Although I have been the Deputy Director of our state US&R task force and had chief's rank in different capacities before, today I donned the Christmas gift from my wife and children, a brand-new white N6A, marking my new career as a Chief Fire Officer. Last night, a bunch of us gathered at Reilly's, a little pub on the Island's north end, to talk about our future and celebrate our past. Jeff, who has been my friend and brother firefighter for over 24 years, was one of the groomsmen at my wedding; he also promoted to Battalion Chief. Two of my former truckies, Ed and Jason, I have not known nearly as long, but I consider just as close and treasured friends, were promoted to Captain and Lieutenant. Ed and Jason and I had the shared experience of working at Katrina together as some of the Command Staff of SC-TF1. The others in attendance were my chauffeur for the last 12 years, another Truck 6 Captain who once served as a Lieutenant under my command, and two truckies whom I have also found to be great guys and excellent employees. Needless to say, there were a few pints thrown back.

Our department is in the midst of some serious change as a result of our age; my department actually originates from the merger of two fire departments and an EMS agency and has really not been around very long, when compared to most departments. Our history, however, goes back to when those three agencies were mere fledglings themselves, then found the boom years of the '80's on Hilton Head forcing us to make unprecedented hiring. A great number of the personnel at our department came on during that period and now the retirements are hitting us. The sad part is that be it a result of fast growth, or poor vision, or just because the majority of our department isn't "from here", we really have no established traditions.

Yeah, we are aware of the traditions of our pre-merger organizations. The old Sea Pines Forest Beach Fire Department had an awesome history of taking home the State Firefighting Championship trophy virtually every year for a VERY long time. The old Hilton Head department was a little larger in size and had an excellent tradition of quality training, and the EMS/Rescue Squad was a volunteer organization that rose up as a grass-roots solution to not having an ambulance on the Island in the early days. But the merger of these teams did little to foster a combined tradition and in fact, any traditions were discouraged in the early days because of resentment from one group of people vs. another. What was good about that is that it caused us work together to become Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue. What was bad about that is that we sterilized our past and then failed to establish a new identity.

Standing in the bar, Capt. Ed said to me with glass raised high, looking around the room, "Tradition begins today." And he was right; I looked around at these guys with whom I have spent a third of my last 25 years with and realized, these leaders here with us were charged with something more than showing up and collecting a paycheck.

It is incumbent on us to establish the new traditions, develop our collective story, and tell it to the new generations as they arrive at our department. We need to celebrate our past, because the past keeps us grounded and reminds us of the tremendous sacrifices of those who have gone before us. But equally important, we have to embrace the tradition of adopting the best practices of our age, defining and promoting the cutting edge, and establishing our organization as the "gold standard" for emergency services in our nation.

Today when I donned that white helmet for the first official time, I was acutely aware that our organization must commit itself to a high standard of excellence and I was also aware in talking to many of my new charges that we have the people who can do it. We have the backing of our newly-minted chief of department and his staff. Our community has long supported our department's efforts. It is up to us to challenge the team to move forward, to look for better ways of doing things, and to improve through training and critical attention to safety issues. But in doing so, we need to promote our new tradition, the tradition of leadership and advocacy and community spirit, and reach out to other departments in the region and the nation to hold them up as well, because in sharing what we have learned, we establish a tradition for others to strive for as well.