CEO - Dan Crow - Mansfield Fire Department

Dan Crow was sworn-in on Friday, December 1st, 2023, as the new chief of the Mansfield Fire Department. Crow was born in Cleveland and attended college at Oberlin. He has been a firefighter for close to 20 years and is excited to begin the role and lead the department. Learn more about the Mansfield Fire Department, the training that goes on behind the scenes, and much more about Dan, on the podcast.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The CEO you should know. Broughtto you by Roby Foster Miller Eric Insurance.
This week's CEO, Dan Crow,Mansfield's new fire chief. Congratulations in
good morning, thank you, Eron, and good morning to you as well.
All Right, so I've heard thename, we've never met face to
face, So just a few daysago I had to be a great experience

(00:24):
for you family to be sworn inas the new chief here in Mansfield.
Talk about that. Yeah, it'sa pretty exciting opportunity. I'm honored,
truly. It's not something that Iever thought that would be happening at this
point in my career. But herewe are, and I'm ready to get
started and really looking forward to promotingthe good work that our firefighters do in
our community every day. All right, So as we learn about you,

(00:46):
how long have you been overall afirefighter? I'm sure there's many different assistant
chief, lieutenant, all of that, but how long have you been a
firefighter? Eighteen years? I startedDecember fifth of two thousand and five,
So just to my eighteenth anniversaries isright here and for you growing up,
and we'll get to where you're fromand all that always wanted to be a

(01:07):
firefighter. No, not really.You know. I went to college and
was looking for something to do,looking for a part time job, and
I saw an opening in the townwhere I was going to school for a
part time firefighter civil service position,and I was like, well, that
sounds like it could be really interesting, right as a way to be in
school and have a part time job. And so I went and took the

(01:27):
test and I was hired, andI fell in love. And I knew
pretty much right away that this wasa career that I wanted and I wanted
to pursue it. So I didn'tthink so you know, growing up,
you know, I was fascinated toa certain degree, but never really thought
that this was for me until Itried it and was like, wow,
it's always great to everybody's story,I love it all right, Dan Crowe

(01:49):
again with us in studio, knewfire chief in the city of Mansfield.
So a Mansfeld has been around along time. And how many fire stations
are there in town currently? Rightnow we have five fire stations that are
located throughout the city and overall,and I know this can change with retirements
and things like that, but herewe are early December. How many are

(02:09):
on the on the force in thedepartment right now? Yeah, we currently
have ninety firefighters on the force.With a couple of recent retirements. We
typically stay around ninety two or ninetythree firefighters. One question you know people
may have, how does it workin terms of a shift for a firefighter?
Is it you know, so manyhours on, so many hours off?
Does it? Very depending on butcan you explain it? Yeah,

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So, our typical shift is atwenty four hour platoon shift. We have
three crews that work twenty four hourson and then are off for the next
forty eight hours and then repeat thatcycle in perpetuity. We are open three
hundred and sixty five days a year, twenty four hours a day, so
we are always here and always ready. Doesn't matter the weather, doesn't matter
any of that. We're here torespond, so we staff accordingly. So

(02:52):
it is a very unique schedule.But you know, I guess once you
get into the fire department culture,it just becomes something that you don't know
how to live without out and thenfor the last couple of years, I've
been on more of a standard workweek. I work a typical forty hour
work week. You know, Mondaythrough Friday, but all of our crews
are in the station and they havea second home there. And you're currently

(03:13):
the chief now before that assistant chief. Correct, Yes, I was promoted
to assistant chief September of twenty two, and I've served in the role as
the EMS chief, So I overseeor I had been overseeing all of our
EMS operations throughout the city. Andwe staff four rescue squads or we call
them rescue squads, but they're ambulanceunits, their advanced life support ambulance units
that have a paramedic and at leastan EMT on each one, and they're

(03:38):
busy. They're busy units, andwe have very good people that are out
there caring for our citizens day inand day out. All right, Well,
as we learn about you and thedepartment when you guys aren't responding to
an emergency, are there certain trainingthings you guys do where I'm sure there's
a lot of things that people don'tknow that go on behind the scenes.
Correct, Yes, So it's Imean, it's a very busy situation in

(03:59):
our fire state. There's a lotof training we're required to do, continuing
education to keep all of our certifications. The paramedic alone is significant. It's
eighty six hours over three years.The fire training in order to maximize our
what we call ISO ratings or ratingsthat are assigned to our community that kind
of affect the insurance rates, wehave to do quite a bit of fire
training. And then there's all theseopportunities. Being an all risk organization will

(04:25):
respond to basically any emergency that happens. The ones that are very low frequency
but super high risk for the peopleinvolved are ones that we really focus on
and train on and want to makesure we're prepared for. So if there's
a constant need to train, there'sa constant need to maintain our equipment.
The documentation portion of going on allof our responses takes a lot of time,
and then all of the different qualitymanagement process that we have in place

(04:47):
also take a lot of time.So there's always something to do. You
always show up at the fire department, and even if you're not going on
calls, you feel like you havea busy day in front of you,
and then you go on the callsand now you feel like you're buried and
you're never going to get caught up. But there is a lot of work
to do in the stations when we'renot on call. Glad you kind of
shared behind the scenes because I knowthere's a lot of work that goes on.
You're hearing the voice this morning ofDan Crowe, who is the new

(05:11):
fire chief in the city of Mansfield, just sworn in the other day.
All right, let's step away fromwork find out a bit more about you.
So let's go back to the beginning, if you would. People want
to know where was Dan crow Born. I was born in the city of
Cleveland, Ohio. Okay, allright, Next, where'd you go to
high school? I went to LutheranEast High School, which is actually in

(05:31):
Cleveland Heights, Ohio. All right, So after high school, tell us
college into being the path of afirefighter here in Mansvelt. I'd love to
hear that stuff. So, asI mentioned before, I first fell in
love with being a firefighter at college. I went to Oberlin. I went
to Oberlin College and played football thereand was looking for something to do.
And while I was there, Iwas studying an interdisciplinary degree called Law in

(05:55):
Society. It's a Bachelor of Artsin Law and Society. And that's where
I first started working part time forthe Oberlin Fire Department and loved it,
just absolutely loved it. A greatchief. Their chief, Dennis Curran,
has been a big inspiration in mylife, and yeah, just never looked
back. So how'd you officially makeit to Mansfield if you're not technically from

(06:15):
north central Ohio? Right? So, once I made the decision that you
know, this is the career Iwanted, you start looking for who's hiring.
And at that point in time,I got on an email list that
was advertising the different civil service tests. Right, being a public sector job,
you have to take a civil servicetest in order to get on the
hiring list. And one of thefirst ones that I found was Mansfield.
And at that point I hadn't heardmuch about Mansfield. I kne where it

(06:38):
was on the map. I can'tsay that I had ever been here,
but I did some research and Ilooked into the department and it looked like
a very fun place to work witha good culture and a good community.
So I took the test and Iwas hired here, and I guess the
rest is history. The rest ishistory, all right, great to learn
the story again about Dan Crow,who is the new fire chief in Mansfield,
But as you mentioned growing up,what were the aspirations? You know,

(07:00):
you said, you of course area firefighter now fire chief. But
when you're growing up, what didyou technically want to be when you were
in high school going off to college. Yeah, I wasn't sure. So,
I mean, I guess probably likea lot of kids, I go
to college and I'm thinking, youknow what, maybe I'll be a doctor,
right, or maybe I'll be alawyer. So, you know,
I went down the road of,you know, as I said, a
law in society and doing you know, some political science and some philosophy and

(07:21):
some different subjects like that, andreally was interested in that and those are
still big hobbies to me today.But yeah, so I was thinking doctor,
lawyer, I don't know, somewherelike that. But then firefighter hit
and wow, this this was theone. This is what I was meant
to do. All very cool?All right, Well, dan As,
we're talking about you. Let's stayon that topic. So we find out

(07:42):
from Cleveland and how you made itto Mansfield. Don't know if you're married
kids. Tell us a little moreabout Dan Crow and the family. Yeah,
so I have a daughter, she'sten years old. Her name is
Isabella currently with a long term girlfriend. We live together. We actually live
in Norwalk, Ohio right now,divorced previously. Really just enjoy spending time
with my family. I do haveof both. My parents still live in
Cleveland, and I have five brotherswho I love and you know, spend

(08:05):
a lot of good time with themand their families as well. So yeah,
all right, good deal. Nowyou you mentioned a little bit earlier.
But when you're not working, you'renot the chief, you know,
you're you're you're off duty. Uhwhat do you do? Uh? And
you said you played college football thingslike that. What do you do when
you spare time? Any hobbies?Yeah? So I love sports. I
still love sports, going to sports, watching sports. I don't play very

(08:26):
many sports anymore. I love readingbooks. I love listening to books.
Audiobooks are become a fascination of meas i've as I've grown older. I
don't know, I've There's been thingsI've done in my past that some people
think maybe a little bit odd,but I've just loved this stuff. I
sang barbershop here locally for years untilI just didn't have the time to do
that with the fun Center cordsmen anda quartet Bravada and I did that for

(08:50):
a long time and really loved spendingtime with those guys. I love Lego,
huge adult fan of Lego. Uhand I love playing with my daughter
with with that and building not onlythe sets with her, but you know
some of the more advanced ones thatare more collectors item. So yeah,
I just like to I like tohave my mind occupied and do things that
are productive. Very cool to learnall about the new fire chief in Mansfield,

(09:13):
Dan Crow, who is this week'sCEO, you should know, all
right, So we learned a lotabout the department and we're talking about,
you know, being the fire chief. And I talked to a lot of
people. I talked to law enforcementpolice, and I know they work well
together different agencies, whether it's youknow, Man's Foot, Ontario Highway patrol

(09:33):
Sheriff. I'm assuming it's that waywith the fire department. I always here
about mutual aid, you know,whether it's Madison, maybe it's Shelby,
it's another township. I'm sure thefire department will you guys work well with
other people in the county, rightwe need help? Yeah, we do.
We have a good mutual aid networkand here in Richmond County, we
have a Richland County Fire Chiefs Association, and one of my first priorities this
week is I'm getting started, isto reach out to all of those mutual

(09:56):
aid partners and the other chiefs inthe area and to make sure that we
have you know, I know mostof them, but make sure we've done
a proper introduction and have had anopportunity to talk and talk about this transition
and just see any ways that wecan strengthen these relationships going forward. And
in addition to the townships and thecities around us, we also have our
Air National Guard Fire Department that operatesout of lam Airport. They're a big

(10:18):
mutual aid partner as well. Somy goal going you know, here initially
as we transition is to make sureall those relationships stay in place and that
we can strengthen them and we canwork better together and train together and really
utilize each other's resources when we needit, because that's what we're there for.
Last thing, or the last coupleof things, is it lets you
go this morning. I just thinkabout it in a way of you know,

(10:39):
you mentioned you know, ninety plusfirefighters and all those I'm sure that's
a lot to oversee, you know, on a daily basis. You started,
you were a firefighter, now you'rea firefighter in charge of the whole
department. I'm sure you know youhave a lot of great people, captains,
lieutenants, right, that are veryvery key along with you to helping
make things go on a day today basis. Yes, I mean we've
got a good team, right.There's a man staff with the chief and

(11:01):
the assistant chiefs. We have captainsthat oversee each station, and then we
have lieutenants that also are kind ofthe first line supervisor out in the field.
And we've got a strong team now. And one of my goals is
to help develop that team right andhelp prepare the next generation to take these
positions, because, as you mentioned, right, retirements are always happening.
We're losing organizational knowledge continually. Thechief that's retiring, Chief Strickling, he's

(11:24):
been with the department near thirty threeyears and he's been the chief for a
decade, so we're losing a lotof organizational knowledge. So it's important not
only for me to learn, butfor me to help improve our young firefighters
and our young officers and make surethat we're developing them to be the leaders
that we're going to need, notONLYNK today, but more importantly in the
future as well. All Right,terrific to learn about the new fire chief
in the city of Mansfield, DanCrowe, this week's CEO you Should Know

(11:48):
Again. We thank you so muchfor coming in, congratulations and we wish
you continued success. Thank you Erin. It was a pleasure to be here
and I hope to talk to youagain soon. Dan crow Chief of the
Mansfield Fire Department, the CEO youShould Know, Read a bio, see
a photo, and hear the extendedinterview at wm A n FM dot com.

(12:11):
Leading means having ambition and sharing itwith others. I'm John Roby of
RFI Insurance. We're excited to bringyou this program featuring CEOs from our area
who will share the thoughts and whatit means to work and live in north
central Ohio.