This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran owned and operated performance optimization company that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.
Well, since then, I have actually been using my products and I've had incredible success.
There was initial blood work that was extremely detailed and based on that, they offered supplementation.
So I began taking DHEA, BPC157 for inflammation based on the fact that I've been a stump man and martial artist and a firefighter my whole life, lots of aches and pains,
Dihexa to help cognition after multiple punches to the head and shift work and peptides.
Four months later, they did a detailed blood work again and I was actually able to taper off two of the peptides because my body had responded so well to just one of them that it was optimized at that point.
So I cannot speak highly enough of the immense range of supplementation that they offer, whether it's male health, female health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, which I would argue is needed by a lot of the fire service,
or whether it's exogenous testosterone needed, especially after TBIs or advanced age.
Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of this company is an altruistic arm called the Transcend Foundation,
which is putting veterans and first responders through some of their protocols free of charge.
Now Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols and you can find that on JamesGearing.com under the products tab.
And if you want to hear more about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 808 with the founder Ernie Colling or go to TranscendCompany.com.
Welcome to the podcast as always. My name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show firefighter, paramedic and police officer Steve Barger.
Now what makes this conversation so powerful and unique is Steve's department is on a barrier island.
So as you will hear, they serve on the EMS side, the fire side and the law enforcement side.
What's also interesting is they moved to 2472. So you get to hear the story of before and all the incredible changes that they've seen since they moved to that progressive shift.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 1000 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So that being said, I introduce to you Steve Barger. Enjoy.
Well, Steve, I want to start by saying firstly, congratulations on your win, which we'll get to in a second.
And secondly, I want to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Absolutely. I appreciate them.
You know, I think it's super important to get the word out there about making the fire department better than it is today and leaving a better than we found it.
100%. So very first question there, where on planet Earth we finding you today?
Yeah, so I'm currently in Southport, North Carolina on the southeast coast of North Carolina.
And that's starting to cool off a little bit here.
This is probably my favorite time of year because the humidity is down and you can get out there and enjoy it.
Not as many bugs either. And so it's really a beautiful place, especially coming here from Ohio.
It's really nice to live close to the beach just outside the tourist area so I can raise my family in a normal neighborhood type lifestyle.
But, yep, southeastern North Carolina.
Beautiful. Yeah, I don't think people understand all the tourists obviously come to Florida in the summer normally,
but most of us down here are also just craving the winter because it's still blue skies, still gorgeous beaches, but the weather is absolutely beautiful this time of year.
Absolutely. I always tell everybody spring and fall are my favorite because the weather is absolutely more bearable and I can get outside and play with my kids a lot more.
And we can do a lot more outside activities. I'm a girl that I have three daughters.
And so there's less complaining this time of year when we're outside doing stuff.
I don't know if we even have technically a fall or a spring here, but the winter, the cool part that we have that lasts about a month and a half, that's my favorite.
Well, you mentioned Ohio, so let's start at the very beginning of your timeline then.
So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.
Absolutely. So I grew up in Akron, Ohio and in a normal middle class family.
And when I graduated high school, I had made the decision to go to college.
I started in college and I didn't do great in college at first.
I took more to the partying than the studying.
And about that time, my mom was diagnosed with cancer.
And so, you know, the decision to quit college and kind of get into the workforce a little bit took a priority.
So I did that and I had a landscaping company at the time.
I was successful. I started when I was in high school and I just wasn't feeling fulfilled with that anymore.
And so I enrolled in EMT school and from there I went to paramedic school,
volunteer firefighter and ended up down here in North Carolina to live.
And I worked for Horry County Fire Rescue for a number of years, which is also where Myrtle Beach is.
And then once I got married, my wife is from Brunswick County, North Carolina.
So we moved up this way to be closer to her parents to help out with our future family.
And that's where I find myself at today is in Brunswick County, North Carolina.
I'm one of three children. My parents still reside in Ohio, actually, and my brother and sister both do as well.
And so I'm the only emergency responder in my family.
And I don't come from a long line of first responders either. It's just something I was always interested in.
The little boy, you know, loving fire trucks kind of mentality just never left me as I grew up.
And so once I stopped going to college the first time, I really decided I was going to do what I wanted to.
When I was in college, my goal was to become a lawyer.
And basically that was, you know, I knew I could make money that way and it was a respectable job and all those things.
But it wasn't really what I wanted to do.
And so once I got into the fire department, I really found my calling there and serving my community.
Well, you mentioned that your parents, plural, still live in Ohio.
So talk to me about your mom's cancer journey.
And I'm assuming it was a good ending. Absolutely.
Yes. My mom's been in remission for a number of years.
She's healthy to this day.
You know, it was a hard time because I'm the oldest.
So my brother and sister were still in high school and middle school during that time.
And seeing the toll, it not only took on my mom, but my dad as well.
And being the eldest child of my parents, you know, feeling that responsibility of, you know,
trying to help out as much as possible while maintaining, you know, whatever I was doing at the time,
you know, going to school for a period of time and working.
And it was definitely challenging.
I learned a lot about myself and my parents and my siblings during that time.
And, you know, I'm glad to say today that, again, my mom is healthy.
She's been in remission for over 15 years now.
And it's something that we can talk about what we learned from it.
But it doesn't have to define our family today.
Absolutely. What about professions? What were your parents doing?
Yeah. So my mom stayed at home during the day and, you know, took care of us kids.
My dad worked in the private sector.
And my mom, when my dad got home in the evening, my mom would go to work.
And she worked in the restaurant industry for a number of years.
And so dual working household, normal family challenges like many families face today,
you know, making ends meet growing up and my parents had to do what they had to do.
And they sacrificed a lot for myself, my sister, my brother,
for us to have what we had when we were growing up and for us to be the very people we are today as well.
What about sports and exercise? What were you playing and doing when you were in school age?
Yeah. So me and my sister and my brother, we all participated in athletics and after school activities and church and all those things.
I played basketball and football. And then once I got into high school was just football.
I concentrated on I had a number of injuries that kind of prevented some future things with some of that.
But at the same time, it was a great learning experience.
I think the aspect of team sports is good for any child to learn
because as you become an adult, especially in the workforce,
being able to work as part of a team and being able to compromise and build those relationships
and be successful, not as an individual, but as a cohesive unit is very important.
I think that plays a lot into my dynamics and my thought process in the fire department as well.
Well, you mentioned about being a little boy, having that burning in your heart when you were a child.
Was that what you always wanted to be?
Or was there any other career aspirations as you progressed out of high school?
No, you know, I think the fire department thing really stuck with me since I was a small child.
I do a funny story. I remember I was probably about five or six years old.
My mom still tells the story to this day and we laugh about it.
I had taken a toy from a friend of mine's house and I was five or six years old.
My mom found it in my raincoat.
And her solution to teach me a lesson was not only returning that toy to the family friend,
but she took me to the police station and basically wanted the police officer to tell me
that I would end up in jail as I grew up if I was going to take things from people.
And my mom describes it to this day as that police officer was mortified that a woman would bring her child
into the police station and want him to reprimand her child and, you know, tell him he's going to go to jail.
And I still remember, you know, vaguely the incident to this day.
But my mom tells it funny because, you know, the police officer who was at the front desk that day was really like,
wow, this lady is really doing this to her kid.
But I guess it had a lasting impression on me.
I should you not. My mom did the same thing, but she left me at the police station, I think, for for an hour or so.
And so, you know, I was basically, quote unquote, under arrest and I was single digits then myself.
I was young. And then another time she took me to what actually is a secondary school, the comprehensive.
But she told me it was a prison and that she was going to take me to the prison.
So it looks like your mom and my mom had similar parenting tactics.
Yeah. You know, being a police officer now, because I work in a public safety agency where we're fire,
paramedic and police officers, you know, makes it unique because dealing with the community and dealing with the public,
a lot of times I hear people say that to their children, like, watch out for that police officer.
He's he's watching you or something like that.
And, you know, that situation that day with my mom really had nothing to do with me ever getting into law enforcement.
But I hear parents say that today and it always brings back that memory of, you know,
my mom doing that with me and, you know, my parents were, you know, I grew up in a great family.
I grew up in a great household. My parents were great and they had high expectations for us.
But we also knew we were loved as well, which I think is important.
Absolutely. Well, walk me through then your journey EMT to medic and what were the the environments that you're working with
and was there any aha moments having come from a regular civilian life to seeing behind the curtain of your community?
Yeah. So in Ohio, EMS education is delivered a little bit differently.
It's not through the community college system like it is here in North Carolina.
It's actually through the hospital system. So the hospitals have their own paramedic programs and schools.
And so basically you go to school at the hospital.
So I did EMT and Ohio is a national registry state.
They actually don't have their own state test. So you take national registry to get your certification as your state test.
Where a lot of states have a state test and you take national registry.
So I actually failed national registry the first time for EMT.
And, you know, after going through the class and I failed the test and I really had to had to think about my man,
am I doing the right thing? Like I spent all this time.
How did I fail the test? And it was definitely a long brainstorming section and a lot of prayer to take the test again.
And then I pass it. So I immediately enroll in paramedic school because in Ohio,
if you want to be a firefighter, you almost always have to be a paramedic because it's fire based EMS.
So I enroll in paramedic school and I get about three quarters of the way through
and I failed out because I failed a second unit exam and it was actually pharmacology.
I remember going home and telling my grandma or going home and then going visit my grandmother and telling her I failed paramedic school.
And so what happened? I said I failed the drug test and she did a double take at me.
And because in her mind, I was doing drugs and failed a drug test in my mind, you know, words matter.
Right. In my mind, I failed a written test on on drugs or pharmacology.
So again, I was faced with do I really want to do this?
And I had made it far enough through the course in Ohio where I could test for my EMT 99 or intermediate 99.
That's back when there was two levels of intermediate financial registry.
I took that test and passed it. And so I kind of sat there for about a year working in an EMS only service in Cleveland.
And then I decided, OK, I've grown up a little bit.
I really want to do this. And I enrolled back in the paramedic school again and passed the class and passed the test on the first try.
And I'm thankful for all those experiences.
I like to tell my children now failure is going to happen to everybody.
And it's how you deal with failure and how you deal with adversity.
You know, what one of the things I always like to say is, you know, adversity is a horrible thing to waste,
because if everything is too easy and you don't ever meet any kind of resistance, you don't learn how to work harder.
You don't learn how to test yourself and test your boundaries.
And so through adversity, I feel like that always makes you better.
And, you know, in the fire service, you see a lot of people, you know, refuse to fail and all these different things about failure,
how bad failure is. And while nobody sets out to fail anything on purpose,
I think the way we utilize failure and grow from it just makes us a more well-rounded individual.
And so I faced adversity and failed opportunity a couple of different times.
But I think it was great and maybe the clinician I am today.
I like that phrase fail forward, you know, learn from that and become better from it.
I remember even this is a trivial example, but when I did martial arts, even if I lost a fight and it was poor judging,
maybe I would have won that fight. I remember thinking that doesn't matter. Throw that away.
If you want to win, then you need to win convincingly.
You need to knock them out or you need to win, you know, 10 to 0, whatever style that you're doing.
So it really forges that ownership. But it also, you know, allows you to relax and,
and, you know, fail on the training ground, because, I mean, I one of the worst things I've seen throughout my career
and arguably the worst fire department was someone would do an evolution once and they check a box.
And the half time, you know, more often than not, they would do it horribly.
But it was like, well, you did the at the ladder throw. You did the hose pull, you know, rather than no, you know, do it again.
Do it again. It's OK to get it wrong here. Get it wrong here.
So when you're at that house with that kid hanging out the window, you get it right.
Absolutely. And that's the exact same thing. I tell my folks on shift now is, you know,
I would much rather us make these mistakes in the bay or the training tower, wherever it is,
so that when we're out there in the public eye and we're out there on a call, when it actually matters,
when lives are on the line, when time is working against you, you can rely on that training
and that experience that you've created on the training ground, because, you know,
when you get a structure fire or any kind of call and you haven't touched your ropes or your hoses,
your ladders and God knows how long you're going to make mistakes.
And I'm one of those, you know, perfect is not something anybody ever achieves.
I always tell my guys, you know, we're going to chase excellence, but we're never going to reach it
because if you're always moving forward and chasing that one thing,
you're always going to be getting better every single day.
I remember a sign on a CrossFit gym wall years ago and it said it never gets easier.
And I love that because you get fitter, you get stronger, you get more mobile, you get faster,
but the workout always stays hard. You're just moving more, you're moving faster.
So that whole philosophy that you're chasing this thing, it's the carrot on the stick.
You're never going to get it, but it's the actual art of chasing it that is, you know,
incrementally improving you.
Yeah, I started ultra running a couple years ago and I remember the first day that I started running.
I'm like, man, a mile was really far. Then three miles was really far.
Then five and ten and so on.
And, you know, I've got a couple of 50 mile races under my belt now.
And I was talking to my younger brother the other day who's coming down in January to run a 50 mile ultra marathon with me.
It's going to be a super cool experience to run that race with my younger brother,
cross the finish line together.
And he was working through some anxiety the other day about it.
And I told him, I said, Kevin, I said, this is going to hurt no matter how hard you work
because you're not going to erase any pain you're going to feel during it
because the faster you get, the harder you're going to push.
Exactly what you just said. And it's always going to hurt.
The pain is going to be there. You're not going to train the pain away.
So just keep training, keep working harder and we're going to do the very best we can that day.
We're going to finish it, but just know it's going to hurt.
So that's where I follow a female runner, Courtney Dualter,
who is arguably the best ultra runner in the world right now.
Definitely the best female ultra runner in the world.
And she talks about this thing called the pain cave and she's got this crazy mentality.
And I mean, she is just emotionally intelligent and mentally her mental fitness is just out of this world.
But she talks about when it starts hurting, she pictures herself in this what she calls the pain cave.
She starts chiseling away at it and every race she makes her pain cave bigger.
That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. She's just learning how to deal with it better.
And so running has been an awesome kind of burst of new energy into my life.
And it's really helped me out a lot and put a lot of things in perspective.
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned about doing EMS in Ohio.
We're talking kind of early 2000s. When I first moved to the US,
I kind of saw the back end of the the pill mills,
you know, the prescription element of the opioid crisis here in Broward County.
But when I think about where is the real hotspot, the hub of the actual,
you know, the victims of that, I think about West Virginia and Ohio.
So were you seeing that when you were working back then?
Yeah, we definitely saw that. I'll tell you, I've actually seen more of it here in North Carolina.
We have Wilmington very close to us.
So being on the coast and having a state port right next to us
and, you know, the interstate highways coming through here, we have interstate 40.
We have 95, which comes straight up from Florida where you're at.
And so there is a lot of illegal drug mobilization through North Carolina,
through southeastern North Carolina, as well as Ohio.
So a bulk of my career now has been spent in North Carolina.
So I would say I've been faced with more of it here than I was up there.
And ebbs and flows, you know, for a long time, it was cocaine, then it was heroin.
And then you had the different types of heroin with the black tar and all that kind of stuff.
And now obviously, it's the fentanyl crisis that we find ourselves in now here
and really across the nation and probably across the world.
And so, you know, being close to Wilmington,
we have a lot of military bases around us with transient populations as well.
And so, yeah, we do see quite a bit of it in this region.
I can tell you, I currently, you know, the department I work at right now
is a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina here.
So we don't see as much of it there just because it's more of a vacation spot.
We only have about 500 year-round residents there.
But here on the mainland, we see a ton of it throughout the region.
Yeah, that was what's sad is that when this was going on,
these were prescription pills too, you know, initially.
And then I actually had Sam Quinonez on who wrote Dreamland
and he was detailing how, you know, as the pill mills were shut down,
that's when you saw the gangs with the black tar heroin coming through from Mexico.
And now, obviously, that's even taken a backseat to fentanyl.
But all of this was initiated by a drug approved by the FDA that was, you know,
completely falsely approved.
And we're learning now, obviously, about the kind of corruption behind that.
The former, you know, Purdue members of the board or whatever it was
are working now for the FDA.
So I think this is an important, you know, story to tell.
This illicit drug, as we call it now, started in a trusted pharmaceutical sense,
you know, being prescribed by doctors that were also being hoodwinked
about the efficacy and the safety.
Yeah, I think one important thing to point out as you're talking about,
you know, the addiction and the opioid crisis and everything,
is there is not one socioeconomic class or race or any group of people
that is unaffected by that.
I think that's one thing that I really learned probably in the last decade
is my own personal perception of what a user or an addict was,
was not even close to what it really is.
There is successful professionals out there, doctors, lawyers, nurses,
if you name it, firefighters who battle addiction.
And it sometimes starts very innocently at post-surgery or something like that,
where somebody has a surgical procedure or something
and they get prescribed these medications,
like you said, that were approved through the FDA.
And whether they were overprescribed or whatever it may have been,
they form a habit and an addiction just from that.
Again, it starts out as an innocent use of a prescription medication
or something you were prescribed for.
And, you know, so the pill mills were a big problem
and as they were getting shut down, it turned into heroin.
And so again, you end up with a lot of heroin addicts
who potentially were initially introduced to it through legal means.
I think it's also an exciting time because if you think about,
for example, the crack epidemic, you know, arguably that was certain sections
and normally the poorer neighborhoods in certain areas.
And so you could kind of look down your nose.
I mean, I wouldn't, but, you know, people would look down their nose
and like, oh, they're an addict.
Of course, they'd go home then and drink, you know, half a bottle of whiskey,
exactly the same damn thing.
But there was that kind of snobbery, that tear system, if you like.
Now, because it is revealed that it doesn't matter, you know, this is everyone.
Now, I think there's maybe you can get the most support
because everyone knows someone who's lost someone.
Like everyone does now to this kind of, you know, the opioid crisis.
So I hope that, you know, people like maybe RFK
and some of these people that we're seeing emerge now
that can actually kind of frame this differently
that hopefully we can finally turn a corner, change the way we do some things
and actually show addiction for what it is,
a mental health crisis that surpasses any barriers.
Yeah, you know, from personal experience,
I used to think that, you know, anybody could beat anything on their own.
And as we'll get into, I learned firsthand that that's not always possible.
You know, alcoholism ran in my family and I really didn't know it
because I kind of dismissed it.
And I thought, you know, I wasn't those people or my family,
it wasn't those people.
But like you just mentioned, there's not a single person in this country
that has not known somebody who's been affected by addiction to drugs
or alcohol or anything else.
And I think we do find ourselves in a really exciting time right now
because we have normalized the ability to talk about it
and we have normalized the ability to overcome it.
For a long time, you know, people would suffer with addiction,
triumph with sobriety, and they would hold on to it and hide it.
And man, what a wasted achievement
because sometimes it takes just one person to share their story
or partner with somebody or be their accountability partner
or whatever it may be.
It might take just one person to have one conversation to save another life.
And I think that's one of the big things that I've really set out to do now is,
you know, while I was uncomfortable for a long time
and it still is periodically for me to talk about addiction,
I've always told my wife and my close friends
that the conversation is worth it if it positively affects one other person.
I couldn't agree more.
Well, you mentioned about the alcoholism in your family.
When you look back, your parents and even further back,
you know, what were some of the struggles that they encountered
that you think led them to alcohol,
then we'll obviously get to your journey.
Yeah, so my parents actually never suffered from it,
but my uncle on my mom's side and my grandfather, my mom's father,
both suffered from alcoholism.
And, you know, my uncle and I have always been close.
His name is Steve as well.
But I also credit him with helping me in my sobriety.
You know, so growing up as a child,
my uncle worked in the steel business in Cleveland, Ohio,
which was a big deal, you know, big business in Cleveland back then.
And I remember I was probably eight years old.
My mom told me that Uncle Steve was going to drive a train for a while.
He'd be gone for a while.
And there was a train at the steel yard that he used to take me to to see.
So it just made sense as a kid,
Uncle Steve's going to drive this train.
And so I bought into that life for years
until I realized Uncle Steve was in prison
because he went to pick up a package of illegal drugs.
I don't remember what it was at the time.
Probably cocaine.
He went to pick up a package at a FedEx place that was that was illegal drugs.
And he got picked up by drug agents right there in Cleveland
and and did time for it.
And he never told me about it until years later when I asked about it.
And so I watched my uncle
binge over the years with drugs and alcohol.
He would come around for a couple weeks and be gone for weeks or months.
And he'd come around and he'd be gone.
But a number of years ago, he finally decided enough was enough.
And through AA and an awesome support system he had,
he got sober and still sober to this day.
And I should know exactly how many years, but I don't remember.
I'm pretty sure it's 11 years for him now.
And he was a huge, huge, huge advocate and accountability partner for me
to to my own sobriety.
My grandfather passed away, had a heart attack
and very, very much directly related to his alcoholism over the years as well.
And I'm lucky to still have Uncle Steve here with me today.
And so, you know, we've got a great relationship.
I talked to him nearly every day early in the morning.
We both get up early in the morning now and we get up with grace
and we're thankful that we have a new day of sobriety
and we have a new day of sharing that and helping others get sober as well.
You know, I mentioned he used AA.
I use Celebrate Recovery through my church.
And, you know, unfortunately, it almost took me losing my family
to realize I had to make a change in my life.
And I remember sitting with a counselor with my wife
and he looked at me and he said, you know, Steve, you can stop drinking.
And I mean, how many times had I heard that, right?
And but I was on the brink of losing my family and I had a decision to make.
And so I went to Celebrate Recovery, which is basically a Christian
in the church version of AA.
And I learned there that everybody has a heart, habit or hang up.
And through that, I was able to get a mentor and accountability partners
and work 12 steps through that program as well
and really get my life back and give my family, the husband and father,
back that they deserve.
You know, growing up, I watched my dad buy a six pack of beer
and it would last him a week or two.
That's by no means a drinking problem.
My dad was able to control it.
And to be honest with you, my dad still denies, I think,
when I talk about being sober, my dad still sometimes, I think,
denies that I had a problem because in his mind, everybody can control their actions.
Everybody can control what they do or don't do.
And for a long time, I kind of heard him say that, like, about my uncle,
like, well, why doesn't he just stop?
And it wasn't until I was faced with my own problem
that I realized that just stopping isn't always an easy option for people.
When you kind of reflected, when you worked through the steps,
were there any elements of your early life
that contributed to this need to fill the void with alcohol?
You know, I grew up in a family that had high expectations
and I think to a certain extent, I probably thought for years
I didn't meet those expectations, especially when I quit college.
That's one reason that in my role on the county school board here,
I've always worked to tell students that you define your own success.
You know, when I graduated high school, if you didn't go to a four-year university,
you were kind of looked like, oh, you're not going to be as successful as the people who did.
And so I did what I was supposed to do. I went to college.
And I got some benefit out of it because when I went back,
there were some credits that were able to transfer and carry over.
But what I got out of it was partying, hanging out in the bar scene in the city.
And that was probably the start of unhealthy relationships with alcohol,
you know, probably with women.
And, you know, that just kind of spiraled out of control to where,
you know, I was drinking every day that I wasn't on shift at the fire department.
And you couple that with the stress of the job and what you see and do.
And, you know, addiction runs rampant through first responders, as we know.
And so, you know, I was surrounding myself with the wrong people.
And I'm not saying the wrong people that you shouldn't hang out with your coworkers.
But I was surrounding myself with enablers.
That's probably the better way to say it because I was doing and they were doing this.
We all thought that was normal while we were all going down a very dangerous path.
So, you know, when I look back into the past, absolutely,
there's specific situations where I went, man, that led to this, which led to that,
which got me to this point where, you know, there was a point in my life
where I thought there was no turning back and I was going to be just what I was.
Until I learned to surround myself with the right people,
I realized how supportive my wife was during all this.
I learned how challenging it can be to be a spouse of an alcoholic, right?
So, you know, we all talk about the alcoholic and the addict and what it does to them.
But everybody around them are suffering with them.
And so, you know, I'm grateful for my wife's strength and her passion to see it to the end with me.
And we celebrate that every day.
What would you define as your lowest point?
You mentioned that you're sitting in front of this spiritual guide
and we're talking about saving your marriage and you've got to stop drinking.
When you reflect, was there any suicide ideation?
What was the kind of behavior that took you down that path where it almost destroyed your family?
No, I didn't have suicidal ideation.
But when my wife told me enough is enough and, you know,
we're going to have to go separate ways because my wife worked in the private sector
and she'd come home every day and on the surface outside of our house,
everybody thought I was doing everything right.
You know, I worked for our department schedule and I would, you know,
my kids were clothed and we have a nice house and everything was taken care of.
And, you know, so, you know, when I got home in the afternoons and I would start drinking heavily.
And then when my wife would get home from work, you know, her husband standing in the kitchen,
yeah, dinner was done. Things were probably picked up, the normal things that she would expect.
But here I was standing there intoxicated every day.
And so my wife looking me in the eyes and telling me, you know,
the girls and I are going to have to go somewhere else because we can't live like this.
That was the lowest point for me by far.
So then let's talk about the other side.
What were the tools that helped you, you know, pull yourself out of this deep pit?
Because I mean, just not drinking anymore, obviously, is an immense mountain for most people.
So what were some of the things that you accumulated that help you start to unpack the issues
that would drag you back into the bowl?
Yeah, so I had to come to terms with denial because I kept telling myself I wasn't what Brandy said I was, right?
And so I had because I never went to work in Paris.
So in my mind, just because I was drunk every day I was off, I didn't have a problem.
The denial piece of it was I couldn't not have it when I was off work.
And so that was the first thing is I had to come to terms with, you know, the definition of what an addict was.
I had to come to terms with I single handedly had no control over my own actions.
And it took a small group of men who were also battling the same things I was not all alcohol.
Some was drugs, some was porn addiction.
But all of it was we had to get in and get raw and really get down to the brass tacks of what was going on.
And so working the 12 steps and learning different things I could use for coping mechanisms,
who my support system was reading, finding things to do with my time, you know,
instead of being home and working in the yard and constantly drinking vodka while I was doing it.
You know, for me, it was learning other things I could do.
So it didn't, you know, it's like the oral fixation of drinking something.
So like I drink seltzer waters now.
But then I also had the piece of I realized I was depressed while I wasn't suicidal.
I was depressed. And so all I was doing was masking those emotions with alcohol.
And, you know, through one on one counseling, personal counseling on my own,
I learned that there were some things I hadn't unpacked and hadn't really dealt with from, you know, bad calls years ago that.
I just, you know, the standard macho firefighter paramedic thing you can see and do everything that doesn't affect you and you put up that shield.
All that all that shield is doing is keeping it all in.
You know, that shield is not keeping anything else from entering.
It's just holding it in. It's kind of like an asthmatic.
They can't, you know, exhale the air. They don't get in the air in.
It's getting the air out. So it was just learning about all those different things and unpacking what actually was bothering me and realizing that I had unhealthy relationships with alcohol.
And, you know, like I said, women years ago and all of those things so that I can concentrate and put first things first,
which is building relationships with my family and the people around me.
Beautiful. Well, you mentioned about entering the fire service.
What was some of the career calls in that first department that you worked for?
Doesn't have to be the worst thing you've seen, just career calls, things that you remember and look back on.
Yeah, you know, one of the big ones I that really still I still think about today actually happened here in North Carolina.
You know, we got called me and Debbie and I still keep in touch with her.
She doesn't work in this area anymore. But we were on an ambulance.
We get called to a rollover and we get there and there's six young people, teenagers scattered across the road.
And we get out of the ambulance and, you know, there's there's teenagers doing CPR on their friends.
And and there's just two of us there for the moment.
Even though there's more people come, there's two of us there for the moment.
And no matter no amount of triage training, right, can prepare you for a situation like that because, you know.
It's impossible for emotions not to be involved in that.
And so that's one of those calls that I've stuck with me.
I'll tell you why it stuck with me about five or six years after that call.
My wife and I were sitting in Applebee's in a nearby town and the waitress walked up and she said, do you remember me?
I said no. And she described that call and she said, you found me laying in the wood line.
I said, are you kidding me? And she remembered and she remembered my face and, you know, I wear glasses now.
I didn't wear glasses at the time and like all these different things.
And she remembered that. And for whatever reason, that call has just stuck with me.
I think because part of it was having an interaction with that young lady years after and knowing that, you know.
Well, I don't look at it as a major impact on her life.
She absolutely does. And so, you know, that's one of the things I feel like numerous calls like that.
That, you know, over the years, you just you think about it.
I don't want to think about that. And you just start drinking.
And then you and then for me, it just kept going on and on and on and on.
That's beautiful to hear, though. I'm assuming that all those teenagers made it if you got traumatic cardiac arrest.
So for that one success story, that one life to be changed positively must have definitely taken the sting out of that little bit.
Yeah, a number of those those young people didn't make it that night. And, you know, to know that there was some good that came out of it.
You know, it's positive. But it's one of those situations where.
Anytime somebody says, you know, anytime you meet people, they're like, oh, what's the worst thing you've ever seen?
And, you know, I despise that question like everybody else does.
And I don't typically talk about that call. I usually dodge the question.
But when you when you ask it in relation to where I am today and the lowest point, that call definitely had an effect on both those things.
Absolutely. Well, walk me through then.
I mean, you you go empty, you go parametric, you go fire.
How did you find yourself as the kind of like backup mayor and get into the kind of political side of things?
Yeah. So in the town where I currently live.
So I actually live in a city called Boiling Spring Lakes, which is just outside Southport, but we have a Southport milling address.
So I always tell people, you know, it's like living in a suburb of Cleveland.
And so, yeah, so I've been a first responder for a number of years.
And I had actually grown frustrated at one point working in the fire department.
And I know all these things that we need. And when you go into budget time, you learn, oh, we're not getting half of what we need or want.
But there's all this money. Why can't we get it right?
And so in my mind, I wanted to because I don't work in the city I live in.
I wanted to help other people that way. I wanted to understand it more.
So so I ran for city council here and I won the first election.
I was in 2017 and then I was appointed as the mayor pro tem that same year because the council itself appoints the pro tem.
So I was the mayor pro tem and I worked through some things.
I learned that a lot of the things I thought I knew I didn't one being how a government budget works and how there's not an unlimited pot of money.
And when you're sitting, I've always told everybody I'm so grateful for the experiences I've had in elected office because I understand both sides of the desk now.
It's made me a better presenter when I'm presenting to a board about things that we need and what they cost and why it's important.
And it's also made me understand prioritization in the fire department.
And I think explaining it to my peers as well, because when you're going through a budget process, whether it's a small municipality or a large one,
there's a ton of people coming out with their hands out and what they want is absolutely the most important thing to them.
Just like when somebody calls 911, no matter how we perceive their emergency or their issue, it's an emergency to them.
And it should be treated as such. And so, you know, having to learn to prioritize what parks and rec needs versus the fire department,
both are important or roads and sewer and water and all those things.
So I found myself on town council. It was a great experience.
We got a lot of things done in the town. And so while I was doing that, I have my own children who go to public school here.
And somebody said to me, you know, you're young, you're energetic.
We think you would really have a positive influence on the county school board.
And I thought long and hard about it because I've always been interested in politics.
I was president of a political club when I was at the University of Akron.
And I've always been interested. I never saw myself as the actual politician.
I saw myself more as behind the scenes, kind of like Karl Rove kind of guy.
And so, man, school board. So I took some time and I prayed about it.
And I ran a three way primary against an incumbent in 2020 and I won that primary.
So I was the party's nominee here in my county for the Republican Party.
I did not have a challenger in the general election.
So I cruised on in to my first term on the school board and my peers elected me as the vice chairman.
And then COVID happened. So I've gotten the lead through crisis twice now in political office.
The first one was on city council when Hurricane Florence came and it busted a dam in our small town
and having to go through all that and the floods and the broken roads and actually walked home from my wife's uncle's house
after that storm because I needed to get back to be with my town and my people.
And so then COVID happens. And so now I have another crisis.
Everybody knows that being on a school board during COVID-19 was a nightmare.
It absolutely was a crisis. There's a lot of decisions that we were forced to make with the information
we had at the time that I probably wouldn't make today. But again, you know, that's one of the things I've learned
is that, you know, Monday morning quarterbacking, we've all done it for athletic events,
but we can't judge decisions made in the past based on the information we have today.
And so differently just to jump in because I think what we can do though is learn.
We can go. OK, that was the choice. Those are the choices that were made.
As you said, I disagree with that. I disagree with them very early on.
You know, I listen. We all listen. I think the first few weeks everyone was on the same page.
But what's really the, you know, irresponsible thing is after we came out,
the people that made those decisions like we don't want to talk about it anymore, you know,
so I think there's a great opportunity to learn.
So as a member of the school board, excuse me, another flu, you know, let's call this one Sebastian comes in.
You know, what would you do differently this time based on what we learned from the last time?
So I live in a very conservative area in southeastern North Carolina.
So let me preface it by saying that.
But there was a lot of decisions that were made because we thought at the time
and still potentially some of it today is that we would lose federal and state funding
if we didn't follow the rules that were being handed down to us.
Now, if you remember back when this first started, we had, you know,
we had a Republican president at the time in North Carolina.
We had a Democrat governor. So we were getting conflicting rules and orders from there.
So the biggest thing was about the masks.
So at the time, you know, you had to wear the mask because the state said we had to.
And our understanding is that we will lose funding from the state.
And, you know, if we lost state funding, we would have to close schools.
That's how paramount state funding in North Carolina is for public schools.
So we made all these decisions because of money.
So that's the point I'm trying to make is we made these decisions because of the fear of losing money.
Meanwhile, we have lost.
Years and potentially a large portion of a generation in the public education
because of not only masking when it comes to phonics and reading,
but also because we had remote learning for a period of time where students were on their computers trying to learn at home.
I know that was a complete failure in my own home.
And I'm here every almost every day with the amazing schedule I have at the department I work for.
So knowing that we couldn't do it good, I can only imagine how difficult it was for dual working households.
You know, our area has a rural aspect to our county as well.
That doesn't have high speed Internet.
So we didn't work through the challenges of saying you have to do school on a computer at home.
But by the way, you don't have Internet.
So we had to work through all that and get them Internet and hotspots and all that.
So I absolutely, you know, I look back on this now, getting back to your original question about what would I have done differently?
I would have gotten us back to in-person faster than we did.
And I'll say this. We were in-person learning.
We were one of the first ones in the state of North Carolina to go back to in-person learning.
I'm proud of that. But I think we could have done it faster.
The second thing is the masking aspect of it.
You know, as time was going on, we were learning that those masks did absolutely nothing.
And so, you know, part of the frustration I feel about it now is it created so much distrust in experts because the experts became politicized.
And so the masking thing and the reading, you know, I have an eight-year-old now.
She's in second grade.
So she was wearing a mask and trying to learn how to read and learn how to talk and sound out letters and pronounce words while not being able to read the lips, which is so important when it comes to phonics.
And so both of those things and the lasting effect it's going to have on our children and their learning and potentially even into adulthood,
I still lose sleep over that at night.
Again, we know much more about it now than we did then.
So it's not regret, but it's definitely an experience that I'm going to look back on in the future and say we can do this better.
Yeah, I mean, this is this is the value in the conversation.
I don't have a time machine. We can't go back. We can't change the way things were done.
I was very fortunate. We were in Florida and we were hailed as irresponsible and all this stuff.
I would argue we did it probably one of the best of any state in the country.
We shut everything down and credit to Governor DeSantis.
I don't agree with a lot of stuff he does, but I'll give him credit for this.
And he's very pro-firefighter as well.
But he just opened the faucet. All right. Open it a little bit.
How are we doing? We're still good?
Okay. Open a little bit more restaurants, gyms, blah, blah, blah.
And so it was excellent. And my son, I think, missed the very end of his middle school.
I think it was. And then the school opened up.
He was there day one of his high school.
So it was really only a long summer that they missed in Florida.
But when I look at especially other states, these children that graduated,
they have these bizarre outbreak Hollywood esque, you know, graduation ceremonies driving by and sticking a hand out and grabbing the,
you know, the diploma and then now go home.
We'll just give you money. There's no jobs. Just go home and stay home.
And then a year and a half later, what's wrong with you? Go get a job.
You know what I mean? So that's the generation.
I really think of the worst end of the stick.
The kids that were in school. Absolutely.
I mean, that home homeschooling thing.
It fits some people. But my son emotionally, it actually suited him being home for a bit.
He was kind of going through some stuff then and it worked out then.
But like you said, the ability to access a computer or parents even home.
Do you have Internet? All these things are the massive effect.
But the kids that graduated that we said when you turn 18, now you're in the workforce and there was no workforce.
And we did nothing to lift them up and empower them and get them back on that treadmill.
I think those are the ones we need to worry about the most.
Absolutely. And you know, the big thing, I love talking about triumph and success coming out of a crisis.
And so there's two things I want to point out. And it goes back to what you were just saying is,
you know, the very worst decision is no decision.
And so, you know, I always like to point that out when people bring up, you know, decision we had to make in the past.
And the second thing is talking about triumph is we learned during COVID here in Brunswick County
that we were able to do graduation in our football stadiums of our high schools.
And we still do that today because the community and the students love it so much.
So we were forced outside during COVID.
And then here we find this amazing opportunity for students to graduate and have that school spirit on their football field.
And so we're able to do because we're in southeastern North Carolina.
But that's one thing that came out of COVID that we've stayed with is that, you know,
we do graduations on the football field and there's still little things today.
A parent will call me or I'll talk to a staff member and they'll be like, why don't we do this anymore?
And when I look back, it was like a COVID decision reduction measure that just got forgotten about.
And so we are actively like every day, my colleagues and I, anything that was like pre-COVID,
making sure it's put back in place so we don't have lasting impacts on future students
and future generations that had absolutely nothing to do with COVID at the time.
Yeah. For God's sake, remove those stickers on the floor and get rid of those perspex screens in the shops and restaurants.
Yeah, those have been gone for a while.
But, you know, it's like so we have free breakfast and lunch in our school system here.
And some schools were still eating in the classrooms just because.
And so, you know, we let them know, look, go back to eating in the cafeteria and all those things.
And they all did for lunch and some of us still eat their breakfast in the classroom just because I feel like it's better
for the students in their small groups or whatever to do that.
But I'm just giving them that freedom of flexibility back.
So it's an experience I don't ever want to live through again.
But I'm thankful again for what I was able to learn from it.
And I think our community, our country are much stronger today because of some of the things we learned.
Absolutely. Well, I think it's important that we revisit that and pull these lessons out.
So I kind of stopped you there. So to carry on with your political journey up to today.
Yeah. So when I was first elected to the school board, my colleagues graciously appointed me to be the vice chair.
So I went from being basically the vice mayor to being the vice chair of the school board.
And so I did that for one year.
And then the chairman of the school board decided that he didn't want to be the chairman anymore.
And my colleagues picked me to be the chairman of the school board.
And I was the chairman of the school board for three consecutive years now.
And I still currently am. And then I just won reelection last Tuesday.
So we will continue this journey and serving the students.
I got to tell you, I have a deep love for young people.
And I know that there was a lot of people externally that had a lot to do with my success as a young man,
as an adolescent, and then making me who the man I am today.
And so I want to make sure that we are I can be a part of not only making my own children successful,
but helping other children be successful, too.
And one thing I've really learned in the last couple of years is the baggage and just the things that kids show up with today.
These these young people are faced with things that you and I never had to see and never had to experience.
And so they don't always show up present and prepared to learn every day.
And so I'm just glad to partner with agencies like the Alliance for Father Friendly Schools and the Watch Dogs program,
getting more male volunteers and dads in elementary schools,
because that's where a lot of young boys don't see positive male role models.
There's a lot of fatherless children out there.
And by no means am I able to be a father to everybody's children.
But if I can just get in there and have a positive influence on one additional kid other than my own, it's worth it.
I volunteered for what they call Morning Mile in my son's elementary.
They would literally do laps before school. The brilliant program.
I used to do the career day. And even then I would I would bring all my gear, the stuff and play videos.
But then I would talk about kindness and compassion and teamwork rather than,
oh, you've got to pass a standardized test and elementary school kids don't give a shit about your psychological test.
But it was amazing for that reason. You know, just and I was known as Ty's dad.
I always joke with my son like I've never had my own name.
I've always been Ty's dad. But it's so important.
And if you look at even, you know, the problems in the first responder profession, especially the law enforcement,
I talk about this all the time. Why do we have so many gangs, so much homelessness,
you know, all these people that are struggling when they're, you know, very, very young.
People will point out it's because of the broken homes was that what they say it takes a village.
So if this home is broken for whatever reason, be there, be a mentor in your community.
So I couldn't agree more if we really want to change the world as they say,
start a home, but then step outside your front door and find someone else to help as well.
Well, and so here's my bombshell to the comment you just made about broken homes.
My oldest daughter does not live with us because I had her before I was married.
And so my 14 year old daughter, who's a freshman in high school, who I have a great relationship with,
you know, doesn't live with us. So she's part of a broken home.
And when we co-parent her mom and stepdad and my wife and I all have a great relationship now.
It wasn't always that way. But we are actually at a point now where we can go on a joint family vacations
and all kinds of awesome things. I love to celebrate.
But Zoe, you know, she's 14. She's doing very well.
And you're right. It does take a village. And Zoe knows that everybody loves her.
And, you know, she's 14, so she was able to handle the conversation, you know, about her mom and I.
And so, you know, but a broken home doesn't have to mean a bad path for a child.
And I think that's I guess I hate that excuse a lot of times.
I hear people say just like you said, because that's not, you know, a definite equation to being a criminal
or being on drugs or early death. That doesn't have to be part of it. That's an excuse.
That's something somebody says, oh, man, this happened to that person's kid or that.
But they were part of a broken home. No.
This is where dedication to your family and dedication just to all things relationship wise, building bridges.
Right. And so I defy those odds every day. And people say that to me a lot.
How do you do it? And my wife will tell you it wasn't easy.
You know, Zoe's mom and my wife weren't always on speaking terms.
Zoe's mom and I weren't always on speaking terms.
I got to tell you, I credit the relationship we have today because of Zoe's stepdad.
He's also a firefighter for a living.
And he's also the fire chief of their volunteer fire department where they live just a little ways away from me.
And my 14 year old daughter is a junior firefighter.
And, you know, her stepdad's giving her that opportunity.
And it's awesome because last year I was able to give Zoe her first fire helmet with her first shield that her stepdad and her mom,
my wife and I all did together for her.
And just to see the joy and the tears run down her face because Zoe was old enough to see the challenges we had over the years.
And so, you know, not to get down a rabbit hole with that, but we are a story of success through a broken home.
But not because it was the path of least resistance, but because we knew that was our responsibility.
Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. I mean, I'm remarried.
So, you know, I had a horrendous relationship with my son's mother for a long time.
I've been a foster, a stepdad for my wife's son, you know, when we first met.
And, you know, and it's up to you to swallow your pride.
And even, you know, if it's a one way kind of battering from a parent that maybe is not investing their kindness and compassion the same way that you are,
then you just have to take it on the chin because it's for that child and you have to minimize the damage.
But one of the things that I hear from a lot of people that have been in a home and they've lost a parent to whatever or they were adopted or they were fostered or it was addiction is that sense of why wasn't I good enough.
But if you can show a child that even though the relationship dynamic of their parents is not the nuclear ideal,
but they're still loved and they're still safe, then I think you offset most of that.
But if you just out of their life and turn your back or God forbid, they lost him to prison or addiction, you know, that is that is crippling.
And in that case, it's people outside of that family that can also step up, you know, whether it's a coach or a teacher or a church leader, whoever it is.
So understanding that, as you said, that's not a foregone conclusion and that we each and every one of us are the solution to this.
And that young man or woman will then find themselves on the path to doing something good in the world rather than being dragged into the bad.
Yeah, you know, and it's you know, I can contribute a lot of my relationship failures was always mother probably to my drinking as well.
And a lot of the fights once I was remarried because of my drinking as well.
But I always think back and I shuffle when I think about this still to this day is when her mom and I had split up,
I remember saying another man will never be around my daughter.
Man, I felt macho when I said that, right. And I was going to help her by saying that.
And man, how stupid that was to say that.
Like, you know, I think back about it now again, I have information today I didn't have at the time and I have life experience.
But I think back of how grateful I am for my wife and for her stepdad for the role they've played in shaping who Zoe is today because it wasn't just her mom and I.
And Zoe spends a lot of time with all of us. And again, she's getting to experience something now as a 14 year old girl,
freshman in high school and a career and technical vocational program at her high school, which is a firefighting program.
And she's loving it. And she's loving life and it's keeping her out of trouble.
And she's got goals. And that's not just because of me.
It's because of the village that helped make her the young lady she is today.
Beautiful. One more area staying on education before we go into what you're doing now.
I had a guy on the show, Pasi Solberg, and he is from Finland originally, and he's toured the world now.
He's based in Australia, but he teaches on the Finnish education model.
And when you listen to kind of where their priorities are, they look at the child holistically, like all of the child.
They invest in the underserved communities, not penalize them for low test scores.
And so and obviously this more recess time, more play involved, less actual hours in the classroom.
So a lot of very progressive, yet really kind of old school ways of doing education.
And when you look at the actual rankings of the world, Finland is usually number one or right there.
So with this kind of lens, when it comes to the schooling, have you had any of these conversations about moving school away from standardized testing
and some of the things that we've just bludgeoned these children with the years now?
Absolutely. Yeah. So in North Carolina, so every state, the public education laws vary a little bit state to state.
North Carolina, the state laws here is heavy testing and heavy academic data collection.
I want to make sure I emphasize the academic data collection piece.
And so there is a lot of testing. There's beginning of the year, there's middle of the year, there's end of the year.
Then there's these boxes that every child should fit into.
And I always think back to a quote from Jesse Itzler.
You know, he talks about when his son was young and they were trying to diagnose his son with ADHD
or some type of learning disorder because he wasn't meeting the grades that they said that his kids should be meeting.
And he said he would always go into those meetings and say, there's nothing wrong with my son.
Are you telling me he just doesn't get it yet?
And that speaks to me. I always think about that when I'm having these conversations.
Somebody isn't damaged just because they don't fit into the box the government wants them to fit into.
I think of my own, my eight year old daughter who talked late because she had a tongue tie.
And so which means her her speech was delayed and her reading was delayed.
And so all of it was a little bit delayed. It doesn't mean that my daughter is broken.
And so, you know, we work through all those things with Madeline and she's highly intelligent.
And the other piece of this standardized testing is that it is a snapshot of one period of time of one day.
So even the brightest people in the world have a bad day.
And so you are you put so much weight on this snapshot that it really doesn't benefit the child long term because they end up with these labels moving forward.
So one thing that we've done here in the school district that I'm a part of is while we can't stop doing the testing because it's required by the state,
we can put more emphasis on the actual arithmetic and the educational piece to serve each student.
We call it serving the whole student, which is exactly what you were talking about with the finished model is serving the whole student.
Because like we talked about earlier, these kids are showing up with things today that sometimes make them not prepared to be fully present in the classroom.
So we do take a whole student approach here in Brunswick County, and one of them is removing the food and securities that some children and families have through our free lunch and breakfast programs for every single student, regardless of socioeconomic status in our county.
Beautiful. When you talk about they don't understand it yet, Jesse, it's this quote.
It reminds me of that series. What to expect when you're expecting.
I was the dad that read all the pregnancy books and all that stuff.
But I remember one of the things that was so powerful is it said, you know, at this age, your child should be able to do this.
Yeah, they might even be able to do this.
You know, and it was a scale like, you know, if they're not walking at three years old and yeah, it was definitely a problem.
Something you need to talk about. But, you know, if they're not doing somersaults at three years old, don't worry.
You know, some kids might be able to, but and there was a sliding scale and I love that.
My son was quite gifted athletically and he could kick a ball and stuff earlier.
But just like your daughter, when it came to speech and then ultimately reading, he was always behind and he almost failed out.
I think it was fourth grade. We gave him tutors and everything.
Now he's all AP classes as a senior in high school, but he's worked his ass off.
But it was also a case of just allowing everything to mature at the unique rates that he himself as an individual was going to mature at physically, mentally, emotionally.
So just like you said, now you cram all these round pegs, you know, in a square hole, you know,
and you wonder why it's not a successful model versus create an environment not only for learning, but I think what's missing and it's not because of the teachers.
We have some great people, but giving them the environment to be excited about learning.
I always tell people I was a straight C student in school and a straight A student in medic school and fire school because I understood it made sense.
And there was a why that if you just all because I said so because it's for the test, that's not igniting passion,
you know, in a young person to really want to learn to reach for a book to find out more.
Yeah, I firmly believe that the rigid structure sometimes sets our kids back as well.
So. You remember the times where you learn what type of learning you are,
whether you're auditory or visual or tactile with your hands.
And there's not a lot of opportunity in classrooms to have all those different variables or learning types sometimes.
And I think. Students are more aware today that I was when I was in school of what the testing means and what their numbers are
and where they're at compared to their peers.
And I think that creates a lot of anxiety.
I know it did for my middle daughter who's 11.
And so, you know, the opportunity a couple years ago came for her to test for a IG
and she already had horrible test anxiety from standardized testing from the beginning,
middle and end of the year.
And it was paper comes home and she gives it to me.
She was in third or fourth grade at the time.
And she was like, Dad, this is another test I have to take to be a IG.
And I took it to my wife. I said, I don't think she should take this test.
And, you know, she was an A.B. student.
She was doing well in school. But I saw the anxiety that even handing me that paper.
I just saw what I did to my daughter. So we had a discussion with her and what it meant.
And we determined that her taking that test to maybe be a IG,
the risk benefit analysis here in our household did not turn out to be one
which we were going to take that risk and make her take that test
because she wouldn't have done well on it.
And then she would have came home, you know, with a depressed attitude of,
I didn't do well on it.
Maybe I didn't meet this expectation from my parents or maybe I'm not good enough
or whatever it may have been. And so she's still an A.B. student.
I still feel like she's challenged in the classroom.
I don't think that held her back from anything.
And so, you know, that's the decisions we had to make as a parent.
And I always tell parents, you know, being on the school board
and having children in the school, which I think is very important to give that
voice in the room for parents, is I always tell everybody
you have to determine what is right for your own family.
Don't look at everybody else. Stop looking at everybody else.
Don't go to college because everybody else says you should go to college.
You know, welders are making 90 grand a year right out of a welding program right now.
Actually, they're probably making more.
That was a couple of years old statistic.
You know, me, I dropped out of college the first time,
but I now hold a bachelor's degree and I'm currently working on my master's online.
So just because you don't do it when you're 18 doesn't mean you can't do it.
And formulate your own picture and vision of success
based on what is good for you and not what everybody else says you should.
Absolutely. Well, I want to kind of move over to where you are now.
So let's talk about the unique kind of role that you hold
because you touched on earlier about being in law enforcement as well.
So talk to me about the actual kind of universal public safety
officer versus traditional, you know, law or police fire him.
Excuse me, law or EMS.
Yeah, so I work kind of at a unicorn agency.
So to give you the geography of it, we're a barrier island off the coast
of southeastern North Carolina that you can see from the mainland,
but there is no bridge to the island.
So I don't want to get there by boat.
And so and the ferry is a passenger only ferry.
It is not you don't take your car with you.
So the island is about seven miles long and couple miles wide.
And it's mostly golf carts over there.
There is some vehicles.
So you have the public works vehicle, you know, the village vehicles,
you know, the fire emergency services vehicles and then contractors
are allowed to have whatever equipment they need to fulfill
whatever their assignment is being a contractor.
So it's unique in that aspect.
The other unique aspect of where I work is we're a true public safety agency.
So we are certified in EMS, either EMT or paramedic.
We're firefighters and we're also police officers.
And that varies a little bit on different shift make-ups
about how many paramedics there is or this that.
And so the most unique part of it is we are a public safety agency
that does paramedic level transport.
So there's a lot of agencies out there that have like fire police together
where you have a primary role.
And if they need you, you can do the other one kind of thing.
And then obviously we know that EMS or fire based EMS is pretty common
across the country in a lot of areas.
But having all three together is unique.
So, yeah, we do all three.
I'm a lieutenant, which is like the shift commander role still kind of a company officer.
I have a sergeant that works just below me as well.
And so we have six person shifts and we're in charge of all
of the emergency response on the island.
And so everybody's a police officer on my shift.
And so the way I do our schedule is, you know,
it's two people assigned to each thing, so two on the ambulance,
two on the fire engine and two on patrol.
But when there's a call, I always tell everybody it is the,
it is organized chaos because, you know, you have, you know,
one guy coming off the ambulance to grab the aerial.
And, you know, you have police officers potentially if they have
to pass the station grabbing a second out pumper
or the police officers are getting there first and putting on their turnout gear
and everybody's sitting there watching going, what's going on here?
But, you know, I always like to give the joke because I do all the jobs.
I can kind of joke both ways.
At our department, the police officers don't park the police vehicle right in the way.
They at least don't, they at least get out of the way, right?
Because they know better.
Yeah. And, you know, and then obviously, you know,
our ambulance doesn't always have to wait around the corner
for the scene to be safe, right?
So it's, I like to punch, you know, poke a little fun and pick up both sides with that.
What about transport? Do you have an actual hospital on the island too?
No. So I'm glad you asked that.
So we load the patient up on our ambulance and we drive them
from wherever the scene incident location is to the marina.
We put them onto the ferry.
We ride with them just on the ferry with the, you know, they're on the stretcher.
We have all our bags and stuff with us.
We're a little bit more mobile than your standard ambulance because we do this.
And then we ride the ferry over to the mainland
and then we transfer care to a paramedic level ambulance on the mainland,
either municipal fire-based EMS system or the county system.
So that is for what you would be, you know, your non-emergency type transports.
Anything emergent, you've flown off the island or we work with the Coast Guard,
you know, weather permitting.
If the helicopter can't fly, the Coast Guard will come over and get us as well.
How vulnerable are you to hurricanes when they blow through?
Very vulnerable because, you know, we're surrounded by water on all sides.
And anything above a three, they evacuate the whole island.
We don't even stay.
So Hurricane Florence was the one that devastated the town I live in here,
was supposed to be a four, I believe, when it made landfall.
It turned out it wasn't.
It was more of a rain event than it was a flood event.
But, you know, mandatory evacuation.
There was no essential services on the island and then we go back.
That was a unique situation because, you know, here I was the mayor of Pro Tem.
I had Hurricane Florence here in southeast North Carolina,
it was almost like two storms.
You had the windstorm that came in as a category one.
There was like a 12-hour lull.
During that time, my wife's aunt and uncle called me and said,
hey, can you come help us cut a tree off the house?
So I went over there and during that time the rain and the flooding started
and I couldn't get home.
And so a couple days later, you know, hey, we're going back to the island for work.
And so we get back to the island and we hit a Commodeer, a kayak,
and a John boat that was not fire department assets
and paddle our way to the fire station through debris and all that kind of stuff.
And, you know, so that's one of the things that's unique is, you know,
we potentially wouldn't be there for that situation.
And I think there's only one or two people that stayed on the island.
But yeah, super unique situation.
I love where I work.
I think the thing I love the most about it is the year-round population,
the residents there, it's very small.
So you absolutely can have a very robust community policing model
where you know everybody.
That's why I'm so passionate about building relationships with people on a good day.
It's when a bad day does come, you already have that relationship with them.
And that can be across all three things.
You know, EMS, police, and fire.
But one of the things that makes it very difficult working in that situation is
we have to artificially create so many experiences.
So what I always tell everybody and one of my frustrations with fire service training is
that I've sat in class and I have relationships with all the big name fire instructors.
You know, I've met a ton of them and I've learned a lot from them.
But so many times we talk about tactics and response and all of the things
like the big fire departments do it.
There's much fewer large urban fire departments in this country
than there are smaller volunteer fire departments.
And so what I always tell the people I work with and my guys is the expectations
of the Village of Baldhead Island Fire Department is the exact same as the FDNY
or the Ocala Fire Department.
The difference is we have a bigger challenge because we don't go to as many fires.
We have to artificially create so many experiences to stay proficient on our skills.
And so, and that's why it's so important for us to send people outside the training
so they can not only network with other people, but they can get the training
from outside our island because if you continuously train just inside your agency,
you reach a point where you've learned all you can based on the experiences
and the knowledge of that one group of people.
And if you're not injecting other knowledge, you're actually not getting better.
So that's almost like a whole other conversation for a different day,
fire department training, but I'm super passionate about it.
You know, if you ask my coworkers, they would probably tell you I'm a little
over the top sometimes, but complacency is a real thing and combating that
at a small agency that doesn't go to a lot of fires is really a big challenge.
My last place was a small agency responsible for, you know, a high, high target hazard
in the US, but complacency was a thing, you know, lack of standards was a thing.
And don't get me wrong, there were some great firefighters within that department,
but it's, you know, if it's never happened, it's not going to happen rather than
if it hasn't happened, understanding the law of probability,
it's more likely to happen the next time, you know.
So when you don't have fires, then that's, I would argue you should be the best
at training, you know, the people that are running their ass off in, you know,
like Detroit, devil's night, they probably don't need to do fire training that night,
you know, but if you work in a place that protects the theme park,
this very well sprinkler that never sees fire, then you need to be burning.
You need to be, you know, getting your fitness up, you know,
because God forbid something horrendous happens and there's some horrible people
out there that are going to target where you work, then that's the time
when everyone's watching.
And as I pointed out, you know, if you don't take it seriously,
you'll be the next Uvalde and you think it's expensive training
and staffing your department properly, wait till those lawsuits roll in.
Yeah, you know, and you mentioned the Uvalde and the school safety aspect,
you know, being the chairman of the county school board,
that's something that's always on my mind and I'm thankful for the relationship
we have with our sheriff here in Brunswick County.
Sheriff Brian Chisholm is a phenomenal sheriff and he does a great job
with anything the school needs.
We have a great partnership with him and he does a great job covering our schools
and make sure our schools are safe, not only with just people,
but make sure we have the very best technology as well.
But getting back to if you don't burn a lot and being the best at training
and all those things, you know, the biggest or the career fire for me
actually happened on Bald Head Island in November of 2021.
And it was a day where that morning I told the crew, I said, you know,
we're going to pull big lines today.
And we probably spent three and a half hours that morning pulling
two and a half inch lines and flowing them and working on our skill
at flowing big water.
We were setting up portable master streams, we were doing all those things.
We packed it all up and that evening about seven o'clock, you know,
we get toned out to a structure fire and that being four houses
and two auxiliary structures on a night that had 19 mile an hour sustained winds
on a barrier island of North Carolina.
Right. And so I'll never forget the young lady that was on my shift at the time
when she rolled up, I could tell in her voice that something was wrong.
Right. And I rolled up shortly behind her.
We were on police that day.
We parked the vehicles out of the way, obviously.
And I remember rolling up and I there was just it was just an inferno.
And my size up, there's a YouTube video of the radio traffic off to send it to you
because it's kind of comical.
But my size up set was something along the lines of I think I have six structures
on fire, but I'll let you know later because literally like that's what we were faced with.
Right. But we had just practiced deploying large lines
and that fire was all large line deployment, you know,
two and a half for the smallest lines we were pulling.
And so at the end of it, we all laughed like, man, we were really worked our asses off
that morning, but it benefited us because we had just done it.
Right. And so that's why I tell you, you never know when a lighthouse landing fire.
That's the name of the neighborhood.
What was you never know when that's going to happen and working at a place where things most
of the time don't happen.
You cannot let that consume your mind.
You can't go to shift every day and go, it's probably not going to happen today.
You have to go to shift every single day and set your gear
up the same way you always do.
Get your gear out of the bag.
You have to check your tools.
You have to run your saws.
You have to do all the things.
Whether you're going to one fire a year or 14 fires a year
because every single situation that matters, right?
That's putting first things first.
And, you know, the whole cliche like people's lives are on the line.
Absolutely people's lives are on the line.
But your family is expecting you to come home.
Like, you know, my wife probably has a lower level of anxiety or worry
than somebody who's the wife of a firefighter who works at a big fire department
that probably goes to a fire, you know, once every other shift or whatever.
I very rarely get off late.
I'm probably not going to be in a dangerous situation.
But I have to have my mind prepared every single day that it's going to happen.
And I tell my wife all the time when she's when we're out in the public
and she's talking to somebody, I love where Steve works.
I always remind her that has been great up to this point,
but it might not be great tomorrow.
And that's why it's so important for leaders to invest in their people
and so important to combat that complacency
and make sure that you show up every single day present.
You just gave me the perfect, what they call it, soft pitch segue into the work week.
So speaking of investing in your people, talk to me about the schedule that you guys work.
Yeah, so we work arguably, in my opinion, the very best schedule that a fire department can work.
We work 24 72s.
It's absolutely recruiting tool for us, even when we're recruiting police officers
to come work at the fire department, you know, that are not used to working 24 hour shifts
knowing that they can go to work for one day and be off for three days.
It's an easy explanation to somebody coming from 12 hour shifts.
So that's one unique thing for us.
But I got to tell you, it has been amazing for my family and knowing that
because so I've worked 24 48s before.
I've also worked that one on one off one on one off one on four off schedule before
and I can tell you that that schedule was better than 24 48s, but nothing compares to 24 72s.
And I'll tell you exactly why.
Because when you go home for three days, you can be present for yourself
and you can be present for your family.
No matter how big or small, how busy or slow your agency is, being on shift is tiring.
It is taxing on your body and a lot of it.
If you allow if you keep yourself in a ready state, you're not resting well.
There's a certain amount of anxiety whether you feel it or not.
There's a certain amount of anxiety of what could happen next.
And so I know that I show up ready to be my very best every single day
because I just came off three days off.
I know that I am taking care of my family and I'm showing up present at home is the very best husband
and father every single day because I have three days off because I'm not always coming
or going to work or preparing for work.
I'm allowed to I can come home and not let the fire department consume me.
I can come home and kind of turn it off while also being available
because I was telling my guys I'm available anytime you need me
and I answer the phone and all that.
But you're able to separate that and have a life outside the fire department.
The other aspect of it is the recruiting and retention piece of it.
And you're going to retain your people because you're not overworking them.
So, you know, we have recently found ourselves down a couple people.
And so we've had to work some overtime to do have had to even hold over.
That sucks in any schedule.
But when you work 2472 you're burning your people out less
because you're still giving them adequate time off.
The other aspect of it and the one thing I was here being involved in government
that always bothers me is it costs too much money.
I'll tell you what cost more money.
What cost more money is constant turnover and constant training of new people.
What cost you more money is a liability lawsuit because somebody got injured on the job
because they were falling asleep behind the wheel or they made poor decisions.
Absolutely.
There's a mic drop moment right there.
When this I think this is what's important too
because when people talk about, you know, it's a waste of money.
I just posted the other day Iceland just revealed the results of a study they did
going to the four-day civilian workweek.
So the 32-hour workweek and their productivity is, you know, in that study one of my friends
that I've been to Iceland they have Polish immigrants working six days a week maybe
but in that study in that parameter those people they were looking at, you know,
there was an increased productivity and I've seen the same thing in the UK.
So when in these organizations that are actually doing this,
this is being shown over and over and over again to, you know, again for the happiness
and health of their population is of course improved, but they're more innovative.
You know, you come in we all know people make, you know, a two-hour job last eight hours sometimes.
So if you challenge them to do the same amount of work in less time, they'll rise up.
They'll work harder.
They'll be they'll invent things to kind of cut corners in a positive way make it more efficient.
And so you look at the corporate space.
They already get it.
Less is more invest in your people.
But then this argument against the fire service going to it.
Oh, that'll never happen.
They'll never go for it.
You know, I always say how are you okay with someone who works 40 hours telling you that you can't work less than 56?
Like I thought we were a pretty courageous take-no-shit kind of, you know,
profession and you guys are cowering like where is your, you know,
where is your fight to be at home with your family more and then one of the pushbacks I get.
Oh, well, you know, what about the stations that barely run anything?
Well, I would assume that your department is not running four or five calls a night and please correct me if I'm wrong.
But you invest in your people and there's a time when you wake up and there's six structures on fire.
Well, there's a heart attack or a stroke or some random wave that came through and caved in the houses at the front, whatever it was.
So, you know, this is what's so great to hear about that.
You're you're not having the core volume of, you know, you know, one of the Ohio cities Cleveland, for example, downtown.
But that's not the point.
You know, it's it's what's healthiest for the first responders.
And if you are getting your rear end handed to you in some inner city, this is even more of a fit.
But if a progressive town in North Carolina is seeing this or barrier island is seeing this as value and a recruitment tool and a retention tool,
then I hope to God that the rest of the population whose first responders are being driven into the ground
who are drowning from the lack of recruitment these days will listen to all these departments,
including yours and the testimony you've just got and realize that this absolutely is the solution.
And it's not even, you know, three days off.
You know, you've worked till eight.
So like I tell people, you work three days on one day off.
So now this will allow you to work three days on two days off and that extra day will give you time to actually recuperate.
Yeah, you know, I can say that I'm blessed to work for a municipality that values family and values time away from work.
And, you know, it says on our recruitment flyer when we're hiring a work life balance,
like they literally write that on there because they think it's important and perspective employees see that from the get go
when they see the job posting work life balance because that also contributes to all the things that we talked about previously
with healthy relationships and addiction and all those things is, you know, having that balance and that off time to clear your mind.
And, you know, we don't run a ton of calls like a busy inner city engine company or anything like that.
During the summertime, we we we run a lot more calls.
But again, I think basing it purely off call volume is probably the worst way to look at it.
You need to base it off of what is right for people.
OK, because if you show up for your people as an employer, if you show up for your people every day, they're never going to hesitate to show up for you.
And in the fire service where we find more people retiring than we have coming into the fire service,
we have to let people know that they're appreciated.
There's a lot of job perks in the fire service that we've lost over the years and we need to get some of those back.
The other thing about it is not only that we have more retirees than we have recruits,
but we have more volunteer fire departments going to paid fire departments because when people are away from their families,
they need to be making money in most cases or areas are growing so rapidly that a volunteer fire department alone can't service it.
And I've been a volunteer before, you know, as a volunteer, EMS chief.
I'm not trying to make it sound like I don't appreciate volunteers because they're an absolute needed force in emergency response.
But there's just a lot of areas where the paid service is now coming in and being a part and collaborating with it.
And so this shift schedule sends the message that you care about your people.
It sends the message to the community that we are going to provide the very best responders for you.
Every single day, because one thing that seems to be a trend,
I've seen it happen around us, is this 48, 96 nonsense.
You know, if 24 hours is a long time, 48 hours is a really long time.
And, you know, they say we get 96 hours off.
That's just a play on a play on words because 48 hours on shift is two whole days away from your family.
That's two whole days that my wife and my kids want want me to be home.
That's two more days I'm not investing in my family.
And I think that has to be noticed.
Yeah, it's interesting. I interviewed Joel Billings and I feel so bad because I mean, it sounds like a witch hunt,
but it's just a perfect example. And we touched on COVID.
Trust the science. The science is not always apples to apples.
You know, there are studies that show that McDonald's and cigarettes are great for you and other people don't know what they're talking about.
Sponsored by McDonald's and cigarette companies.
And Joel did this study and, you know, innocently, he was a volunteer firefighter,
but he self-admittedly had never even worked overnight as a shift, you know, as a volunteer.
And he did a study 24 48 versus 48 96.
And the department he used using his words ran less than one call a night.
So he publishes a study and then as you said, people ran with it.
Oh, this is the best schedule.
The only real advantage to that was that second morning.
You're not having to get up at 5 a.m.
to drive 90 miles to the fire station like most of us do.
So which can be remedied in which I love this idea changing the start time from,
you know, 7 or 8 in the morning to 11 midday, you know, the 12 noon.
So that way most people that are especially if you're anywhere with bad traffic and obviously your your commute is unique.
You know, you wake up at home, you have breakfast with your family, they go to school and work.
You then head off to the station.
And then meantime, the person that you're relieving got hammered all night, but they get to sleep.
They get up at, you know, 10 11.
Now they drive home safely rather than trying to keep their eyes pried open with matchsticks and not,
you know, crash into the side of the freeway.
So when you look at the science behind that study, it was this myopic slice that applies to almost no fire department,
some, but almost none.
And these departments that run, you know, three, four, five calls a night went with this,
not understanding that 24 hours without sleep is extremely dangerous.
Forty eight is pure insanity.
And we wonder why we have so many suicides and addictions and cancers and testosterone in the toilet and all the things.
So, you know, they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
There is no better example of that.
So that's one thing I'm trying to do as well.
And hopefully Joel will now start studying the 24 72.
I think he and Sarah Jenke might be starting to do that because it was an innocent study,
but it was taken completely out of context.
And there's a lot of men and women that working and it's extremely dangerous for them when they're in the uniform.
And their chronic health is, you know, is extremely at risk because of this insane work schedule that they've got.
So that was interesting when I spoke to him and I really learned about how this even became in the forefront in the first place.
It was, again, you know, taking something that was done innocently and taken completely out of context.
Well, I think for years to, you know, and I don't have the study offhand,
but a number of years ago, there was a study done of employees and it was what is the most important thing to you?
And it was consecutive days off and time off matters and having consecutive days off.
And I think, you know, that forty nine to six falsely gives that security of, oh, you have more days off together,
but it doesn't talk about what you're giving up to get those days off.
And, you know, no matter how many calls you run, you have a heightened level of awareness when you're on the job, especially the police force.
So no matter where you work, whether you are having to draw your weapon every day or not,
you have a heightened level of awareness of what's going on around you, especially in the modern age, we find ourselves.
And so, again, that is taxing on the brain.
You know, I would love to see a study of Alzheimer's and dementia in first responders because of some of the things that that we go through.
And is there any statistics and data that can be drawn and conclusions of that trend and that connection?
You know, and the other aspect of it.
You can study anything and you mentioned earlier, you can find studies for and against anything.
I guess that's a great thing about Google and it's also the worst thing about it.
Right. And so you can find studies for and against anything and numbers will lie to you.
I mean, you can look at polls and statistics and the way they're presented and documented and they're switched and the way the words are changed to make it mean something that you want it to mean.
You and I could take the same data set and present it two different ways and tell two totally different stories.
And I fear sometimes that a lot of that comes from the managing entity, whether it be municipal government or private sector company boards looking out for their bottom line in the bottom dollar and not looking out for the person.
Well, I think this is what's interesting, too.
I mean, I've had so many conversations now, including with Tulsi Gabbard, and we're talking about the national problems that we have.
And it's that false economy.
You know, I want to look good in this budget year, so I'm not going to ask for extra people for a D shift.
I just want to look good and then I can get promoted or get my Christmas bonus or whatever it is.
But that's costing the taxpayer a huge amount of money.
That's another video I want to do is literally to them, the civilian.
Do you understand the way the fire service is being run now?
What is happening? The loss of performance, the loss of health, the overtime that's having to be filled, the cost of that.
And so if you look at what's best, even fiscally, you know, as you touched on earlier, it's not vacant spaces that having to be paid time and a half,
you know, which is then taking those first responders yet another 24 when we promised that they would be at that football game or that dance recital or whatever it was.
And now we have to make that phone call.
We all know what that phone call is like.
So investing in your people, having it where, as you mentioned, you show people that you have a work life balance.
These young people get excited. They start lining up outside your department to work for you again.
Now you save money from the overtime, from the workman's comp claims, from the medical retirements, from the line of duty deaths,
from the mistakes that we make that result in lawsuits.
You save millions and millions and millions year in, year out.
So I think this is the thing is financially having the courage to invest in your people, but also knowing that you're going to be the hero then.
Maybe not this year, but five years from now, they're going to look back and go, thank God that we went to that 24 72 because we have so much more money now that we can invest in gyms in the stations.
We can put that fourth person back on the rig.
We can open that station that we browned out.
You know, this is, I think, where we need courage and leadership.
If you're just concerned about your own career path, which I see here locally, people are too scared to advocate for other people because then they're not going to get to that next rung of their ladder.
That's not what we put the uniform.
We put the uniform on to serve other people.
So having the courage to invest in your department will not only serve, which I would argue most importantly, the men and women in uniform, but it will make us better at serving the civilians and it will actually save them taxpayers money, which will only then improve everyone's life.
You know, you mentioned something, the courage to serve always comes to mind with this for me because as firefighters in the modern day, we are so willing and ready to serve others.
But when it comes down to serving our peers within the fire department, serving ourselves, we run scared many times.
And like you said, it has a lot to do with promotions or trying to build unhealthy relationships with department administration, maybe because you want to be liked.
But at the end of the day, doing the right thing has to matter.
And I think one thing that's missing a lot of times in this schedule argument is looking at vacancy rates.
If you look at the vacancy rates of departments on various schedules, you're going to find that daily vacancy rates are lower with 24 72s.
I have not I have not done my own study. I have not seen the study yet, but I'm just I'm thinking about the perspective I have with all the conversation with people on these different schedules.
Daily vacancy rates could assume to be lower with that.
Workers comp, vacancy rates and injury rates are lower.
And again, do you want to have a department.
Where you have more people struggling with substance abuse and more divorces, or do you want to have a department.
That concentrates on family concentrates on healthy lifestyle.
And is that the pinnacle of the service?
And you know, you could be the aspiration of everybody else around you.
Look what they're doing. They're doing it right.
They take care of their people.
People are retiring from their agency again, right?
Because there's so many agencies that don't have people that retire from it anymore.
So many.
Well, I think the other point just to kind of add to that, which I think is really important.
Firstly, there's this kind of mythology that if we lower standards, we can attract people.
And I couldn't disagree more. I've seen it.
Anaheim, California, they held us to such a high standard that 25% of every probationary class was gone by the end of the year through attrition.
You can either reach the bar or you can't.
Conversely, the last place I worked out, the bar was in a trench in the floor and they could barely even get enough people to fill the vacancies.
You would think, you know, if that was the case, that, you know, you'd have all these people applying because they're not holding us to a standard.
But when you're in a profession where lives are at stake, we want that challenge.
We want that bar to be up.
But if you have a revolving door and we see this in Marion where I live, we see this in Orange County where I used to work, half of the department has five years or less.
Who do you want showing up on that rig when your family are having their worst day?
You know, two firefighters that have got six months on the tool and an LT on the radio has got three years.
You know, so this has to be you got to think about the big picture.
So the retention conversation is so important.
Why are people not staying?
As someone said to me, and it's so true, it said your ultimate recruiting tool are the people that already work there.
They're the ones that are going to be excited.
They're the ones that, you know, other people are going to see and go, man, I want to do what he's doing or she's doing.
They're in great shape.
They actually are home with their family more because they've got a 24-72.
You know, they seem to really enjoy their job.
You know, they get other people fired up about it.
That's how you get in not offering a $3,000 signing bonus and telling them they don't have to do push ups or sit ups anymore.
You know, that is just complete junk science.
So if you are struggling to fill and then people are leaving to go to other departments constantly, we have seen this with some of these departments.
Pasco is a great example.
It's a county in Florida, the moment they announced that they were going to a 24-72, actually, they were saying the moment it was even a rumor on the street, people started lining up.
And just like you said, Hugh Bruder from Boynton Beach talked about being a destination department.
You wanted a department like Anaheim was when I worked there that everyone else is talking about, everyone else wants to work for.
And that's why they could, you know, get rid of a quarter of us of every class because there was another thousand of us lining up to work.
So we were there once as a profession, but the way that we do it clearly isn't working because look at the holes in all these departments.
Look at the lack of retirements, as you said.
And that's someone saying I've vested for X amount of time.
I don't want the money.
This is so bad.
I'm just going to leave anyway.
So we have a beautiful opportunity to turn it around and it's testimonies like yours and, you know, talking about your fire department or sorry, your public safety department that are finally out there because you said that, you know, you haven't seen the studies.
There aren't any studies.
The fire service has done nothing about shift work because they know, they know the real issue and no one's had the balls to actually say we need to study this.
We need to annotate this because this is killing our firefighters.
And it disgusts me because I've said this publicly.
I played Union Jews for 14 years.
I never heard this mentioned once.
So now these departments are emerging that have changed to it in Florida or North Carolina or some of these other areas that we've done it for a while like the Northeast.
The dominoes are starting to fall and the people that are at the forefront of this are going to have all these recruits lining up.
So it's so, so great to hear all the things because you've had this for a while.
You can actually testify on the benefits that you're seeing.
I can tell you one thing that plays into as well as the crew camaraderie.
So we know that crew integrity is so important in the fire service is important in law enforcement and even an EMS,
you know, working with that partner on the back of the ambulance where you can treat a patient very well without ever speaking to your partner because you work so well together.
Right. Same thing, you know, in a fire or a law enforcement incident.
And having that amount of time off allows you to build relationships with your crew and with your peers outside the fire station.
Man, is that a benefit?
And that's just another investment, essentially, that the municipality makes.
It allows you to build those relationships that camaraderie that crew integrity outside the firehouse,
which pays dividends in the future when you're responding on the streets.
Well, I want to hit one more topic and then we'll go to some closing questions.
You have this unique lens where, you know, you've not only worn the uniform, but you've also sat in the political chairs, too.
For people listening that want to better their department, hopefully the 24 72 is at the forefront of this conversation.
We have done a horrible job of branding what we do.
I mean, we all hear these stories. Why is there a fire engine on my EMS call?
What are we buying you for lunch? All the bullshit fallacies.
But that just shows that we've done a terrible job of storytelling, which is, again, one of the reasons why I want my latest book to be a TV show.
Hopefully we can kind of set some of that straight.
But from a branding point of view, especially to city or county government officials,
we're trying to get them to understand what we actually do and why some of these progressive changes are so important on top of saving them money as well.
How would you advise the leaders listening to initiate that conversation?
OK, so I always refer back to my political experience with this.
If you don't control the narrative, the narrative will be controlled for you.
And that goes right back to what you were saying about a fire engine on an EMS call.
And I'm going to tell you a personal experience from when I was a child and had asthma.
And in the suburb that I grew up in in Ohio, you had a fire truck that would show up, paramedic level fire fires on an engine.
You would have a city fire based EMS paramedic level ambulance show up.
And then a third vehicle would show up, which was AMR, a private transport service.
And for years, I never understood that. Even as a kid growing up, I heard my parents complaining about it.
And what that was is there was two people on an ambulance.
They were calling. I was having an asthma attack. So a severe breathing problem called.
I needed more hands on deck. That's why the fire truck comes.
Then they would get me treated. And it was a non-emergency transport scene or situation.
And because the city was short on ambulances, they contracted with this private entity to transport the patient to the hospital in a non-emergency situation.
So you have all these vehicles show up and nobody knew what it was like because it wasn't the narrative wasn't controlled by the city.
Right. And so I've always said, if you don't control the narrative and you don't tell the story you want to be told, somebody is going to write it for you.
And I've had that experience in politics and I've had that experience in the fire service.
I can tell you the agency I work for now has great community involvement.
And we also have volunteers that work with us. And so we control our narrative.
And a lot of that has to do with public education and PR, which are two different things.
A lot of departments use public education and PR and think of the same thing. They're very different.
The objectives are very different, but they're both vital.
And so through doing that and explaining how responses happen and don't assume that when people call 911, they know why and how the response is happening.
You know, for us, for a vacationer that comes to Baldhead Island, they call 911 because somebody fell.
And a police officer shows up looking like the police that come in with a bag all of a sudden, you know, they're starting an IV on somebody or somebody.
They have no idea what's going on because where they live in New York or New Jersey or California, that's not what happens.
Right. The police normally say, let me know if they need us or whatever.
And they don't come or they just kind of stand in the corner.
So that's the unique thing about us. And so we have to brand that because we have to build that comfort and that trust with the community we serve.
And so same thing with the grocery store argument. A couple of years ago, that was a big thing in the area where I live.
Why is the fire engine at the grocery store?
And some agencies have decided no more fire trucks or grocery stores.
You got to take a pickup. So then you're splitting your crews, sending part of them in a pickup truck.
And then a call comes off. You no longer have your moment of stepping on a rig, you know, or now instead of a single fire engine going to a grass fire.
Now you have two vehicles going because part of them was whatever they were doing in the pickup truck and then the engines got to go with the pickup truck.
Can't fight the fire. It just creates chaos.
And then one thing we didn't talk about is the liability, right.
Of running emergency traffic down a busy road with lights and sirens going and the the unknown of what the public is going to do when that happens in their rearview mirror.
And so there's just so many things that again, you have to control the narrative.
You have to write the story or it will be written for you.
Beautiful. I appreciate it. All right.
Well, I want to go to some closing questions quickly. The first one I love to ask, is there a book or other books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
Yeah. So the first one is Leadership is Not for Cowards.
That was given to me by Dr.
Jerry Oates, who was the superintendent when I was first elected to the school board.
And in the I don't know if it's on the first page, but it's definitely in the in the first chapter.
There's a sentence and it says you are messing with people's lives.
And I've always thought about that.
Every decision you make has an impact on somebody else.
You're messing with people's lives.
And so that was a great book. It put a lot of things in perspective for me.
And then the other book that I'm reading right now that.
This is actually a second time reading it.
It's called Decisive and the author's last name is Heath.
Actually, it's two men, Chip and Dan Heath.
So I don't know if they're brothers. I haven't gotten to that point.
I haven't actually put that connection together, but the book is Decisive and I am a lifelong learner.
I love learning about leadership. I love learning about what makes people tick
and what motivates people and learning about discipline,
especially working in a public safety agency where some people come into our agency as police officers,
traditional police officers, some come in as traditional firefighters.
And what motivates police officers and firefighters are two totally different things.
And I've always loved blending those things together.
So, yeah, those are two books.
Beautiful. I'm going to have to get leadership is not for cowards.
That's a few people I need to send it to.
All right. Well, then what about films and documentaries?
You're going to find this funny, maybe or perplexing.
I don't really watch TV.
Around the firehouse, the guys always give me a hard time because, you know,
they did the movie quote thing like everybody does, and I don't get any of those.
I'm just not a big TV watcher.
I jokingly tell people I have undiagnosed narcolepsy because I fall asleep very easily when I sit down.
But I'm just I'm a busy body. I just like doing things and learning.
And that may be the detriment of me one day is that I don't like when I'm sleeping,
I rest, I sleep well, and I make sure I get enough sleep at night.
I'm boring. I go to bed at nine o'clock every night.
My wife and I do. And but I'm up four o'clock every morning because I'm just thankful for every single day
that I've been given and I don't want to pass up an opportunity to be better and enrich my own life
to potentially enrich somebody else's life.
And I'm not saying watching TV is a bad thing. I just it's just not something I do.
I read a lot. I like to work out and, you know, I'm known to be seen playing Barbies
or whatever with my daughters and just just investing in them.
Beautiful. Love it. Yeah, it's not.
There's a lot of people actually that say the same thing.
I enjoy documentaries and some things on the screen.
I enjoy a good film. The problem is now at 50 years old, you've just seen most of these stories over and over again.
So it's hard to find a good piece of cinema these days. But yeah, beautiful.
All right. Well, then the next question, is there a person that you'd recommend to come on this podcast
as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the world?
You know, I can think of a number of people who have had an impact on me,
but the person I think that would really do you a great service is a close friend of mine
who is not a firefighter, but he is a veteran and he served admirably admirably
in the armed forces here in the United States. And that's Jason Gaver.
He is also the president of our Brunswick County Habitat for Humanity.
So he's giving back to his community every single day.
But he's the person I call when I know I have a hard decision or a hard conversation coming up
because you know, another book that I try to read once a year is Crucial Conversations.
And I call him when I have a crucial conversation to have because he always helps center me.
He always gives me what I feel like is that one question I should ask.
You know, I had a situation recently with a colleague of mine and I had to have a crucial conversation.
And I called him up, I said, Jason, I said, I got this thing and I want to know their meaning behind it,
but I don't know how to get it across. And I don't want to sound like an asshole, right?
And he's like, Steve, is this in person or on the phone? I said in person.
He said, look him in the eye and say, what's your motivation?
And I kind of chuckled. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah.
Well, it turns out the meeting was canceled. I had to do it over the phone.
But I asked, I said, what's your motivation?
I learned so much about this individual that I didn't know because I had preconceived assumptions.
So anyway, if he would do it, I think he would be a phenomenal person for you to talk to as well.
Beautiful. Well, thank you.
All right. Well, then the last question for you, make sure everyone knows where to find you.
What you do to decompress?
Yeah, so decompression for me is I like to run, I like to work out,
and I incorporate a lot of that with my relationship with my family, my wife and I like to go out and walk.
My daughters and I will get out and do some short distance runs or bike runs or short distance runs or bike rides.
We're just kind of an outdoors family.
And then my big thing for me as a stress relief is I do a lot of long distance running on my own.
Getting into running has really challenged my mind.
I have a busy mind and running really makes you be present in the moment.
If you're running a 50 mile or 100 mile race, you can't think of mile 50 when you're on mile five
because there's a whole lot of time and miles in between there.
And so I've been able to utilize that just in life at work and in my personal life.
I'm just being present in the moment and enjoy the moment now.
And you have to do what you're doing now to get where you're going tomorrow.
Beautiful. All right. Well, then if people want to learn more about you,
reach out where the best places online to do that.
Yeah. So I have all the normal social media is Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn.
I maintain a political Facebook page and then my personal one.
But Steve Barger on Facebook, I'm Dad Bod Runs on Instagram.
I've loved playing and embracing the dad bod thing and staying away from the stereotypical dad bod over the years.
And it was just a funny thing to have.
And again, on LinkedIn and I try to get the message out every chance I get about my own challenges in the past and overcoming them.
So everybody knows that, you know, one bad decision or a bad situation in your life does not have to define who you are today.
Well, I want to thank you so much firstly for that.
Like I always say, the courageous vulnerability, this is truly what a man is.
Someone that can, you know, obviously run into a burning building or towards gunfire,
but also have compassion and empathy, whether it's towards the school children under their,
you know, their watch or just have the simple humility and compassion to talk about their own struggles and then become a beacon of light for others as well.
So between that 24 72, all the things, it's been an incredible conversation.
So I want to thank you so much being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Yes, sir. Thank you for having me.
And I just want to point out the positive effects that you're having as well.
There's a lot of fire departments in Florida where you're located that have signed on to the 24 72s and the work that you have done throughout your career in the fire department.
And now with your podcast and your show and your advocacy for all of us, thank you for doing that.
I think that you are creating results that even you probably don't even see at this point and that you're doing a great job.