Excerpt posted here with permission of pipenozzle dot com.  For the full post, visit the site. 

For alcoholics to seek a cure, they have to hit bottom first.

Before serious leadership emerges to cure the fire protection mess in the Town of Groton, Connecticut, Alan Ackley will take the Poquonnock Bridge Fire District, which provides fire protection for half of the town, to the bottom first.…

I have a question. Why is it that most firefighter shifts start around 7:00 am? Why are firefighters forced to deal with rush hour traffic and add to the rush hour mess? After all we work a 24 hour shift, why couldn’t we begin our day at say 10:00am or 11:00am?…

Earlier this year I wrote about the Turning Tide in Police and Firefighter Hiring. As we reach the midyear point, police and firefighter hiring trend appears to be accelerating along with a couple of interesting twists. Click the link below o read the full article:…

Except reprinted with permission of pipenozzle dot com. Visit site for complete entry.

At the end of a hot, muggy southern Michigan May day, I pulled my truck into the Coca Cola warehouse lot and glanced up at sky blue everywhere but over downtown Kalamazoo where a black thunderhead passed over as they tended to do on hot, muggy spring afternoons.  The only thought I had concerned turning in my paperwork at the front office, and then getting in…

In every AAR (after action review) that I have ever been to, problems with communication ranks in the top three of “what went wrong”.  Often the source of frustration is blamed on equipment or new technology or both.  Despite all contributing factors, the question remains: Is the message ‘sent’ the message ‘received’ as intended?

Training gives us the…