into uniform.

2347
02:17:35,360 --> 02:17:40,160
But somehow we end up becoming a white circle like RoboCop and forgetting that we have to

2348
02:17:40,160 --> 02:17:44,180
show that, continue to show that to the people that we talked about earlier, but also show

2349
02:17:44,180 --> 02:17:45,440
it to ourselves.

2350
02:17:45,440 --> 02:17:48,680
And to me, you know, again, that vulnerability is, it's, it's a superpower.

2351
02:17:48,680 --> 02:17:54,640
If you, you know, physically, the person that you are, sit down at the kitchen table and

2352
02:17:54,640 --> 02:18:00,600
say, let me tell you about a time, you know, one of my lows, that opens the doors to everyone

2353
02:18:00,600 --> 02:18:01,600
else.

2354
02:18:01,600 --> 02:18:02,800
It was like, well, Don's never going to talk about it.

2355
02:18:02,800 --> 02:18:04,040
So I'm not going to talk about it.

2356
02:18:04,040 --> 02:18:07,480
And now all of a sudden you are, and it's the beautiful thing about the show, the SAS

2357
02:18:07,480 --> 02:18:13,000
guys, the Navy SEALs, the SWAT operators in tears or whatever it is at that moment, being

2358
02:18:13,000 --> 02:18:14,040
vulnerable.

2359
02:18:14,040 --> 02:18:16,240
You can't tell me that that's not a man.

2360
02:18:16,240 --> 02:18:19,620
It's one of the most dangerous human beings on the planet and they are being vulnerable.

2361
02:18:19,620 --> 02:18:23,960
So I think this is a, what's so great about this conversation now is reframing that to

2362
02:18:23,960 --> 02:18:25,400
strength.

2363
02:18:25,400 --> 02:18:26,400
Vulnerability is strength.

2364
02:18:26,400 --> 02:18:30,560
And even with the mental health conversation, addressing the things that are bothering you

2365
02:18:30,560 --> 02:18:33,400
makes you a better firefighter because it clears your mind.

2366
02:18:33,400 --> 02:18:37,620
You've got more chance of being in a pseudo flow state when your mind is not busy.

2367
02:18:37,620 --> 02:18:41,860
So by pushing it down and saying, I'm not going to talk about my feelings.

2368
02:18:41,860 --> 02:18:45,320
You're actually saying I'm choosing to be a worse firefighter as well.

2369
02:18:45,320 --> 02:18:49,440
So when you frame it that way, I think it helps some of the naysayers realize like,

2370
02:18:49,440 --> 02:18:54,360
oh, so for every reason there is, I'm going to be better off doing this.

2371
02:18:54,360 --> 02:18:55,360
Yeah.

2372
02:18:55,360 --> 02:19:00,660
And I think for me, I spent such a long time not wanting, you know, you can't show any

2373
02:19:00,660 --> 02:19:02,560
weakness because that's bad, right?

2374
02:19:02,560 --> 02:19:06,120
You need to just project strength.

2375
02:19:06,120 --> 02:19:11,120
And then as you become more experienced or you move up in a leadership position, then

2376
02:19:11,120 --> 02:19:14,080
you for sure have to be, you can't do that.

2377
02:19:14,080 --> 02:19:19,920
And you have to be perfect and you can never make mistakes and that nobody's perfect, right?

2378
02:19:19,920 --> 02:19:21,200
And everybody makes mistakes.

2379
02:19:21,200 --> 02:19:28,920
And so, you know, and I started going to our therapist, you know, several months ago.

2380
02:19:28,920 --> 02:19:30,560
And so I brought it up one day at work.

2381
02:19:30,560 --> 02:19:33,160
And so there was one of the guys there who's a super tough guy.

2382
02:19:33,160 --> 02:19:34,840
Hey man, I'm glad you said that.

2383
02:19:34,840 --> 02:19:36,440
Like, and I know he had been to therapy too.

2384
02:19:36,440 --> 02:19:40,440
And he's like, you know, people need to hear us say that because there are probably people

2385
02:19:40,440 --> 02:19:44,680
that say, man, I might need to go, you know, talk to somebody about something, but they

2386
02:19:44,680 --> 02:19:48,040
feel like it's like taboo to do that because other people don't.

2387
02:19:48,040 --> 02:19:53,360
And so, you know, being able to put that out there and saying, Hey, that's a good thing,

2388
02:19:53,360 --> 02:19:54,360
man.

2389
02:19:54,360 --> 02:19:55,440
It doesn't mean something's wrong with you.

2390
02:19:55,440 --> 02:19:59,000
That means that you're trying to keep things from being wrong with you.

2391
02:19:59,000 --> 02:20:05,320
And the perspective that that can provide is fantastic because there may be things going

2392
02:20:05,320 --> 02:20:09,400
on with you and you don't know what they are or why.

2393
02:20:09,400 --> 02:20:12,640
But when you start talking to somebody that understands that they can help you give you

2394
02:20:12,640 --> 02:20:16,160
perspective on some things, which can give you a little bit of peace.

2395
02:20:16,160 --> 02:20:19,480
And then you can start working on, all right, well, how do I, can I fix those things and

2396
02:20:19,480 --> 02:20:20,560
what can I do about them?

2397
02:20:20,560 --> 02:20:22,640
And you can't just do it on your own.

2398
02:20:22,640 --> 02:20:25,640
Like nobody has that capability, you know?

2399
02:20:25,640 --> 02:20:30,760
And you know, for me, it gave me a lot of perspective and it helped me or is helping

2400
02:20:30,760 --> 02:20:35,680
me understand some more things about myself, where you came from over here, how the job

2401
02:20:35,680 --> 02:20:39,360
is affected you, you know, why you do things.

2402
02:20:39,360 --> 02:20:43,440
And there aren't always like clear answers and be like, oh, okay, this equals this and

2403
02:20:43,440 --> 02:20:45,000
this is why this happened.

2404
02:20:45,000 --> 02:20:47,440
But it does start to give you some perspective.

2405
02:20:47,440 --> 02:20:50,280
And you know, so I think it's important that we talk about that.

2406
02:20:50,280 --> 02:20:54,560
I think because not everything, not every model works for everybody, right?

2407
02:20:54,560 --> 02:20:58,840
So if you go to therapy, we need to talk about that and counseling and why, how that can

2408
02:20:58,840 --> 02:20:59,840
help you, why it's important.

2409
02:20:59,840 --> 02:21:03,880
And if you use faith as your outlet, you need to talk about that.

2410
02:21:03,880 --> 02:21:06,360
Now, again, won't work for everybody and that's okay.

2411
02:21:06,360 --> 02:21:10,600
But when people hear people talk about it, like, okay, well, I kind of feel that same

2412
02:21:10,600 --> 02:21:11,600
way too.

2413
02:21:11,600 --> 02:21:15,400
It's okay for me to say that out loud and let that out and maybe I can go talk to that

2414
02:21:15,400 --> 02:21:17,120
guy about it and get some understanding.

2415
02:21:17,120 --> 02:21:23,320
And I think the more we do that, the better off we'll be long term about becoming healthier,

2416
02:21:23,320 --> 02:21:27,520
you know, as we age and get into retirement and we can live longer, right?

2417
02:21:27,520 --> 02:21:32,280
Like maybe some of our buddies who, if we had this before, would still be with us or

2418
02:21:32,280 --> 02:21:36,880
we'll keep people from, you know, going having that same path, you know, in the future.

2419
02:21:36,880 --> 02:21:37,880
I couldn't agree more.

2420
02:21:37,880 --> 02:21:41,760
All right, I'm going to throw some very quick closing questions at you and then we'll wrap

2421
02:21:41,760 --> 02:21:42,760
up.

2422
02:21:42,760 --> 02:21:44,840
You mentioned The Mission, The Man and Me.

2423
02:21:44,840 --> 02:21:47,920
Are there any other books that you love to recommend?

2424
02:21:47,920 --> 02:21:50,920
The Bible.

2425
02:21:50,920 --> 02:21:52,540
Yep.

2426
02:21:52,540 --> 02:21:57,560
And then another really good book is About Face by David Hackworth.

2427
02:21:57,560 --> 02:21:59,520
I don't know if you've heard of it.

2428
02:21:59,520 --> 02:22:04,040
So if you're a military historian like I am, like I like to read about history of,

2429
02:22:04,040 --> 02:22:08,160
you know, wars and conflict, that book is huge.

2430
02:22:08,160 --> 02:22:09,440
It's like four inches thick.

2431
02:22:09,440 --> 02:22:10,900
It's really big.

2432
02:22:10,900 --> 02:22:18,440
But his career spans some really important historical times and there are great leadership

2433
02:22:18,440 --> 02:22:19,440
points in there.

2434
02:22:19,440 --> 02:22:23,360
It's not a leadership book, but he was a fantastic leader and so there's a lot of takeaway out

2435
02:22:23,360 --> 02:22:25,720
of there that can be used.

2436
02:22:25,720 --> 02:22:29,840
If you are a leader, if you're an emerging leader, you know, if you're an experienced

2437
02:22:29,840 --> 02:22:32,880
leader, there are still a lot of things that you can take away out of the book and help

2438
02:22:32,880 --> 02:22:33,880
you.

2439
02:22:33,880 --> 02:22:34,880
So it's a fantastic book.

2440
02:22:34,880 --> 02:22:35,880
Beautiful.

2441
02:22:35,880 --> 02:22:37,780
What about films and documentaries?

2442
02:22:37,780 --> 02:22:38,780
Any of those you love?

2443
02:22:38,780 --> 02:22:43,680
Well, I mean, Backdraft is awesome, right?

2444
02:22:43,680 --> 02:22:46,880
Because those are all the one liners you have to use on the new guys.

2445
02:22:46,880 --> 02:22:49,680
I always ask you, did you ever see Backdraft 2?

2446
02:22:49,680 --> 02:22:50,680
I did not.

2447
02:22:50,680 --> 02:22:51,680
Oh my God.

2448
02:22:51,680 --> 02:22:52,680
No, I only saw the first one.

2449
02:22:52,680 --> 02:22:55,280
It is like I'm, my book now I'm writing.

2450
02:22:55,280 --> 02:22:59,400
I'm going to get made into a TV show because I want this message to be on the screen.

2451
02:22:59,400 --> 02:23:02,200
I want what we actually do to finally be told.

2452
02:23:02,200 --> 02:23:05,080
And then there's a multi-generational trauma element too.

2453
02:23:05,080 --> 02:23:07,400
However, you know, there's that whole thing.

2454
02:23:07,400 --> 02:23:09,040
Well, yeah, but I'm, I'll never do that.

2455
02:23:09,040 --> 02:23:10,120
I'm just a firefighter.

2456
02:23:10,120 --> 02:23:14,800
But then you watch Backdraft 2 that obviously had a budget of millions and you're like,

2457
02:23:14,800 --> 02:23:17,560
okay, anyone can make a film because that was absolute dog shit.

2458
02:23:17,560 --> 02:23:18,560
Yeah, that was terrible.

2459
02:23:18,560 --> 02:23:19,560
It was so bad.

2460
02:23:19,560 --> 02:23:24,500
I don't understand how, how it got made, but yeah, for it, if you haven't, it almost kind

2461
02:23:24,500 --> 02:23:26,000
of intriguing because now you want to watch it.

2462
02:23:26,000 --> 02:23:28,680
But then after you watched it, you would realize you lost 90 minutes.

2463
02:23:28,680 --> 02:23:29,680
No doubt.

2464
02:23:29,680 --> 02:23:30,680
Yeah.

2465
02:23:30,680 --> 02:23:32,000
I don't, I don't have a lot of films or documentaries.

2466
02:23:32,000 --> 02:23:37,440
Um, you know, mostly watch sports and you know, the news and a couple of shows, but,

2467
02:23:37,440 --> 02:23:38,720
um, or the books.

2468
02:23:38,720 --> 02:23:39,720
Brilliant.

2469
02:23:39,720 --> 02:23:40,720
All right.

2470
02:23:40,720 --> 02:23:43,440
Well then the next question, is there a person that you'd recommend to come on this podcast

2471
02:23:43,440 --> 02:23:47,840
as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the

2472
02:23:47,840 --> 02:23:48,840
world?

2473
02:23:48,840 --> 02:23:49,840
Um, yeah.

2474
02:23:49,840 --> 02:23:54,560
I knew you were going to ask me that and I had, I had some pretty good ideas.

2475
02:23:54,560 --> 02:24:00,840
Um, but you've already talked to some of the guys that, that I thought about.

2476
02:24:00,840 --> 02:24:04,280
Um, I'll tell you who would be a really good one.

2477
02:24:04,280 --> 02:24:07,960
When we start talking about like the history of smoke diver, I mean, leadership in the

2478
02:24:07,960 --> 02:24:13,600
fire services, retired chief Rick Talbert, um, who's a, a fantastic leader and as a mentor

2479
02:24:13,600 --> 02:24:17,760
to a lot of us, um, a huge help in the smoke diver program.

2480
02:24:17,760 --> 02:24:20,680
Um, he's well, well known in the state, very well respected.

2481
02:24:20,680 --> 02:24:25,360
Um, but he's also was a fire chief for a long time, but he's a fireman's fireman as well.

2482
02:24:25,360 --> 02:24:31,760
And so his words, um, they're heavy, um, because of who he is and the respect that people care

2483
02:24:31,760 --> 02:24:32,760
for him.

2484
02:24:32,760 --> 02:24:33,760
So I think he would be a great interview.

2485
02:24:33,760 --> 02:24:34,760
Brilliant.

2486
02:24:34,760 --> 02:24:35,760
Let's just try and make it happen.

2487
02:24:35,760 --> 02:24:36,760
Absolutely.

2488
02:24:36,760 --> 02:24:37,760
Thank you.

2489
02:24:37,760 --> 02:24:38,760
All right.

2490
02:24:38,760 --> 02:24:40,320
Well then the last question before we make sure everyone knows where to find you, what

2491
02:24:40,320 --> 02:24:42,360
you do to decompress?

2492
02:24:42,360 --> 02:24:47,720
Um, well, I've mentioned faith a few times, so, um, you know, I've, I've, I've, I've

2493
02:24:47,720 --> 02:24:52,680
I go to church, um, try to read the Bible, which I've really, um, started to try to do

2494
02:24:52,680 --> 02:24:55,960
more, um, daily, you know, a couple of times a day.

2495
02:24:55,960 --> 02:25:02,240
Um, and then, um, exercise, obviously, um, uh, we talked about fitness, but, um, exercise

2496
02:25:02,240 --> 02:25:06,480
is a huge way to decompress your stress, whether it's a long run, which I don't do as many

2497
02:25:06,480 --> 02:25:11,600
long runs as I used to, or you're lifting or just doing a workout, you know, whatever

2498
02:25:11,600 --> 02:25:14,240
it is that can help you decompress stress.

2499
02:25:14,240 --> 02:25:20,680
And then, you know, um, trying to, trying to detach from work, um, and spend time with

2500
02:25:20,680 --> 02:25:21,680
your family.

2501
02:25:21,680 --> 02:25:25,440
And I don't know if you've ever heard, um, the line like be where your feet are, um,

2502
02:25:25,440 --> 02:25:27,280
but just be present in the moment.

2503
02:25:27,280 --> 02:25:30,920
Um, which is always something that I've struggled with.

2504
02:25:30,920 --> 02:25:34,200
Like I would be having fun one second, but I'm always worried about, all right, well

2505
02:25:34,200 --> 02:25:37,440
in two days, I got to go back home and go back to work and no more fun.

2506
02:25:37,440 --> 02:25:39,240
Well, why are you worried about two days from now?

2507
02:25:39,240 --> 02:25:44,220
Like be present right the second and just enjoy that time because, you know, nothing

2508
02:25:44,220 --> 02:25:46,240
is guaranteed.

2509
02:25:46,240 --> 02:25:48,440
And your time here is not guaranteed.

2510
02:25:48,440 --> 02:25:50,640
Your people you're with, you know, are not guaranteed.

2511
02:25:50,640 --> 02:25:54,480
Um, so just really try to enjoy that time with your family or whoever it is that you

2512
02:25:54,480 --> 02:25:58,960
spend time with and just forget about all of the other stuff, you know, that goes on

2513
02:25:58,960 --> 02:25:59,960
around you.

2514
02:25:59,960 --> 02:26:04,160
And that can help you kind of, you know, decompress, you know, from work, because if not, like

2515
02:26:04,160 --> 02:26:06,000
you can just take it with you everywhere.

2516
02:26:06,000 --> 02:26:08,240
And sometimes you just got to turn that off.

2517
02:26:08,240 --> 02:26:09,240
Absolutely.

2518
02:26:09,240 --> 02:26:10,240
Yeah.

2519
02:26:10,240 --> 02:26:12,400
And this again, going back to 24 72, that's another day.

2520
02:26:12,400 --> 02:26:13,400
Absolutely.

2521
02:26:13,400 --> 02:26:14,400
All right.

2522
02:26:14,400 --> 02:26:18,440
Well, for people listening, if they wanted to learn more about you or reach out online,

2523
02:26:18,440 --> 02:26:20,480
where are the best places?

2524
02:26:20,480 --> 02:26:25,880
Um, well, um, most people that need to get in touch with me can you can, um, I guess

2525
02:26:25,880 --> 02:26:27,080
you could send me a Facebook message.

2526
02:26:27,080 --> 02:26:31,600
I don't really like to give out any other contact information, but, um, yeah, if you,

2527
02:26:31,600 --> 02:26:35,800
you messaged me on Facebook, if you look legitimate, I'll respond.

2528
02:26:35,800 --> 02:26:39,360
If you're like a bot or some kind of a Russian spy, then I probably won't.

2529
02:26:39,360 --> 02:26:44,720
Yeah, if you need something, um, you can hit me up there or, um, probably somebody, you

2530
02:26:44,720 --> 02:26:46,360
know, can, can get in touch with me.

2531
02:26:46,360 --> 02:26:50,280
So like my, my numbers out there, you know, just from the fire college and my emails of

2532
02:26:50,280 --> 02:26:53,000
being able to, you know, contact me that way.

2533
02:26:53,000 --> 02:26:54,720
But yeah, Facebook probably the easiest.

2534
02:26:54,720 --> 02:26:55,720
Okay.

2535
02:26:55,720 --> 02:26:57,520
So don't mention the originally from Moscow or anything.

2536
02:26:57,520 --> 02:26:58,520
No, no, no.

2537
02:26:58,520 --> 02:27:02,360
Don't send me any weird stuff or anything like that, or I won't respond to it.

2538
02:27:02,360 --> 02:27:04,480
Well, Don, I want to say thank you.

2539
02:27:04,480 --> 02:27:09,160
I mean, we've been all over the place in this conversation and really have, but again, some,

2540
02:27:09,160 --> 02:27:13,440
you know, when someone is known for certain positions and has a certain stature in the

2541
02:27:13,440 --> 02:27:18,880
community, their perspective on mental health and fitness and, you know, progression in

2542
02:27:18,880 --> 02:27:20,800
the fire service, I think is invaluable.

2543
02:27:20,800 --> 02:27:24,680
And you know, the things that we've covered, I think are hopefully really going to reframe

2544
02:27:24,680 --> 02:27:26,080
some things that people listening.

2545
02:27:26,080 --> 02:27:29,580
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on behind

2546
02:27:29,580 --> 02:27:30,580
the shield podcast.

2547
02:27:30,580 --> 02:27:31,580
I appreciate it.

2548
02:27:31,580 --> 02:27:32,580
It's been my pleasure.

2549
02:27:32,580 --> 02:27:35,760
And I don't, I don't know if a lot of people will want to hear what we had to say, but

2550
02:27:35,760 --> 02:27:40,640
I hope that maybe somebody out there will hear something that, you know, will help them

2551
02:27:40,640 --> 02:28:06,640
or steer them in a good direction.