This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran
-owned and operated performance optimization
company that I introduced recently as a sponsor
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Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of
this company is an altruistic arm called the
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And you can find that on jamesgearing .com under
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about Transcend and their story, listen to episode
808 with the founder, Ernie Colling. or go to
transcendcompany .com. Welcome to the Pioneer
Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing,
and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome
on the show teacher, fire chief, and the man
behind Two Dark Thirty, Mark Hill. Now, in this
conversation, we discuss a host of topics from
his journey into the world of teaching, firefighting,
leadership, writing, the firefighter work week,
volunteerism, and so much more. Now, before we
get to this incredible conversation, as I say
every week, please just take a moment. Go to
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Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
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is that you help share these incredible men and
women's stories so I can get them to every single
person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Mark
Hill. Enjoy. Well, Mark, I want to start by saying
thank you so much for taking the time and coming
on the Behind the Shield podcast today. Well,
thank you, James, for having me. It's a pleasure
to be here. I'm honored to be on your show. So
where on planet Earth are we finding you this
afternoon? I am right now in chilly 44 degree
Fahrenheit, Wausau, Wisconsin, which is in the
middle of the state. I wish I was still in Florida.
We were in Florida back. When was that? For my
girl's spring break. End of March. And it was
sunny and... 75 and 80 degrees the whole time
we were there in beautiful Cocoa Beach, Florida.
It's amazing how you get depressed when you lack
that sunshine. It's unbelievable. You don't realize
how much you like it until it's gone. Then you're
like, I want that back. I like that. I love that.
Vitamin D, natural vitamin D. That's what I find.
People ask me, do I miss the UK? And of course
I do. I miss many, many things about it. My family,
the comedy, you know, the, the manners, some
of the other areas, but, and then on the roads
too, my God, I mean, talk about driving, totally
different experience than over here. But when
I look out my window and it's sunny every day,
it's like a solar panel. You know, when, when
I go home, it's cloudy and drizzling. It really
does kind of drain me. So very, very appreciative
to live here in Florida. Nick, I was going to
say, are you in the Orlando area? Yeah, just
north of Orlando. Yeah. Yeah. See, I want to,
if I could, my wife, she's still working. I'm
now obviously retired, but I tell her every day,
I look at the weather and I'm like, hey, you
know what? It's sunny and 75 in Cocoa Beach right
now. She's like, oh, really? Yeah, that's great.
Good for them. I'm like, yeah, I know. Let's
go. Let's get out of here, you know. I grew up
in the UP of Michigan. That's where I actually
grew up. That's where my family's from. And I
was used to literally, cripes, we would have
snow. I remember trick -or -treating in Halloween
in snowsuits. You know, you try to squeeze your
costume on under a snowsuit or over a snowsuit.
And we would have snow literally until June.
You know, there was still dirty, you know, dirty
snow banks or whatever, you know, from all the,
you know, sand and grass, you know, stuff they
put in the road. But there were still snow banks
in the middle of June, you know. So it's just,
yeah, talk about gray, cloudy, overcast, never
seeing the sun, you know, depressing. Yeah, there
is a reason why there's so many bars up there.
But, you know, it can get to you. You don't realize
how good it is in the sunshine when you don't
have the sunshine. One of my friends, well, my
wife grew up in North Canton and one of her best
friends who sadly we lost not too long ago, her
husband is, I think he's from Michigan originally,
if I'm not mistaken, but they would talk about,
yeah, they get all their Arctic suits on and
then they go and saw a hole in the ice and they
sit there and fish. And I'm like, I look out
my window and I'm like, I don't know, maybe you
should come to Florida for a bit because you
can do a lot more than cut a hole in the ice
down here. But it, you know, everything has pros
and cons. We are just starting to get that heat
now that makes a lot of the snowbirds then turn
around and fly back the other way because our
summer's here, especially in bunker gear. I mean,
kudos to everyone in the state of Florida, California,
Texas, the hot, hot states. Firefighting in this
kind of heat and humidity, it's an experience,
that's for sure. Well, that's the thing, too.
I remember when I've done different conferences,
you know how it is. You go and you talk to people.
you know i was that was one of the things you
know because on you know on tv you know they
it looks it looks totally different you know
what i mean it's like those guys that's not turnout
gear they're wearing you know what i mean you
could just totally tell you know or like when
some of those guys are doing those uh you know
the stair climbs and stuff like that i'm like
that's yeah that's your shell you're not you're
not climbing in your bunker gear those are tennis
shoes those aren't boots you know and it's just
like yeah i wouldn't want to Like you said, I
wouldn't, if I was in Florida, if I'm on Orlando
fire, you know, running out of, you know, something
and you know, you know how it is. Most of our
calls are EMS anyway. I'm not going to be in
my full turnout gear, you know, while I'm doing
whatever, you know what I mean? It's like, no,
if it's a structural fire, we, we know we have
smoke and flame show in the, I'll put my turnouts
on, but nine times out of 10, you're going to
wear the other stuff, you know? And we actually,
we, right before I was put to pasture, We had
a set of, it was both wildland rated and it was
also rated for extrication and stuff. And we
ended up wearing that all the time. Because it
looked like shells. It looked like your normal
bunker gear, your turnout shells. And it was
great. it was like, yeah, I could work. Yeah.
This is, this has got to be what they do. Yeah.
You know, this is, this has to be it. Cause otherwise,
yeah, I'm walking around with my, you know, all
my turnout gear on weighing another 300 pounds.
It's like, yeah, no way. Sweating my fricking
whatever off and, you know, wishing I'd, you
know, put deodorant in places that deodorant's
not meant to be. So, you know, I couldn't imagine,
you know, doing that. Well, you mentioned about
growing up in Michigan. So let's go back there.
Tell me about your family dynamic, what your
parents did, how many siblings? So I'm the oldest
of three. I'm the lone son. I'm the last, actually.
I'm the last hill. I have three daughters. So
I have no male heir. This is it. The line ends
with me, right? So my dad. All the way back,
even though my last name is Hill, I'm actually
more Finnish than I am English. My great -great
-grandpa, when he came over here from Finland,
which was a part of Russia at the time, back
in the 1870s, Finland was a principality of Russia.
So when they came over, they actually changed
their last name from Ottahilli to Hill. Because
Hill, English, Hill. If you wanted to work in
the copper mines up in the UP and, you know,
in the Upper Peninsula, if you wanted a good
job, you need to be English. And they would have
you be a mine boss, you know, a captain or something.
So you need to be English. So my great -great
-grandpa changed. He was like, all right, I can
be English. You know, so he changed his last
name. So everyone assumed, oh, he's a hill. Okay,
you know, he's from Cornwall. Ironically. after
all these years of generations i actually am
a little more english than i am finnish anymore
so it actually makes sense now my last name but
um yeah i am the first i'm the first hill not
to work in the mines in the up i was my my great
grandpa worked in underground um in the copper
mines and then he transferred over to the iron
mines later on uh you know like i said my great
great grandpa when he you know when everyone
came over everyone was working the mines my dad
worked in the mines everyone worked in the mines
and that but that's how it was it was literally
company towns you know um the upper peninsula
of michigan especially at the time when we're
talking you know early 1900s there was very little
there was a railroad system but it was just for
the mines I mean, almost all of the copper in
the entire United States, almost all of the iron
ore for the entire United States came from the
upper peninsula of Michigan. Until they found
new deposits of ore out in Utah, which is where
some of the bigger mines are now, big open pit
mines. It was all coming out of the ground from
upper peninsula of Michigan. So there was a lot
of mines everywhere. I mean, literally hundreds
of hundreds of mines. Everyone worked for the
mine. Either you worked for the mine or you worked
for the company that dealt with the mine. It
was literally company towns. I am the first of
that generation not to work in the mine. Some
of the mines are still there. I've got an uncle
that still works up at the mine. He's going to
retire actually this year. I've got some cousins
too. I've got some friends that are still up
there. What my dad calls knuckle draggers. you
know, you know, walking around constantly, you
know, uh, your, your hands are permanently stained.
The cracks of your hands are permanently stained
with this pink hue from the mind, from the iron
ore that they're, they're chopping out of the,
out of the rock. So, um, yeah, he wanted me to
go to school. So I, I went to school. I went
to Michigan tech university up in Houghton, Michigan,
and I went into engineering. Um, this is back
in the late late 90s, early 2000s. So, you know,
obviously Dell computers and gateway computers
and, you know, the internet was just getting
big and things like that. So my friends that
were going to school there, they're like, let's
make a computer company. So I'm like, all right,
yeah, we'll jump on that bandwagon, right? Well,
I am not a math guy. So I ended up getting...
I was pleasantly surprised to be, Mark, you know
what? Engineering is probably not for you kind
of a discussion. So I was taking social studies
classes to offset my bad grades. So my advisors
were like, Mark, you've got so many social studies
credits. You could just go be a teacher. I'm
like, all right, I'll do that, sure. So then
I went into teaching when I graduated. Taught
for many, many years. Taught in middle and high
school. Football coach, track coach, powerlifting
coach, all that stuff. Got my master's degree
in leadership to be a principal. And in Wisconsin
back in 2010, they had this law called Act 10
that was passed, and they got rid of collective
bargaining rights for most teachers. So at that
time, I got laid off. They made budget cuts at
the middle school and I got bumped or they got
they made budget cuts at the high school. I got
bumped out of my job at the middle school. And
consequently, at the same time was when we had
our first daughter. So I'm like, well, I guess
I'll be stay at home dad for a while. So while
I was doing that and my wife, thankfully, my
sugar mama, she was still working. I'm like,
well, you know, I always had done the volunteer
fire thing when I was teaching. I was a volunteer
firefighter for many, many years. I got my EMT
license. So I was also a first responder. You
know, we were in a rural area. So I was one of
the first ones always on scene, depending on
where we were. But I always liked that. My dad
had been a volunteer firefighter. So I grew up
going to the fire hall and rolling hose and,
you know, being on the fire trucks during parades
and stuff like that. And my grandpa was a fireman.
And, you know, so there was a history going back
for me of being in that service. But my dad did
not want me to go into the service full time
because he had tried and failed back in the 80s.
He's like, no, no, no. Go to school. Actually,
you know, go do something, you know. So I thought
it was a little ironic that once I did go to
school and I did get a teaching job, I then found
myself in the position where like, no, I want
to go and try to get a full -time job. And here
in Wisconsin, if you want to be a full -time
firefighter, you need to be a paramedic. So while
I was home with my daughter, I took the paramedic
classes, got my paramedic license. And then at
the same time, while I was doing that, I was
on my local fire department. They had an opening
for a fire chief role. And I was like, well,
you know, I'll throw my hat in the ring. You
can't win the lottery until you buy a ticket,
right? So I threw my hat in the ring and they,
for whatever reason, thought that I would be
a great candidate. And they hired me as their
first full -time fire chief. So I did that for
a year. That was one of the longest years of
my life, which is where that second book comes
from. All the mistakes I made coming along the
way when I when I was fire chief. And then, you
know how things are, you know, you you interact
with different people and, you know, different
opportunities come up. So I ended up from that
position. I got hired with the city of Wausau
and was a full time for them for eight years
until I finally hurt my back and they put me
to pasture. So it's a, it's a long answer, but
yeah, I am the oldest of three and I've got two
younger sisters, you know, and I've got three
daughters, beautiful wife who, like I said, I
don't know why she married down to me to marry
me for sure. So, you know. Trying to find the
path, as they say, new paths, new pathways, new
doors. Doors closed, doors open. So that's the
beauty of life, right? Well, going back to the
mining, let's go all the way back to your father's
generation. When I asked people that were children
of firefighters, career firefighters, it's interesting
getting their perspective as a child. When you
reflect back now, what were the pros and what
were the cons? of you seeing your father's experience
in the mining industry well the one thing when
you're working in a mine and you know i guess
it kind of it correlates and com you know there's
a lot of comparisons probably to different industrial
type jobs right so my dad even though he had
a he had a bachelor's degree he went to you know
he played football at northern michigan university
he got he you know had a degree but he never
used it not once he never used that degree not
one time he because it was kind of a a generational
and a family thing right it was a traditional
stuff so a lot of like the fire service like
well my dad was a firefighter and you know grandpa
was a firefighter my uncle was a firefighter
you know same thing with the with the mind so
with my dad he as soon as he got done with school
my grandpa which we call papa art hill um you
know Papa gave my dad literally, I think it was,
how much was it? It was like 50 or a hundred
bucks. I forget what it was. He literally gave
him 50 or a hundred bucks. He's like, go to the
union hall, tell him art sent you and you're
going to get your card. So he did, he went down
to union hall, gave him the, you know, gave him
the money and they, he got his, he got his union
card. And so at that point he was going to be
in the mill rights with my grandpa. So my grandpa
would take my dad, you'd request him as part
of his crew, and then he taught him basically
a lot of the stuff that he needed to know, pipe
fitting, millerite work, you know, all those
different trade skills. So then when he got a
full -time job at the mine, my dad was in maintenance.
So they were constantly going around and making
sure the, you know, machines were working and,
you know, making sure everything was working
appropriately and, you know, all that stuff.
Well, the thing with the mine is he worked shift
work. So he would work. Oh, what was it? He'd
work like four days of days. Then he'd work four
days of nights or afternoon shift. And then he'd
work four days of nights and then he'd have a
few days off. So as a kid growing up, you had
to be quiet, like shut up. you know because dad
was either at work or he was home sleeping to
work the night you know what i mean so you had
to be out of the house like go find something
to do you know and my mom had always worked as
well so you know it was classic you know latchkey
like hey there's there's stuff in the fridge
when you get home from school and you know shut
up and be quiet you know don't bother anybody
you know what i mean so you learned i you know
you'll learn real real quick that You know, in
order to get ahead in the world, you've got to
do there's certain steps you have to do. You
have to work hard. You have to get education.
You have to get training. You have to do all
these things and earn your way through, you know,
call it merit based, all the different stuff
you have to go through the process. Right. And
so, you know, I learned that really, really early
on that. Hey, you know, be quiet. Your dad's
sleeping or whatever's going on. Or because I
was the oldest, no one else was home. Mark is
in charge of my two little sisters. So I'm making
sure that they are quiet, that they have what
they, you know. So it's just, that's just kind
of what happened. That was the, you know, the
beauty or the downfall of the 80s and early 90s.
That's the way it was, you know. And, you know,
you learn to be self -reliant. You learn to,
you know, take care of the problems. If you've
got a problem, you take care of it. You know,
you figure it out. You know, and there's no Internet
to look things up. There's no YouTube to find
a video. There's none of that stuff. You know,
you've got to figure it out on your own. So,
you know, a lot of the things that, you know,
I learned from my dad and my grandpa, too, was,
you know, it takes it takes sacrifice to truly
get what you want done for your family, you know,
and provide for them the life that you want to
provide for them. or to save the money that you
need to save to do the things that you want to
do. And, you know, those are all very good life
lessons that I learned when I was growing up
that, you know, carrying on forward now, you
know, myself, you know, I've tried to instill
both in my daughters and in the things that I've
done myself. So what about from the union perspective?
On one hand, you saw union busting happening
that literally cost you your career in the education
space. We have a union here in the fire service.
What is the strength of the mining union? And
then what did you see that worked well with that
union that maybe we need to lean into in education
or firefighting? Well, the thing that's always
interesting, especially with unions, because
I've been a union president, I've been a steward.
So when you're in the upper echelons of the union,
It's a lot like being a fire chief, right? Everyone
kind of looks from the down, like from the bottom,
like bottom up, right? And you think, why aren't
they doing this? Why aren't they doing that?
They need to be doing more, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. Insert usual gripes and complaints
here, right? The thing is, once you get to those
positions, especially at those top levels, it's
all about politics at that point, literally and
figuratively. It's trying to not it's trying
not to upset, you know, from the school day when
I was I was a school board president or the school,
our union president for the teachers union. So
I wanted to have a good relationship with the
superintendent of the school district. Right.
They want to piss him off because if him and
I got into a disagreement or if he didn't him
and I didn't see eye to eye or, you know, whatever
the issue was. Then when it came time to contract
negotiations, instead of having, you know, like
you and me right now sitting down and having
a discussion like, OK, this is what we'd like
to do. This is what we'd like to offer, you know,
a back and forth instead of having, you know,
an applicable, you know, actual discussion. It
would be, no, we're going to go to arbitration.
I'm getting the lawyer and we're not going to
talk. Well, the negotiations are now over and
now we're left to an arbitration judge or lawyers
now that we have to settle whatever the disagreement
is. It's much better to have a discussion and
have a conversation, right? So you have to grease
the wheels. You got to be a politician where
we have to work together. So we have to go to
lunches. We have to go to dinners. We have to
do these things to try to make sure that. Our
relationship is good and on speaking terms. From
the bottom, we don't see that. We don't see all
the hand -holding and the handshaking. We don't
see that from the bottom. All we see from the
bottom is they're not doing enough. We need more
overtime pay. We need this. We need that, right?
And to get those things is like literally the
phrase of getting blood out of a turnip. It's
incredibly difficult, right? Everyone would love
to have... you know freaking eight percent raises
every year and everyone would love to have you
know no deductibles for our health insurance
and everyone would you know of course we would
everyone would love those different things right
but it's just not reality you know the administration
and the municipality or whatever they are set
with their they're literally their hands are
tied with what they are able to do be it from
a, you know, from a standpoint of their tax base,
you know, and it depends on where you live, right?
Orlando's got a different tax base. They've got
different hotel revenue that are coming in. There's
different, you know, Florida's got different
laws than the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin's
got different municipal codes where, you know,
our state, you know, we have different funding
regulations that, you know, so it's just, it's
amazing where we are literally 50. People always
forget, well, it's the U .S. system. When you
go back over to U .K., why does the U .S. do
this thing? They should do this differently or
you should do this or whatever. People forget
the United States of America, we are 50 independent
states that come together to form a federal democracy
republic. You know, imagine the state of Florida
with like 25 million plus people. Right. That's
as big as Canada, the entire country. Right.
So Florida, you know, is different than here
in Wisconsin. We've barely got eight million
people. Right. Or think of Alaska. You know,
Alaska is a third the size of the continental
United States. But yet the population is, you
know what I mean? So we are all different. Because
we all have separate and different laws. So when
it comes to union regulations on a national scope,
right? Like say the IAFF, right? The International
Associated Firefighters or even the fire chiefs,
right? You know, they have separate, there's
things they can do nationally to talk for all
of us. on a national level dealing with like
the you know the afg grants or maybe the nfa
courses or things like that or maybe trying to
trying to spur on the the the cancer you know
uh databases or trying to get uh the ability
for people to collect social security earlier
as a firefighter things like that right there's
national things they can do on a national level
as a union base but Nine out of 10 things that
we decide or that we that really affects us is
on the local level. It's not on that national
level. Right. There's there's a little bit. Yeah,
sure. We can, you know, maybe poke someone to
say, hey, give us a good word when we apply for
this AFG grant or the safer grant or whatever.
But, you know, it's not really up to our union
members to to help us get those things. Right.
It's all about local. It's about. what we can
do with your local base salaries, about what
you can do with your local health insurance coverages,
your local liabilities dealing with, you know,
workers' comp, you know, coverages, you know,
duty disability stuff, things of those natures.
That's what the union needs to concentrate more
on. I think a lot of people, like I said, people
get too into the weeds of national politics and
national BS when it's local first. There are
some things that affect us nationally, but nine
out of 10 of them is going to be right down the
street at your local city hall or the municipality
government center, wherever you're at. That's
where... that's where the nuts and the bolts
and the actual, where the rubber meets the road.
That's where it happens. It's not on these national
big, Oh, you know what someone's doing or what
they're not doing or what things are cut or,
you know, it's at the local level that we need
to spend more of our time doing those things.
And like I said, a lot of it comes, we don't
see from the bottom what happens on that top
level. And it's all about politics. It's all
about trying to, you know, trying to make the
best out of a lot of bad situations. It really
is. Well, I mean, I, firstly, I'm nauseated by
the fact that a group, a room of grownups can't
make a decision. So this whole politicking grease
in the wheel, like that needs to go full stop.
It sucks. And then on a national standard, one
conversation should have been happening for,
I would argue 20 years now is a national standard
work week for the fire service. And the current
IFF leadership are in the city of Boston, which
is a 42 hour work week. So nationally, where
is that voice saying, hey, rest of the country
that are working 56 plus hours, we need to fight
for you to have the same work week. So, yeah,
I agree. There's some minutiae like, do you get
polo shirts and all that kind of stuff? Yeah,
that's a very local thing. But the simple standard
of living, the working. week is standardized
in every other national institution trucking
aviation shipping but our profession as long
as i've been you know in uniform and then back
out the other end has never even mentioned why
so many of our firefighters are working these
insane work weeks so this is where you know two
things that are pulling from what you said firstly
if grown -ups can't talk without needing dinners
and lunches and massages and shame on you you're
in the wrong fucking position And secondly, if
you don't have a backbone to advocate for the
people and you yourself and enjoying a 42 -hour
work week, also shame on you. Yeah, the problem
is, and it goes back to, like I said, it's hard
to do things nationally because every state's
different. But that's not the same with, I'm
saying, trucking, shipping, all those ones as
a national standard. You as a pilot cannot fly
for X amount of hours. You are regulated to have
a break. It does depend, though. For example,
the state of Wisconsin, when they passed Act
10, they got rid of the teachers' collective
bargaining rights. Police and fire were exempt
from Act 10. So the police and fire unions were
exempted from those collective bargaining right
pull -aways from that law. Now, why was that?
Well, because the police and fire unions lobbied,
played politics. And then they so it's it's it's
it's not they're looking out for themselves.
They're looking out for their best interests.
But at the same time, you're then screwing the
teachers. Right. Or you're then screwing the
nurses or you're then screw. You know what I
mean? So and as a union, my number one, you know,
my number one job and concern is just the firefighters.
You know, and the Teamsters, their number one
concern and their number one job are the truckers.
Right. Same thing with the, you know, the airline
pilots, the, you know, we, you know, air traffic
controllers is a little separate. It's a little
different because of the number and what happened
to them back in the 80s under Reagan. But at
the same time, every single union is only interested
in their own selective collective self -interest.
And unfortunately, you're right. And fortunately,
when push comes to shove, the union is going
to take the position of what's best for them
and their membership only. So if that means leaving
the teachers hanging out to dry, like what happened
here, then that's what's going to happen. You
know what I mean? I can't fault them for that.
I, you know, I don't blame them for doing that,
you know, because they are doing what their job
is. They are supposed to be looking out just
for their membership and just for, you know,
what's in the best interest of the, of the firefighters
of the state of Wisconsin. And, you know, God
bless them for doing it. Right. But at the same
time, you know, there's, it's goes back to politics.
I, I totally agree with you, James. Politics
sucks. It's a, Big freaking, you know, yeah,
it's a giant albatross and it shouldn't happen
like that, you know, and things should be different,
you know, and it would be awesome if it was different.
It would be great if it would be different, you
know, but, you know, unfortunately, the system
that we have is the system we have and we can
only make, you know, small adjustments to how
things are. And, you know. It's almost to the
point, at least a little bit, depending on what
you want to talk about, but it's, it's to the
point where you have to, you have to choose the,
choose your poison, right? I can choose to take
the high road and not to, you know, to be a hundred
percent totally committed with all these different
things and just be the, the, you know, the, the
solid stonework in the, in the foundation, or
I can try to get the best deal for my, for my
people that are under me that, yeah, it may,
you know, some of it may suck, but a lot of it
may be great. You know, maybe it's a 80, 20 thing
where 80 % of it's fantastic, but we're still
missing on that 20%. So then it's like, okay,
then you come to your membership. You say, listen,
this is the deal that's presented before us.
You know, we're a union. We can decide, do we
want to take the 80 % and get most of what we
want? Or do we want to get zero? I'm not talking
about negotiations. I'm talking about a standardized
work week that will impact mental health, cancer,
relationships. I mean, all the things that we
suffer from, it's not mentioned. So it's not
a negotiation. It's an absolute must. What's
happening in Florida is there is people that
are starting to realize this. And the crazy thing
is, I am by no means an economist. I'm not a
business person. But when you look forensically
at the economics, the reason that these people
are changing is because they're drowning in debt
because of the vacancies they have in the fire
service. So this is a national recruitment crisis.
So it's not even a negotiation. You're literally
pointing out to these cities and counties, if
you do not change, you're going to lose your
fire department. So this is a great opportunity
to finally change. But this isn't about, you
know... protecting a few dollars of a pay raise
or anything like that. This is something that
is literally the elephant in the room or the
herd of elephants in the room in the physical,
mental health crisis, relationship, I mean, everything
that we suffer from. And yet, you know, when
it's cancer, oh, we've got this, you know, this
study in Miami and they're looking at carcinogens
and, okay, that's great. But what are you doing
about sleep deprivation that is a known carcinogen?
The mental health thing, oh, we've got the IFF
peer support team. That's still reactive. Really?
What are you doing about the thing that's known
to break down the brain, the mental health, the
sleep deprivation? So this is what angers me
is I've been talking about this for eight and
a half years just on this podcast alone. And
there's, you know, real experts that have been
talking about this for a long, long time. So
this isn't about all what will they give us?
This is about us as a united front standing up
and saying this needs to change. you know, like
the suffragettes, like the people that opposed,
you know, child labor, which is being reversed
in some states again, which blows my mind. But
this is not about negotiations and politicking.
This is about all of us standing side by side
and saying enough is enough. And if the union
isn't going to fix it, then all right, well then,
you know, whatever, we're still going to demand
this is changing because every single day there
are Maltese crosses with black bands in them.
This is the thing that I'm talking about. Meanwhile,
nothing is happening from and again i'm not tarring
everyone with the same brush but if you are a
union that's this opposing fitness standards
it's not talking about the work week or opposing
it because you want more overtime or whatever
the thing is you are part of the problem yeah
no i i i agree with you i do part of though that
like you said the work week thing For me, I see
I look at it a little different. So for me, I
understand what you're saying. And it would be
great if we could do it nationally. However,
like I said, every state's different. So every
state has different laws about what is, you know,
accepted. So in our contract, in our local contract,
our work week is specified in our contract. How
many hours do your cops work? I have no idea.
Probably 40 hours. I never bothered what their
contract said. I guarantee you it's 40 hours.
This is my point. It doesn't matter at this stage.
I know they work 12s. I think it's some definition
or some variation of 12s. I know they work 12s.
I think they work like three 12s and then they're
off for like three days or something like that.
But to make it even worse, you want to talk about
making things not better but worse. there are
many departments that are switching to the 4896
shift, which is insane, which is insane. You
know, our shift that when I, they are my local
department just switched to the 4896, which I
can't believe that they did that, but they did.
We, when I was working, it was 24. It was the
California swing 24 on 24 off 24 on 24 off 24
on. Then we had 72 off. So that's the way we
had it, and it worked out fine. But even that
is a bad swing. 100%. When I was down in Alabama
doing my hazmat technician, we had a guy instructing
us from Washington, D .C., and their schedule
was a 24 with a 72 off. yeah which is what the
national that's what i'm saying the whole northeast
works that would be absolutely awesome if we
could do that you know new york fdny i forget
the last time they they run a weird modified
like they'll work a 10 then they work a 14 you
know and then they've got a weird kind of uh
they break their 24 day down into you know stuff
like that but you know there's a lot of different
there's a lot of different ways to do it This
is the problem though, James, everybody wants
something differently. So for like, just as a,
for example, and this goes back to the fricking
politics again, say, say the city of Wausau wants
to change to the, the 2472, right? That means
we have to add an entire fourth shift, right?
You can't do that with a three platoon system.
It has to be four. So that means that we would
have to hire the city of Wausau would have to
hire. an additional an entire an entire crew
to do that kind of shift work which would mean
i don't even know how many millions of dollars
that would mean is the city of wasa fully staffed
now have they got people banging on the door
to work for them has they got got a huge list
like used to have 20 years ago no exactly this
is the problem and people are wising up at the
working work week now and it's creating vacancies
which is creating overtime which is where the
money is for these extra people but people i
mean that's the thing people get hurt they're
out on workers comp and they're out on light
duty for how many days and they're doing you
know they're you know yeah absolutely i don't
part of it i don't think the Recruitment and
retention problems are from the work week. I
really don't. I think the recruitment and retention
problems are really a lot of it stems from the
fact that our entire culture and the history
and the way things happen in our local communities
is completely different than it was when I was
growing up as a kid, right? There's very few
people that are volunteer firefighters anymore.
For instance, in the state of Florida, there's
very few fire departments that are volunteer,
right? Most of it's countywide system. They're
all full time. If you're a kid, for instance,
in the state of Florida, if you want to go and
be a firefighter, you go to your local community
or technical college, where then you have to
pay for your firefighter one class, your EMT
class, you pay all that 100%, right? That's the
state of Florida rules. Well, guess what? Here
in Wisconsin, in Wisconsin, it's completely different.
In Wisconsin, you can get your firefighter certifications
for free. You don't pay a dime. You can get your
EMT license for free. You don't pay a dime. Well,
if we're getting, if you can, if you're a kid
in Wisconsin and you can get everything for free,
literally all of your education, fire one, fire
two, driver operator. Pumper, Ariel, you can
get everything for free. Absolutely free, James.
100 % free. Why the hell are we having recruitment
and retention issues? Well, I can tell you. I
can tell you. It's not the sleep. It's not the
sleep for us. In Wisconsin here, it's not a sleep
thing. Even though I think that that schedule,
which my department went to, is crazy. I would
never want to work it myself. It's not for me.
That's not the answer. For me, the answer is
kids aren't growing up in the firehouse anymore.
They're not they're not growing up in the firehouse
like I did. Rolling hoes with my dad while he
was on the fire station. They're hearing my dad's
pager go off at night and him leaving the middle
of the night to go to go to a fire. Right. In
my little town where I grew up, when there was
a fire, there was a siren. It was like a tornado
siren that went off. for the whole town. That,
hey, there's a fire, get to the fire hall, get
your butt on the truck and get going. Everyone's
dad was a part of that system, right? I rode
the fight. Like I said, I rode those fire trucks
in the parades, throwing out candy to the other
kids. My Cub Scout meetings were all at the fire
station. My birthday parties were all at the
fire station. My friends, their dads were in
the fire station. It was a community thing. Why
did your dad not want you mining anymore? Why
didn't he want you to be a miner too? He wanted
me to not be in the mine. That was not the fire
department. The fire department was volunteer.
So no, but I'm saying this is what's happening
now. Like the best recruitment tool that we have
are firefighters. The best recruitment tool the
military used to have were the members of the
military. But you're getting a generation now
that are being worked into the ground. I don't
know your specific department. If you barely
run any calls and 56 hours is a wonderful experience
for your firefighters, then I'm not using you
as an example. But every fire department that
I've worked for that is running most of 24 hours
at a time for 56 hours a week, that's getting
their mandatory overtime for like 20 years of
my career. My generation. are not telling their
children, you should be a firefighter. And I
would argue it's probably the same thing that
your dad as a miner was telling you, I don't
want you to go in the mines. And so, yes, it's
a different generation with this young group.
But the thing is, people are looking always at
the negative. The positive of this generation
is they're growing up appreciating physical health,
mental health, relationships. And they're looking,
because the Wall Street Journal did a thing recently,
they are going into the trades. The Gen Zs are
going into the trades. Because they're looking
at college and going, this is ridiculous. $40
,000, $60 ,000 worth of debt. And like your dad,
a bachelor's that you never use. But they're
looking at the work week and they're going, well,
wait a second, 56 hours a week. And then when
I Google, is it healthy to be a firefighter?
All I see is cancer, divorce, heart disease,
strokes, all the things. It is the working environment.
It's not the job. I think if we actually showed
these young people that we care enough to give
them in a working environment that actually allows
them to perform at a higher level and have longevity,
I think we'd have them back in droves. I really,
really do. But we have allowed, going back to
the unions, our men and women to be worked into
the ground, you know, literally. Like we know
on a daily basis, we see all these firefighters
that we lose. And until we change the working
environment, the profession itself that we love
is truly at risk. Because as you said, one day
the tones will go off and no one will be there
to respond. So I disagree with it. It's not the
sleep because I think it's exactly what it is.
It's the lack of rest and recovery, the lack
of value of the men and women that are in uniform.
by departments, by arguably even our own union,
who has not fought for us to have this standardized
work week. That is the reason that we have this
national recruitment crisis. And if we fix the
things that are glaringly broken, as many departments
have started to do in Florida now, they have
already seen a complete 180 and they have people
lining up around the building now to work for
them. But if we bury our head in the sand and
say, oh, it's not the work week. then I disagree
completely. It absolutely is the work week that
is the biggest thing. Now, is it only the work
week? Of course not. It's culture, it's fitness
standards, it's all these other things that we've
got to put in place. But that is what has dissuaded
these people. And the fewer people that go into
the service, the more mandatory overtime that's
put on the shoulders of the men and women still
in uniform. And that is unfair to them and it's
unfair to their families. Yes. No, you're right
in the fact that... you know i do think yes sleep
obviously has a huge component to it you know
but it's it's it's it's hard to It's hard to
do something like that on a national level, unfortunately.
It really is. It wasn't hard to shut down the
whole country when COVID come in. This is the
thing that blows me away. And again, it goes
back to that politicking. If you had a group
of men or women. That's politics. That's different.
It depends on which state you lived in, whether
you were shut down or not. You literally go,
do you want to close the buildings or not? And
someone said, yes, like overnight, everything's
going to be closed. It's the same thing. Do you
want to take that money from downstream, invest
in, like you said, a D -shift? and therefore
stop the bleeding financially and then improving
recruitment again. That is literally a group
of grownups in a room, one day conversation.
But this is the thing, the pushback you get is,
oh, but it's complicated. It is not complicated.
The way that we're doing it now is not working.
And it's nauseating. And I'm not saying this
is what you're saying, but national organizations,
oh, but, no, oh, but. The science is irrefutable.
Just even if you just listen to the people I've
had on the show. completely irrefutable. I've
had experts in the military, sporting communities,
every parallel kind of profession. And, you know,
like I said, the proof is in the pudding. These
Florida departments are showing that it's working
and showing that now we're fully staffed. So
there's no more overtime. Apart from obviously
occasional ones and, you know, the hurricanes
and that kind of thing. So it's really about
like exactly like you said, dissolving this.
Oh, I need blue M &Ms in my green room bullshit
that I hear from the IFF. And I literally had
that. They came to Disney and they literally
were specifying they needed these kind of sweets.
And, you know, I mean, just ridiculous. And getting
back to, like you said, rolling up your sleeves
and fighting for the actual men and women. Like
being about them, not about you. And we've allowed
so many layers of red tape that it's literally
created complete inertia. And meanwhile, our
men and women are dying. So I think that this
is a kind of, all right, enough is enough conversation.
We need to figure out who's doing it right. Well,
the Northeast has been doing it right for decades.
And we copy their hose lays and their high rise
tactics, but we turn our heads to their work.
And we need to say, all right, but then this
is what we need to do nationally. And I think
that the work week should be a professional national
standard. I agree. It should, but it never will.
I will agree to disagree that because I'm going
to make sure that it does. Well, I would love
for that to happen. It's just because we're 50
different states, in order to have that happen,
you would have to have. Every state passed the
same rules. So what about bank clerks, baristas
in Starbucks? What about them? They work 40 hours.
Sure. That's what I'm saying. So that's a national
standard. Why is it any different for the fire
service? Well, because the fire service is, we
have certain protections and exemptions from
all those different things. But why? You know
what I mean? It's not for our benefit. No, it's
for the municipality's benefit. But unfortunately,
I agree with you, James. Yeah, like I said, I
would love to see those things. But the way the
municipalities and the way the state constitutions
and the way the laws are in every state, it is
not written that way. It's not. I agree. I 100
% agree with you, James. It's not fair. It's
not fair. No, I'm not saying about fair. The
municipalities that made it change just said,
well, we're changing it anyway. So it's not like
a binding thing where you cannot work 40 hours.
The whole FLMA thing, if I'm getting this right,
that's your overtime over and above whatever
it is, 42, 44 hours. Well, FLMA only guarantees
you certain times off for certain family medical
leave. That's a little different. You'd have
to have a FLASA cycle, the Fair Labor Share Agreement.
Sorry, I'm getting my acronym. That's what I
meant to say. No, no, it's fine. I'm removed
from all that. That's the difference. Yeah, FLASA
cycles are different. But it all depends. It
goes back. It depends on what your contract says
for what you have agreed to your work week in
your contract. Yeah, but the thing is that people
agreed that once. People can now change that.
And I know, for example, Pasco County. They were
like, look, it kicks in after, you know, 40 whatever
hours. Well, if we don't get there, it becomes
a moot point at this point. So this is the thing.
Everyone feels like they're shackled by these,
you know, these certain areas. And then you look
at the departments that did it. They're like,
yeah, we just, you know, we just like, OK, well,
we're not going to be working overtime if we
do. The first few hours will be straight time.
But, you know, we get to be home with our family
every three days at a time. That's far greater
than a few bucks. on these few hours of overtime.
So I keep hearing, oh, we can't because rather
than, well, how can we? And this is what these
departments have done. They've looked at it and
go, well, yeah. And it's not just Florida. I
got a department in Texas is about to go to it.
I just heard one in North Carolina is about to
go to it. So if these departments can look at
it and go, well, we're going to change that.
And then imagine when there's that national push
and everyone starts questioning these kind of,
you know, it's like the horse tethered to the
plastic chair. At what point do you realize that,
you know, again, like I always tell people, the
people that tell you you can't work less than
56 hours a week work 40 hours. The admin chiefs,
you know, the city and county council members.
So at what point do we say enough is enough?
When we used to run one fire a week, I'm sure
it worked back then. But that hasn't been the
case for decades and decades. So now we have
to advocate and bring our work week down to everyone
else's. Well, I think the other problem, too,
when you look at it is we in the fire service,
we are our own worst enemies. Think about how
much work that we do that people just call us
to go do that's not part of our job description.
You know, look at fire prevention, you know,
the fire educations, you know, depending on your
municipality and depending on where you're at,
you know, you could wear 20 different hats, right?
I was a hazmat technician. I was a paramedic.
I was, you know, fire one, fire two. I had my
officer certification. I was also, you know,
I was entry -level fire investigations. You're
going out doing public education, you know, with
the fire. You're doing fire prevention inspections,
you know, doing code violations. So depending
on your municipality, you can have 20 different
roles, right? then if you enter that same mentality,
we shouldn't be doing anything more than what
we should be doing, right? And we are always
our worst enemies. We're always taking on more
jobs. Yes, we'll do that. Yes, we can do that.
Yeah, we'll do this. And yes, we'll do that.
When these other jobs want to talk about police,
if someone comes in and asks someone for directions,
asks a cop for directions, he counts that as
a call. He counts that as a contact. Now, if
someone stops by the fire station and asks for
directions, do we file an incident report saying
that we had a public community contact? No. We
don't bother with that. But the cops do. Why
do they do that? Well, because they know that
numbers, data, matters to them. And to enable
that they have the shifts that they have on the
police side, they need to account for all of
the contacts they have with the public. Right?
So they count those things where we don't. And
I got reprimanded once for pulling my ambulance
over and helping someone push their car out of
an intersection. I got reprimanded because I
didn't create an incident. So yeah, we are our
own worst enemies a lot of the time. We are doing
more work. Want to talk about work? We're doing
more work than we should be doing. But again,
that goes back to the mentality of what's going
on, you know, in the service itself, you know.
And until we stop doing those other jobs that
other people should be doing or enables the department
to argue for more workers, right, to have more
crews, then you're never going to get back to
the thing that you want in the first place, right?
Because if you created a precedent. where you've
done all this work for all these years and you've
never bitched and complained, but now all of
a sudden you're bitching and complaining about
the work that you're doing. You see what I'm
saying? That's when you get to the municipalities
are saying, well, it's been fine for 50 years.
It's been fine for 100 years. You never said
anything about this for the past 50, you know,
whatever. Everything was fine before. Why all
of a sudden is there different? And that's where
the politics, I know it's unfortunate, but that's
where that comes in. Because when I was a fire
chief and I wanted a new fire truck, I couldn't
just go buy one myself. I needed to get approval
for that. I needed to get spending from the municipality
to approve that spending, to approve that truck
purchase, right? I couldn't just go and do it.
I would love to have gone and done whatever the
hell I wanted to, but I needed permission. Right.
Because that's the system that we had. So I had
to work with the system and I had a great PowerPoint,
James. It was fantastic. It had all kinds of
data, you know, how we needed a new truck and
we were spending this on maintenance and all
these different things. And I went on and on
and on and that on that public budget meeting,
I went on for 45 minutes, James. And you know
what they asked me in the end? How much? They
could give two shits. about my data they could
give two shits about all the things all the reasons
all the blah blah blah blah everything it was
awesome they could give two shits about any of
that how much and literally they were like we're
you got i got no time to listen anymore how much
do you want well it's gonna cost 750 do we have
the money then the budget guy comes in well we
can do this this and this Great. We'll do it.
You're approved. Next. That's the reality of
what we're dealing with, you know? Well, this
is why we've got a hook now is because if you
get exactly like you said, the budget guy of
cities and counties to say, how much are you
spending on overtime? How much are you spending
on training young recruits? And then they walk
out the back door one, two, three years later.
workman's comp claims you know lawsuits when
you guys are tired you look at the money now
because i've seen this i mean don't get me wrong
it's sadly it is acutely you know obvious that
there's a lot of people especially in those positions
that these suicides these cancers these you know
all these deaths don't move them At all. It makes
no difference. Even some fire chiefs, it's the
same thing. And it's all the same on union presidents
too. It doesn't seem to make any difference.
Nothing is done. So money is the, you know, money
talks, bullshit walks, as they say. So it's like,
all right, well then here is the money that you're
all wasting. And this is the, I think where we
have the ability now to make a difference is
the fire service can say, there's your money.
And by the way, this is your annual amount that
you're bleeding. when these vacancies are all
filled with the right kind of candidate, again,
not lowering the bar and taking anyone who's
going to then be another problem. Now we're going
to save you a bunch of money. And then I agree
with you a hundred percent. I think where the
greatest abuse of EMS is, you know, the 911 system
at the bottom tier. And I love the concept that
GMR talks about is a three tier system. So then
let's also talk about calls that we shouldn't
be responding to there. You know, the whole telehealth
thing now. gives you the ability to have, whether
it's GMR or another company, embed in a 911.
You get the 18 -month -old thrown up once, and
the parents think they're going to die from dehydration.
They're offered a consultation with a nurse.
They take that. They get the treat at home, or
they get to schedule an urgent care clinic appointment
the next day. An ER bed stays open. The fire
department was never called. And that patient
gets a bill that's a fraction of the ER cost.
So there are really great innovative solutions
that we can now bring in and address the call
load as well, because I agree with you 100%.
We've said yes to everything. Call 911. I've
done, you know, snake retrievals and all kinds
of, when there's Orange County has a massive
animal control department. I'm like, why are
we standing here with a bucket and a stick? when
we've got experts you know so this is this is
the thing but again it's flipping it so all right
this is an opportunity for us to change because
what i've realized is that there's been so many
finger pointing that you know nothing gets done
everyone's just blaming the other one and it's
all of us i mean you talk about the fire service
being at fault like my rank we go home and we
tell our neighbors we've got the best job in
the world and i only work 10 days a month and
it's bullshit A 24 -hour shift is three eight
-hour days crammed together. We work 30 days
a month. Yes, we're working every day. Exactly.
So this has been a great conversation. This is
not a debate. This is a conversation. But it's
like, what a beautiful opportunity for us to
finally say, I don't care how long we've been
doing it for. We are at a point now where it
needs to change. Like I said, whether it's children
going up a chimney or women be able to vote or
whatever the thing, the way we've always done
it. There's this line in the sand, and we're
there now. Because as you and I both know, our
men and women are dying. Our young people really
don't want to do this job anymore. And they're
amazing human beings. There's as many great firefighters
as when you and I came on. So what an amazing
opportunity for us to go, all right, we need
to do something differently. And I think this
is the thing. But we have to have the courage
to say what we're doing isn't working. Yes, 100%.
And I think, I think for me, I think it really
relies more on doing it locally than nationally.
We have to start at the grassroots. We have to
start on our own, what we can change, right?
It goes back to the classic phrase, you know,
you can only worry about what you can have control
over, right? And when we, at the local level,
we have control over who are, You know what our
contract says, what jobs we do, what time we
spend on this, what time we spend on that. You
know, we control our destinies and we we can
only start that and change process can only start
at the bottom. It's not going to come from on
high. It's not going to come from the top down.
I agree. We have to be honest and realize that,
you know, and until like you said, until. And
it's like anything, like, you know, we have so
many little fiefdoms, you know, because it's
the problem with the fire services, like you
said before, it can drastically be different
between one municipality to another, between
one county to another, right? Orange County in
Florida is completely different than Brevard
County, which is completely different than, you
know, Seminole County. Here, Marathon County,
we are the largest county in the state of Wisconsin.
We have tried numerous times to try to county
-wide our fire and EMS system. It never gets
approved because the local townships like to
keep their responsibility. They like to keep
their name on the truck, even though it would
be better to do it a county way. let alone a
statewide or national level. They just won't
even do it at the county level. You know? And
unfortunately, yeah. How do you, because that's
a really great kind of, you know, lens that you've
got. How do you, if this was to be approved,
how do you absorb cities like that into a county,
but allow them to maintain their identity? Because
having worked for county departments myself and
city departments, there is that element where
you do become a number. In a county. So you can
see why people want to hang on to a town identity.
So how do you fuse those two together? So you
have the best of both worlds, obviously, you
know, a greater ability to respond and maybe
better equipment and that kind of thing that
you'd have on a county level, but still allowing
a kind of local element to it. So the men and
women of certain areas of that county still feel
like they're part of something smaller. Well,
and this goes back to some of the detriments
of the union. So, for example, our union would
not allow us to volunteer on another department.
Not allowed. The municipality would not allow
it. The city of Wausau would not allow it. Our
contract did not allow it. So if we lived in
a rural area and a lot of it because we didn't
have. uh we didn't have a residency requirement
so there were some guys on the department that
lived an hour and a half two hours away they
would just drive in to work and then they drive
home so we didn't have really well there was
technically a residency requirement it was like
60 60 miles as the bird flies kind of thing you
know but it's just like okay whatever you know
but anyway but the rules were you could not all
right so And then it goes back to why. Why was
this? Well, because the city didn't want you
volunteering at a local department, getting hurt
on the job, coming back to work for the city,
say, the next day, and then going out and working
a job and then being hurt. And then they're like,
well, how do we prove that you got hurt with
us versus you got hurt with somebody else? So,
which goes back to lawyers, workers' comp, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So that was the
rules that we had. There's another department
about 45 minutes from here. They allowed their,
they were professional, they were full time,
but they only had one station. So they were lower
call volume. Okay. In a more rural community,
they, their contract did allow for their firefighters
to volunteer on other departments. So you still
had that aspect. When we had our county meetings
talking about. making it a county -wide system
the iaia our union did not want a volunteer aspect
to be part of the system because they felt from
a union standpoint if we allowed volunteers on
or allowed part -time people on then we would
not have a lot of full -time guys that they would
only hire part -time guys And then they would
staff everyone with part time. We would lose
control. We would lose membership. We would lose
a contract. We would lose all the things that
they quote unquote thought they had having one
solid union leadership. So they fought against
having volunteers and part time part of the system.
Here, however. Chief Probowski out in Santa Clara
County, California, outside of San Francisco,
they have a county system. They also have full
-time guys, but they also have part -time people.
They also have volunteers in an auxiliary where
what happens is you kind of get in on the bottom
level. You work as a part -time guy. or girl
i'm using it as a gender gender neutral word
you know but you you start out volunteering or
being part of the auxiliary or being part of
like an explorer program right in the high school
you work your way up They pay for you or part
of their system is you go to the local tech school,
you get your fire certifications, then you work
into a part -time position where you then get
shifted around to different houses. You kind
of learn different jobs, right? You learn more
about being on the job. You learn about all these
different processes. Then when there's a full
-time opening, guess who gets first dibs? These
part -time people, because you've been in the
system, you've been trained all the way up. There's
a whole reason why they do it like that. But
again, going back to the local ways, That's how
their local does it. We tried to get our local
to see that that way. They didn't want to have
anything to do with it. So, again, it all depends
on how things are written locally. It all depends
on how people see things and how you want to
try to interact and how you want to try to get
people to be brought on. I think the way they
have that out in Santa Clara County would be
great. It'd be awesome. I think that would behoove
everyone. It would be fantastic. Because you
get a group of people who are volunteering or
in an auxiliary position or even in a fire explorer
program. You get all those people that are interested
in the position. You get them in. You get them
trained. They learn the ways you do things. This
is our way. They learn all that stuff so that
when you have a full -time position open up or
you've got a bunch of different things open up,
you've got a huge group of people. You've got
all these people to choose from then, right?
It would be great. Trying to have other people,
goes back to the politics, unfortunately, of
trying to have them and convince them this is
a better way takes a lot of work and a lot of
effort. And like you said, a lot of people don't
want to give up their control. And when you have
a countywide system, the best way you can do
that is by incorporating the station and not
closing the stations down. I think a lot of people
worry about consolidation. If we consolidate
our departments together, we're going to lose
our department. Nine times out of 10, that's
not the case, right? We still need the location.
We still need the vehicles, the apparatus. We
still need that station to be active because
of the response time or whatever we're trying
to recover. But what we're going to consolidate
is management. What we're going to consolidate
is top -level positions, right? That's what we
are going to consolidate. And then you get into
the politics of chiefs where they're looking
out for themselves. Why should I consolidate
with you when I'm going to end up losing my job?
Or you get into the like, I think a lot of people
and a lot of some of the things that are going
on right now, you've got a lot of people that
are Gen Xers that are in their 50s early, you
know, that are in their mid 50s, that when these
consolidation efforts, they're three. or five
years out from retirement they're not looking
to make any changes whether it's for the benefit
you know better betterment of everyone or not
they're looking you know i've only got three
more years i need to coast for three more years
then you can change whatever the hell you want
you know and that's again going back to like
you said that's not right and that's not doing
it for the right reason and you're not helping
anybody but yourself absolutely but you know
it's yeah it's kind of the crap sandwich that
you're dealt with unfortunately well this is
what i struggle with because basically all those
people were my academy mates you know at that
time period you know we're all like post 2000
i mean there's don't get me wrong there's obviously
some that have been on for like 60 years that
are literally probably gonna die as part of the
station but the average you know person now i
mean i would have been uh hit in 22 years i think
well 21 years excuse me if i not you know transitioned
out and done this so now you're talking about
people that are in these positions and you say
i see that i agree with you 100 well i have got
three years left i don't want to do anything
and it's like this complete shift well hold on
it's not about you and i mean just putting it
all the way back to the firefighters like a lot
of the firefighters i see now on social media
it's look at me with my big mustache and my leather
helmet and i'm forcing a door and i videoed it
so you can all see it even though i'm wearing
my shorts and t -shirt but i'm wearing my leather
helmet because i'm a fucking firefighter it's
me me me me me and it's like where is the shift
it used to be them for them but it's become very
very self -serving and i think even that A good
example, if you look at the Northeast, you talked
about the volunteers. I mean, there's no question
that there are many areas of rural the U .S.,
rural U .S., that absolutely are going to need
volunteers. You know, that's just, you know,
if you're a town of 100 and it's all farms. Yeah,
you don't get more than 35 calls a year. You
cannot have a full -time crew. And of course,
you don't have, you know, have mutual aid and
all that kind of thing. But then you see a lot
of. suburban areas like the northeast still has
volunteers so then the conversation to me comes
well should we even have volunteers anymore and
in those densely populated areas not like you
talked about other areas and i i love the idea
of a tier system of a mentorship program where
you are air quotes volunteering but you're not
really you're climbing the ladder to a career
but there's a lot of areas again they don't have
volunteer cops they don't volunteer er doctors
But again, our profession, once again, well,
they'll be fine. They'll do it. They'll do it
for free. They'll do 56 hours a week. Just, you
know, because we are. We are going to respond
regardless. But there's a certain point where
we've got to say, okay, time out. We've got to
put some parameters. And there's a lot of amazing
volunteer firefighters in the Northeast that
should be given a career position because that
area should have full -time firefighters. So
that's the other conversation nationally is where.
Where are areas where really that volunteerism
has been taken advantage of and people that really
should have been given benefits and a pension
and a career doing the very thing that they are
doing for free? You know, where is that line
that we need to draw in the sand as a profession
as well? Because volunteerism is incredible,
but it can be taken advantage of. Oh, 100 percent.
And, you know, going back to what we were saying
before, like, you know, you're doing so much
more than you should. Right. You know, and going
back, yeah, you're right. How many volunteer
cops are there? I can't think of any, right?
You know, the outside constable, you know, position
where, you know, some of, but it's a numbers
game, right? A small town, you know, a small
town of 4 ,000 people, they can get away with
having three cops, right? You can get away with
it. We can get away with the chief and two deputies,
you know, go back to, you know. Barney Fife,
you know, Mayville and, you know, the good old
days back, you know. Yeah, you can get away with
three guys, you know. You can't get away with
three people in a fire department for that same
town, right? You can get away with having one
doctor for the town. But you can't get away with
having, you know, one firefighter for that town.
You know, so some of it is a numbers, some of
it's a numbers problem, right? We require, and
going back to NFPA, right, you know. If we ever
had an actual high -rise structure fire, we had
three stations here in Wausau. We had three stations.
We ran about 6 ,000 to 7 ,000 calls, depending.
Most of it was EMS. We were a paramedic base.
We transported, so we had ambulances. Three stations
covering just the city itself. which our city
was just shy of 40 ,000 people, right? If we
had an actual high -rise structure fire, right,
our full -time crew component per shift was 16
people. We did not have enough people. According
to NFPA, we did not have enough people to fight
that fire, right? So then it gets to... Do we
need, for example, you want to talk about doing
too much, James. So our stations, right, had
four guys, each station. Downtown had more because
we had a ladder truck. We had an actual tower
that was out of there and we had our hazmat out
of downtown. But anyway, so they had more guys.
But the outside two stations, we had four people.
That was it. Two guys were in the ambulance.
Two guys were on the engine. That was it. If
the ambulance was out, if we were busy and there
was a structure fire in our area, you got an
engine with a driver and an officer. That's it.
And you had maybe another crew coming from across
town with two guys, or you had the truck company
coming from downtown with two guys. If all the
ambulances were out, which happened all the frigging
time. We barely had staffing. Want to talk about
staffing? We barely had enough people just for
a residential fire of the two in, two out, let
alone if we had an actual working high -rise
fire. We would never, even at maximum staffing,
we'd never have enough people. How did it even
get to the point where there was only two on
a rig, where you simply cannot operate with two
on a rig? It was a money thing. But I mean, if
there was a school and there were 10 classrooms
and they hired four teachers, that would never
fly because you'd have six classrooms of kids
not being taught. As we both know, especially
if you're not, you know, truck and engine running,
you cannot safely operate at a fire with a captain
and an engineer. You've got someone on the radio
doing a size up, you've got someone pumping,
and you've got no one actually going in to facilitate
a rescue. Not legally. i mean not safely not
effectively no i mean people can beat their chest
oh we just went in with one and we took the line
yeah but that's that's the chances of you effectively
doing it have gone down immensely and then now
you go down now you're the victim and that child
burns so i it blows me away again how yeah because
you see him all the time you you there's that
one on the history channel the um inside the
fire was it called i'm forgetting but it was
a guy that was a single engineer on a ladder
truck at an apartment fire. And the guy's talking
about it like 30 years later, and he's still
in tears as he heard the thud of the infant being
thrown out by the mother of this, because there
was wires everywhere. He couldn't even set the
aerial, and he couldn't set a 35 on his own.
So this is the point, is that I don't understand
how we even got to the point where, well, two
will be okay. Two is never okay. On an ambulance,
absolutely. I was on a two -man ambulance my
whole career apart from my very first department.
But on a fire engine or a truck, I mean, it's
completely unsafe to just have two people. So
I don't know how so many departments even allow
that to happen in the first place. Well, it goes,
like I said, unfortunately, it goes back to leadership
and what they are or are not advocating for for
the department. When you're in those, like I
said, I know it sucks, but it's politics. You're
trying to maintain your department's budget.
If you're in a full -time department with full
-time people, most of your budget, almost 85
plus percent of your budget is what? Salary and
benefits. Most of it. Almost all of it, call
it. If you're the municipality and you say, well,
our state funding now goes down, right? Where
are we going to make the cut? So there's now
a 10 % cut across the board. Every department
has to cut 10%. Well, if you're the fire department
and your budget is, say, $8 million, you've got
to cut 10 % of $8 million. You've got to cut
$800 ,000. Where is that going to come from,
right? Salary and benefits. What does that mean?
That means less guys. We don't have a training
budget. Most departments barely have a training
budget already, right? There's no education budget,
barely. We're barely getting the equipment that
we want because salary and benefits constitute
so much of our budget. Well, if the municipality
tells you you're going to cut. That's the problem.
So then it becomes, okay, well, we're not going
to hire. These two guys are retiring. We're not
going to rehire those two positions then. Or
you come to everyone as the chief and you say,
listen, this is the shit sandwich we're dealt
with. We got these options, right? We can lay
off three guys, one per crew. We can, everyone
can do more work. Right? Instead of laying off
three guys, what we're going to do is this. All
right? We're going to, those three, these two
other people, or maybe these four guys that are
going to retire, we're not going to hire them
back. These people also happen to be, say, in
the prevention bureau. So instead of hiring for
prevention, we're not going to, all the crews
now, we're going to go out and do inspections.
Or we lay off three guys. Your choice. So what
do you do? Well, I think, I mean, the three or
four on a rig with the prevention thing, that's
in hard times. Okay, during COVID, during the
08 recession. Okay, but at that, what point do
you tell your city, we cannot operate with less
than three, I mean, ideally four on an engine.
And again, it goes back to the classrooms, the
roads. Oh, we can't finish that freeway that
goes halfway through our town. They'll find the
money for that. You know what I mean? So at what
point do people say, look, I mean, it's like
having a police car with no police officer in
there. I mean, even having one to a car. I mean,
the ridiculous nature of a single officer responding
to someone who's going to try and hurt them is
mind blowing and the richest nation on the planet.
So this is what blows me away. We're not, you
know, the Sudan. We're the United States of America.
We have the most wealth of anyone on the planet.
And yet you've got, you know, arguably not. poverty
stricken neighborhoods that have two firefighters
on a rig and then everyone wonders why they weren't
able to make a rescue when god forbid their family
was burning to death in the third floor window
so this you know where i think again i understand
the economics but it's higher you know maslow's
hierarchy of needs you know security is the first
thing so your police your fire you know if that's
being cut and cut and cut which we know in our
profession happens all the time Where is that
voice to be like, Oh, just so you know, like
three is the bare minimum nationally. We cannot
operate a fire engine or a fire truck with less
than three. I mean, obviously a truck, arguably
four. So, you know, but people like one, one
person rig, two person rig. And it's just, it's.
pure insanity and i think again now do we have
this opportunity to finally turn things around
and not only in this recruitment for crisis help
all the urban and suburban departments but even
again the volunteer and and these areas where
they're just woefully understaffed can we shine
a spotlight and be like let us explain to you
what happens when your family is trapped and
all that's available are these two firefighters
let me show you what they would want to do and
let me show you what they're able to do but that's
not story told is it Where is that voice? Well,
it is, but the people, again, it goes back to
like I told you with the budget committee. How
much is it going to cost? They want to know.
So it gets back to funding. So in Florida, when
we were in Cocoa Beach during spring break, I
was looking at different, you know, how much
you guys pay for property taxes. And I was shocked
how much you pay. It's outrageous. Outrageous.
The property taxes that you guys are paying.
And then I did a deep dive into, I'm like, but
their school, like you drive by the elementary
school and it looks like shit. And your playground
looks like garbage, you know? And there's literally
like garbage on the fence and, you know, yada,
yada, yada. It's like, you're paying what in
property taxes? And especially in Cocoa Beach,
I was like, you've got. all these high rises
or you know multi i mean these are million dollars
every unit's a million freaking dollars you're
collecting property taxes where is the freaking
money going like what the frick and then you're
adding all these hoa fees and blah blah blah
blah blah i was like no i couldn't imagine owning
anything down here but that was the thing like
where is this freaking money going if you're
a municipality if you're coco beach right or
you're cape canaveral which has a Between the
two of them, I think the total population is
like permanent populations, like 12 ,000 people.
Cape Canaveral's got a quasi department where
they're part -time with some full -time guys.
Cocoa Beach, though, is part of Brevard County,
so they've got two stations that are fully staffed.
with full -time people both running ambulances
out of both of them i think bravard certainly
used to be two -person rigs as well if i'm not
mistaken for a long time so you you but you you've
got but the point i'm making is all the money
that you're collecting and all that property
tax holy shit where's it going exactly my point
two -person rigs you're telling me that that
tourist destination with that transient exact
coming in that's exactly right and then i i did
a deep dive Because I'm like, why does the school
look so bad then? What is going on here? Where's
the money going? Roads are the same roads that
I've been driving on since I've been going down
there for the last 10 years. You know what I
mean? Yeah, you got hurricane fixings and you
got all that other kind. They're redoing the
beach again. But that's all a state thing and
all this different stuff. So I did a deep dive
into your property tax, what you guys are paying
for. And I was shocked to find out that. Part
of your property tax bill is separated for your
school districts and your teacher salaries. They
separate those two things out. Here in Wisconsin,
you get one tax bill for your millage rates for
your school districts is brought up by the district.
Then you have your local municipal rates are
set by the county itself. And that's it. That's
it. So that's the money you're getting. The other
part of that comes from the state of Wisconsin
itself. And some of the things we do in the fire
department here in Wisconsin, the state of Wisconsin
charges every commercial area, every insurance
agent is called a 2 % due. They have to pay 2
% of their fire insurance coverage to the state.
The state then takes that money and they divvy
that out to the technical colleges and the departments
to pay for the free education for Firefighter
1, Firefighter 2, all those different things.
That's why those programs are free here in the
state of Wisconsin. But again, my property taxes,
I live in a nice house. It's great. My property
taxes are only $3 ,500. They haven't gone up
for 10 years. Haven't changed. That's the difference.
When I talk about it deals with municipalities
and it deals with locals and it deals with your
county and it deals with your state. That's what
I'm talking about. It's all so it is so incredibly
different between every county and every state
in this entire country that we have to understand
that, you know. What we can do here in Wausau,
Wisconsin, with what our state law literally
says, what we can do on a tax roll and what we
can charge municipalities or what we can offer
for services, that all deals with what the state
allows in their budgeting process. And the state
has capped. They have not allowed any kind of
increases to be done in education or municipal.
tax bases which is why my taxes haven't gone
up for as long as they have now is that for the
benefit of the community or is it for the benefit
of keeping your taxes low okay so it's me not
we again it's it's about taking your ca keeping
your taxes low our school district just failed
another tax referent they are it was a referendum
to exceed their revenue limit to exceed the budget
they wanted to pay for other things and they
said straight up if we don't pass this referendum
we're going to have to probably lay off teachers
we're going to have to get rid of curricular
activities we're going to have to get rid of
sports we may consolidate high schools we're
going to have to get rid of elementary schools
we're going to have to do all these things the
vote said no do it And that is after listening
sessions. That is after public comment areas.
That is after blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. Because when it comes down to it,
how much am I paying? Yeah, that's what they
want to know. How much am I paying? How much
am I paying? The issue that we have, you know,
when you think about the narrative, and this
is apolitical, this is both freaking sides of
the aisle. But when was the last time you really
heard the word us from any, you know, national
stage? Like us coming together, making sure that
our schools are safe, that our teachers are well
paid. I mean, my son's about to graduate high
school. Ever since he was tiny, the teachers
were begging for, and I mean begging in a positive
way, like they needed school supplies and cleaning
supplies. And, you know, and so. The parents
all chipped in, but these are really things that
should have been included. So the teachers had
all the ability to, you know, for the books and
the papers and the pens and things that I would
imagine that we had that were taken care of when
we were little. And then you look at the fire
service, like I said, low balling these figures.
So you've got two on a rig and then God forbid,
you know, people are killed in the fire. Then
there's this big investigation and there's millions
of dollars of lawsuits that could have been simply
put into hiring those firefighters in the first
place. At what point do we go, where are our
priorities? And I'll give you a perfect example.
For arguably 30 plus years now, the obesity epidemic,
probably more in the US, has been getting worse
and worse and worse. And the drain on the Medicare,
Medicaid system from that alone is in the, I
believe, if I'm not mistaken, the trillions.
It's a ridiculous amount of money. So that alone,
to me, it's like we... We don't want more money.
Fire departments don't want more money. Teachers
don't want more money than is already being spent.
We just want you to proactively invest. So you
make the nation healthy. Imagine all the funds
that will become available for all these other
programs. You, you, you know, you'd be proactive
when it comes to drug prohibition, stop arresting
addicts, unless they've done an actual crime,
you know, like beating someone up or robbing
the house and put it into the healthcare system.
Let them actually get the help that they truly
need. Addiction, mental health counseling, all
the things. And now all of a sudden the crime
goes down. So it's another place. Now our police
officers maybe don't have to wear all this tactical
gear like they go into Fallujah. Like everything
gets safer. The schools get safer. And it's not
an oversimplification because we all know that
the people that are real experts in all these
areas, the economics is undeniable. And countries
that have done it differently have seen, you
know, an immense saving. So I think this is the
conversation. Fire departments and teachers and
all these different groups are labeled as greedy.
We want more money, more money. We need the funds,
but we don't want more money. We want the real
leaders of the world to step up, be proactive,
take the money that's being wasted and invest
it in the people. And it's the same with the
firefighter work week. It's the same with the
obesity crisis. We've got to stop the downstream
bleeding. But there needs to be a national conversation.
And even most recently, we were told that we're
supposedly going to make America healthy again.
Well, I haven't heard anything apart from food
dies. And here we are now in basically May. So
the money is there. We are such an affluent country,
but we have to be proactive and invest. The areas
that stop us spending money needlessly, then
take that money and really invest in schools
and public safety and pedestrianized public areas
where people can be out and move and play and
get sunshine and have community. But you don't
hear that. It's just, oh, we need more money,
more money, more money. And that's when you get
this chopping block mentality in these cities
and counties. Yeah. Like you said, I think a
lot of it. You know, talking about, you know,
if we want to go back to the sleep issue, I think
we could work the shifts we're working if our
call volume was normal, right? If we had, like
you said, if we had that tiered 911 system where
we triaged the calls and appropriately put the,
you know, the rescue resources where they were
needed. you know a true medical emergency as
opposed to someone calling 911 because they have
a headache and they think they can get into the
er faster right if we would have a normal call
volume that was true like think about when you
were working right all the calls you went on
how many actually were 911 like actual emergencies
right yeah how many of them required a paramedic
probably 20 You know what I mean? So if we could
solve that, that problem I think is probably
easier to solve, right? If you want to talk about
the hierarchy of what we could solve, like right
now, that would be one that could easily be solved,
right? 911 system, triaging the system, getting
those things, getting appropriate resources to
where they need to be, and having the fixes to
that. which would deplete the call volumes, take
away all the runs that we don't need to do five
times a night after three o 'clock in the morning,
and then bringing these people to the ER and
waiting for an hour because no one's available
in the ER because it's full of people that don't
need to be there in the first place, right? If
we could get that solved, you're right. I think
we would have a giant, huge relief off the call
volumes. that we could then then we could maybe
talk about and really actually hamper down into
how much staffing we really have and all those
different things you know i mean i remember i
was reading an article oh this is probably years
and years ago back when philadelphia was trying
to cut their budget for the fire department And
it was in one of the IAFF magazines, blah, blah,
blah. And they were talking about how they were
looking to consolidate. They wanted to brown
out stations and all this different stuff. Well,
then I did a deep dive. I'm like, well, how many
stations does Philly have and where are they
and all those different things? Well, it turns
out Philadelphia's locations of where their fire
stations were was the distance a horse could
travel at full gallop. That's how they determined
where their stations were. And that became a
set number. So that's where their stations were.
It had nothing to do with call volume. It had
nothing to do with where the resources were needed
and adequately staffed. None of that mattered.
The only thing that mattered was the distance
a traveling horse could go at full gallop in
1900 when they were pulling a freaking steamer.
So when they're talking about consolidating stations,
their stations are a mile and a half or two miles
away from each other. I couldn't imagine having
a station that close. Or closer. What about the
population, though? I mean, if it's New York.
It's a population. I know. But what I'm saying
is it goes into this is the problem with, you
know, how do we fix all this stuff? And there's
so many minutiae of history. and levels of bureaucracy
and the reasons why so many things are the way
they're done that we just have no idea. We just
have no idea. And like you said, we need to go
back to call volume is super high. Absolutely.
Stress, sleeplessness, those are all huge things
and they're all the reasons why we're having
a lot of the problems we're having. But what
is the root cause of that? The calls. Well, can
we do anything about the call volume? Can we
can we actually control that? Can we actually
make a big dent in a big difference into taking
that call volume down? Right. What do we really
have control over? We can really control a 911
system, you know, and again, it goes back to
municipalities. So in our county, the sheriff's
department controls 911. They do not want to
have a tier system. Why? I'll tell you why. Because
that would mean that every dispatcher would have
to get trained as an EMD, an emergency medical
dispatcher, which would mean more training, which
would mean more money, which would mean they'd
have to pay them more. And they have no interest
in doing that. How do they receive medical calls
if they're not trained? It's a dispatcher. You're
literally just... You're an operator on the phone.
So they don't have any ability to... 911, what's
your emergency? I'm having a heart attack. What's
your address? You're in this municipality. Page
them. Oh my goodness. So they can't tell you
it's Delta Echo, Charlie, none of that. Nope,
doesn't matter. Crazy. Doesn't matter. So there
we go. It's another issue that needs to be addressed
then. So yeah, like I was saying, it's complicated.
It's way more complicated than people realize.
That's on a county level. That's not even a state
level. That's not even on a municipality level.
That's just that's just one county of 72 in the
state of Wisconsin. Now, multiply that by how
many counties we have in the country. Every county
is different. Every single county is different.
So they're not even able to give advice. They
can't talk through someone through CPR or a choking
incident. That doesn't take medical training
to do that. It doesn't take training to. Tell
someone to keep thumping on someone's chest?
The correct way? They can't tell you. They have
no idea if they're doing it correctly or not.
They can just tell you, keep doing chest compressions.
Help is on the way. That sounds to me like that's
another thing that should be a national standard
in the world of dispatch. If you're dealing with
medical and fire 911 calls, you should have the
relevant training. You want to get into more
of it, I can tell you more stories. So here in
the city of Wausau, before the sheriff's department
took over 9 -1 -1, 9 -1 -1 was done by our fire
department. Any 9 -1 -1 call that would come
in would come into the city fire department.
Whoever was the lowest man on the totem pole
at the fire department at the time, it was called
desk duty. You got the desk, you would take shifts
over your 24 hours. The young guy would do the
desk. He'd answer all the 911 calls. And that
firefighter would determine what the situation
was and who would have to get dispatched out.
That was it. How long ago was this? That was
changed in the mid -90s. They changed that. It
was called the doghouse rule. Because that's
the old school way of doing it. That was until
the mid -90s here. But since the mid -90s, they've
never been trained on fire and medical EMS. They've
never had to have the EMD. No. I mean, to me,
that sounds crazy. I don't know. Maybe that's
how it is in other countries, but it sounds crazy
to me. No, that's how it is. I'm trying to think.
I think there's only a couple of counties in
the entire state of Wisconsin that have actual
EMD of all the 72. I think you can count on one
hand how many there are, and they're all urban.
See, what's interesting as well is that they're
not the rural counties. And that's just 911.
That's just on a county level. You've talked
about a really amazing initiative, which is paying
for fire school. Like free education, I think,
is, you know, you want to invest in your people
that's going to give back for 20 plus years.
Putting young people, you know, obviously with
a testing initiative through all this training
and then creating all these great firefighter
EMTs and paramedics. Amazing. But then on the
other side, when it comes to the dispatch side,
not so amazing. And just like you said, this
has been really eye -opening for me. And working
either side of the country really started opening
my eyes initially, was we are so siloed that
you have these two departments right next to
each other, doing it completely different, sometimes
not even talking to each other. God forbid you
get a multi -agency incident. But that means
that people aren't sharing all the things that
are working well. Like Wisconsin, education.
Yeah, we'll definitely take this. Well, California,
can we borrow your EMD? Because we're really
behind on this area. Then the Northeast, hey,
well, California, tell me about your volunteer.
We still want to have a volunteer tier, but we
really need to start making these positions career
now. So how can we use that to filter through
young people and give them an opportunity to
be exposed to this profession? So this is what's
so interesting with this podcast is I get to
speak to people from all over the world. But
yeah, I mean, some areas it blows me away how
innovative and how they have amazing solutions
to some of our problems. But then as you touched
on. you know, two people on a rig and, you know,
the police person, police dispatcher answering
a medical call, having no real way of really
relaying what might be a lifesaving intervention.
You know, this is not ridiculing Wisconsin in
any way, but it just highlights that if we just
dropped our humility, got rid of the red tape
and the politics and actually said, how collectively
can we share each other's knowledge and, you
know, the rising tide lift all ships. our whole
profession would would elevate but we don't you
know we're these little pockets that that more
often than not don't even talk to each other
and it's crazy yep and it's it's complicated
and it's and it's it's different like i said
in michigan most most of the ems in michigan
is hospital based they're not run out of the
fire department There's only a couple of municipalities
there where they actually run EMS, but most of
them, most of the ambulances and most of the
EMS system is run out of the hospital. Same thing
in Minnesota. Most of it's run out of the, out
of the hospital based systems, you know? So again,
you know, LA County, look at LA County, LA County.
So the city of LA runs ambulance, but LA County.
They still run the rescues like they did back
in emergency back in the 70s. Right. Two guys
on a rescue truck. But their funding, how they
charge and what their funding model. You know
what I mean? Like it's it's complicated and it's
completely different than it would be in Orange
County, which would be in Marathon County here.
It's it's just it's so it's just it is it is
a it's unfortunate that it has to be. so convoluted
and complicated and the intricacies and the webs
and the you know the connections and the disconnections
you know it really is it would just be simpler
if things were more straightforward and people
would leave their egos aside you know and they
would you know do really what's the best thing
for the entire group you know it would be awesome
but People are the people are the way they are.
And, you know, we've we've unfortunately we have
to work and try to do the best job we can, you
know, doing with what we can control. And, you
know, just again, going back to the local level,
I got to worry about if I'm a lieutenant or captain
of my station, I'm going to try to advocate the
best for them. I'm going to make sure that my
people have the tools and training that they
need, because that's what I can control. And
if, you know, something happens, I got to make
sure that, you know, I am there to help them
and support them and to do what I can do to help
those people get through the job and come home
safely. That's what I can control, you know,
and I can't, I can only deal with that. And I
can't, you know, I can change what I can change,
you know, myself and what I have control over.
And I can advocate and I can try to put up the
chain the best, you know. best facts and figures
and stuff that's possible but like i said you
know in order for anything to change truly change
it has to come from the bottom up it really does
absolutely and i agree with you completely like
you know you want to change the world start a
home well if that's a fire station then that's
where you start your crew and i think what's
been pretty amazing to watch is the podcast has
become a way to circumnavigate politics, you
know, union politics, the walls between cities
and counties and PD and FD and EMS and these,
just like we've had, you know, we've gone back
and forth and had an amazing conversation with
different perspectives. And this is what needs
to happen. Like in less than two hours, you know,
all the things that we've covered and now thousands
of people are going to listen to this and they're
probably going to go, wow, I didn't think of
it this way, you know, from whatever perspective.
And the goal for the whole podcast is to get
people what I call educated and angry. you know,
understand, you know, the whys and then go, well,
wait a second, why are we doing it this way?
Why do I not deserve to be home as much as the
cop? So, you know, this is what's so important,
but that's exactly like you said, because I believe
that the base of the pyramid is the most important.
There's only one person at the very tip. But
imagine if everyone at the bottom started shaking
the pyramid. Well, things would start changing.
You don't need your chief to be on board. You
don't need your union president to be on board.
You as a collective department need to get together
and say, these need to change. You know, we need
to get more people in the engine. We are going
to kill someone one day. And yet they just keep,
you know, doing the same thing or the work week
or fitness standards or, you know, insert whatever
here. So, yeah, I mean, I agree completely. And
this has been a vehicle for that to try and speak
for. our profession that absolutely are focused
on their home and their crew and rightly so and
this is why i like to take on this fight myself
so i can be a voice for them that being said
we've been talking for an hour 45 minutes i want
to make sure that we would talk about your books
and you know the the uh the teachings and coaching
that you offer now so as a precursor you had
this interesting career through the education
system that into the fire system ultimately as
a leader in the fire service at what point did
you decide that you look to things a little differently
and wanted to write books about your perspective
well it goes back to like we were talking about
before what what can you control is really what
you can really worry about right you can't really
worry about stuff you that's completely outside
of your control. So when I was fire chief, I
did a horrible job. 100%. I will fully admit,
I was a massive failure on everything and everything,
you know, that I could possibly do to go wrong
or to, you know, I was ripping band -aids off
and blowing bridges up. And I did not play politics.
I did it because I don't, I agree with you. I
hate politics, James. I can't stand it. i think
it's it's horrible it's a waste of time it's
screw it's it's it's the root of almost all evils
right politics and money and i 100 and i did
not play politics when i was the chief and i
tried to force change and i tried to do things
you know that did not um didn't go with the flow
of what's been done for the past 100 years i
tried to you know nope we're just going to make
this change because this is the right thing to
do And I didn't spend the time educating, even
though I had been a teacher and have been a teacher
for over 20 some years, right? Even though I've
got a master's degree in educational leadership.
I knew better, but I did not. I was trying to
force round pegs and square holes. Or I should
say square pegs and round holes, right? Because
obviously a circle is going to fit in a square.
But, you know, I didn't do a good job communicating.
I didn't do a good job of shaking hands and doing
the things I needed to do as a chief. I didn't.
And I paid the price for it myself. And the department
paid a price for it because I didn't act in the
role that I should have acted in. And I didn't.
I didn't. I don't want to call it a value in
politics, but I didn't see how important it really
was to really getting things done or to really
making the changes that need to be made. So my
second book, Read Before Leading, that's where
that book comes up. That's all the massive problems
that I caused and the things that I did and the
things I wish I wouldn't have done. You know,
that book was written purely as a leadership
book. Don't do what I did. Don't rip those Band
-Aids off. Politics sucks, but it's a part of
the position, especially at the higher levels,
where you're going to have to do the things.
And it's going to take time. That's the thing
that I hated and I still have a hard time with
is I don't have a lot of patience. Right. We're
especially in this service. We're all type A
personalities and we want to get things done.
Let's just do it right now. What are we waiting
for? We know it has to be done. Just freaking
get it done. And the thing I learned on the backside
of that was patience. And it's going to take
time. And, you know, especially big changes,
big changes are going to take time. And if you
want to get things done right. And if that's
your goal. Right. If this is the goal, it's not
going to happen. In six months, it's not going
to happen maybe in two, three, four years. It
may be a five -year plan or a 10 -year plan to
get to where you want to get. But I needed to
learn that I needed to have the patience to investigate
all the things we had just talked about. I didn't
do a good job finding out who the political players
were. I didn't find out who the different advocacy
or different agencies that I would need to pull
on board. to support me. I was trying to do everything
by myself. And it doesn't work like that, right?
Especially when you're in the municipal level,
it takes everyone to work together. Everyone
needs to play together in the same sandbox. We
can't just be throwing out everyone else's toys
and digging a hole for myself in the corner.
We all have to work together in that sandbox.
And I did not do a good job of doing the things
I needed to do to try to get everyone to work
together to help. Instead of building a sandcastle
together, I was just trying to build one myself.
And I was knocking everyone else's sandcastles
down that were next to mine. Because I had my
people and I had my department and I was in charge
of, you know, that's not the way to do it. That's
not going to be successful. And you're going
to make more enemies than you're going to make
friends. So that second book is all about that.
My first book. Two Dark Thirty, I wrote because
of the teaching aspect. So when I got hurt on
my first back injury, because of my history having
been a teacher, I was kind of put into the position
of, hey, Mark's the teacher. He can teach all
the new guys. Fine. I like teaching. I don't
have a problem with that. But what happens when
you give someone the job and responsibility?
and then they then you take them out of that
role or you or they get hurt and they get sidelined
well now who fills the hole right so i was fielding
phone calls i was getting emails about hey when
you were doing this on that crew what were you
doing or you know what was going on with this
so i realized that i'm like you know what i've
got experience and i kind of know what i'm doing
teaching wise i should just put all my thoughts
and ideas down so i did Well, that translated
then into the book Two Dark Thirty, which was
all the summation of all the knowledge and all
the things that I found out how to be a successful
teacher, you know, how to break things down for
students, how to look at, you know, what are
they don't, you know, don't expect them to know
things right away. Don't assume different things.
Bring everyone again, a lot of the same kind
of stuff where you're playing, where you're being
in a leadership position. Trying to break things
down simply, try to get things in a logical order,
try to make sure that you're evaluating people
correctly, you're looking at the right things
you want to look at. Because in the end, we want
these people who are on the bottom of the, like
you said, the bottom of the pyramid, we want
to raise them up those hierarchy levels. We want
to get them to positions where they can take
control over what they're now knowledgeable of.
And we can, you know, let them go into the environment
and, you know. God bless you and get out there
and do it, right? So that book is purely about
being a good teacher, how to be an educator,
how to be a good instructor, how to be a good
FTO, a mentor, coach, all those different things.
So the two books, because in my opinion, to be
a good leader, you need to be a good teacher.
If you can't teach someone well, at least remotely
well, then... you're gonna have a hard time leading
anything because part of your job as a leader
at least the true job of the leader like we talked
about is worrying about your crew your staff
and making sure that you're supporting them and
giving them everything that you need to get to
them that their job is done successfully and
safely that is the entire purpose of your job
as a leader So if that means teaching, that means
teaching. If that means showing them how to do
something and instructing them how to do it,
that's what it means. So I think those two books
are, they go hand in hand, you know, which is
why I wrote them. But really, for me, it was
about, you know, sharing all my knowledge and
getting the word out. Because like you said,
so many people are out there on social media,
you know, pounding their chest. you know having
these salty mustaches and you know acting like
they're the biggest king in the world and you
know it's it's hard to watch sometimes and it's
hard to listen to some of their views sometimes
and it's just like oh you're not helping you
know you that's not that's not the best way to
do it um but we have to make mistakes you know
Life's about making mistakes. Life is about failing
miserably and learning from those mistakes. And
I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't have
done all the screw -ups and all the mistakes
I made either. So I wanted to write things that
are conversational, that aren't written like
a textbook, that you could sit down and just
read like you and I are having a conversation.
That's how I wrote them. And the audio books
are, yep, that's me. Drone it on in my stupid
Midwestern accent. Yeah, that's me talking. That's
me discussing what I know and what I've had and
what I've done. And if you can grab something
from it, great. If it can spur on a discussion
with someone, fantastic. If we can have a new
idea or, hey, I want to try that or I'm going
to take that idea and I'm going to twist it to
fit my situation, awesome. That's all I want.
That's all I want. Question for you. Yeah. If
you were king for a day and you could literally,
as they say in Disney, reimagine the group of
people that you have to interact with as a fire
chief so that that conversation would simply
be, like I said, that room of grownups that were
really just trying to do the best thing for their
community. What would need to be in place so
that the other members of these departments were
the right kind of people that wouldn't create
all these barriers and you wouldn't have to politic
with? You just simply have the same kind of conversation
that we had today. Get to the root of the problem,
figure out what is the path to the solution,
and therefore grow and empower your community
rather than what we're seeing recently, a crumbling
element. Well, number one, if I was king for
a day, I would be probably assassinated right
away. You know, because unfortunately, it was
a lot like when I was fire chief. I tried to,
you know, I tried to make the changes and force
changes. And, you know, what I have learned.
Over my time and what I learned in my leadership
experiences was it's not as simple as just being
king for a day, unfortunately. It's not just
being God, right? Go back to the classic Jim
Carrey movie where he gets all the powers of
God, right? And he's got to answer everyone's
emails. People, everyone has, everybody, every
single person, they all have our own wants, desires,
needs. We all come with our different perspectives.
We all come with our different histories. We
all come with our different backgrounds. We all
come with our different, you know, could be cultural
things. It could be even like we talked about
differences in regionality, you know, weather
regional differences. I was under a tornado warning
last night, you know, so. There are so many parts
to that puzzle that it's never easy to just come
up with just one answer. It's not. Realistically,
you know, in a perfect world that we don't live
in, it should be easy to just make, you know,
make consensus decisions and say, hey, we should
just, you know, why don't we do. You know, a
certain percentage of the property tax is going
to be just directly related to the fire and EMS
service. And we're going to base it like this.
And this is the tier structure. And we're going
to incorporate all the best ideas across the
nation. And this is how we're going to do it.
That would be awesome, right? But again, it takes
more than just fire and EMS, right? It's the
ER system. It's our healthcare system. You know,
you just, you know, we just talked to, you mentioned
the making America healthy again. Yeah, it's
massive, you know, problems with obesity and,
you know, the things that go into our foods and
the sugar, the refining sugars that were, you
know, all the, you know, junk food that's out
there. What's in the kids, what's in the kids'
lunches at school or what kids are coming home
to and eating or the, you know, shockingly, the
shockingly high statistic of how many people
eat fast food. as their main food for the day
you know they don't go they don't make their
own food they just eat out every day every meal
you know and that's huge hugely high in urban
areas right they go out to lunch at their work
they go out to lunch and then when they're coming
home they don't make their own dinner they go
out and have dinner at 8 30 at night on some
restaurant and pay you know But that's their
culture, but that's their way. But again, going
back, it's not just one simple thing. It's so
many things that are together and it would be
hard, almost impossible really to be the king
for the day, to make all the decisions, to just
make everything correct. Because like you said,
it, it, it's not just one thing. It's the education
system has to be changed. You know, the everything,
everything has to be changed. It really does.
And, you know, it's so much that has to be fixed
that it can be overwhelming. And where do you
start? Well, you know, it's the old saying, you
know, the journey of a thousand miles starts
with one step. You know, and it goes back to
what I said. We can only deal with what we can
control. And for me, that's, you know, locally.
You know, I can't worry about Florida. I can
only worry about what we do here in Wisconsin,
you know, and just vice versa. You can't worry
about what goes on in Wisconsin. You can't worry
about what goes on in Minnesota. You know, I
give my hope and I can give you my support and
I can, you know, give you all the things that
I can give you to help you in your process to
get to where you want to go. But it's us. It's
up to us individually, locally, that we're ever
going to really see anything really. really change.
Let me rephrase the question because that was
a great answer to the question, but I want to
pinpoint it a little bit more. A lot of the issues
that we discussed today, including obesity, including
the understaffing of first responder and the
overworking of first responder agencies, ultimately
comes from the wrong people continuing to get
at the top of the totem pole. How do we, as a
principle, change the way That we choose people.
So you actually get someone who is compassionate,
who thinks about us rather than we to be at the
heads of them. It could be, you know, we're talking
the president or simply the chief of fire department
or even the lieutenant at a station. How do we
get the right kind of person that has that community
mind, that has that passion and caring for their
people? Because if that happens in a station,
in a household, that permeates then through the
entire nation ultimately. Yeah, that's another
million -dollar question with a million -dollar
answer, right? I mean, part of it has to be...
I mean, the answer, the honest answer is we need
to put people or... I know we shouldn't say put,
maybe put's the wrong word, but like... we need
to elect or we need to you know find or we need
to recruit maybe um you know the people that
don't want to be in those positions right i mean
it's it's the classic you know i don't want to
be in charge well that's why you should be in
charge right because you don't want to be in
charge because the people that want to be in
charge nine times out of ten They may have the
best intentions and they may talk a good game
and they may talk, you know, they walk the walk
and, you know, they say all the right things.
But when push comes to shove, when things, you
know, come down or whatever, they're going to
look out for themselves. And, you know, going
back to, you know, how do we put the right just
let's just let's just say the fire department.
Right. Let's just concentrate just on the fire
department. How do we get the best leaders for
the fire department? especially when they'll
say, well, we only had two candidates. These
are the two people that we got to choose from,
right? If we only got two candidates, pick the
lesser of two evils. Why does it have to be like
that, right? Why does it have to be, well, those
are the only two people that applied. Why isn't
it merit -based? Why isn't it, well... You know,
James has been on this department for this many
years and he's done all these different positions
and, you know, he's a fantastic instructor. He's
a fantastic leader. You know, I think he'd make
a fantastic, you know, overall chief because
I think he's got the best interest at heart and
he wants to do the best job for everybody. Why
is that not the qualification? Right? Why is
it? Why does it have to be? Well. Mark was the
only person that applies. So we're going to hire
Mark. And Mark sucks. And Mark doesn't know what
the hell he's doing. And Mark's, you know, Mark
only cares about himself. And Mark's only using
this job as a stepping stone on a resume to make
sure he can get, you know, the experience that
he can get a different job at a different larger
department or, you know, insert whatever there,
right? That's the problem, right? We don't, we
are not selecting people for positions of leadership.
That should be selected for leadership. We are
going back to the easy way out of saying, well,
that's just the way our process is. We're talking
about process, right? Going back to the contract.
Well, the contract says that we need to publish
this position for 30 days. And these are the
requirements of that position. And if you don't
meet the requirements, then you cannot apply
it. You know, yada, yada, yada. I worked for
a lieutenant. When I was first on the city of
Wausau, who did not have an associate degree,
was on the department for 25 plus years, had
had every position, was now a lieutenant because
of seniority, was a fantastic leader, a fantastic
instructor, had everything for the right reasons.
We would literally die for him, right? And he
was overlooked all the time because he didn't
have an associate degree or he didn't have this
certification. Well, he didn't go to school because
blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, he was in the Marines
and had experience. You know what I mean? Like
he's got other things going on for him. Right?
My resume. Go to my website. Go to my LinkedIn.
Holy shit, Mark. Whoa, he's got a lot of shit.
Yeah, yeah, I do. Guess what? It doesn't matter
a hill of freaking beans if I can't put any of
it to work. Like I said, I have a master's degree.
So freaking what? So what? Doesn't matter. If
you can't apply what you know, if I can't help
other people achieve things, which is the entire
purpose of leadership. then it doesn't matter
a hill of beans how many freaking degrees I have
or what certifications I have or, you know, all
the, you know, I have 10 different letters of
recommendation from 10 of my best friends that
happened. You know what I mean? Like so freaking
what? None of that matters. And the other thing
that I think that, you know, we need to really
look at besides really doing a merit -based system
and finding the people that don't want to do
it, that's why you should do it. is when the
entire group tells, hey, James is the man. I
would follow James. Let's get, you know, put
him in that position, right? You may not want
to do it, James, but we're going to all be here.
We're going to be here with you. I think that's
the other thing. People, you know, we are so
much in a cannibalistic, like, well, he stepped
up, right? He's not one of them. and he's getting
told from on high to do, you know, A, B, and
C. And now we're going to give him the cold shoulder
because he's not one of us anymore. And, you
know, fuck him. And, you know, he's selling out
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now we're
not, you know what I mean? We are horrible at
that kind of stuff. Horrible at it. Just the
gossip train, stirring the pot. We're horrible
at doing those things. Cutting people off at
the knees, not giving them a chance, you know?
They stuck their neck out. Maybe that's the other
thing too. Like people are afraid to take the
big step up because they've seen how many guys
get chopped out from underneath, right? I'm not
going to put myself in that position. Screw that.
I'm fine just where I'm at. And then you have
a leader who's fantastic sitting on the sidelines
who could really make a difference. And again,
why? Because... We do it to ourselves. And, you
know, that's sad and it's unfortunate. And it
goes back to, you know, what I said before. We
can only control what we can control and we can
only help what we can really affect. And when
we do those types of things and we don't change
the system the way it is and we allow the other
stuff to happen, nothing's ever going to make
a difference. All the money in the world doesn't
make a difference. You could have the best system.
You could have the most perfect system in the
world, James. And unless you have the leadership
and the right people in charge of it, doing the
right things for the right reasons, it's never
going to matter. It's never going to matter.
Well, I think that's the perfect place to round
this off. That was such a beautiful kind of,
I mean, it was, it was exactly what needs to
be said. And I agree with you wholeheartedly.
For people listening. If they want to find the
books, if they want to reach out to you for the
coaching and the other areas that you offer,
where are the best places to find you? Website,
social media? All my stuff. You can look me up
on LinkedIn. Mark with a C, the appropriate way
to spell Mark. Hill, obviously. My books are
all on Amazon. You can look up either my name
or you can look up 2Dark30 or look up Read Before
Leading. Otherwise, my website, which is 2dark30
.com, it's all written out, no numbers. Or you
can get a hold of me on my website as well. My
email address is markhill, all one word, at 2dark30
.com. So I'm out there. You can look up 2dark30.
That's where most of my stuff is found under.
Beautiful. Well, Mark, I want to say thank you.
I mean, just even for the conversation, just
having the ability to explore areas and get two
different perspectives, I think is so, so important.
So kind of taking this path down, you know, mining
and education and talking about some of the working
environments and then, you know, the leadership
has been a phenomenal conversation. So I want
to thank you so, so much for being so generous
with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield
podcast today. Thank you for having me, James.
I loved being here. And if you want to have me
come back, I'll come back anytime you want.