Inside the Firehouse: Kevin Sears on Lessons Learned as a Battalion Chief

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[MUSIC]

(00:10):
>> So we have the unique pleasure of sitting here with, I'm going to put up the in front because it is the Kevin Sears.
>> Oh boy.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, there's a lead in.
>> So I have the unique pleasure of working with you through Genesis Rescue Systems and howl and EMC.
>> Yeah.
>> But that's not really why we're here.

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So you have a very unique history when it comes to the fire service and kind of your come up through the whole thing and your progression.
And some really interesting things that have happened you along the way, which I'm sure we'll get into.

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But why don't you tell us kind of, tell the viewers or the listeners or rather your name, what you're doing now and then I think we'll take it back after that.
>> And please do it all by using acronyms.
>> Yeah, I love acronyms.
>> We'll get to that too.
[LAUGH]
>> Well, I agree to this because I didn't think there were going to be cameras, but now that I know those cameras, I'm going to really, really steal it back.

(01:16):
>> Yeah, I cannot leave now.
>> And you guys brought me down to a level giving me a miniature chair.
So yeah, humility, we like you.
>> Yeah, break them down.
>> He'll start confessing.
>> Yeah, so my name's Kevin.
I am from the Chicago Metro area.
I have lived there my entire life.
I have a wife and two beautiful daughters, junior in high school and junior in college.

(01:40):
And I entered the fire service at a very, very young age in that arena out there.
So I guess taking it back to where I started.
So the town that I had grown up and had an all volunteer fire department.
Big town, but for a town of that size, they still had a volunteer fire department.

(02:01):
So I wasn't able to really latch on to hanging out with those guys growing up and
things like that because they would only come to the fire house when there was a fire.
That's when you saw the blue lights flying through town and things like that.
I'd get on my bike and chase them down and see if I could beat them to the fire.
>> Did you?
>> Well, no, because I didn't want to question what weather I was arriving before.
>> That's good point, yeah.

(02:23):
>> But the neighboring department was the Orland Fire District.
And that was a, you know, a bigger town growing, growing organization and things like that.
And I used to ride my bicycle up there.
And those guys were unbelievable.
I mean, for a time of questionable liability and things like that, they let me do a lot.

(02:47):
As you know, kids just riding up to the fire house on the bike.
I mean, to the point where I would hang out there, you know, I would eat with the guys,
you know, do riding along and things like that.
They would take me on runs.
I mean, it was incredible.
And it was amazing because it was a very professional organization.
So it kind of gave me like the perspective of how things should be done.

(03:08):
And, you know, how professionalism goes.
And, you know, a lot of etiquesies and things like that.
Like, I was learning that at 14 years old.
So at that age, I was trying to get into something more formalized.
You know, but back then there weren't a lot of explore programs or cadet programs and things like that.
So there was a department in the, on the south side of Chicago in a suburb.

(03:31):
And they had like an informal cadet program.
So August 24th, 1994, I joined that program.
And I just got my driver's license, so I was driving, you know, extended,
extended routes to get there and things like that.
But I can't, it was an organization that really, they let me do a lot, you know,
considering how old I was.

(03:52):
So in that group of guys who were working there, a lot of them were like,
fire fans. They would go ride in Chicago and Gary and Indiana, you know,
departments that saw a lot of work. So they wouldn't allow me to come with them.
Thank.
Which was amazing, you know, so at the age of 15, you know, I'm a sophomore in high school or 16,
you know, I'm riding in Inglewood in Chicago or Gary and Indiana, you know, squad two,

(04:16):
you know, like all these crazy companies that got a lot of fire duty and I would
became wickedly attracted to the ghetto.
So because you don't hear that very often.
No, no, and I still am. It's an ad, it's an ad.
Interesting.
I have, but man, I'll tell you what I gravitate towards it.
So, hey, somebody's got to do it.
You better believe it. So, you know, it's just like they say, if you're going to be a banker,

(04:40):
you work on Wall Street, if you're going to be a fireman, you're working a ghetto.
So that was my focus.
You know, and obviously I was very young and one of the guys who was probably in that 23
range now that I think about it, he was hired part-time at the City of Markham,
which was a, again, a south suburb of Chicago, in a really just an apoverished area that had a lot

(05:03):
of gangs and violence and drugs and it, which comes, comes fire duty. So he's like, you got to come
down here, you know, come ride down here, you know, this is where you need to be.
So I had the opportunity to come do ride-alongs in that town and I was taken under the wing of what,
you know, still was one of my mentors, George Hopman, a captain who did not care how old I was.

(05:26):
He's like, you're with me, buddy, you know, like we're, you know, you're riding.
Nice. Yeah.
And again, something that, some things that you could never get a lot around, you know, doing now,
like I was driving engines. Yeah.
Their engines is a, like a rider, you know, it was insane, you know, to the point where, you know,

(05:48):
there weren't a lot of use of cell phones, but I was driving one of their fire vehicles down
to the Cudzi Avenue and the fire chief called the captain and said, excuse me, captain, who's that,
who's that child driving my child?
I'm not, as you were, what?
It's 17.
Yeah. It was crazy.
So it was amazing, but again, no restrictions, you know, I was just not getting paid, you know,

(06:13):
I was sort of doing everything that the front line guys were doing.
So, oh my god, just now what we didn't have is so much more appreciation for what I do
have because they, it was a, it was a tiny department just unbelievably strapped for cash and they,
they just made it happen and they just had fun and they appreciated their jobs and things like that.

(06:34):
So that was it, man, I was locked in, and you know, Captain Hopman, George Hopman, it's just the
funniest human being ever in my entire life. The guys just had a riot constantly and I thought
this was like the norm. Like this is it, you know what I mean? Like this is how it is everywhere.
In fact, on my, on my 17th birthday, he asked me to give him a strivers license and he took one of

(06:58):
the dates and my, the year that I was born and changed it. Now I was 18 and now he put me on part time.
Nice.
So I was actually able to collect a paycheck.
It's a part time fireman from our white student, say the name, but
with statute limitations.
Or not.

(07:19):
But it was amazing. I mean, like people were going to prom. I was going to fires.
Yeah.
And it was just, it was, it was crazy.
So that was, it was incredible. And you know, I stayed there for as long as I could and then I started
to get into the paramedic school, which I thought at that time, like I wasn't going to go to paramedic
school. Like that's, that's not the path I want to go down. But the reality is I was going to

(07:43):
paramedic school. So I finished that. I graduated paramedic school before I graduated high school,
which is pretty, pretty wild how that time goes away. Yeah.
But from there, I was able to, you know, after a couple of years, I was able to start taking career
full-time tests because you had to be, you have to be 21 and a little. So I was hired full-time

(08:07):
as a firefighter for the city of Hazelcrest, the village of Hazelcrest, which is a neighboring
town to Markham. So I was familiar with those guys and they were familiar with me and it was very
comfortable. And that was the best experience in my life. I mean, to get hired there was like
winning the laddo, you know, and it, very much different than it is now, you would go to these tests

(08:29):
and there would be a thousand people there. Yep. And they'd be like, gentlemen, thank you for coming
on a Saturday. We're not going to hire anybody. We're just establishing a list and you're like,
awesome. Yeah. Great. Love it. Yeah. All right. Let's, yeah, throw in the laddo here. Yeah.
But I was able to get hired there really early. I mean, I was just turning 22.

(08:50):
So when I was there, and again, it just, it was part of a conglomerate of departments called
Division 24, which was, it's in the south-serve of Chicago again, and the whole entire area is just
challenged. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like being in a time warp, but the experience that you

(09:12):
gain in that area is invaluable. So I was a fireman there, just work with the best human beings.
I, which I'm still best friends with to this day, you know what I mean? Like you, it's just a
band that you cannot even compete with. So I was a fireman, driver, and then I made Lieutenant
there. So, you know, had a lot of challenges along the way. Good and bad, you know, a lot of

(09:37):
experiences. I mean, we were going to fires regularly, not our own, but we, again, that area was,
it was small. I shouldn't say it was small. There was, I think there's 23 departments in that area,
but they're all smaller departments. It's not like big, metro, you know, areas. So we really just,
we were all strapped from manpower, and we all more or less

(09:59):
responded as one giant organization. So like we would go out of town with our truck everywhere,
I mean everywhere. So like we were citywide to the five connecting departments,
and then, you know, Box Company for the departments outside of there, second line of companies
outside of there. So regularly. Interesting. It was just unbelievable. And again, amazing experiences,

(10:22):
both good and bad, you know, like I've done rescues. I've also been rescued. He'd already made
that. I much prefer the rescue part. For sure. I can imagine.
But it's just things that you could never, you could never even manage it. But being that I,
I kind of grew up in that environment, I thought that that was more than norm, you know, because this

(10:44):
isn't, and this isn't going back that far, but I started the fire service before the internet. So
we didn't know, I didn't know of like these other big metro, palatine areas and, you know,
other rough areas and things like that. So I thought this was the norm, you know, and I grew up in
Tindley Park, which is not a bad city whatsoever. My parents always told me you're not allowed to go

(11:05):
on this side of the street, which is extra, or it's a trash, or whatever. But, you know, it was,
it was amazing, absolutely amazing. From there, you know, I had worked there for 12 years,
and I started to take a step back and look at the big picture, you know, outside of just me,

(11:25):
and realized that that area was really rapidly declining. Like we had 38% of our housing was abandoned,
you know, like the grocery store, Moonoink, I don't know if you guys have Moonoink up here, probably not.
But Moonoink is like, yeah, not an air stop. Two stuff below jewel, you know, maybe two or four,
ten, but you know, that was our grocery store and they moved out and I'm like, oh,

(11:48):
oh, yeah, problem. So, you know, our pension fund was good, but the neighboring pension fund was
horribly funded, and I'm like, oh my gosh. So I was in a position where I would never get laid off,
but I also didn't want to be in a position where I was riding on a two-person engine,
you know, or a truck, or, you know, so I started to look at other options and

(12:12):
where I'm at right now, it was a growing organization on the very, very northern tip of Illinois
on the Wisconsin border, and they were starting to transition from being a small part-time department
to a big part-time department to, hey, this part-time program isn't going to last for very long,
we need to start looking at career members. So they started to build the organization from the top

(12:37):
down, so they hired, you know, they're fire chief, they're deputy chiefs, they're operations chief,
and then they did a testing process for battalion chief. So I saw that that was posted,
and I really truly, I really wanted to do it just for the experience, you know, because it was the
full-blown testing process of like, you know, the orientation, the written the assessment center,

(12:58):
you know, the whole, like, all the modules, and I'm like, well, if I'm in advance in my career,
maybe this is something that I should get experience with.
Go through, yeah. And I did, and it was a very long drag-dragged out process,
and in the ninth month, I think it was, oh my god, I really, I've been coming up here so often,

(13:18):
I really kind of wanted to stop now, and it was offered, and I took it, so that's where I'm at now.
So I am a battalion chief on Black Shifts, so I'm on the 24/48 rotation,
and that's where I've been for eight years now, so how big is your department?
Right now, we have 170 personnel, but that's, you know, administrative and things like that as well,

(13:42):
so that's part time, we have career, we have, you know, a number of different steps in that department.
We have five firehouses, we're not that busy, we do about 8,000 runs, the majority of them come
out of one firehouse, so those guys are very, very busy, but, you know, it's, we're not land lacked.
We have a lot of growth, you know, they're talking about building station six right now,

(14:05):
and the potential for a training facility and things like that, we are not land lacked,
but through succession, I also don't probably have a whole lot of time left there,
just because I'm at the back swing of my career, so it's amazing, we have, we have so many young people,
and we have the opportunity to grow, and just the place is a blank canvas right now,

(14:27):
so it's, it's, it's incredible in it. We have again, so many young people who started part time
in that organization were hired career at the same place, and, you know, they're, sometimes you get
the grumbling, so, oh, I want to go here. Why? You know what I mean? Like, just tell me why. I would
never tell anybody, don't go somewhere else, or, you know, you shouldn't take that job, or, you know,

(14:48):
those guys, you know, like, even though I might have that opinion of some places, but I, I would never
do that, but I just, sometimes I'm asking like, why? Like, what are you, what's the, what are you looking for?
You know, is it money? Because if you go to, if you go for money, you're not going to do your job
as much, you know, you might be running the wheels off your ambulance, but you're not going to get,
the variety of calls, you know, if you're after the fires, then you have to watch off your family,

(15:13):
because there's a chance that if you go to a community with, with a lot of fire duty,
you know, you're not getting, you're probably not going to get paid as well, you know, and it's not
going to be as comfortable. So, understand, you're in a need of side job, you know? So, there's so
many different things, and right now, like, the membership just got a very, very nice, bump and paid,

(15:34):
you know, to be comparable with other agencies in the area and things like that, but now we have
so many young people, and it's not like, they're not after money as much as air for time off, so it's like,
there's so many different variables right now, it is, it's incredible how that tide has changed,
you know, like, we want to time off when we were coming up, because all of us had side jobs,

(15:56):
we had something to do in that 48 hours off, but now what we're hearing it now is like, I value my time,
what do you do for 40? That's cool, but what are you doing? You know, like, I mean, you could have a second,
obviously, you can have a second career, you know? So, there's so many different changes right now,

(16:17):
in the profession, and it's all good, you know, we hear grumblings all this generation and this,
for yeah, but when I came up, they were probably like, these guys are much more on, you know,
and we were, you know, but like it was, oh, it's always like that, too, it's always like, oh, this
generation, it's been this generation for fucking eight generations, what I really like to do,
get all right? Yeah, okay, so, curious on just where you're working, you talked about the 25 agencies

(16:45):
in that area, now what does that look like now? Do you have some agencies that have merged with others?
No, so, and that's where I was, that's where I came from, is that division?
But not close to there. No, no, no, so, in Illinois, we have what's called the, it's the MABIS system,
which is a mutually-box alarm system, and they, they group in departments geographically. So, you know,

(17:07):
like, we are right now, we're in MABIS division five, and we have certain amount of organizations in
there, and there, you know, there's a board of directors, and you know, like MABIS 24, because they
were smaller departments, there was 23 of them, you know, and they just, it's almost like a grouping of
resources. Yeah, okay, but in Illinois, there's, I believe there's 68 MABIS divisions. So,

(17:29):
one of them is a wickedly large state, but we're heavily concentrated in the Chicago Metro area,
so like, from the Illinois Wisconsin border down to say maybe, you know, three-quarters of the way
down, it has the population of probably like Nebraska and North Dakota, South Dakota, you know,
things like that, just in that area. So, yeah, that's kind of how they, they, they group all that out.

(17:52):
Okay, okay. But, yeah, it's, it's, it's fun to ride, it's fun to ride. Yeah. All right, so I got a question.
So, take it back to, you know, being a kid, and it actually, it's funny that you mentioned like,
being able to do stuff that there's no way in hell you could do today as a kid.
It came up on another episode and it's coming out of here. Yeah. So, like, kids that

(18:17):
back in the day or whatever that came up through got to do a lot of stuff. Oh, yeah.
Now, like, because of, you know, child labor laws and whatever else, you know, you get to do shit.
Right, right. Right. Well, liabilities, for sure. Yeah. So, didn't care about you back then.
Didn't care at all. I don't think my parents care. They spend like, get them in here.

(18:37):
He's been gone for four days. So, we worry now. No, how your grades? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
You said it through your lab fire. You can straight as good.
So, you know, coming up as a young fella in the, in the fire service, and then you said,
you touched on having buddies now that you're, you friends for life, right? 100%.

(18:58):
Was there, was there a moment that you realized that, you know, this is like a second family?
When does that, like, when does that light bulb go off? It's actually a really good question because I,
now, now, in the position that I'm in, I'm not as engaged as I was, obviously, right?

(19:21):
So, I try to stand back and I try to, like, observe, like that 100-foot level. And right now,
the grouping of guys that I have at the firehouse where I'm assigned, you know, sometimes there's
up to nine guys a day and they're all young, but they're great. And they're led by an amazing officer

(19:41):
who's a little bit older. You know what I mean? Got it? Look at, he's, he has some experience and
they were all hired around the same time, you know, because we were growing.
Yep. And it was uncomfortable at first, you know, like, to sit there and watch, because I'm like,
like, we used to do some atrocious things to each other. You know, like, things that you could never

(20:02):
forget it with anymore. And I'm thinking, like, well, you should try to do this today. I got you know,
they, but I can't say that, you know, like, yeah, I want to get involved in the banter, but like,
I really, I probably can't, you know, but now I'm starting to see it. And I think it is
absolutely hysterical. Like, some of the pranks are really that funny, but I laugh to the point

(20:23):
of nauseate because like, I, I, I see that's how we were, you know, and we were just high-enous.
Yeah. So I just, I, within reason, I either step away and like, look at the other way,
right, just let it go and, or, but it's coming together now, you know, so they are, they are developing
whether they know it or not. You know, and I think, again, just because that's where I was so early on,

(20:49):
I can see that it's taking place, you know, and it's, it's amazing to me, you know.
So it's developed over over time, right? 100%. You know, and I think that it was, it was in rapid
development where I started because we would go to really extraordinary calls, somewhat regularly,

(21:11):
you know, and that forms a bond naturally. Yeah. You know, it's not forced. You know,
when the ambulance goes out the door and they pick up an old lady up off the toilet,
and they're like, yeah, high five. Yeah. Let's go drink in a myro, brother. That was awesome. You
know, like, that's not, that's probably not taking place, but they get a good call and they're just
ramped up and you can see the adrenaline and you can see that they're excited and they did well and

(21:32):
you know, it's, it's going to continue to happen. It's just not happening as rapidly as it
probably did. But you have to understand, like, I walked into a firehouse with guys who were in their
30s, which I thought were the old guys at the time. I think about it, I'm like, oh my god,
old Steve Peaches, so old Steve Peaches 35, you know, like, like, I'm like, you young, so

(21:57):
that is happening. It's happening and it's good. That's cool. The job's not dead. Whether people,
yeah, it's not, but it's not dead. So what's, uh, give me a, give me a prank. What are they,
what are they up to these days? Oh, Lord. Edit, change names. I didn't see this the other day,
but in the department, I heard about this through some of the, here's what ruins these guys. They video

(22:23):
record everything. I do. We were literally just, we were just talking about that. Yeah. That's been
the downfall. Yes. All of it is fucking videos. Right. Right. I mean, like, when I was on mark,
I'm as a kid. I remember we, our entire firehouse was called to the chief's office.
We were all wearing Hawaiian shirts. And this, we're sitting like in a semi-circle around this,

(22:49):
this tyrant of a chief. And he always, I can't, but it's just hysterical. They were sitting in
their firehouse. Yeah. Office with Hawaiian shirts. And he's like, here's your right up, here's
your right up in the captain, you know, still up. And he's like, are we done? Yeah, we're done.
And he walked behind his desk to the shredder and he just took that right up and he's like,
boom, it was like that. Like, oh, my God. And, you know, I'm like 17 years old. Yeah. Oh, my God.

(23:17):
We're up. This dude is a mulch. Now, here's the problem though. Is that like growing up, like, I
thought that that was the norm? Sure. So that was the benchmark. I'm like, yeah. All right.
Probably not the best benchmark. You knew what you could and could not get away with.
Yeah. Again, between the statutes, the limitation and the legal system and HR and things

(23:39):
like that. But yeah, he definitely, he was the habitual line, Crosse, which I became the habitual
line, Crosse. So no, I mean, it's funny. Like I said, they do some things, man. You know, confetti
cannons. I think they're the funniest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I didn't know
these things existed. That's big, no, no. Oh, big in your face. Yeah. You coming through the door.

(24:00):
You know, yeah. No, they're doing, they're doing a number of things. I, um,
one of them tried pulling a prank not too long ago. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't funny,
but like I wasn't going to be like, all right. You got to do better than that. Yeah.
He was, I'm going to put, I'm going to put his bed on cans. Ooh, cool. You know,
I'm going to go, so I just wanted to kind of set the benchmark of retaliation, you know.

(24:25):
So I went out in the parking lot and I took a photograph of his car and I put it on Craigslist.
Now, his, his, he probably, yeah, that's stuff kids don't know about. Right. Right. So you,
you want to look at your phone all the time. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he probably had a $25,000
car, but I made this huge narrative. You know, my grandma's put it in a home and she can't drive

(24:47):
any longer. She donated this car. So I just need to get rid of it because I'm moving to Montana.
So I put it on there for like 12 grand, but I put his phone up her, you know, so we're standing
at the back of the firehouse. And he just here, ding, ding, you know, like, you know, he keeps looking
at me. I'm like, what's wrong with him? And then he's saying, he's like, no, my car's not for sale.

(25:08):
You know, like, I hear him walking. No, it's on the phone. No, no, no, no, it's his car. Yeah.
They're like, you know, the great jada, you know, he's like, he's like, I do put my car stuff.
I know that. Yeah. Who is this? I just give him a tap on the shoulder. I'm like, yeah, that's
where it's at. That's it. So, but then I realized that like, I can't do that stuff anymore. You

(25:32):
know what I mean? Like I can't. And there was a couple of years ago. So they again,
statute of limitations. He probably he probably learned a lesson that day. I would hope so. Yeah.
But what lesson is that? Do better. Yeah, do better.
Better. Chief set your goals high. Yeah, like put thought into these things. I'm going to put
his bad on cans. Stupid. You're going to do it. Do it. You got to do it. Do it.

(25:53):
Oh, that's right. Yeah. So too crazy. But
so you made the mention a couple times about I didn't know what the norm was. You mentioned in a
couple different avenues. When and how do you understand? Okay, this is not normal. Like because

(26:15):
you're in an isolated environment. Sure. And I think this popular in the fire service in general,
where they think all fire departments, all fire agencies operate this way. Right. When you start
learning that whatever you learned was a little bit out of the norm. And I think, you know, like
officially when I left that area, okay, you know, like that area, the way I started. So,

(26:38):
you know, we didn't have money. We didn't have manpower. We didn't have nice equipment. We didn't
have nice quarters. We didn't, you know what I mean? It was the firehouse that that I had grown up. And
it was the day room. And then you would pull the beds off the wall. What did they call those?
That, that, that perfect. Yeah. So, you know, I look at stuff like that and then I look at what we're

(27:01):
at now. I mean, it looks like a five star kitchen. We've got, they're like, we have seven ambulance
is at one order right now. I'm like, what's that like ton Craigslist? Yeah, right. But we're very
fortunate, you know, and it's amazing. And I guess you don't need money to provide the best service.

(27:25):
You just need the people behind the equipment, you know, like we have the equipment. And we now
we have the people and we're going to start to develop them to put the whole package together,
you know, like we have, we were well funded. We're very fortunate. We have, like I said, we have
the equipment. It's some of the problems that I sometimes I hear that we, we have them like, oh,

(27:48):
okay. Yeah. It's pretty first world to me. It is. It is. And you know, I've been far removed from
from that area. So this is, this is my, my normal environment now. And I like it. Yeah. I, I truly
miss the bad area. So I do, you know what I mean? I truly, truly, truly miss that. And I'm not saying

(28:10):
that I'm not fortunate and appreciative of what I've had now. And I think my family probably says
the same. Because you're exposed to a lot, you know, you're exposed to a lot working in that area
and you're challenged and you're tired and you're, you know, we would have paychecks that bounced.

(28:32):
You know what I mean? Like, you would, for one direct deposit became a thing where like,
hell, yeah, I don't have to drive 100 miles an hour to the bank anymore. You know, like, and it was legit.
We don't have that problem anymore. And it's amazing. And I just want, I want our guys to, without saying,
well, this is how it was, you know, you, right, without being the old guy. I don't want to be that. I

(28:53):
don't, I don't, I don't. But then I hear some of the complaints and I'm just like, come on. Like,
really? Yeah. What's a, it's a perspective thing. It is, you know, sometimes you take for granted,
you have that experience that you were, you can apply today's issues too. And you're like,
"Meth, that's not that bad." No, no, for sure. You know, one of the, one of the towns that we used to run

(29:15):
into quite frequently was the city of Harvey. And that is, they are the best of the best fireman
that I've ever worked around because they did their job regularly. But I was comfortable working in
that environment and then I had left. And then, you know, they ironically, enough, they bought
Jogasus tools. Nice. So I had to take a ride down on a grant. But I had to take a ride down there. And

(29:40):
I said, it's like after not seeing, you know, somebody for a while who lost weight. And you're like,
"Oh my God, you know, I drove down there." I'm like, "Oh my God, it was unbelievable how much,
you know, poverty there was." And I never noticed it because I was

(30:00):
in the first minute. Yeah. Like they had a very, very busy two-lane street with traffic lights every
500 feet. And they didn't have ways to maintain the traffic lights. So they took saw horses and put
stop signs on there. It was zip ties. And I'm like, "Wow." Like life after people, that's what it reminded me of.
And it happened within a very short period of time. But the most humble human beings, appreciative of the,

(30:27):
you know, the grants that they got and the equipment that they were handed, they had nothing that
they were working with. And now they're, you know, like they are just unbelievable people. But they're,
they're proud of what they have. They're proud of what they're capable of doing. They're not
snobby. And sometimes I think we can get, we can go down that path a little bit. You know, like you

(30:47):
start to lose focus on the mission of the job. And it becomes some of like me, me, me, me, me, me.
And we just have to be very careful of that. And maybe you're answering this. But I'll ask it and
continue on. Or maybe answer it differently. You said you miss that stuff. What exactly are you missing?

(31:09):
I missed a fire duty to be honest with you. Yeah. I mean, we, for the, the makeup and the demographic
and things like that that that I work in now, like we do okay. Yeah. But it's nowhere near where I was at.
Okay. And, you know, I, I miss doing that side of the job frequently. You know, like it, and I think that

(31:36):
without taking like any arrogance or anything like that, I think we were getting pretty good at it.
Like we had a tight, tight, tight group where we didn't have to communicate. Like we just knew
what needs to be done. We could look at a building. We're just like, Hey, you got this. You got the rear?
You know what I mean? Like everybody knows. Everybody knows. Yeah. But now the position that I'm in
instead of managing a company with three to four guys where we are on the same page,

(32:01):
it's overseeing five companies from almost a disconnected position. Yeah. We're like, Oh my god,
oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Now because of the upbringing that I had and the, again, the good
experiences and the bad experiences, I sometimes do a fault. Like I, I, I, I huge on company level training.

(32:23):
But that's to build them to help me, you know what I mean? Like, you see mine. So when you tell,
you know, I just want you guys you're doing this. And I'm not like, Hey, you're going to pull the
inch of the recorder to the front door. You're going to flake it out in this manner. No, no. And, and
they're, they're right there. They're right there. So I, it's, it's, it's amazing to watch it all

(32:46):
orchestrated self and develop and things like that. But, but I do miss, I do miss going, you know,
like doing for sure. The company officer level is the most amazing role in the fire service. It's
the most pivotal. It's the most influential. I think it's, it is one that you probably, if you,

(33:08):
if you have, if you're fortunate enough to, to get to that level,
really consider staying there. So,
why'd you leave it? I, I, again, I think it was more or less,
I get, I don't know if I have like, undiagnosed ADD or things like that. You know, I mean, like, I

(33:31):
just, what do you mean? Yeah.
Refer to have no, you know, you're talking about this is why we gave you a chair with no wheels.
We gave me a chair four inches off the ground. I might as well be sitting on a pillow in the
middle east. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I think, um, I just needed something different. You know,

(33:53):
what I mean? Like, and I thought, again, I, I really enjoy what I'm doing, but I do miss where I,
sure where I was. Yeah. And I think you could say that without looking in your current present situation
and not having, you know, and having gratitude at the same time for also missing elements. And
that's why I asked the question because there's certain elements that you miss. Sure. Sure. Like the,

(34:16):
the tightness of the group. Not just the fire duty, but the, the byproduct of that fire duty,
right? Yeah. And so the cohesiveness that is required of constantly running calls and constantly
working for sure. Yes. I mean, those things, that's hard to replicate. It is, it, you know, like,
and in that role that, like, I guess you could term it, like the middle management position. Sure.

(34:41):
I do. I want to be down there in the kitchen with the guys all day. Do I want to be on the floor
doing training? Absolutely. Do I want to, you know, like, all of that, but then the little details that
we have responsibilities for would not get done. And I don't have that option of just being down there.
You know, sometimes I think people get promoted and they, and they remove themselves

(35:03):
for different reasons. That's not where my head is at. You know, I would love to be down there.
And I would love to be doing these things, but I just, I can't do it right now. So it's a different,
it's more singular than that a group dynamic for me, for me. You know what I mean? Just because I,
I'm isolated, not, not by anyone's fault, but myself, but it's part of the role. Sure. And I think

(35:27):
at the same time, you, I don't think you're outside of the norm of the struggle with people that
promote into battalion chief level and, but have that company officer desire because the
cohesiveness, because the family element, because all things are saying. Sure. Yeah. And so sometimes it
comes to the question, like, I'll ask somebody and say, okay, then why promote? Right. You know,

(35:54):
sometimes you came into the fire service to serve. And sometimes that demands you to rise to a
level of challenge competency. Sure. You probably were told multiple times that you should become
a battalion chief by others. True. The conversation came up, you know, so yeah. And again, I, I,

(36:16):
I do, I enjoy it. It's just, it's just different. Sure. You know, and it's, again, it's not as impactful
as when I had my four guys, you know, in a company or a truck or whatever. But I try to
bring that to the, you know, the five firehouses that we have now, you know, it's just,

(36:40):
that's what I was going to say, you have, you have influence at a much higher level now. For sure.
So you do, and, and I think that's awesome, right? Where you can now share or, or teach or coach,
what you've learned over the years. Sure. To, you know, five houses now, not just four guys or five

(37:01):
guys. Right. And then, you know, they can take and spread. So your, your, your, your reach is so much
wider now. It is, which is fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great way of putting it. RJ.
So, there we go. That's what I would say. Well, it's just like, you know, you hear the,
the term like 10X thrown around all the time. And it's how to, how do you take like, especially

(37:26):
you and like the coaching side of things? How do you go from one on one, to one on 10 or one on 20?
Like, how do you increase your reach? Right? So I think that's it directly, really. It is, it's a
challenge. Like, it's what you're talking about. Like, when a depth to you challenges me, it says,
Hey, how do you take this one on one coaching onto the streets? I told them I can't. Sure.

(37:50):
Like, that's not what I do. Right. He goes, cool, figure it out. Yeah. What were we supposed to do
with that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, you know, like professional development.
Like we started a professional development committee or organization, primarily focusing on the
up and coming, acting, company officer positions, sure, developing our company officers.

(38:14):
Right. To really like informally develop a succession plan. You know, and it's, it's good. So,
you know, we're doing a lot of trainings and things like that in house with our own officers and
whatnot to bring a lot of different perspective to the guys who are up and coming because we do,
like I said, when I say Blaine Canvas for our organization, it, I can't even begin to describe

(38:39):
like it can go a number of different directions. I think it's going in the right direction.
But I definitely need guys to recognize that like the opportunity they have there is unbelievable.
You know, it's where it's where a lot of the fire departments, the bigger fire departments in
the Chicago metro area were at in the early 90s is where we're at right now. Yeah.

(39:01):
And we just need them to run with it, you know, and they're starting to. They are, they're,
they're, they're unbelievable. But they just need to like kind of start believing in themselves.
And they need the experience. You know, you can't fake experience. You can't, you can't
catapult it. You can't fast track it. Yeah. So that's kind of what we're at right now is we, by

(39:22):
demand, we are putting people in positions where in a bigger organization that's more established,
they probably wouldn't have the opportunity to do for 10 years. Yeah. We're throwing Adam in three.
Gotcha. You know what I mean? So it's a lot. It's a lot to, it's like hard and cats. Yeah.
Hear that? You mentioned also, I'm curious on how you do this. Come back to missing and loving what

(39:52):
you miss, right? We're going to keep going back to that. Yeah. We are. Because Kyle, come get some
zool-offed over here, please. And one more of these unidentified beers. Wait, is that what it is?
I was wondering how you got that. I thought I was that. I thought it was that. I'll get this all for you.
Who is this? This is the report of this come from. How do you balance that? How do you, how do you remain,

(40:19):
hey, I miss this, but also be present in the gratitude? How do you balance those two?
You know, I think it is to be engaged as much as I possibly can. You know, like I love to line up
company level trainings during the day. You know, and the guys do a great job in. We, our training program

(40:41):
is absolutely phenomenal. Every day we have company level training for no more than one hour. But
like our expectations are also in the downtime, do something at your company level that you're not
coordinating. But I'll be driving down the street and just see some massive eye beams and be like,
we need to go left these. You know, like let's go. And I think that's important because, and I hate,

(41:06):
again, I hate to be the guy to be like, well, this is what I used to do because I hate that. I hated
hearing it. You know, I, and I don't want to be that guy. But I also want them to make good decisions
and not make bad decisions based on my past experiences. So it's not like here's what I did in this.
I screwed this up. It's more or less. Try this. Yeah. I'm suggesting you try. You hate hearing it

(41:32):
over and over and over again. But now that you've gone through it and you have the perspective,
you're like, yeah, I'm glad we did that. Yeah, 100%. Every young kid is like that. Nobody ever wants to
fucking hear that. Oh, God, here we got to go do this again. Yes. Yes. And there is, I mean,
there's still, you're never going to get rid of it. Everybody needs to fail on their own.
Oh, my God. Because that's the only way, like truly, like you learn some from successes, but

(41:56):
you don't learn from success. No, no, no, even your kids. Absolutely. You know, like it's the same thing.
You know, and I've had experiences where there have been massive failures. And the lessons that
were pulled out of those incidents are tenfold. What, you know, like what we did a great

(42:17):
job with this house fire, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but where we had this
critical injury or this line of duty, death and things like that, like that's where the lessons
are pulled out of. And unfortunately, you have to keep on packing those and talking about them
and things like that, but it's a nice thing to be able to provide first person perspective of,

(42:39):
we did this and here's what happened. Here's what happened. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, we pulled this
right line in the attic fire one out. That's not it. You don't even like that. Yeah. Well, let's
oven to that. Why not? Sure. That's where I was. Exactly. Failures. What have you experienced that
you've learned tremendously off of? Or maybe it's not like a big lesson you learned, but it just meant

(43:04):
a lot to you. I mean, you could change the names. You could change the department. Whatever,
I mean, share what you're willing to share, but lessons you've learned specifically off of failure.
Okay. In 2005, I was a driver later truck and we were going to a mutually fire auto-weight fire

(43:25):
out of our district. Four person truck company, we went to a just a very small ranch on a slab,
with the ranch on the slab with the two car garage was being used as a tap shop and they turned
that two car garage into a six car garage, you know, with not the most favorable construction practice.

(43:45):
Sure. Probably not a lot of permits involved. And like what I said, not a lot.
But I, we had two guys working on going to the interior because we had a report of people trapped.
I is the single driver went to the roof, you know, just a normal four-pitch, you know,

(44:08):
rough and my intent was to go to the top of the garage that had been burning and just pop a real
quick hole and then come down. Like, and again, when I talk about an area where we really were strapped
with manpower, it was a lot of single-role operations, you know, like we were operating independently
quite often. Yeah. So the interesting part of that is that we had two guys, the two guys in the back

(44:33):
step were going to four-century for the engine and they were going in and I told the officer,
I'm like, I'm going to go open the roof really quick and he said, I'm going to go with you,
which is highly unusual. Sure. We didn't sound officers to the roof, you know, like that's an interior
position, you know, things like that. The more senior people would be used for outside vent
and things of that age. So I was like, okay, whatever man. Come on, let's do it.

(44:59):
I'm like, this is about a two-minute operation. But, first for a long story short, I got to the
ridge, there was fire coming out of a mushroom stack on the roof. I'm like, oh, here we go. I'm just
going to knock that off really quick. Well, I stepped one foot off the ridge to knock the cap off
and I went straight through. Damn. Straight through. Like, and I thought that I was in the attic,

(45:20):
and went through the roof, I went through the attic and I landed on top of a burning car in the
garage. Holy shit. Right. So, you know, I was not in a position to call a Mayday. Sure. I didn't have a
pass device because I never turned my bottle on. Like, we would never even go to the roof with an
SCBA. But I happened to throw it on because I'm like, I'm just going to come down really quick and go

(45:41):
inside to go search for this. Gotcha. So I went through, luckily he saw me go through. No shit.
So he transmitted to Mayday. Were you masked up? No. Holy shit. So I went through and then I,
when I landed in the garage, I looked up and just saw nothing but fire. I'm like, oh boy.

(46:02):
So I, the only thing I remember is trying to put my mask on. Yeah. And then it's the next thing I
remember, I was getting dragged out to the, to the curb. So he saw me go through and he took the
ground ladder that we used to access through the roof and he put it through the hole, which is now
fire venting through the hole and he put it through just to mark my spot. Oh, no. They usually,

(46:22):
not something they, they talk about text books, but just figured out. Absolutely. And transmitted
to the Mayday, I think, you know, somebody threw a ladder to get down. But because the house was
fortified, he grew, they were using a K12 saw to open up the lower panel that overhead garage,
but that being high security area, they had steel panels underneath the back sides of the panels

(46:43):
of the door. They also had padlocks on the track of the overhead door. So that thing wasn't going
anywhere. So they ended up having to go to like the Delta side. They four century through a gate,
a service door, a second service door. And then they were the furthest point from where I was
actually at. So it took them a little while. Yeah. There were three burning cars in the garage. They
had no water in the fire at their point. And these guys found me. You know, I, and this is not

(47:09):
something I did instinctively, like it just must have been, I don't know, subconsciously. Yeah. I was
buried in a lot of roofing material, but my, my body was under one of the cars. So the only thing
that they used to find me, they, they happened to find me was the two blinking Vulcan light, or the
Vulcan flashlight. Really? I don't know. He seems Vulcan lights, but what I do. I don't know. He's

(47:32):
you. He's in brand names. Yeah. But yeah. So it was flashing. That's, that's what they used to find me.
Wow. So by that time, they were able to cut like a very small opening in the overhead door,
the exterior team, and they dragged me through that. Got me out to the curb. I was unconscious all time.
They got me to the curb. They got me in the ambulance. And then that's when I really started coming to.

(47:53):
Now ironically, that was the town of where I started. That's where the fire was at. Marco,
interesting. So my captain, my mentor, you know, he was at the fire as well. And I'm on the cut in the
back of the ambulance, just starting to come to when he's laying, not laying. He, I'm laying. He was on the
bench seat. And I looked at him like, am I bad? He's like, Kevin, you're fucked up. You're a long time.

(48:16):
I was getting too straight. I'm like, oh boy. Yeah. So I, I don't know. I was in bad shape. I,
38% burns. They fooled me to the burn center. I was there. I innovated all that other good stuff
for quite some time. So I learned a number of lessons there. Yeah. Please. A number of, I mean,
like obviously a number of lessons. And, you know, I try to relay a lot of those things to the guys now,

(48:39):
you know, even if you're not putting your mask on, turn your bottle on, you know, because my past
device had never gone off. Right. Because I didn't expect to put my mask on. Somebody just
brought on you. But people, I was unconscious without a mask on. My past device never went off.
Yeah. You know, stuff like that. Wear your waist straps. Like they, they drag me out with my
S-C-B-A in place. You know, like that's what, what they used to get me out of the building. You have

(49:02):
to have your waist strap attached. I did. Thank God. I always did. Yeah. You know, certain guys that I
had come up with, they always just pushed and pushed and pushed. You've got to have that waist strap.
You know, with an S-C-B-A, you would, you might as well cut your shoulder straps off before you cut
that waist strap. Absolutely. You know, like it's more valuable than the shoulder straps. Yeah.
And I did. Thank God. You know, they were able to extract me that, that way. So, I mean, just

(49:26):
good ass fireman that day. Like they saved me. You know, that's the only reason I'm here. Honestly,
God. I mean, they, they put themselves ahead of, they put me as, had them themselves. Yeah.
And that's the only reason I'm here. What are, because there's obviously, there's a lot of lessons
you've learned from this. And I think some of them are kind of obvious lessons learned.

(49:52):
From that one experience, what are the not so obvious lessons learned from this? Like, man,
it maybe took you two, three years before all of a sudden it comes to you like, wow.
On that particular, I would say don't become complacent. You know what I mean? Like we,

(50:14):
that was a Sunday, it was in January, you know, Sundays at the firehouse. You're like, oh, man,
you know what I mean? And we were, we were go getters, man. It was like, we even hear the first word
structure building. We are out the door. And we are hauling ass to that fire.
Laughing along the way. You know what I mean? Like just goofing around like, oh, we got,

(50:36):
there's a report of people trapped. We're like, I will just see about that. You know what I mean? Like,
it was, but that's how we, we operated. Like we were comfortable, you know, but maybe comfortable
to a fault. You know, like, don't operate on the rough by yourself. Because if I, if I wasn't
up there alone, which was very common, no one would have known. You know what I mean? Like, I would

(50:59):
have been missing for the bulk of the fire before they realized that I wasn't coming down.
Some stuff that went your way that day. 100%. 100%. I mean, divine intervention.
Yeah, that's great. You know, building construction, you know, like that was obviously it was a four,
four pitch roof. It was not, it was, it's like it all of it at sidewalk at that point. It's not a big deal.

(51:21):
But it was lightweight. It wasn't connected correctly. You know, like just I was complacent in the
fact that I didn't sound the roof before I stepped off the ridge, which really there wasn't a ridge. But
because I was like, well, it's right there. Right. It's going to knock this off. Right. If I had,
maybe I realized that they wasn't going to support the weight of me. You know, and I would, I would be okay.

(51:46):
Just a number, a number of things like obviously, you know, up to including
that I'm affecting the rescue. Like you have to know fire fighter drags. You have to be,
you have to understand your thermal imaging camera. You know, that was one of the tools that they
used to get the layout of the building. It wasn't to find me. It was to figure out what they were
about to get themselves involved in. They had the thermal imaging camera and it was, it was transitioning

(52:10):
into that low intensity or whatever. But we had just gone through like thermal imaging training
prior to that. So the company officer was very, probably very comfortable with what he was seeing
and what he was processing. Force of luxury building construction, fire behavior. I mean, you could
really go into like a laundry list of different things from one fire that something occurred within

(52:33):
the first eight minutes. Yeah. And this is a nothing building and in nothing, you know, like it was,
it wasn't like, oh, man, we got five floors of fire. It was, yeah, it was a shittles. It was, it was,
it was, it was just, it was a dump that we go to regularly. Like we used to call those our training
buildings. You know, they're 900 square foot ranch in a slab and that's, that's what are the makeup

(52:56):
of the buildings that we were going to frequently. Yeah. But you know, look at, look, we're running it up.
One, and you, so you just rattled off probably five or six different disciplines of training.
That all then happened and need to come to the forefront at the same time. For sure.
Unsupervised. Correct. Right. Right. So that's, if that isn't a testament to staying on top of

(53:22):
training, I don't know what it is. And that's what I'm saying. And people, you know,
those who don't like to train will probably like say, well, you can use a training, that's the
year. And I'm not, I don't know if she's in that. But like, anyway, just for it, I guess,
be training, training, training. So, um, I, I, I, I, I have such a deep appreciation for the

(53:44):
positive effects of it. Absolutely. It versus, well, I mean, you're going to get me out of the chair
for a little while. No, this is your job. Right. This is why we're making six figures. You know,
like this is, this is, we're providing the service based on your ability to perform.
So how do you, how do you deal with those that push back against training? Obviously,

(54:05):
they still have to do it. Sure. There's also guys that train and guys that train well. Sure.
Sure. Sure. That is a challenge at times. It is. How do you deal with those?
Truthly told, I think a lot of the people who work on our shifts can form. You know, I mean,
like I think that if it's a culture thing, it is a culture. And again, I think it's based on

(54:29):
the members having the buy-in and not questioning it and not gripping about it. And do they,
do they be hand-close yours? Probably. I'm sure that yeah, whatever. Yeah. You know what I mean? But
you're still showing up. You're still doing it. We're still hitting our objectives. Like it, but I
think that again, because the department is so young right now, it's the norm. Yeah. I don't think

(54:52):
that we could pull off what we do if, if we were doing, if we were trying to create the same
program in the department that's been 100 years established, you know, like interesting local four.
I don't even know what I mean, like they've been around for EIs and you're going there like we're
going to throw ladders. They're like, throw this. Yeah. You know, you're so much thrown. Yeah, I'll give
you something to throw and throw this at you. But like, but it's it's young enough where it's the

(55:19):
norm now. So there's no, there really isn't as much gripping as you would probably expect. But we
also don't we won't have formalized training for three hours either. It's not like when we do ladders,
it's not like this is the beam. This is this is the, you know, this is the optimal climbing angle.
It's it's not. We're throwing ladders to the third floor of an old folks home. You know what I mean? Like

(55:41):
it's on you're out of here. That's it. You know, like and then once you're done with your one hour
rotation, just go do it somewhere else. If you come back from an automatic alarm, just stop,
throw some ladders against the building. Yeah. You know, so when it comes down to it, it's muscle
memory. It's natural. Yeah. But that's it's it's the members. It's not it's not me. It's just that they

(56:01):
they are they they have bought in, you know, to that. Yeah. And for those who don't have to
kick her last, you know what I mean? Like just go work somewhere else. I know it sounds terrible,
but like I don't that's that's not what we're looking for is it's not the pushback. It's
understand why you're doing it. Right. You know, it's not the it's not the fill time. They're busy.

(56:23):
They're busy enough doing things that you know, for sure. Again, it's when the rubber meets the road.
Yeah. It's so you can do your job independent or with your with your company. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's you know, you can't you have these stories and experiences where
you know, once again, I'll say it again. I don't care. We're repeating ourselves, but it's you have a

(56:48):
perception of training that makes you appreciate training. Sure. Right? Oh, absolutely.
Until you have that, you don't. Right. You know, which is unfortunate because you can't there's
literally no way to you could tell somebody till you're blue in the face, but until they sort of
realize it and have their own. Yes. Perception of it. Right. There's no way that you can give it to

(57:10):
them. No, no. I mean, we're not we're not working in a factory. You know, like once repetitious and
you know what to expect every single day and things like that, like you get that curve, I'll
use your training as your basic foundation and your fundamentals and you know,
build on that based on what you're thrown for sure, you know, but you have to get you have to
get the fundamentals down like it is critical. That's why we are getting paid. Right. Yeah.

(57:35):
You know, on you said train, you know, train for like a rescue training for like saving your
own training. Yeah. You should never have to use that training. You shouldn't. But
if Kevin Sears falls to the roof and you got to go get his dumb ass, you better know how to

(57:56):
drag somebody out. Yeah. That's the expectation. Exactly. And we talk about that. We talk about
that in the beginning of the year. Every year, you know, we sit down as an entire shift.
Here's what I'm looking for. These are the specifics. You know what I mean? It's not like,
do a good job. Show it for work on time. You know what I mean? Like it's, you know, I need that
SCBA checked out before you get your coffee. You know, like, is that me? Yeah. I think that might be you.

(58:20):
Oh my god. Are you serious right now? That's my first podcast.
Air would be not invited back. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, buddy.
We're all in our one. Yeah. He's silent. He's man. Oh my god.
Somebody take that. Yeah. Double juice. Yeah. Yeah. Get it out there.
But yeah, no, absolutely. So yeah, it's been it's fun to go ride. You know, I do not, I do not,

(58:46):
I don't want to leave it. You know what I mean? Like, and I'm right there, like,
timing-wise, you know, like it's the pension system was set up a certain way for a certain reason.
Yeah. You know, so you can live a productive life afterwards and things like that. And I think that

(59:06):
that's something that has to be factored in. Yeah. So I'm like getting pretty close to that number,
you know, and I, but am I ready to leave? I don't think so. I mean, I think mentally, like, and again,
as a company officer, I don't think I would be the role man right now. It's just there's so many other,
like, yeah, complexities to it. Yeah. Yeah. We're like, okay. Yeah. Good with that. Yeah.

(59:29):
You know, but also a side job more and more than 55 hours a week. You know, like, so that's
the two full times. 100% and I love both of them. Yeah. I would never want to give up one or the other,
but I have to be realistic at some point. You know, my family's been rack stars,
keeping up with the pace that I've set. You know, and I'm okay with it, you know, like because it's,

(59:52):
you know, I've been doing the Genesis thing for 21 years now. For sure. You know,
the fire service, I'm in my 24th full time and actually this is my 30th year is a whole.
It's a long time. I know. And one of them has to. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So yeah. How do you deal with, I mean,
you kind of, you've set yourself up for the transition to, into another career or another, you know,

(01:00:18):
part of life, to be honest, not everybody has. And there's a lot that are coming up on retirement.
Sure. And it's not just retirement for them. In their perspectives, the loss of an identity. Absolutely.
Because their job isn't firefighter or captain or batachi. Their identity, very much who they are,

(01:00:44):
you know, is ingrained into that. So when they retire in their mind, part of them dies. I mean, we see
some of the ramifications, detrimental. Oh, absolutely. Ramifications of retirement.
How do people set themselves up? I mean, they just go work at Genesis or, I mean,

(01:01:05):
well, it's pretty, it's a pretty high bar. So I can't, so I don't think I'd say anyway,
it makes it sound so easy. Just go dabble and sound, right? Hey, you work at Genesis, do podcast,
and be drinking beer. What do you, I mean, it seems pretty good. This is what's going to rule whenever,
every time you see I told you, you know, do shit. Yeah, sure. I'm like, I'm just driving on that truck.

(01:01:26):
I wish I could sell Genesis to all of us. That's so easy. But anybody could, it's cool. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. I mean, what are you doing this week? You can kind of shut up.
I mean, that's all you're doing. Yeah. On a Saturday and Sunday, by the,
it will be a good time. No, I can't wait, man. I can't wait. Yeah.

(01:01:47):
I just think that you have to have something to transition into, you know, like that's my,
my perspective. Something as there's what, man, I don't know. It's a job.
Hobby, yeah. That's the problem, like the problem with the pension system is like we,
the job is very abusive on our bodies and our minds and our families. And if you know,

(01:02:08):
they are psyche. So we are very, very fortunate to be able to disconnect through a retirement plan
very early on. I mean, if you get in at 21, and I think I would imagine it's probably relatively
the same for Ohio, but if you're able to leave at 21, I mean, you can leave at 50, 50. Yeah.
You don't mean like what are, that's, that's incredible. And that is like, you can't go land. I

(01:02:33):
mean, I could probably figure it out. You can try. I think I'll be okay. Yeah. I won't be okay.
No, I tried it last week. Yeah. Yeah. I went to Florida for a week. And I'm like, I'm going crazy.
Yeah. Like this is all that's, yeah, no way. I'm relaxed. I don't say so very often. No, no, no,
but that's not, it's not our personality. But you're 100% correct. Like you are leaving not a job.

(01:02:58):
You're leaving, I'm a 24, 48. You're leaving 33.3% of your family, your lifestyle, your identity.
You're, I mean, you were immersed. You're pulled out of your, your, your blood family. Yep. For 24 hours.
And that's what you're leaving behind. It would be like having a number of family members wiped out at

(01:03:20):
the same, you know, like horrible, and horrible accident. And I'm sure that's how a lot of people
process that I don't. Sure. Yeah. And that's, I'm not sure what direction it's going to go. You know,
because of that, it's been, it's been a part of my life for so long. And I didn't think about that
until recently, you know, like it's been so long. And this is all I've ever known. Like I, you know,

(01:03:44):
it was a factory guy in my, I can't create delivery guy. Um, my days off until I got, I've got
put Genesis. But aside from that, like this is what I've done. Mm-hmm. So I don't, I don't know.
I don't think you can say hobbies or the villages in Florida. I mean, the place is cool. So I'm like,
I, I'm supposed to fucking wild to be, I'd be dead in six months easily. Ramp my golf

(01:04:10):
curtain on a tree four times. That happy. I mean, die. Well, high speed chase.
You win all our villages. Yeah. And it's golf. We fun. We fun. We did it. Yeah. Oh, God. He's
out of a tragic. What do you do? That's how we're growing. That's right. That's right. Um, but I

(01:04:34):
think that I think that you have to have something. So I don't think it's possible to retire and then
pick something up. I think that years prior to that date, you have to get started. Yeah. You have to.
But there's, there are unbelievable opportunities out there to do other things. You don't have to
work at home depot, right? You know, not that there's anything wrong with that. For sure. But like you,

(01:04:56):
you don't, that, you can do, you can do a podcast. You can do what piles over there doing.
Got only those. What he's doing. He's, you don't know. He's, you don't know. He's, you know,
what it means? But you know what I mean? Like there's so many different opportunities. Yeah.
You just have to be open to it. You have to be creative and you have to have a drive. You know,
like nothing's going to come to you. Some, I mean, by having a circumstance, sometimes it

(01:05:20):
happens. I'm sure it's been an opportunity falls in your lap. But like you have to be motivated to
start something. You don't have to start a training company. Yeah. You don't have to do, you know,
not mean like social, you don't have to be a social media influencer. Like, yeah. What's the
TikTok page? Yeah, right. Yeah. Tic-tacs and you're like, look at me. Yeah. You know, that, that's not.

(01:05:40):
That's after this. We're gonna. I can't wait to get to the point. Tic-tacs. Yeah.
Jesus. What are we doing? I just learned about the, uh, the Snapchat filters the other day.
I was sitting at the, uh, good tabernam meeting with a buddy of mine and he's like, do you got this
filter? I was like, no, but I'll take a look. It was amazing. Yeah. That's what I did for about four
minutes. Just one. Two days. I've never, one of them. Yeah. I've never even touched Snapchat.

(01:06:02):
Oh, I don't even, I took it off. I took it off. I always used it. I called it. When it didn't
make sense to me, my nephew was trying to explain it. I was like, that sounds like texting. Yeah.
Why the hell? I do. Don't get it. Two daughters and, you know, that, that was their former communication
for my time. And I was like, well, I'll see what this is all about. And I got on there. I'm like,

(01:06:22):
oh, there's a lot of people I know who are in this. Where adults, you know,
not adults. I'm just like, it disappears. Yeah. I'm just taking pictures of my food, but I was
taking funny, like, videos that things are like, I hope they go away in 10 seconds. I can say,
if I ever ties, you said, yeah, I hope this is true. Go away. Go away.
While somebody's got them all saved on the right. Remember this from two years ago, I'm like,

(01:06:44):
wait, wait, I'm blind to the whole plan. No, give me the platter.
But yeah, so too crazy, but it's, but to your point, yes, you have to have something. I'm guessing
you have to have something to transition into. It's a good point. Looking at it ahead of, you know,
I think people probably are blindsided by it a little bit. And then they try and find something.

(01:07:06):
Yeah, that's what's good advice to try and find something, you know, that overlaps for a little while.
And then makes it a little easier. I would think so. And I mean, you look at it and some people are
probably going to be asking, you know, the 12 people that listen to this are going to ask, might be
up to 13. It might be 13. It's an unlucky number. Wait, yeah, we got to go 14. Okay, we're 14.
Kyle's not even subscribed. What is this thing called? A podcast? How do you listen to it?

(01:07:35):
What was I even going to say? I'm not sure. I don't know either. Oh, there you go. If the 14 people
that are listening to it are sitting there saying, okay, what time should I start planning for this?
It's just like, you know, we hear, hey, when should I plan for retirement? Probably not when you retire.
Right. Right. For sure. So I mean, when are you putting that in motion? When you get hired?

(01:08:00):
Well, you say me like, I kind of have everything lined up for poster time and employment. You got
it all together. Don't lie. No, for sure. Perfect for you. But I completely understand what you're
saying. And I think again, coming up and starting off, firemen were underpaid and they had time off.
Sure. And they, because they were underpaid and had time off, they were motivated to get into a trade.

(01:08:26):
You know, they were carpenters and plumbers and electricians and you know, things like that.
I don't see that now. You know, like it is. And you can do that. No, do you want to go
throw on bundles of shingles when you retire? Probably not. But maybe by that point, you own
the roof and company. Sure. Yeah. You know, or you're starting one and things like that.
A timeline of, I can't say one that is, I'm in a unique position where I have always,

(01:08:52):
always had two careers. So I don't know, but I, I would anticipate that you have to have something.
You know, um, and there's stuff that exists in the fire industry. Like, there, you know, I think
you got it. Like you said, you got to, if you were willing to put a little bit of work in. Yeah.
Genesis will take anybody to sling their tools. Just say, obviously, obviously.

(01:09:13):
So I, if you, you can't land that. It's like selling news.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Slaps the rescue tool. This bad boy. No big deal.
But I think, I think there's, there's plenty of things that exist. Sure. And, you know, this,
you know, you mentioned your, your district is growing and, and you guys are evolving. The entire

(01:09:36):
industry is the same way. Yeah. Right now. For sure. I mean, there's new companies popping up.
There's new technology. So there's, there are ways to stay in. If you, if like, if that's your
identity, yes. You know, as long as you want to put the work in and start ahead of time.
Mm-hmm. There are options. Right. And you have to put that work in. Correct. It's not going to
fall into you. And what is coming to find out? No. You know, I mean, there's, look at FDIC. Yeah.

(01:10:00):
It's, it's amazing. Like there were 36,000 people there this year. Yeah. And how many people
worked in the fire service that were there? Right. I mean, as firefighters. Yeah. I mean, I,
yeah. And if you walked around, I mean, every year, there's a new widget that somebody came up with.
For sure. It's going to revolutionize the job that's been going after 120 years without your
shit. Yeah. Oh, grouper on rescue tools. Yeah. Yeah. What do you know?

(01:10:25):
What is the way up to know? It's a thing. Just go look it up. Just grab it to a drill. Yeah.
But anyway, um, but some, somebody will buy something. Sure. I mean, like, you can come up with any
new, finagled product. Yeah. Somebody's going to buy it. You know, I'm like, whether it's right,
wrong or indifferent, but oh, and it's never going to stop. No. No. Technology changes every day.

(01:10:45):
I mean, it's, we'll bring you back season two. We'll talk about
the season vehicle technology advancements. Yeah. That's a whole, we got extended. We got
season two coming. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Netflix picked us up. Okay. Sweet. That's fantastic.
Oh boy. Yeah. What is that? You speak of, yeah. It's not much. It's like crime series.
Like, take it. Yeah. It's a dispute. That's Snapchat. We don't go way too far.

(01:11:08):
Now everything by way, it picks on Netflix is like, uh, you know, he was true,
crime, he was mining his own business and then he died. Yeah. Oh, here we go. We're at a series now.
It's a whole series about somebody falling down a place there. So it's a fucking
soul. Okay. But you also keyed on something else that I think is vitally important.
So as soon as you get higher in the fire industry, you get a second job because that's what you

(01:11:32):
said you should do. So meanwhile, you have a, a wife, two kids, sure. And the support on that end,
has to be fantastic because usually a wife likes to have a husband. Yes.
And kids like to have a dad. Yeah. So how do you do that?
Um, I think they're still mildly interested in me.

(01:11:56):
So especially I'll check next month, the month when I get back to wishing to or they're
a rents, right? No, no, but, but again, I, I got married in 2001. Yeah. So that was the norm. Like,
I was already in that. Like that was the normal house. Okay. Okay. I mean, like, make up and,

(01:12:21):
and commitment and things like that. So, uh, and my wife stayed home for a number of years to,
to raise the kids because I think that someone incredibly important, which cost me to work even more.
Right. Yeah. Exactly. You know, but, but, you know, now she's got an amazing career with a school
district and things like that because our, our kids are in so many different things and they're

(01:12:42):
scattered all over the place. But we started that makeup and our household early. So it became the
norm. It wasn't like, we've been married for 12 years and I'm like, Hey, I'm going to start this,
the second career, right? And, you know, there's an individual industry. It was, it was the norm.
I think that right now we're, we're both at with our age and, you know, our, our household makeup

(01:13:08):
and things like that. Like, she's very, very interested in having one of the careers kind of go away.
So we can kind of get back where we, we missed, you know, but, but you think about it like your,
your first marriage, you're having kids and there's so many commitments and you're, you're, you're
financially strapped and things like that, but as you transition on and on and on and the kids are

(01:13:29):
taking care of and they're happy and they're successful and they're, you know, amazing kids.
Like, now we can kind of shine on the successes that we've made, the sacrifices for coming up
to that point. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she's been a saint. I mean, I, I, I, I pull it off

(01:13:49):
based on her holding up what I'm missing out on, you know, and I try to be at as many things. You
have to be creative with your, with your scheduling, for sure. Sure. Sure. You know, that's, you know, to say,
you know, I'm not going to miss, I'm not going to see you go to prom because I have a demo.
Not going to be, or I'm at the fire house that take in a trade, you know, I mean, like, you can do that.

(01:14:10):
If don't get greedy with the trades, don't, don't call off unless you're sick, you know, that's another
thing that is super important right now. So when you need to be at things, you can be at things,
you know, like, oh, it's the cops. So home opener today, I'm going to call off. Oh,
don't do that. You know, don't do that because it's the cops. So, yeah,
better than that. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm timing out that way. Right, but, oh, you said the bears that'd be holding the story.

(01:14:37):
Just not natural. Yeah. No, they got Caleb Williams. We're good to go. Oh, God.
They're about to have a new stadium too. Yeah, you're going to work.
Am 38 additional rescue tools. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, good stuff.
So now it's it's been an amazing, it's been an amazing few years. You know what I mean?

(01:14:59):
Yep. Super happy. Really. I'm so excited about where like the company is going.
The successes that we're having these guys are rock stars. They're knocking it out of the park
right now. You know, like, we're we were at the meeting, but are these guys?
That's what like this is general. Yeah. Pointed at the judges' flag over there.
You know, what they're doing for us is where we struggled for the past 15 years, I'd say, you know,

(01:15:24):
but it's exciting to be part of young blood coming in and new ideas and not being stepped. We were,
we have never ever, ever, ever, ever, but we just didn't have the right people in the right
places to catapult us to where we are now. For sure. I mean, you look at just the 20 year window.
It's just unbelievable. Like we had after you see like the line of of tools, the succession of like

(01:15:47):
the evolution of the equipment that we've had to see that in front of you. Like you it's like you
don't again, it's like seeing somebody after they lost 50 pounds and you're like, if you live with
the person, you wouldn't notice it, but you've seen them after three years and you're like, Jesus Christ.
Like you know what I mean? Like that seeing that, I was like, holy cow, we have really, really come a
long way. Yeah. And again, just to understand like I'm I'm in the back swing right now and that's

(01:16:11):
what I'm going to be probably more involved in. Sure. It's exciting. Yeah. Like it's super exciting
because it's refreshing. Yeah. You know, you're not you're not jumping into like, oh, I got to retire.
It's like I'm jumping in this full time, officially full time. You don't even like in theory,
but I'm not jumping into the unknown. I'm jumping into something that like you're like,

(01:16:33):
yeah, damn, I got to keep riding this wave because it's fun. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like we that
that side of the business again, just like the fire service like that is your that's your family 33%
of the life. These we are like family like we've talked about this the other day like we are not like
and I know people who work for other companies. We are not like that. You know, like we have a tight

(01:16:54):
net group like. Well, I'm breaking balls and we're just we're out shooting that video today. Like
we shot it in 90 minutes. I bet you we probably could have done it in 30 if we weren't just slamming
each other the whole time. Yeah, just making comments and you know, it's just it's fun to fun like
invigorating like inflating breath of fresh air. Yeah. So it's good stuff. It's awesome. Yeah.

(01:17:19):
What are we on time because yeah, we're out of out of respect for your time, obviously. But I want
to ask this. I want to ask a question because I know it's going to have to go ahead. Go ahead.
We're going on the line. You're an important you're an important man though. Like do you got
anywhere to be? You got a few minutes? I could tell you, but I shut my phone off after it started

(01:17:39):
ringing. Freak down. And that's he's literally turned the back. He's broke. I shut up. I don't know how
you put this on vibrate. Come on. Bro. Oh, God. No, I'm good, man. I'm here. It's Sunday. My need to
all right. So I'm looking on the lighter side. Have you ever said after a call or in the middle of a call?

(01:18:01):
Did that just happen? Oh my God. Yeah. Absolutely.
Okay. I want to. Yeah. We want some deep. Yeah. We want the ones that like pop.
Like yes. You have to tell us this.
Whoa. He's trying to get in some of that just happened. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. I wish I could give you a specific example. I 100% of confident that

(01:18:32):
that happened probably last week. You know what I mean? Like that that frequently. Like you guys know,
it's just yeah. It's the strangest things that you couldn't ever read. All right. We've got a llama
on fire walking out of the barn. We did have a llama on fire. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Well,
I mean, that would be amazing. Yeah. I just went to Crash Course Village and I saw peacock run around.

(01:18:52):
Like just happened. Like a little peacock. Yeah. My last shifts. And I don't go on. I don't go on
the EMS calls like whatsoever. I'm not doing them. I'm not expected to be there. I, you know,
what the the fellas won on a cycle valuation. And I just happened to hear as they were responding,
they said that it is a child on the roof of the house. You know, and he's in a standoff. That's

(01:19:17):
kind of like where it was portrayed in the cat notes a standoff with a 10 year old. What? Yeah. I'm like,
okay. What exactly is that? Yeah. I got a couple things going on right now. I'm going to go take a
peek. You know, please. He was going through this. Yeah. And it's just it's very unfortunate. I mean,
laughing about it. It's probably not the most tasteful. But like this kid was on a 12 pitch roof on

(01:19:40):
a Cape Cod on the ridge sprinting sprinting back and forth. I mean, a non walkable pitch for the
normal male. And maybe you know, like it's not normal. And he was beligning back and forth and back
and forth. And I was like, Oh my God. Thanks. Yeah. We pretty much were held captive by this kid for

(01:20:01):
about, I see every bit at 70 minutes. I mean, we had tower ladder up. We had ladder strung on all four
sides of this building. The cops have no idea what to do. They're reaching Adam every time he would go,
he would jump for them. What was he doing? He was just going apes. You know, like he was just,
he was off his rack or in again, I think there's a long history of, you know, just problems. Yeah.

(01:20:22):
Okay. But because this isn't it was a known address for the ambulance. Okay. Okay. I know they
address right off the tap on my head just because again, I didn't want to hear. Yeah. Let's go check it out.
But yeah, we we were running out of options really, to be honest with you, you know, and and thought back,
I'm like, this is, this is what I enjoy like coming up with ways to solve the problem. And I didn't,

(01:20:46):
I didn't the kid, you know, not okay, who got the last one? Like, hey, Horace. Listen, I mean,
firefighting on a horse. I keep on telling you guys this. We had a cop climb, climb a 16 foot ladder
on the front porch. And that kid came up in like, judo chopped the top rung of that ladder with a
cop and he started going backwards to the point where we were like, we're pulling the ladder back into

(01:21:09):
the house. And I was like, just get down. Just get down. You know, one of our guys, because he's
more comfortable on the ladders and roasting things like that, he went out there to try to grab the
kid and then the cops like, I don't want you to get hurt. So I'm like, we need to figure out who's
handling this for sure. Is it a fire incident? Is it a humus incident? Is it a police incident? You
know, and where are we at? He's like, well, I'm going to get the, you know, the whatever the, um,

(01:21:29):
psych services or whatever. Yeah. You know, the negotiator. I'm like, and then I hurt Taser. I'm like,
really, that sounds like a bad day. That sounds good. But this kid, I mean, he was, he was running from the
ridge down to the gutter line and the gutter line on a story and half frame is maybe 10 feet. Yeah,
I'm like, well, okay, if he goes off that, but he's running up and down a 12-pitch roof.

(01:21:52):
RJ, he, he grabbed books at one point and was running one handed up and down this baby with one
minute. Where did he get the book? Well, it's funny. So he can't, there was a, what do you mention?
Yeah. Story and a half frame. There was a gable side window and he was, there were two police officers.
Every time he would run past, they would try to grab him and then he was like, getting mad,
so he was trying to kick the window out. But he made the police officers back up further into

(01:22:16):
the room and then he reached into the window and grabbed a couple books and I'm like, okay,
maybe he's going to sit down and read and we can, no, he was using them to throw at us.
You know, so, but then he would go up to the top of the dormer window and like the delta side of
which that thing, I mean, that's at another 10 feet. So and then he's trying to reach for trees to
jump into the tree and I'm like, I don't know what to do. I think any hostage negotiator class

(01:22:39):
should involve talking a two to 10-year-old into doing something they don't want to do. And then
they're like, yeah, man, you're good. You graduate. You get, you get, yeah, you got a three-year-old man. Sure,
sure is how, man. One of the medics from our, our ambulance, after we back the tower down,
we re-battered it, we shot it down the street because it was agitating him. We moved the
ambulance down the street. He finally just sweet-talked him and then I don't know if he must have

(01:23:03):
had gassed because he was running back and forth and this thing for a long time and I'm like, he's just
going to, he's going to fall out and fall off this road. Yeah. But yeah, he finally just,
he's like, I'm going to jump down. I jump off the road, fall at time. I'm like, well, he sure told us
that when we'd rather, we would have been here. We would have been here less than words. Yeah.
We just used to do two minutes ago. Yeah. You know, but he jumped down and they were just, you know,

(01:23:25):
best friends in the front porch. Wow. Just crazy. But again, it was a terrible situation in
retrospect because I know that there's a very, very, there's a long history. Yes.
Psych problems and it's a problem that's plaguing the fire service. Yeah.
Absolutely. It's probably 40% of our MS runs. Yeah. But look at it and I'm like, what are we
to your, to your question? Like, what did that just happen? Yeah.

(01:23:48):
They don't even mean like, what? Who's got a plan? Yeah. There's no book. There's no ifs to book.
There's no ifs to chapters like, yeah, 10 year old running. Okay. So I think there should be
a book written on. Let's write it. Is there enough paper? That just happened.
Serenade. Firepaper in the world. No. And that's the beauty of it. We just keep on adding
it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like a journal. Yeah. For sure. Second podcast. Did that just happen?

(01:24:11):
That just happened. There you go. Unbelievable. There you go. Yeah. So good stuff.
Good stuff, man. Well, I appreciate your time. Man, this is about a blast. Yeah. It is.
I was, I was terrified, especially when I saw the camera is coming in here. I'm like,
well, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. You're terrified. He called me out. He talked me out.
He talked me out the roof. I would like to bring you back again. Yeah. At some point. That'd be fine.

(01:24:33):
Because there is another story that you had mentioned when you sent your write-up in that I think is,
is worth talking about. Sure. And that's obviously on the, on the previous side. But it has,
yeah, something to do with a line of duty death and there's a lot that can be learned from that.
Absolutely. There was another, there was another life lesson. So, hey, shoot, you could just host with us too.

(01:24:55):
I mean, you could, you could ask the question to a long drive. You want to come back and, you want to come back and
how long drive? I'm from Arizona. That's a really long drive. We'll come to you. Yeah, that'd be fun.
Yeah, absolutely. You're in Chicago. I'm a bear's fan. Oh, there you go. We'll do it.
Yeah, we got to figure it out where you guys go down that rabbit hole any further.
Hey, it's been awesome and I appreciate the opportunity

(01:25:18):
you guys invite me because it's fun, it's a good group and it's nice to chat you know?
So, cool. Good stuff. Thank you.
Thank you for cheering. Appreciate you so much.
Appreciate your time.
Absolutely.
Till next time.
Thank you.
[Music]

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