Most of us in the fire and emergency services would agree that leadership matters and is vital to the successful outcomes of any organization. We could also agree that many so called leadership gurus and fire service personalities are out on the circuit pontificating their tricks of the trade. There is certainly no shortage of people instructing or…

In our last article we discussed sleep within the fire service and hopefully provided some insight into how the job itself will affect their overall quality of sleep, which will lead to a number of health issues (type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hormonal imbalances, etc…), In this article our goal is to discuss how the poor sleep will affect the brain as well as hormones, and provide some simple strategies that may help improve your well being.

What are hormones? Simply stated, they…

How is your sleep? This is a common question that often comes when discussing a firefighters health and wellness. Over the years it has become clear to me that the real enemy is not heart disease, fire, or the traumatic exposures but rather the poor sleep quality. It is not uncommon to hear from a firefighter “Coach I have changed my eating habits and started to exercise but I can’t lose weight” and in reality if they do have poor sleep they are climbing an uphill battle. So…

Yesterday, I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Chief (ret) Bobby Halton. If you're a member of My Firefighter Nation, a reader of Fire Engineering, Fire-Rescue Magazine and others; dammit, if you're a firefighter today you have to know who Bobby Halton is. One of the best, well-respected, and well-learned teacher and mentor to the fire-rescue services.

Normally, our podcasts are about an hour long. Luckily and thankfully, my talk with Chief…

Right now, I'm in the studio editing our inaugural episode of Season 2 of "5-Alarm Task Force: News & Issues for Today's First Reponders. This episode features my good friend and a business partner, Tom Mitten, a long-time PIO from Elsmere DE. Tom discussed the duties and challenges of the Public Information Officer's position. What if you're in a smaller combo or volunteer department. Do you need a PIO? How would you go about finding one? Tom fills you in on those questions,…

We returned home this week and got straight to work on Season Two of "5-Alarm Task Force."

We've racked up some great guests for this season, including Chief Bobby Halton, Capt. John Dixon, Captain Andy Starnes, Capt (ret) Dennis Tucker and many more.

Don't forget you can find us on Twitter at either @Dalmatprod or @Cause_Origin. If you're new to Twitter and following us, our second ID, @Cause_Origin was originally created to help generate interest and support in a new project…