This episode is sponsored by yet another company
that I truly stand behind and that is Levels.
And Levels is going to be offering you, the Behind
the Shield podcast audience, a discount that
I will tell you about at the end of this introduction.
Now, before I even dive into what Levels does,
when I had a conversation with their CEO and
founder, Josh Clemente, he underlined such an
important topic. So many of us rely on visits
to our physicians to tell us how we are doing,
and that is so backward. I am an absolute believer
in putting autonomy back into the hands of the
individual so they can take care of their own
health. Now, what Levels does is it gives us
the metrics so we can see exactly how everything
is internally. So they help people improve their
health through continuous glucose monitoring,
comprehensive lab tests, and metabolic coaching.
Now through their three levels that they offer,
they have programs that focus on weight loss,
heart health, and glucose stability. I've now
been through this program twice, and I'll kind
of illustrate what it will look like. So you
make an initial consultation with your levels
coach. You wear a continuous blood sugar monitor
for one month. You'll complete a lab panel, and
I did it through Quest Diagnostics. A clinician
with levels will then analyze your results and
give you an action plan. That's when you can
then start hitting your own health goals and
in real time track your own progress. And then
depending on the level you subscribe to, there's
also a second blood work so you can now see how
you're doing six months later. Now by combining
AI data, AI powered insights and human coaching
together, 80 % of Levels members improve their
biomarkers. Now, as I mentioned, Levels is offering
you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast,
$100 off your first order if you use the promo
code SHIELD at levels .com. And if you're interested
in getting Levels for your department, email
Josh Clemente, the founder and CEO of Levels,
at josh at levels .com. And if you want to hear
the origin story and so much more about this
incredible company, listen to my interview with
CEO and founder Josh Clemente on episode 1159
of the Behind the Shield podcast. Welcome to
the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my
name is James Geering, and this week it is my
absolute honor to welcome on the show CEO and
co -founder of StationWise, Marcus Edwards. So
in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics
from growing up in a firefighter family, his
journey into the world of data analysis, creating
an app that navigates not only staffing, but
firefighter health, the integration of wearables,
the ability to pull reports on money wasted to
therefore justify proactive staffing, and so
much more. Now, before we get to this incredible
conversation, as I say every week, please just
take a moment. Go to whichever app you listen
to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback,
and leave a rating. Every single five -star rating
truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making
it easier for others to find. And this is a free
library of well over 1 ,100 episodes now. So
all I ask in return 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 Marcus Edwards. Enjoy. Well,
Marcus, I want to start by saying thank you so
much for taking the time and coming on the Behind
the Shield podcast today. Yeah, appreciate you
having me. Glad to be here. That is a beautiful
living room behind you, by the way. Yeah, they
have awesome virtual backgrounds here. I always
wonder what's behind it. Is there someone being
killed or middle of a war zone? No green screen,
normal room, unfortunately. Sorry to disappoint.
All right. Well, very first question, where on
planet Earth are we finding you today? I'm in
San Francisco. Brilliant. Well, I would love
to start the very beginning of your journey.
So tell me where you were born and tell me a
little bit about your family dynamic, what your
parents did, how many siblings? Yeah, absolutely.
I was born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Mom had me
in undergrad, so it was very much. the oldest
child watching a young mother who had to do a
lot in terms of work. So work ethic was very
big for me growing up. She was always working
and very hard at that. And then my dad is actually
my biological stepdad. He adopted my sister and
I in seventh grade. So he is in the fire service
as well as my uncle. And then my dad's dad and
then another uncle as well. So four firefighter
family members. My aunt is a police sergeant,
are formerly just retired from that. So very
much a first responder family. And I'm the oldest
with three younger sisters. So very much was
more of the responsible older sibling in many
cases, helping my younger sisters out. Definitely
wanted more of a boy in the house, which would
have been nice to have someone to play with,
but was more the responsible one growing up.
And then we lived in the Chicago suburbs. My
dad was a firefighter out in Evanston up north
from there. When you reflect back now, what were
the pros and what were the cons of growing up
in a firefighter family as a child? Pros were
kind of the cons too. So we got to like ride
fire trucks or have great meals on holidays.
But then that also meant for Christmas, for one
example, when you think of like scheduling, which
is what we do, was very used to the schedule
just not being normal. So, you know, we would
have a Christmas day or a Christmas Eve, never
both with my dad and uncle because they were
on two different shifts and had a 24, you know,
48 schedule. So it was just very clear to me
early on. We just work around that. Christmas
is this day this year. And that's when we all
you know, we'll come together as a family and
open gifts. But that was, you know, a little
bit of the con, but also made those moments more
special, where it was more about the tradition
and being together than the date. And I would
say the family part of both my family being a
big, very close family, and then also the fire
service being, you know, similar in that way,
have just seen so many examples of, like some
of my family members, but more other folks in
the fire service that have stumbled or fallen
down or struggled. That's life. And just having
folks there to pick them up was at a conference
a few weeks ago for the Western Fire Chiefs.
And they said, this is one of the last institutions
where good men are still made and looking to
be made. And I think that resonated a lot with
growing up in that environment of like it is
about honor and integrity and respect and honesty.
But you can also, you know. dream big and do
a lot of things because the fire service is always
changing as much as they hate change. So personally,
I loved growing up in a very first responder
family. And I think the craziness of life tends
to lend itself well to folks with that background.
So I think they helped me, you know, stay calm
under pressure too. See, I couldn't agree more.
I think it. really is the most incredible calling.
And when you're fire and EMS combined, you know,
you literally are the Swiss army knife of the
first responder world. And there's just nothing
more noble that I've put my hand on my heart
and say some of the most incredible husbands
and wives and mothers and fathers have been firefighters
that I know they really are. And what's exciting
as we get through this conversation. You know,
we're going to talk about how we can start bolstering
some of these areas where the fire service does
need help so we can get back to where it truly
needs to be to reach its full potential. Absolutely.
So what about sports and exercise? What were
you playing and doing as a child? Baseball. I
did one year of football and hated it too much.
I like the football workouts, actually great
training, but didn't like wearing all the pads
and they had me as a center for some reason.
wasn't big enough for that. So baseball, mostly
outfield, center field until sophomore year of
high school. switched to track and cross country,
and then also loved that. I always liked running
and diving for the ball in baseball. So that
was my big thing. And then picked up a lot of
volleyball actually in grad school. So three
to four days a week of having a volleyball court
nearby and a big fan of sand volleyball. Anything
hand -eye coordination I love, but if I have
to kick a ball or use my feet to do anything
other than run, I will be pretty terrible to
have on your team. I could kick someone in the
head. in a jump spinning kick, but I still struggle
to even dribble a football. So there we go. I
can relate when it's on the floor. I'm not so
good. Can't even do that. So that's great. What
about career aspirations? When you were in the
high school age, were you thinking of first responders
or you were thinking of the science side or was
there something else in your mind? I thought
of first responder way younger. Actually, so
just seeing my dad working, it was interesting.
But firefighters have aversion to technology
in a lot of cases on the line staff side, especially.
So it wasn't as interesting to me, like the hardware.
Like my dad studying for like fluidics tests
for his captain's exam and showing me how the
hose pressures varied. Like that was way more
exciting to me. And he knew it and could do the
math really quickly, but wasn't as interested
to him. It was just, you know, the job. So definitely
more of the science and engineering that interested
me. I thought I was going to do med school. Didn't
realize it takes so long and so much money. Switched
to thinking I would go to grad school. was studying,
or I did study biomedical engineering. So how
you design pharmaceutical drugs and deliver them
was my core focus and takes 13 years to get a
drug to market. That's a long time. So I kind
of gravitated towards trying a lot of different
things career -wise and seeing what fit. I worked
at a pharmaceutical company, worked at a manufacturing
company as an engineer on the plant floor to
try that out. Definitely did not like that one
as much because there's not as much room for
creativity or talking to folks. And the things
I enjoy decided to go to consulting. And that
really was more of a get a breadth of experience.
And I actually quickly became the company's advanced
analytics trainer for the North America region.
So anytime they needed something complex analyzed,
I was like, great, I've never used this tool.
Let me sign up to actually do the whole four
month project on it. And I would learn it very
quickly. And you'd have to because it's a quick
turnaround. And then that spurred me to say,
I want to go to business school because I saw
plenty of folks doing it. I was at Stanford for
business school, actually planning to go back
into consulting. They pay for it for you. That
was a great deal. You only have to go work for
two years. But I thought that going back for
the two years would pull me away from my long
-term goal, which was to start a company. I wasn't
sure where I would focus. So I told my dad over
winter break, I have taken out all the loans
and I am going to pay for it on my own. And I'm
going to start a software business and I'll focus
on a specific industry because I think that'll
have me focus instead of building something for
everyone. He said, I'll always support you. And
if you want to fix a specific industry, you should
fix the fire services software because it all
sucks. Wouldn't say all by any means. And we
have some great partners that we work with, too.
But there has been very, very limited innovation.
a lot of private equity owned companies that
don't care about the product or the service,
which is a tough combination. And we spent a
few nights going through his phone or a few hours
that night going through his phone. He couldn't
show me most of the tools on his phone. So on
his next shift, he FaceTimed me and then showed
me most of the rest. And it was very clear there
are a lot of disjointed systems. So my background
being data interoperability and taking billions
of rows of data from... Fortune 500 retailers
and having them in minutes make sense of that
and say, here's what I need to know. A similar
problem where you do not have weeks to run reports
to look at data. How do you see the key info
you need on the screen as a fire chief, for example,
across these many different tools? That's why
we decided to start with staffing because I talked
to tons of vendors and dozens of fire chiefs.
And it's the only tool that touches every single
user. So that's what got me excited to kind of
combine. When you think of career aspirations,
the kind of family background, but more my take
on it, because it was more the technology nerding
out on how the data flows side. But as I like
to say, I'll handle all the boring back office
stuff, which gets me excited. And then you can
handle the rest. Where did that love of numbers
and data come from when you reflect back to early
life? I think it's just like a logical thinking
mind, honestly. I both liked creative reading
and writing and then separately numbers. So I
try to make sure I have balance in both. But
one of the nerdiest things about me, I can say,
is my family would always make fun of me because
growing up, my favorite book was my children's
encyclopedia, which did have pictures, to be
fair. But I would say. do you know the average
weight of a blue whale? Or ask them ridiculous
questions like that, because I would just constantly
be reading information. So on the curiosity piece,
I would say both for numbers or just wanting
to read or learn more, that's always been a big
driver. When you were in the drug development
world, As we stand here in 2025, obviously there
are some drugs that have done incredible things,
and so you can't just tar everyone with the same
brush. But we all know, I mean, OxyContin is
a good example if we really want to use a terrible
kind of product and put it out there. There are
a lot of elements of that industry that really
aren't making things better, and some would argue
even they create the consumer. What were the
beautiful, exciting elements of that industry
when you were in it? And then what, if any, was
the dark side that you saw? So I was at AbbVie,
who makes Humira, one of the most profitable
drugs before all the Ozempics of the world came
out. I was doing, I think, $16 -ish billion a
year in revenue while I was there. And a drug
is considered a blockbuster if it reaches a billion
in annualized revenue for any extended period
of time. So this is one of the most profitable
drugs ever created by human beings. While I was
there, their indications for you are patent protected
by this, only Humira can cover this indication
started running out because they've been using
it for 20 years. So when the indication started
running out, I'll speak to the dark side first.
It was very clear. that they were focusing on
marketing, on branding, on retaining their price
power, on squeezing out any potential. And this
is common practice. This isn't an appy thing
when you mentioned just the industry. So we don't
want generics to be able to enter the market.
We want generics to be perceived as worse. You'll
still see like Mucinex or certain commercials
where you could get a perfectly fine thing at
Walgreens. Humira is dependent on people living
like normal lives. It is not mucinex. I have
a sister with type one diabetes, for example.
So she'll need insulin forever unless there are
some novel treatments down the line that folks
are working on. I think within her lifetime,
a more long term treatment is possible. But in
the immediate future, she will always depend
on pharmaceutical companies and even refrigeration
in their transport to live. So that is the flip
side I've seen where that makes life possible
and increasingly more normal for folks who have
long -term diseases. But the profit incentive
that drives much of the industry to continue
going up and up and up to please shareholders
is the big problem I see. And actually, that's
part of what inspired me to go into getting an
MBA later on years down the line. An MBA student
at AbbVie said, you mentioned that you're investing
more and more in R &D, and that's why you need
to keep Humira prices high. However, you've shown
that you've acquired more companies and that
you've invested less and less each year in R
&D in this slide. So how do you justify that
narrative? And he asked that to the newly assigned
chief strategy officer. So he did not, in my
opinion, answer in a compelling way whatsoever
because there isn't a compelling answer. There's
greed driving healthcare, health. health and
medicine, let's say across the board. So I think
the practitioners are the ones squeezed most
and the patients, but I think there are solutions
that folks know about to that. It's just more
of a, you know, motivation issue that drives
many industries, but that one being so important
to people living, I have obviously stronger opinions
about that one. Well, especially when you're
talking about insulin, when you see just how
preventable type two diabetes is. And the huge
demand on that and the stress it's putting on
that product being developed and, of course,
the affordability. If we were able to push the
proactive preventative model and make Americans
healthier and healthier. And I just had a guest
on, Josh Clemente, who's got Levels, which is
an online app platform. Again, you do blood work.
There's a continuous glucose monitor that you
wear for a month. But the idea is to empower
the individual. constantly be able to look at
their own health and make their own changes therefore
you know chronic chronic disease would come down
immensely with all these tools but then that
frees up you know the the insulin for the type
1 diabetic that we you know are still working
on what the cause is and what the solution is
and the same with pediatric cancer you know the
more cancers we can prevent the more money and
research can go into these diseases where you
know these poor children were just born they've
got leukemia that's where the money needs to
go so you know i think companies can still make
good money but if if there's money it's not the
most money and that societal problem is i think
what we will all grapple with in the next 50
years of how much is too much we'll have real
resource scarcity on things like lithium where
you can't just keep building the same electric
car so yeah i couldn't agree more that i think
that's the like how do we get the folks that
the wheel, who are more doing the stock market
investing or running these companies to make
those more, will still make plenty of money,
but managing those expectations for a better
society. I see that as still the challenge for
sure. Yeah. Well, that's one thing I've observed
is there's this kind of worshiping of monopoly.
And you mentioned Walgreens. What's next to Walgreens
normally? CVS. In every city that I've been to.
So rather than saying, well, hey, you know, Walgreens,
you get the north end and we'll get the south
end. You know, it's like, well, I want to put
CVS out of business. I want to put Walgreens
out of business. And that's the model to have
all the money. But if you look at, you know,
more historic human, you know, villages and towns,
you know, the local blacksmith wasn't trying
to put the other blacksmith out of business.
They were just both serving the community. And
I think we've lost that completely. Absolutely.
All right. Well, then, so you talked about your
father's kind of perspective on staffing. It's
funny because I had one of my Anaheim captains
developed one of the apps that I used through
my career. Now, he sold it a long time ago. So
how it's doing now is not a reflection of him.
But at the time, it was a really great app. This
was like 20 plus years ago now. Not even an app,
a website. But even through my career. I've seen
the challenges of websites and then also the
fact that they're just not utilized properly
because the people they're sold to aren't educated
on how to use them and how to pull reports and
how to empower the line personnel to really be
able to be autonomous with their use of it. When
you then enter this space and you start looking
at what's out there, what were some of the most
glaring deficiencies at first glance? any of
these and like you mentioned just more now not
when they started i think actually the reflection
of every customer we've met is when every company
started they were great and they worked with
us and they had service so the number one thing
we're working on is how we maintain that as we
scale um that's where venture funding can be
a bit different from private equity funding where
we can plan years out and stick to that plan
for at least hiring for example um so like that
piece you know we want to make sure sets us apart
You mentioned folks not having the setup properly.
That is the number one issue. A lot of the complaints
that folks have, the tool might be able to do
if it were configured that way, especially at
setup. A lot of the vendors will charge more
for change orders or will say you need to spend
on the engineering time that you don't get to
just meet with folks to get a consult on how
you could solve that problem. So to make, let's
say, that staffing software, which is... very
complex, takes a ton of different systems and
rules to work together to say now the right butt
is in the right seat. If that's not set up correctly,
it's very painful. And if you have to do workarounds
on that process, now you're impacting staffing
and the accountability for the day because it
might not be reflected in the roster. And then
you also are likely impacting pay because you're
creating workarounds and different scenarios
like shift trades, for example, are quite manual
for how folks have to remember to exclude them
than for the folks that we're trading off at
a different pay code that is all automated for
us for example so it's on the onboarding part
and making sure you're set up to know we can
actually automate that pay code change you don't
need to worry about that from a workflow point
of view We even can often reduce the number of
pay codes that departments have by up to 20 %
to 30%, even out of the gate. We're doing with
one customer we've had for a year, another payroll
reduction because they realize they can use even
less. So when you think of that change management
piece, we don't want to have folks bite off too
much, but we lean in. We call it white glove
onboarding to make sure that you have a concierge
essentially walking you through the process.
Everyone at the company speaks firefighter so
that when you have an issue come up, it's not.
What's a shift trade? Could you explain what
that means? Very, very frustrating for a customer
paying thousands of dollars a year to not have
a customer support person who knows what they're
talking about. So it's the onboarding process,
a lot of workarounds in the product, and then
the support thereafter as the continuum of where
folks struggle. And then where we've seen a lot
of maybe not the biggest pain they're switching
for now, but the folks that are more forward
thinking say, I know these vendors are private
equity owned, not innovating for me, regardless
of the service, the product will not continue
to evolve for me. So how do I plan for the future
with a different vendor like StationWise? So
you came in, is it three, three and a half years
ago? Is that right? Yep, just about. So most
of that was really building and designing, as
you could imagine, to make sure it was ready
for prime time. But yeah, launched about a year
ago with the, we're live with real customers
and replacing what they use. So you brought in
a fresh set of eyes and you came in at an exciting
time when it comes to technology with AI and
some of these other areas. Talk to me about that.
What has been this evolution of technology that's
changed the way that we're able to use this kind
of staffing software in 2025? So I'll give you
an example from Puget Sound in Washington State.
Their assistant chief, we had met 18 months ago,
just doing an initial demo. And his feedback
was, he told us this later, but he said at the
time to their other chief, this is really exciting
if they can pull it off, but they've got a lot
of work ahead of them. We met them again in March
of this year. They were very impressed by the
progress and wanted to consider actually replacing
their current tool. They needed vacation auctions
to work well. it kind of works with their current
vendor but they run them every year and have
a lot of custom rules they can't really visualize
what's going on auditing is possible but a lot
of clicks and just not as intuitive as you'd
want it to be more importantly those rules not
being followed now means you have workarounds
for everybody in the vacation pick process so
we custom built for them and a few other agencies
our vacation bidding module then to say we'll
have it ready this fall We have two agencies,
not including Puget Sound, actually running those
auctions right now successfully, which is very
exciting. But their assistant chief said in the
September demo, when we showed them in person
their auctions. We had folks, you know, log in
with their phones and actually get the notifications
of the auctions coming through. He emailed us
after and said, you have to be using AI to develop
the product or to move more quickly. And we absolutely
do for designing and for writing a lot of the
initial code, especially if it's simpler. But
everyone has it. We always have humans that will
actually audit it, do code reviews after and
then do extensive QA. And even some of that QA,
we can automate by doing automated testing and
clicking through the product on hundreds of devices
at once. So we try to use AI or automation. I
know AI is the buzzword now, but workflow automation,
we do a ton of on our side too, to make sure
that we're more efficient or saving time and
can automate processes just like we do for customers.
So on building things quickly, that's one. On
another, we're building health dashboards and
tracking sleep deprivation and exposures, for
example. We're adding a phone number to call
peer support. All of that we're building is in
an AI tool. having engineers write a single line
of code until we've worked with customers on
when you click, what should it go to? We're building
a real product, just the front end with an AI
tool that I can then design with customers, even
in person, live with them so they can see the
changes and react to them. That is a game changer
when you think of previously, even for us a year
ago, it was go to a designer. hey, designer,
here's all of this customer context because you
can't join that meeting. Now, please design something.
And then we have feedback sessions internally.
We've completely flipped that around where the
feedback and design is happening with customers.
Then our designers figure out, here are the other
considerations. Here's how this fits into our
tool or how we make it more fit the data schema
that we need, for example. So that's been a huge,
huge change for us building net new features
or products that aren't necessarily going to
be built immediately, but make sure we build
them correctly. And as you could imagine with
health and wellness tracking, we want to make
sure it's built for practitioners and by them,
not, yeah, this will be a silver bullet to solve
your mental health issues or all your sleep problems.
Just more making it clear what can we do and
building it with folks. AI makes all of that
incredibly easy, not just possible. So when you
and I first spoke, you could tell my ears perked
up when we started talking about the analysis
of expenditure and then obviously the health
side. And I want to get to the health and mental
health in a minute. But when I'm having this
conversation about trying to make the 42 -hour
workweek standardized across the whole country,
so the 24 -72, one of the biggest knee -jerk
reactions is, well, we can't even afford it now.
And the response is, you know, well, then go
back and look at how much you're spending on
overtime. What is your staffing model? So how
many vacant spots are there? So your retention
rate as well. And there are other, there are
other factors. I don't even want to talk about
that in the moment, but these, you know, these,
these, wherever they are in these departments,
it takes them a long time. They have to go to
the finance department and you know, there are
these barriers and also are they being told the
truth? There's another one too. I think the first
place to start is just simply talk to me about
the kind of reports that can be run from this
and can, you know, a chief or a battalion chief,
whoever's able to run the report, be able to
find out exactly how much these vacancies in
these departments are costing them annually.
Yeah. When you think of where we are similar
to other tools, you can export all your staffing
data and run a report and filter out certain
pay codes or project codes you want to. So you
can do all of that quote reporting that folks
are used to, where it'll spit out a file and
then you'll analyze it. And it's usually just
based on work hours. What we're now doing is
more of an analytics dashboard for how many hours
are folks working and showing that in a graph.
So instead of your report spitting out a total,
You can see by the month or even by the pay period
if you zoom in enough, for example. So showing
you the historical trends of what you're spending
in hours right now is what we already do with
our payroll analytics. What we're working on
right now is very exciting. Pulling in that fully
loaded cost from your payroll tool, each pay
code for each pay period for each user. So saying,
here's what this overtime for this step five
captain cost according to your payroll tool.
And we'll pull that in. So now you mentioned
being able to track overtime, for example, even
proactively saying, I want to see what my overtime
budget is right now at this time. That should
be possible. There's no reason it's not. But
it takes three weeks, we found, for many chiefs,
especially at larger departments, to run a report,
to go to payroll, like you mentioned, to work
around everybody's schedules, to work around
the transparency concerns and or data discrepancies
of, well, we count it as this and we count it
as this. that shouldn't happen when you think
of everything being standard and tying to your
budgets so we can actually map each pay code
to a city budget line and say this is the budget
this one will go to or let you set cases where
that will vary of course too but we try to make
that part easy to track in real time the dollars
And then now the future planning or the scenario
of what would have happened if we had a different
schedule of this year becomes possible. So like
you mentioned, if we want to switch to a 24 -72
schedule and we're at a 48 -96 like most of California,
how much will that cost my specific department?
That will depend on vacancy rate. Maybe if I
have a ton of extra floaters or rovers, I don't
need to hire as much. If I'm constantly understaffed,
that's probably even more reason to hire anyway.
So what is the case that we're going to make
and how can the tool help you make it in terms
of now that cost? is reasonably calculated for
you. And it could even be a high, medium, and
low case because overtime obviously varies and
you can't predict future overtime spend based
on past data. Insurance companies have learned
that with wildfire risk. So I think that would
be foolish to say, here's guaranteed your overtime
spend, but to give you a few scenarios and eventually
let you play with the variables as a fire chief
or as an analyst becomes really powerful because
the payroll folks can also have that view. it's
about transparency and we don't bill by user
so if you want to add city it or payroll or give
those folks accounts you can control the permissions
and just let them view the analytics for example
so then there can be a more shared view where
you can filter and download that data and say
yes payroll this is the right info or you know
city finance depending on the department size
See, I think this is so important and we'll get
into all the other things that you can do with
the wearables and, you know, the autonomy of
the first responder to be able to take trades
and days off and all those things. I think they're
very important. But as you alluded to the step
five captain, when people say, well, we had this
many hours of overtime, it's like, well, that's
great. But who filled it? You had a, you know,
a probie. that had to take some time off or you
know you've got these vacant spots and you've
got these these uh veteran firefighters that
are trying to pad their last highest three paychecks
for their drop or their retirement um and so
they're all chomping at the bit for all the overtime
and they're earning twice as much as a new firefighter
so being able to pull these reports you can actually
see what it's costing you and then i would imagine
as well you know people that are off workman's
comp that kind of thing you know how many people
Are we getting injured? And pull reports so that
you can really put in front of you, this is the
downstream cost of the way that we're doing it
now. And then like you said, can you forecast,
well, look, if all these spots were filled, and
let's say we had fitness standards and a strength
and conditioning program, so we mitigated injury,
what would be the projected savings? I think
those are really important numbers for people
to start advocating for their own workforce.
Right. Absolutely. And the only thing I'll add
to that. It's not just about running reports.
So our report view will let you run scenarios
and the analytics are helpful. We're building
our rules engine a bit differently where you'll
be able to set automatic alerts. So let's say
if a user is on workers comp for 28 consecutive
days, then change their pay code to this pay
code and alert payroll admin and fire chief because
now they're switching to sick time and maybe
the user too. But what are the like automations
you might do to alert yourself? proactively when
certain things are happening or will, adding
the spend to that, like when my overtime spend
reaches 40%, but we're only 25 % of the way through
the year can be really powerful. So it's not
all on you to say, we just got back from a crazy
strike team deployment and now I'm going to run
reports. And even if those reports are faster,
wouldn't it have been better to know while on
the strike team so you can prep or at least let
command staff know so you can handle it better
when you're back? Those are the things we want
to work on too, when you think of proactive versus,
you know, reactive. Talk to me about the capability
for this to show the extended sleep deprivation
that some of the workforce are getting. So what
we're starting with with the sleep deprivation
tracking is actually just coming from Nearest.
So the incident reports that folks are already
filling out, though we focus on staffing, we're
licensed as a Nearest vendor to take in all their
Nearest data. So let's say you use an incident
reporting tool. That's your Nearest vendor number
one. You can actually just list our station wise
code as number two. And now we can pull in all
your nearest reports as they're filed. So that
gives us who is the apparatus and the incident
and all the info for it. So that's exposures
and the times. Times are going to be really useful
for the sleep deprivation piece. So on our side,
what we're building is the only way to view where
or who is on which incident. Nearest doesn't
care about people. They will not put people,
you know, you can put them optionally, but there's
no people, you know, assignment on nearest. We
only care about people in theory or, you know,
staffing tools do, but don't have that incident
tie in. So what we're building is here's all
your nearest incidents that come into StationWise.
We just pull those in automatically. We're already
sending to your incident reporting tool the roster,
so we'll keep populating that. But some folks,
especially at night or if they're doing splits,
might not be split on the roster, but they might
ride out on the ambulance and go out on different
calls than they're assigned on the roster. And
that's universal across departments. So we're
building a view for you to say. actually, this
person was or was not on this incident. So now
we will be the source of truth on who was actually
on each incident, not just the butt in the seat.
And that'll still be automated, but you can then
move those folks or they could say, actually,
chief, I wasn't on that incident. And then you
can accept that change request, for example.
So still going through approvals, but then putting
it on both users and admin. So it's not on one
person, you know, to manually move everybody
around the incidents if they weren't on the right
one. that's going to be really powerful for saying
now John Smith was on this apparatus at this
time and we know with certainty. So think, for
example, just on the sleep side. I'll talk about
incident reports first, but for sleep, we can
know the timestamp of when each apparatus that
person was out went out on calls. So we could
think of it as the number of interruptions during
their sleep window. We could think of it as the,
because they're getting paged out for those at
the very least, the number of the minimum amount
of hours they could have slept or max, I should
say. So if you could have slept at most four
hours, because that was the longest gap between
your calls, now you're in red. Maybe if you're
six or more, you're yellow or four to six, you're
yellow. But being able to choose your variables
and define those ranges is what we can work on.
All of that data is already available. There
shouldn't be enter the info, entering your exposures,
for example. When I hear of departments doing
that, that's a big reason we're building the
health dashboards for some of the first agencies.
Why do you have to self -report when Nearest
is tracking those exposures? Well, because the
incident reports, again, don't bring in that
people view. So this is where more of my data
analytics excitement comes in, but we have all
the personnel info. We pull training records
in from their training tool, incident reporting.
you know records in there and then that can let
us track the narrative as well were you out on
a traumatic call that mentioned a juvenile uh
was it one that you flagged as traumatic for
whatever reason maybe it's just a red green yellow
smiley face you're just like don't want to talk
about it this sucked how do you make it easy
for a firefighter to actually give that feedback
and not well this call was very traumatic and
here's why because no one's going to fill that
out of course so that feedback loop will be really
powerful on what other pieces we can add. But
just starting on sleep and exposures already
can obviously give folks a lot of control over
their data, like you mentioned on the glucose
monitor. How can I view that I have not slept
well? Maybe I can turn on or off proactive alerts
that say, you just exceeded your max work hours
and we're on a mandatory shift. You had one call
we would flag as traumatic. Here's an intervention
of, you know, Nidra yoga where you could practice
breathing and sleep meditation work. Whatever
the interventions are that work for you or that
we would recommend, we can start to build based
on data. But obviously that's more if folks want
to opt in because it will never be, you know,
big brother watching over you. It's more, yes,
I choose to share my health data because the
number one thing is both making sure it works
for fire chiefs and they're excited. but it's
not big brother watching over you, especially
that's why we're not starting with wearables
when you think of being tracked or what folks
see. And there's a lot of trust that you want
to build before that to say, now give us your
heart rate data and we'll actually standardize
what that means. trickier to do with hardware
where they you know measure in different ways
so i want to make sure it's meaningful from the
start and then we can add more but you can obviously
see a lot of ways that could grow when you think
of just even adding a phone number with a button
to call peer support is one other feature we
were asked for where it's now bringing a lot
of that health information into one place instead
of a link that hopefully they saved or you know
a pin up on one of the stations I really like
the idea of just the metaphor of the smiley face
for a second, because you might have one person
that goes to an MCI in a minivan full of kids
who are all killed, and they're okay. They didn't
enjoy the call at all, of course, but they're
okay. And then you can have someone who's got
28 years on, just goes on a pediatric, what do
we call it? DOA, basically. I'm thinking of the
word now. And that particular one, is crushing
for them because maybe they just lost you know
their parent and they held their hand as they
passed after a cancer diagnosis so what doesn't
seem very traumatic to us you know as far as
you know on the spectrum of trauma calls that
might be horrendous for that person it might
just be you know the crib that they had in the
house reminded of you know them losing a child
three years before who knows so they have the
ability to just say i'm not doing so well and
then that initiating some opportunities for them
to reach out as you said you know privately themselves
i think that's a phenomenal i really do because
that that way you don't have to sit at a firehouse
table and say that one really stung if you're
in a group that maybe you don't feel comfortable
with it one one would hope that you would you'd
be able just to talk but we know that's not the
case in in some stations so the anonymity of
just being able to initiate a cascade of different
options by saying, yeah, you know what? That
wasn't, that was not a good call for me. I love
that. You get a prompt to say, here's a phone
number or like, here's the button, literally
click this one button and it will call your specific
peer support line that you can have, you know,
whenever you need to talk to folks, if that's
a resource you all have. Totally. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, another thing I think that does a huge
injustice is they'll say, well, they only ran
three calls. And what they need to know is, firstly,
what were the length of the calls? Like some
of the medics here. Start and end time, important.
Yeah. So, you know, it's changed now. We've got
a trauma center, but the medics here in the county
used to have to transport to Shands. So if they're
out in the national forest, their round time,
just as far as the actual transport time, would
be close to three hours. And then you've got
time in the VR. So, you know, one call is not
the same and that's not factoring in, you know,
the target solutions training, working out, pulling
hose, you know, doing blood pressure checks at
the front door. So talk to me about, you know,
extrapolating on single figure where they had
a call into using some of this to show the actual
workload of a first responder. Yeah, there's
a lot of ways. Think of like the time horizon
being what you could vary. Do I want to see how
this person's doing on this one shift? over a
longer period and then there's types of info
you can see so do i want to see how they've been
sleeping according to nearest we're not you know
doing self -reported sleep yet um but how according
to nearest have i you know has my sleep duration
been? Where's that timeline of what traumatic
calls I've been on? Whether that's we flagged
it because it was a juvenile or maybe because
you said, you know, big red frowny face and you
can see a timestamp of when those happened. But
the challenge is also making it anonymous. So
folks will actually use the resources. What we've
learned from a lot of fire chiefs that have more
mental health resources, one chief, for example,
in Virginia said, my station that has my mental
health resources, I have not gone to in four
years. It took two years of me not going by and
walking by the room, which could violate confidentiality
before people started trusting that I would no
longer walk by. And he'd made it very clear why
he wasn't going from day one. two years is the
stigma and the change of, great, now I can trust
that this won't impact my career. So we do not
take that anonymity piece lightly either, where
I don't think the important part is oversharing
with the battalion chief to say, hey, chief,
this person's struggling. I think that helps
a lot in some scenarios where the user is also
okay with that. And maybe from nearest or things
that battalion chief could find anyway. Great.
But if it's me saying this was triggering to
me, then maybe I have the option to say, I don't,
if this is just for me to say, I want to trigger
my interventions, but nobody can see it and it's
actually anonymous versus I'm okay notifying
folks. Maybe I can change an anonymous one to
notifying later. If I say, you know what, I've
gone to peer support and I'm okay with more people
knowing, but whatever that looks like is also
a really important part for the user to choose
what the admin can actually go through, regardless
of that time horizon. So that's kind of the wellness
and then hopefully finding data to push the move
to a healthier fire department. Let's start with
each of the ranks now. From the firefighter's
perspective, as you mentioned, we've got trade
bids, we've got vacation requests, we've got
PTO, all these different things. What are some
of the kind of highlights of the station -wise
technology that you've got now that maybe are
different to some of the platforms that people
are currently on? So my dad and uncle are two
of the least tech savvy firefighters I know.
If you say the word data, my dad will literally
leave the room. So the biggest thing they emphasized
was don't make me remember a new password and
don't make me log into a desktop. I have so many
tools that don't work on a phone. So there's
plenty of things we've made really easy. We call
it firefighter proof for a reason. We say, try
to break it and give it your all, but we'll block
you from doing a shift trade three days before
if you're not allowed to based on your rules.
We enforce maximum consecutive work hour limits.
We can show your accrual banks in the tool. So
you can say, I actually don't have enough sick
hours, for example, to request this day off.
If that's what's in my bank. So we try to make
it really easy for the user to both see what's
happening. If you request time off from your
phone, you immediately see this is not waiting
for approval and it was auto approved or you're
waiting for two approvers. Here's who those people
are and when they're going to approve it. Because
it might go first to captain, then to a battalion
chief, for example. So as the user, no new phone
or no new password needed. And it's way more
user friendly entirely from your phone. We've
also got a, if you want to run it on a desktop
and get emails and texts as well, and you don't
have a smartphone, we've designed it around that
as well because there are some holdouts in some
of the big departments, even in 2025, who insist
on being pretty off the grid. So we've designed
it around all of those fire use cases where the
goal is you're already not spending a ton of
time in the tool, but it's quite painful in some
cases because you have to go outside or fill
out separate reports. and then the other side
for them is transparency and this goes for every
user but firefighters especially can now view
their position on staffing lists as of a date
so i can go to any date on my phone and see how
likely am i to get staffed to that shift and
then i can also view my time card and sign it
if you want some folks say we're going to sign
in payroll this is just to view and export it
and we don't need users to sign you can have
users sign their own and or employees or admins,
I should say, approve on top of that. So that
kind of time card auditing and then viewing my
time. Eventually, we can also hopefully show
the pay as well because we'll pull that from
the payroll tool where the user can toggle between
hours and dollars too. Maybe not as a full pay
stub, but here's what you made by pay code, including
your benefits, for example, which we'll add in
for that fully loaded cost. So all that transparency
on your phone. Versus again, maybe your pay stubs,
it's easier as a user, but most pay stubs are
not easy to understand. In ours, for example,
you can toggle between pay period and FLSA period
if you're a firefighter on that phone. I like
the fact that you can see lists. I don't know
if it was you or someone else was telling me
the other day that they had the list and the
tendency was good to go to the people that constantly
take overtime. I won't use the phrase on this
particular conversation. And the one time that
they just jumped straight to him rather than
going through the list, there was a guy on the
list that had never worked overtime and this
time he wanted to. So, you know, I think that's
it's not so much of an issue now because people
are being forced to work over and over and over
again. But when we get this back to where it
should be, where overtime is once in a while,
you know, that that's a very important thing.
And there have been some underhand practices
by certain, you know. you know, unions and, you
know, the good old boy system as it were. So
being able to have that full transparency that,
yeah, no, they tried everyone ahead of you, you
know, and then, you know, you took it or you
denied it. I think that would alleviate a lot
of, you know, headbanging in departments. and
grievances really like we want to make sure that
all of your rules are being followed so max number
of actors allowed off max number you know max
consecutive work hours with your minimum break
you can always override those in our tool but
we'll warn you here's the rule you're going to
violate override it and then write a note so
then you have a system of record for it too One
of the things I loved about Anaheim, it was so
autonomous. And again, one of the captains wrote
that software, but it was coupled though with
the way that the department thought. So I think
it was literally before 5 p .m. the day before
I could take the day off. That's how flexible
it was. And we could project, nothing really
went through the chiefs. The only thing that
we did is if I was in battalion one and I got
overtime in battalion two, firefighter there
and myself could call the chief and say hey we're
just going to stay on our own battalions if that's
okay and stay in our own station so that it didn't
have quite have that part down but I really like
the paid leave system because that's what they
did there wasn't sick there wasn't all these
individual ones there was just paid leave and
you used it however with all these different
systems that you've been exposed to you know
what do you find is the most versatile when it
comes to staffing through this furry outside
looking in lens that you have. And when you say
versatile, do you mean in terms of like the tool
or how to approach those, I guess, accrual banks
with more like the rule side or the software
side, I guess? I think really the labeling. So
when, for example, you work for departments and
it says sick time, you have to do that fake phone
call where you're pretending that you're dying
so that you can get your kid from preschool because...
You know, you just got called and said that they
got a snotty nose. Whereas in paid leave, you
just took the time off and you didn't have to
do any of that stuff. So the hours of the hours
you accrue them, they're allowed to be used.
But there's a lot more guilt and shame with sick
time, for example, than paid leave or vacation.
My personal opinion is just straight paid leave
seems to be the most common sense if you truly
trust your people. But, you know, from the staffing
models that you've seen, what are the best ones
that you've observed? Yeah, it makes a ton of
sense. Like personal leave, paid leave, like
making it clear it's a general category is common.
Sick, we've seen commonly like sick and personal
leave. So please only use your sick when you're
sick. Most of your leave is in your personal
leave bank, which helps the department track
when are folks actually sick if they have enough
of the latter. So definitely agreed on the labeling
piece. And even it goes mental health and the
stigma, for example. What if we show, even if
you don't choose to submit it, you're not just
annual physical, which we're already showing
in our health dashboard, but also your mental
assessment. So annual mental screening and making
that more normalized. Even if it's not filled
out, how do we show it on the front screen and
say, that's perfectly normal? That was what one
fire psychiatrist, for example, recommended that
we add in terms of normalizing that language.
So not saying I'm sick, the fake sick routine.
I think the biggest thing that I've seen on the
firefighter side is they're already stressed
about the schedule in so many cases, especially
those Gen Z folks. So we've started running surveys,
for example, and as no surprise, found a lot
of the folks under 35 or so are not nearly as
motivated by money and salary and overtime as
everybody else was. So this is causing a complete
change in how folks think and prioritize about.
what they think of staffing or how the shifts
change and that whole arc of like you mentioned
well i'll just take shifts when i retire but
a lot of the older folks want to spend time with
their kids or enjoy empty nesting they don't
get to because they're getting mandatory in more
too so a lot of the past expectations are also
changing so you know again as much as the fire
service doesn't like change it's constantly been
evolving and that's the next one i see with how
the younger members don't see things the same
way with how they prioritize it. And we'll see
maybe even in one department, a dichotomy of
how folks view sick. I don't think Gen Z folks
care about using sick time at all. I think they
want whatever bank they have, but I've seen maybe
the folks that are more career -minded or want
to be on the officer track. Is this going to
count against me if I'm now taking off sick?
Maybe my wife can take off of work instead and
I'll ask her. But that stress and fatigue that
you put on folks by saying this is labeled as
something that you're not using it as, it's extra
friction that doesn't need to be there for sure.
So I think being thoughtful about, are we showing?
mental assessment, even if no one fills it out,
what are the signals that you want to send? But
again, not just to have it be fluffy. If it's
sick, causing a stressor for folks, which it
has in some cases, why not call it personal leave?
There's plenty of reasons, most of them being
because we've always had it that way. And the
union might be up in arms, but the naming does,
I think, at least matter. Well, firstly, it's
funny that you said about Gen Z because that's
exactly what I've been talking about. If you
want to attract that generation into the fire
service, you've got to fix the things that are
broken when it comes to physical and mental health.
And they will come back. You give them a work
week that allows them to perform at a high level
and be home when they're supposed to be home
and rest and recover the way they're supposed
to. I guarantee you will have lines around the
building again. The other thing with the labeling,
I was the guy that always had almost nothing
in the bank because I used my time. I know I'm
tired and this is, I was getting mandatory all
the time. So I'm like, this is how I'm going
to, you know, keep my health, keep a mental health
is I've got to take a mental health. They've
got to take a day off just to simply not have
to wake up at five in the morning and go back
to the station again. But that's not sick. I'm
not sick. You know, so this is the point is that
reframing it into just simply, no, I'm going
to give a rest and recovery day, just the same
as you would if you're an athlete, you know,
you're getting kind of a little bit of burnout
going on. take an extra rest day and then you
get back in the gym so i think there's there's
a lot of kind of uh a lot of great things that
you can get away from from kind of redefining
what a simple day off is it can just simply be
i think i just need to be with my family today
i need to wake up and have breakfast without
the judgment or the fear of career retribution
is the big one because that's the stigma obviously
uh think it's not unique to fire though like
think of um airlines, like pilots especially,
or air traffic controllers who are both going
through struggles right now, but air traffic
control especially, they're essentially not allowed
to experience any form of depression. If you
are flagged in any capacity as like, yeah, I
experienced depression, someone lost their wings
immediately and had previously enjoyed their
job. So most folks have learned that you don't
speak up and you suppress it and you just push
on and that's the job. That is putting people
in some of the most critical positions of like
airports, fire, very critical infrastructure
and support for everything that happens for either
emergencies or the day -to -day. That is a huge
problem. and making it more accessible for those
folks to take the time off they need regardless
of what it looks like to remove that stigma that
stigma is very real if the career retribution
is real for pilots i don't think many firefighters
would say that they've never experienced a chief
or don't know of any chiefs who are anti -mental
health or who are very old school and say that's
just the job figure it out i don't care that
you struggled on this call or it's i'm sorry
that you did but you have to you know pull yourself
up, which could be more ableist than some folks
like. And that balance is tricky to strike on
how do you enable those folks across all of the
different needs and resources they might have
or want, and then also make sure you're not stigmatizing
or penalizing their career. I don't think other
industries that have the similar demand of, sorry,
we're around the clock. We can't shut down. I
don't think they've figured it out either. So
a lot of opportunity to hopefully help folks
across the board to say this is a better way
of naming it, of handling it, of scheduling folks.
You have to budget for more hours and time off
and thus more people. And here's why and what
that looks like. Like you mentioned, I'm more
quantifying that burnout. That's what I get excited
about because putting it in dollars context is
easier than saying what would we have spent or
what is the physical. you know, duress that these
folks might be under. Or maybe if we have a lot
of folks quit, then we have to hire more, but
they're not there. That's a risk that we might
spend more on as well. So plenty of ways we could
frame, you simply have to pay more. So folks
aren't working such crazy schedules. There's
very few ways around it, but I think those arguments
are hard to quantify currently. So that's what
I get excited about making it. Again, not that
weeks or months of report running or working
with payroll, but at your fingertips. Exactly.
And that's like I've said, in so many of these
areas, you could argue the shutdown that is causing
the issues with air traffic control and federal
firefighters and our military still working for
zero dollars. But it's about that we don't need
more money. You know, the money is downstream.
You look at the cost of health care in America
at the moment, it's 20 percent of our GDP. So
imagine the trillions of dollars you would save
if you just made Americans healthy. You get middlemen
in health care to just hand over their... their
money. That is the question I definitely think
about a ton, but I couldn't agree more. It's
waste of money that doesn't go to the human health
outcomes. And if you think of how hospitals are
even rated by reimbursement rates or how they
do, there's no similar review for insurance companies
or they all track how much they deny claims and
brag about it. So I think having a more thoughtful
approach to how the healthcare infrastructure
of which fire is a big part. They've only started
getting the Medicare, Medicaid grants to cover
ambulatory services in the last five to seven
years when, you know, Medicare and Medicaid have
expanded. That is great, but it is just the start.
When you think of how much, how many healthcare
services is an EMS department, you know, a fire
and EMS department. committing by the time they
deliver that person, the resources driving that
person back. Private ambulance companies have
a very different amount they bill for. So why
can't, you know, the public make up some of that
difference or get reimbursed where there's a
market rate that folks are well below in most
cases because you're providing a public good.
But that money going to those private hospitals
is a huge part of the problem. It's not yet in
the government hands, but I think that's why
a lot of people advocate for single payer health
care or an alternative to not everything needing
to be so expensive on the middleman side. I couldn't
agree more, though, that how you extract that
money in a thoughtful way. I think these grants
that cover Medicare and Medicaid are a great
one because it directly aligns service with the
outcome. How can we carve off more of that given
the number of services would be my immediate
thing that could be lobbied for that more achievable
than a single payer healthcare system probably.
Absolutely. And the same with cities, with their
fire departments. If you look downstream at overtime
costs and lack of retention, so you train people,
you equip them, and then they leave. The medical
retirements, the line of duty death payments,
the workman's comp claims, the lawsuits from
exhausted firefighters making mistakes. I mean,
it is, depending on where you are, millions,
tens of millions, hundreds of millions. Like
LA, their four -year overtime budget, overtime
was $1 .2 billion. So when people say we don't
have the money for extra personnel, I'm like,
you do. And this goes back to what we were talking
about. You're planning to spend it in the future.
You just, yeah, not in the right spot. So let's
run these reports and show you. See, it's black
and white in front of you and you can take it
to your employer. All right, well then. Let's
talk about training now. I was a firefighter
and also a paramedic. So I had a lot of CEs that
I had to do, you know, biannually. Talk to me
about the opportunity for this software to keep,
you know, stay on top of certifications and all
the other areas. Yeah. So Target Solutions is
the like training tool used by. I won't say most,
but like a third of fire departments, let's say,
or so. Fire engineering training is a new one
that started more recently. They're also a partner
of the Western Fire Chiefs like us. So they're
the kind of recommended vendor that are doing
things differently. We can integrate with both
of them and pull in training data. So paramedic,
for example, as a qualification needs to get
renewed in Illinois every four years where my
dad's department is. That's a new requirement
for Illinois where previously it was you're a
paramedic, just keep up with your trainings,
but not needing a formal recertification. So
we can pull in the credential and if they're
qualified for it into our tool directly from
your training tool and even the expiration date,
which is optional. So if there's an expiration
date, we can say, I think it's set for 30 or
45 days out for the default, but fully customizable
to say X days before it expires. turn it yellow
and change it to expiring soon and notify me
my training chief and anybody else that you want
to notify same thing when it actually expires
so we can help proactively track on a workflow
basis where we have the messaging and communication
system and the mobile app where folks can use
you know in a user -friendly way but the training
chief who has spent 20, maybe 10 years in target
solutions or the tool of choice to input all
that training info? Does it need to change the
workflow or export all that data? And a big challenge
we see with folks is they're pitched on interoperability
and interoperability is adopt our platform. And
there's more than one vendor doing this, but
you have to have all of our suite and maybe we'll
plug into some other tools, but it'll be a very
minimal integration. we have more so crew sense
and target solutions for example are owned by
vector solutions they do not communicate that
training data with the roster so if you have
relevant credentials to staffing they are then
manually updated in crew sense to me that makes
no sense they're the same tool they have the
info in some case maybe it's a workaround they
have to do to send it because it's not Maybe
it's two tools they bought that they don't plug
in as well, but it's possible because we're pulling
the data from target solutions into our tool.
So going that step further to pull in trainings
or other very time -intensive workflow things
you all are already doing, we don't want you
to do duplicate effort on. Or let's say you go
out on a call right when you add them in target
solutions to a new credential and say you're
paramedic qualified. forgot to do it in StationWise,
and now every roster thereafter is incorrect
because you haven't actually gone in to update
that yet. So we want to make sure we're not blocking
folks and that you don't have to worry about
that lapse where the accountability is wrong
either. And only other thing I'll add, those
are just two tools we're starting with. We just
met a department in Washington State this week
that's going to sign, which is exciting. They
have a custom solution that they built with Power
Automate, so they can automatically send training
records to a calendar, essentially. We're just
going to have them automatically send those trainings
to us, and then we'll figure out this training
record matches this credential, and whenever
they send it, we'll keep it up to date. Very
different process than a target solutions API.
So our goal is not one size fits all training,
even for example. Same with payroll. When we
send the data to now 10 plus payroll tools we're
working on, we can customize exactly what that
data export looks like, or in the case of training,
the import too. And not even the file format,
but even the process. Maybe you want to email
us, but a different department wants an API.
Sometimes it's easier for City IT to automate
an email to a... you know, station wise email
account than it is to set up that API. So we
can work around, as you can imagine, with legacy
city systems, pretty much anything by now. So
training is no different there. One more area
and I'll put it to you, see if there's anything
that we've missed. But when I think about, you
know, a lot of the times when people get promoted
to BC, you know, one of the biggest gripes is
that they're there just for hours with staffing.
That area and any other area you want to talk
about, talk to me about efficiency, because the
biggest thing is, you know, if we can automate
areas, then it frees up time for, you know, firefighters
to run calls, for officers to keep us all in
check. And then obviously for the battalion chiefs
to get the staffing done so they can focus on
more important things. Yeah. And I appreciate
the distinction by user type too. Most fire chiefs
tell us, I don't care about adding or saving
recliner time. Folks will go out on the calls
they need and they're not as worried about the
time saving. So what we really help with there
is the error prevention. You don't have to go
doing corrections for folks. Folks are complaining
less because they have everything at their fingertips
and can make the requested changes that you allow
them to. Otherwise, they have to ask their chief
like they were anyway. So that's one piece on
what we make easier for the user side, but not
so much automating or time -saving because they're
not hopefully in the tool too much anyway for
the battalion chief job. My dad, he was first
on the captain's list, got promoted first in
his whole department, took the battalion chief
test, even though his battalion chief class is
like two to four years on and none of them are
retiring in this test cycle. He wanted the acting
reps. So then next time around, he could potentially
qualify. The number one captain on that captain's
test for at least the last promotion said, I
didn't sign up for this job to sit behind a desk
all day. I hate it. I'm learning all the stuff
with our current tool that you mentioned you
all are fixing. So it's been nice where we're
now doing more demos to show them how it works
because of that. The difference, the number one
thing, if you ask, I've asked dozens of battalion
chiefs across a dozen plus states, what is the
number one thing you would change about your
job? Wave a magic wand, what would you change?
I would rather spend more time in the rig and
less time behind a desk. So that is the number
one job we are trying to solve for that battalion
chief. Any requests you can approve from your
phone. So you know that it's following your shift
trade rules, max consecutive work hours rules.
They have enough accrual hours in the bank. You
can actually just hit approve on that or deny
on your phone on the go. No need to get back
to your desktop. And because it works on any
device, I mean, Apple or Android, you can also
staff from a tablet or a Toughbook. Now you can
be in the rig and actually handle that staffing
too. Beyond just the butts in seats part, all
the automation can run it behind the scenes.
So it's not you manually dragging. Our rules
engine can make sure. if this vacancy opened
up and it should automatically fill it it's not
running at like 4 p .m every day it'll just constantly
check and then run to fill based on your rules
for example So that getting them into more calls
and doing the job they want to do. And then that
senior most person that you're otherwise paying
to sit behind a desk and essentially keep the
lights on can actually go in the field and see
are the policies being followed. When we think
of that health dashboard, how are those folks,
you know, I might have that data that says these
two folks are red. Maybe I'll go out on the calls
with them and just see how they're doing on the
next day because they had a rough shift the day
before and they're out on a 48 now. Just making
it a lot easier for that person to engage with
the department, both doing the job they love
and that they're better suited to is huge. And
then we save a ton of time for the payroll admins
and the fire chiefs. on running payroll and reporting.
But just since you mentioned more of the fire
suppression side, definitely that battalion chief
one is close to home where I've seen firsthand
how my dad is, he's not going, he's retiring
without taking the next battalion chief test
because he does not want to do the job despite
being number one on the captain's test, which
I think is very telling of how that job has set
itself up. It's very much sit behind a desk.
I don't want to do it. I hate technology. If
the technology. The only other thing I'll add
on that is firefighters say the very overused
trope is we hate change in the way things are.
I don't think that's actually true. I think if
you have software tools that are not designed
for you, that are not implemented based on your
needs, and then lack the support thereafter that
you deserve, I would be very unhappy myself with
that change too. And that's been the norm and
not the exception. So the distrust of industry
-specific software. I think is actually well
-earned. So what we try to help with is both
getting that person out of the seat and into
the field more, and then also making sure that
we can help with so much of that change management
process. So it's not, here you go, upload your
hundred users and figure everything out yourself.
You're actually in the tool and then seeing immediately
how it can save you time with that support then
along the way. No, I think that's brilliant.
And you think about just autonomy again, use
that word a lot, but. There's many examples where
a battalion chief will monitor a radio throughout
the night. And for that chief's performance,
that chief's longevity, it's insanity. Because
what needs to happen is you go to bed, go to
sleep, and the big boys and girls on the rigs
will let you know if they need you. And then
you'll get toned out and you'll go join them.
And I think it's the same with this. If you can
build more autonomy in the staffing model, and
like you said, if they meet the criteria, then
it automatically approves. You shouldn't have
to be pushing a green button if they've met all
the things that you need. And I love that fact
that we're talking about. Then you can actually
look, well, how are my people doing? Have I got
anyone that's hit the red or that is on that
36 straight that's maxed out our hours? Let me
go check on them. But also, these are the people
that are going to be running the big scenes.
So if they're not out there on more calls, if
they're out there doing the training, going on
the tower and doing all the things that the other
firefighters should do, then the people that
we rely on the most to make the most important
decisions on these massive scenes are arguably
under -trained and deconditioned. So the less
time in front of a computer, the more chance
that person has of being the right person for
that job when we need them the most. Absolutely.
That's a great point, too, on the practitioner
side. It's not the job that you want that person
doing, both with how expensive they are and how
much you've trained them. But to your point for
how important they are in that emergency situation,
I hadn't considered that, too. Well, before we
go to some closing questions, are there any other
areas you want to highlight? The only big one,
I guess this is a point I always like to drive
home, is love to ask that fire chiefs, police
chiefs, any... first responder leader who is
currently used to subpar technology and or service
to ask more from their vendors. So why can't
you build this custom export for me? If you have
to build it, how much will it cost? Why is it
more than a one time payment? Because once you've
set it up, it should be done. I don't need to
pay an increase in my ongoing rate for this,
for example. How do you have vendors that will
work with you to even say, yes, we'll customize?
So we like to, for example, we have a custom
roadmap where when you log into your tool, you
can see all the upcoming features that you want.
And you can even say, I don't want that one.
Can you turn it off for me when it comes? And
that's how we get your feedback weeks or even
months in advance of some of the big ones. But
asking vendors to do more and not expecting to
work around the limited pieces they might have
is what I would push everyone to do. We, for
example, An incident reporting tool said, you
cannot send more than 32 characters for the apparatus
name to our incident tool. That has to be maybe
2003 character limit. I've never heard of something
like that. So we said, that's not acceptable.
No, we're going to send you longer apparatus
names than that. Though they'd previously been
told for years that they were unable to do that.
When we as a vendor push back on a different
vendor, instead of the customer doing it, it
took one day. We now can support up to, I think,
whatever, 200 something characters. So now putting
in whatever name limit you want, so you can put
in the apparatus name, the incident number, you're
not limited to squeezing things into a tiny space.
Those are really impactful for you to run reports
or you can literally track more data. And that's
so simple for these companies to change in many
cases or companies like StationWise. So just
would push folks to ask more of vendors, ask
them to be collaborative. And if they're not,
and you can't find a vendor that is, that's where
you can have more of those integrations work
around those legacy systems. So finding one tool
to rule them all, I think has been a bit of a
dream for a lot of chiefs. And they've started
to realize as we've had a lot come to us for
the staffing side, staffing is very complex and
hard to automate with a lot of legal liability
and it impacts pay. We take that very seriously.
And that trust in us all being in the fire service
or from family members matters a lot to us. So
just making sure that we similarly say, push
other vendors to, if not do that, to integrate
your systems or to come up with a custom report
if it's not you doing another workaround that
adds five to 10 hours. Because as folks have
seen, when the software changes, that workaround
doesn't work anymore, or it requires more time,
or now we have to document a new process because
the workaround is a little different. Those are
all the things we want to avoid and be more of
a trusted partner. So just having more of IT
vendors that can help support your IT needs,
not put more work on. Fire departments, in many
cases, don't have dedicated IT, as you know.
So for a lot of those smaller agencies, how do
you put that work on the vendor and just ask
more for them to solve some of your biggest tech
challenges, really? So we get fired up about
it, at least. So I'm a little biased. Yeah, well,
rightly so. All right. Well, I would love to
go to some closing questions before I let you
go. The first one I love to ask, is there a book
or are there books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or
completely unrelated. Hmm. Good question. Plenty
of books to recommend. I would say one that jumps
out is Never Split the Difference, Negotiate
Like Your Life Depends on It. It's a now more
recommended in business school book, but I found
it more helpful than anything I've ever learned
in business school about negotiating, let's say.
But I like to think of it as how you ask how
and what questions to drive in challenging situations
to a helpful outcome for everybody. I found it
to be very helpful from a leadership point of
view. And it's written from the, he was a former
hostage negotiator for the, I want to say FBI
or CIA, insert three -letter government org.
He learned through many mistakes, many, probably
FBI, many failed US -based hostages. that it
did not work and they had close calls, you know,
hostages killed. He learned this perspective
after decades of doing that. And I think it also
has a lot to say about how to stay calm under
pressure and how you respond when your emotional
triggers might be high, especially if you're
talking to someone who's more antagonistic. I
found a lot of the values that fire chiefs have
reflected back of their leadership style. to
be kind of more codified in that book of here's
tactically how you ask those types of questions
or how you deal with a person like that. So despite
it being on the negotiating side, I found it
really helpful from a leadership point of view
too. And then only other one I would recommend
is called Small Giants. Way shorter on this one,
but it's essentially how companies can be great
instead of big. So instead of going for growth
and like going for up and to the right constantly,
how can you be a gigantic company that chooses
to say no to growth opportunities that would
dilute down your profitability or dilute down
your mission and focus? That's not something
we have to do yet, thankfully, but long -term
want to make sure that we're saying. no to the
right opportunities so we don't dilute down that
service that we're offering now. So that's been
a really helpful book for me. The only one I've
seen, including at Stanford Business School,
on how you can build a very large business that
is still for years later dedicated to the customers.
So not a perfect Bible on what to do, but a ton
of examples on how other companies have done
it that have been very helpful to think outside
of the box. Firstly, on the FBI thing, the reason
why it's probably them because the CIA would
have had everyone killed that was involved. Exactly.
And they're international. So CIA would say,
we've taken care of it. We sent in a drone strike.
All done. But it's interesting. I think we talked
about this when we spoke before, but it's really
sad. I have had some great friends in... excellent
businesses with us with a social model built
in that sadly was sold to you know whatever you
call it a corporation or whatever the term is
that were then you know systemically disassembled
and it's the very question is like how big do
you get before you say, all right, this is as
big as we're going to get. We're going to keep
delivering this great level of service. And we're
not, again, as we mentioned earlier, not chasing
that holy monopoly of having all the money. And
I've seen it with the great restaurant we had
in Gainesville that expanded, and I'm assuming
overextended, and then both of the restaurants
closed down. And I've seen it with some of the
people that I know closely. But what is it about
that element that people end up chasing the money
rather than hanging on to the very thing that
made them successful in the first place. I think
from what I've seen, it's not the person changing
so much. Like you mentioned on the founder of
the tool in Anaheim, it's... When you sell that
product to almost always a private equity fund
or a growth stage fund that has majority board
control, that's why we're making sure the board
stays founder controlled for us. That is our
big that in raising venture capital funding where
we can get. Millions of dollars in funding that
might be inaccessible to other companies are
what we want to do to set ourselves apart so
we don't need to sell out and can build for years
to come. Gives us a lot of conviction to build
the right thing for folks. But then after setting
up, like, I would like to do this for the next
20 years. Maybe I can step into more a president
role and find a CEO, but not for 20 years. I've
got some time. So I want to make sure we've set
up, and this is a little bit at the end of Small
Giants. The challenge I would have for that book
or beyond is how do you build a business that
never has to be bought or sold and can outlast
the next generation? It's not about you predicting
what happens in 50 years. It's about you setting
up systems and leadership that are adaptable
enough to still meet those needs and those values
for those years to come. So very big challenge
and not one I would say that was the top of mind
for business school where it's like sell things
and move really quickly. I want to make sure
we can build a generational business for really
decades to come that is built to last and isn't
then just bought and sold to the next highest
bidder. So don't yet know what that looks like,
but I've thankfully got some time to figure out
exactly how we might structure that down the
line too. I just shared an interview that Simon
Sinek did with one of his mentors who I forget
the industry he was in, but huge, huge business.
But like Richard Branson, like so many of these
successful, entrepreneurs that you hear, it was
initially or is still initially people focused.
And it seems like, you know, if you take care
of your own people, then the product, the customer,
obviously that kind of, you know, by osmosis,
they end up being happy too. Is that what is
taught in the book? the human side, because that's
what's discarded so much in a lot of the first
responder professions at the moment. And I think
we need to circle around and again, take examples
from the business world, the successful business
world, and refine the most valuable commodity
that we have, which is the human being. Yeah,
and that's the big root of all of these companies.
So it's the hyper focus and obsession on the
customer and their needs and not deviating from
it, which might cause you to say no to some opportunities.
And then the relentless focus on bettering and
repurposing and continuing to upskill employees.
As an example, there's a sandwich chain in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, that had a woman who was incredibly
talented and helped handle a lot of their operations,
but she wanted to leave and go to law school.
I've learned a lot here, but I want to be a lawyer.
They decided to take a very big bet for an early,
at the time, sandwich shop, and they paid for
her to go to law school. They then paid for her
to come back and employed her as a lawyer, despite
not having perfect work lined up yet for exactly
how it would fit in. And she went to build out
entire other company structures for how they
have an overarching... portfolio company, and
they have the sandwich group, a gift shop one,
very well structured, but she helped set up that
entity. And it's not that she needed to be a
lawyer per se to do it, but her retaining her,
when you think of the people side was the biggest
thing. She knew the business so well, she'd been
there for years and cared about it. So we have
every two weeks internally for station wise,
we have upward feedback where folks give me feedback.
So it's a separate time to make sure that they
are getting their needs met. But then between
those, we have meetings on what's your professional
development goal? Like, do you want more product
management exposure where we could carve off
10 to 20 % of your time to be that in the next
few months? We don't like to wait. a year for
a promotion because we're a startup and can move
faster so that both employee development, making
sure folks stay motivated and excited, and then
growing enough as a company so we have room for
them to land. And then we can have a vision to
say, yes, let's put you in a new type of role
and see how it goes, but focus on that person
and keeping them in versus what they're doing.
Not how the fire service is thought of, or to
be fair, how government can think is flexibly
because you have to have a very specific role
and job description for your budget. And if it's
gone, you lose it. But just that same thoughtfulness
of because once it's gone, we lose it. How do
we commit to these people and retool or reskill
them within the same budget challenges every
agency has? Love it. There's so many parallels.
All right. Well, the next question, what about
film, documentary, television, any that you love?
Ooh, definitely a big fan of any cyberpunk dystopia
usually. So Black Mirror, I really like Interstellar
as a, I guess, dystopia beginning, but yeah,
good movie for sure. But yeah, anything that's
a like science concept and like big challenge,
like how will we solve this? Arrival, I also
liked because it gets into like language and
communication with aliens. So just those types
of... Like movies, I would say really get my
gears turning and then same with books. I'll
gravitate for the more personal reading to the
sci -fi side. So truly anything in that realm
have started watching more horror movies, which
I like, but sadly with the time movies take,
I usually am more of a TV show person these days.
So yeah, any dark or scary TV show that has a
sci -fi twist, I'll probably be interested in.
Absolutely. There was that, every time someone
says Black Mirror, it's that one episode where
there's the guys in the video game. Oh, yeah.
I was like, this is not what I thought when I
fell asleep. Very strange episode. But yeah,
technology. So there we go. All right. Well,
the next question, is there a person you'd recommend
to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to
the first responders, military and associated
professions of the world? Oh, I. Yeah, two, I
guess, came to mind immediately. If you haven't
met him yet, Chief Nehemiah, he's the Boise Fire
Chief and the president of the Western Fire Chiefs
Association. So we're a partner of the Western
Fire Chiefs. They put on, they're very much a
tech forward. When you think of all the different
fire chief groups for each region, the Western
is at the forefront of wildfire, and they've
had to figure out a lot of interoperability for
the mutual aid that comes from that or the larger
scale events they've had. So they're way ahead
when you think of... What technology have we
already tested and worked through and struggled
with that the fire service needs? And Boise is
a large, just under the metro department size.
So he's seen it both as a practitioner and then
also on the leadership side for the Western.
So definitely would like very thoughtful perspective
on how. technology is evolving in the fire service
and then they're hosting innovation summits to
help be a part of that change and then to relay
that feedback to you know vendors for example
so definitely would recommend him as part of
that feedback loop and then david blankenship
is the other one where he's um He works at Emergent
now, but was one of the initial folks at Interra.
And he saw very much how the data piece for Interra
helped, but Interra doesn't do as much on the
workflow side. And he wanted to do more to replace
current tools they use and to do it cheaper.
So Emergent is the only tool I've met that prices
by call volume. So it's a way, a lower price
than folks usually pay and predictable pricing.
And they are expanding to, they have incident
reports and incident command view. uh kind of
a digital you know command board um but he because
he was at intera and has been in the fire service
and then decades of working on the software side
a lot of really helpful experience and also a
big like when you ask me questions about like
how have you seen the fire service changing a
lot of what i've been inspired by is him seeing
you know years before that even and how long
some of those changes take to give me a perspective
of how quickly you know the technology adoption
is going now post COVID especially, but in general.
So he's definitely both been around the block
and helped with a lot of the tools, including
some of the big ones. Brilliant. I appreciate
that. Thank you. Very last question then before
we make sure everyone knows where to find you
and StationWise, what do you do to decompress?
Oh, good question. Reading is a big one, which
I alluded to. I read like one to three books
a month these days. So pretty frequent reader,
especially with all the air travel to fire departments.
I have a dog that is my best friend and love
to take her everywhere so she can fly on planes.
She'll travel with me, not quite every single
department, but to a lot of the longer trips
I'll do especially. Do like four miles of walks
a day with her and she's pretty spoiled these
days. And then the other big one is I would say
video games. Do plenty of other working out when
I can, but I built my gaming computer. Big fan
of... Tons of different types of video games,
except first person shooters, which bore me,
sadly, but pretty much any other game. I like
playing local ones with friends and I now have
a VR headset. So debating bringing that in when
we eventually get a station wise office to have
some, you know, fun game nights, which could
be good. How advanced is VR these days? I had
the, I think it was the second Oculus, which
was good, but you know. I know there was still
a lot of limitations. You certainly didn't feel
like you were really... I went for the Valve
Index, which is far more expensive. I won't tell
you how much. I don't remember, thankfully, because
it was long enough ago. But each lens is a 4K
lens and it needs like a constant power cord
plugged into the TV or the computer, but completely
different night and day experience. It's still...
not perfect enough that I'm like, eh, it's more
of a novelty. So I think it needs a lot more
in terms of you can wear it for a longer time
without your eyes getting strained. It's still,
even with two 4K lenses, that's so close to your
eyes. So it's not. perfect and i think to add
double the pixels would obviously make the processing
power way worse my hope is actually usbc makes
this more possible because you can transfer power
and display at the same time so as that comes
out more i think maybe but i'm not for the mobile
ones that are standalone i'm not as much a fan
of those uh yet because it's so it's so far away
from where you could wear it for a long time
without getting the headache at least for me
still very cool because that the apple backpack
i liked whatever i forget what that was called
but i thought that was awesome and very impractical
and i would never use it but if i could have
it more in backpack form and not worry about
the power then i would be all over that so still
a ways away it looks like but hopefully in the
next like five years or so yeah Yeah, there was
a boxing game that I liked and it was a great
workout. You literally shadow boxing, but I almost
put my fist through the glass door a couple of
times. I thought I fractured my hand when I punched.
I fractured a hard plated display thing and it
just cracked the acrylic on it. That hurts so
badly, but my finger seems intact. So yeah, you
definitely have to back away and have enough
room cleared. It was pretty painful. Absolutely.
All right. Well, for people listening then. Where
can they find StationWise online, learn more
about it? And then where are the best places
to find you specifically? Yeah, it's just www
.stationwise .com. W -I -S -E, all one word.
And then we have plenty of information on our
site about how the product works. So that can
show folks more about the scheduling side, the
integrations and all that good stuff. For reaching
out, you can just fill out the form on the site
or email me, just Marcus. M -A -R -C -U -S, also
at stationwise .com. But yeah, always happy to
chat with folks. If we have a lot of folks, we're
adding six new states between now and the end
of the year, which is crazy. So we've added about
one new state a month for the last few months
and folks are now signing this month. So always
open to talking to folks across both the U .S.
and started talking to other countries too. So
easy to get ahold of us that way. And if you
have any pains with your staffing, you know where
to reach me. Always happy to chat about it. Well,
I want to thank you again. It's been a great
conversation. As I alluded to, obviously, the
elements that are really going to improve the
physical health and mental health, the time at
home, that excites me tremendously. Being able
to show, hey, this is the perceived save cost
of actually... making a healthier workforce,
for example. But obviously for all the people
listening that are still in these different ranks,
I'm sure they're seeing this as such an improvement
as far as efficiency and autonomy, like I said.
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous
with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield
podcast today. Of course, I really appreciate
you having me.