Episode 368: The Best of The Bravest: Bill Gross (Volume 72)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the bike Did You Even? Podcast, hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Glow. You're listening to

(01:02):
the best of the bravest interviews with the FT and
ys E week New York City E M S slash
FD and Y E M S Footprint continues here on
the Mike the New Apen Podcast and welcome back, ladies
and gentlemen to another episode of said podcast. I appreciate
you being with me on this Friday evening. Definitely still

(01:24):
beautiful out, so we're trying to soak up the last
bit of summer while we still can. But you know,
think about it, Steve Kerr, Zak Goldfarb. There's been many
more Mark Peck recently tonight's guest, so we got Mike
Granton coming up pretty soon later on in the month.
So the footprint rolls on Mitch Sturn is also coming
up too later in the month. So it's been fun
to chronicle that side of the New York City emergency

(01:45):
response history and also FT and Y history too. As
I mentioned several times before on this program, the merger
of which we'll hear really intimate details about tonight like
we never have before. Turns thirty years old this upcoming sprint,
so it's gonna be interesting to document that if you
haven't checked out the previous episode. That was very interesting
as well, in a really enjoyable chat with Peterstrowsky, a

(02:06):
retired US Customs agent who was a supervisory special agent
for a long time as well. He did thirty one
years in Customs, will ultimately come ice upon the merger
of the agencies in two thousand and three, and a
lot of great stories told by him. That's an episode
that if you missed that one, go back and watch
it as soon as you can. Good evening to everyone

(02:27):
once again, and as always, you know the drill by
now Billy Ryan and Ryan Investigative Group, the best PI
firm in the business, the mike thing you have. The
podcast is proudly sponsored and supported by the Ryan Investigative Group.
If you need an elite PI, look no further than
the elite Ryan Investigative Group, which is run by retired
NYP Detective Bill Ryan, a twenty year veteran of the
department who served a majority of his career in the

(02:49):
detective Bureau, most notably in the arson explosion squad. So
if you need a PI to handle anything from fraud,
legal services, and anything else that you might require, contact
Bill at three four seven four one sixteen ten Again
three four seven four one seven sixteen ten. Reach them
at his website or the email that you see here. Again,
if you need a PI, look no further than Bill

(03:09):
Ryan and the Ryan Investigative, a proud supporter and sponsor
of the Mike de Newhaven Podcast. To Mike Milner in
the chad I retired member of FD and Y Rescue
for former alumni of this show, I do see your comment,
and yes, the Bravest are indeed the FD and Y,
but a big part of the FG and Y is
also FD and Y EMS, and we don't want to
selight it neither. We don't want to diminish the work

(03:29):
that they've done over the years, and so that's why
I feel the need to put them under the Best
the Bravest mini series banner as well. So point taken,
but I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight the great
work that the EMS Division of the New York City
Fire Department does as well. And in line with that,
my next guest is a long time public servant whose
career is touched nearly every corner of New York City's
emergency infrastructure, from working as an ambulance corman in the

(03:51):
early eighties prior to that merger, holding senior leadership roles
within EMS, FD and Y and ultimately the Mayor's office
until his retirement from civil service in two thousand too.
Originally he spent decades helping to shape the system that
keeps the city running and rather was managing budgets or
coordinating the response to the COVID nineteen pandemic, or advancing
first responder communications through first NEV, which we'll talk about tonight.

(04:12):
He's been quiet force behind the scenes, i should say,
of some of the most critical public safety operations in
the history of this city, and he's been on the
front line for a lot of it. He'll tell me
about a lot of it tonight. And that is for
this volume seventy two. The best of the bravest interviews
with the FD and wys elite is retired FD and
Y EMS New York City Mayor's Office and you're originally
New York City EMS, Bill Gross, Bill, Welcome, How are

(04:35):
you not fine?

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Mike? Thanks, thanks for the opportunity to sit and chat
for a little bit.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Oh no, thank you for being here. I appreciate your time.
I know you've got a lot going on, and I
really want to highlight your career, of course, in style
this evening, and we will. So before I get into
anything involving your career, first things first, tell me about
where you grew up.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
I grew up in Brooklyn all my life, for most
of my life. I grew up in Brooklyn, and I
guess I kind of started in my interest in emergency
services when I was going to college. I had a
part time job at a radio shack, and who would

(05:16):
think radio shack and emergency services would go together. But
I met a coworker at radio shack named Mike Granton,
and we both had an interest in chasing fires. And
I was about eighteen then he was seventeen, and we
would go out and you know, in our spare time,

(05:39):
we'd go out and a buff fires. And one thing
led to another, and Mike got transferred to a different
radio shack out in Trump Village, down in the Coney
Island section of Brooklyn, and we met up with some
guy named Steve Carr who was a volunteer MT with NYPD.
Auxiliary seven or rescue, and we kind of added him

(06:03):
to the group of buffing, except he would have us
chase some ambulance calls besides the fire calls. And you know,
we figured it's an emergency. It's kind of interesting, and
you know, that's how that's how things started a little
grown up in Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
And it's interesting. Mike ended up of course going a
police route, as he'll talk about when he comes on
for what will be an edition of the e Men,
because he was in transit rescue for a little while
before he ended up going elsewhere, so he had you know, yeah,
I didn't end up going the fire route, but ended
up going another.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Well, he started out in the MS before he went
to transit.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah he did. He was, he was in the aromatic,
you know, and that skill set certainly carried over well
into his police career, which he'll tell me about. So
as far as buffing, you know, sometimes buffing doesn't always
give way to actually serving yourself, but a lot of
times it does as well. So of course you're entry
into EMS. It takes us into eighty one eighty two
around there. Just tell me about again, Wild Wild West

(07:02):
back at a different ballgame, when it comes to emergency
medical care, especially in New York City. Tell me about
starting out originally as a corman at that time and
just trying to learn the street and who helped you
learn the street.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Things are a lot different back then. I mean, the
EMS academy was two weeks at the time. They gave
you some like a week of administrative training and some
medical training. Then they threw you in evach for a
week and they said, okay, you're ready to hit the streets.
So I mean, now, now I think the training is

(07:35):
several months, But back then it was you know, OTJ
on the job training, and I guess I was lucky.
One of my first partners was this this angel named
Lucy Carter. We called Lulu. She was on the job
at the time, probably like forty years from the old

(07:57):
Department of Hospitals. She was about four foot ten. She
would sit on four blankets on the ambulance and smoke
a Donobili cigars and she would like, don't worry, kid,
I'll teach everything you have to know. And I worked midnights.
It was you know, I love midnights. It's a whole

(08:18):
the whole counter culture for the city. You know, there's
a whole the whole world that that goes on midnights
that the day people don't know what's going on. And
the nice thing that I liked about midnights where you know,
there was no traffic, you could you could back then
you could buff jobs halfway across the borrow and be
there in the record time. So you know, that was

(08:43):
that was on the job training. You know. Then we
had you know, paramedics at the time, like Mark Peck
who would you know, teach you things. Had Zach Olfab
he was a paramedic at the time. So these these
are all like you know, childhood heroes of mine that
ended up becoming lifelong friends. An interesting story, I guess

(09:08):
when I graduate. I graduated the MS Academy, it was
like toward the mid end summer, so I come out.
I was assigned to conny Allan Hospital, which was Station
thirty one at the time before before they were battalion based,
and it was the end of the summer. Laby Day
weekend and Laby Day Weekend in Brooklyn is the West

(09:31):
Indian Day Parade. So me and a few other people
that were just graduated the academy, we you know, we
were too new. We didn't have assigned the ambulance post yet,
so we were what was called vacation relief extra. They'd
fill you in where they needed you. So since we
were all extra that day, they were like, okay, you guys,

(09:52):
you're going to the West Indian Day Parade. Most of
the guys at the time were you know, like volunteers
from Long Island, so they don't know what that meant.
I grew up in Brooklyn all my life, so I
knew what I was in for, and this was like
nineteen eighty one, ninth. So we get to the West
Indian they parade and the first couple of hours in
the parade, some Haitians on a float opened up on

(10:15):
some Jamaicans with a noozy and after about twenty minutes
they were like twenty five gunshot victims. And I was like, okay,
welcome to MS. It was, you know, it was an
eye opener, but you know, I thought it was great.
I was like, wow, this is uh, this is pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, that was an eye opener.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Oh yeah, but you know, and pre hospital care then
wasn't you know what it is now. So it was basically,
you know, put some dressings on scoop and run, you know,
get the paramedics dot some lines, you know, extinct mass trousers.
But you know, things were, things were. Things were a

(11:02):
lot simple in those days. You know, there were less
units on the street, less, less technology, but you know,
everybody was a camaraderie, the EMS and the cops and
the firemen. You know, everybody got along pretty well, especially
in the midnight. So it was like, you know, like
a band of brothers. You know. The cops would pull

(11:23):
tricks on the MS people. They would they'd break into
the ambulance when you're on a call and put all
the lights and sirens on and put the mask to
switch off. So as soon as you got in the ambulance,
you'd throw the mask to switch on and everything lit
up the neighborhood. We would tie sheets to the bumper
of the police cars so they would drive with like
a block long tail of sheets. But it was until

(11:48):
you looking back, it was really it was really some
great times back then.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Absolutely. Talking with Bill Grocer and the Mic and Navan podcast,
Volume seventy two of the best, the bravest interviews with
the Ft and Wise leader we shot out here in
the Chack, Christian Williams, the afore mentioned Mike Milner has
always good to see you and he and I know
you're pro em S. You know, I don't doubt that
for a second. John Costello is always here. Dave Burns
is watching. Dave Burns has been on before. He was
a great guest of a longtime friend.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Chris yep as part of the crew also, you know, yeah,
part of the Charles at the time we're doing photography
before he became an EMT Yep.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Chris Epden's in the chat as well as he's always here.
Garrett Lingren, who is an alumni of New York City
EMS himself, ended up the.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Flotlands volunteer way back when, if I remember correctly.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, clarify that the chat. Garrett, if you can, ended
up going to the FDN Y finished up out of
rescue three in the Bronx. Had a very distinguished career
in his own right and civil service and public safety
in New York City, and again, as you mentioned, it
was kind of trial by fireback then. I feel like
on the midnights the camaraderie is good because during the day,
especially when you get into a borrow like Manhattan, for example,

(12:55):
there's a lot of press. There's a lot of opportunity
to end up on the of course the front page,
so to speak, and sometimes it kind of leads to
some of the ego based driven missions that it doesn't
develop everybody. Everybody's for the most parts there for the
right reasons, but you have some that that's the intent.
On the midnights where you know, back then, especially in
that era of the city, the freaks were really coming
out at night. To borrow a line from that old song,

(13:16):
you know, it was all about sticking together and having
each other's back.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Certain it is also on the midnights there's a lot
less bosses out there, so yeah, you just to have
a little bit more freedom to do things that you
couldn't get away with on the days shift.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, yeah, after shirtain hour, Yeah, there's a little bit
more latitude for say, for certain things. Garrett mentions he
was with Flatland's Volunteer Ambulance Core from nineteen seventy six
to your point up.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Until Yeah, I remember I remember him back then.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, so small world again, Oh it.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Is, you know I tell people that all the time.
You can't talk about it. New York City is a
big town, but it's just it's it's a small community. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Absolutely, It's amazing how that intersects behind the scenes. I
had that a few weeks ago with Mark Peck. He
comes on, you know, and it happens to be that
one of the former NYPD Emergency Service guests i've had,
Sergeant ken Bowen and him grew up together in Brooklyn,
so you know, that was a nice little connector there
a nice little reunion via this program. So that brings

(14:20):
us into nineteen eighty two. Now you're working primarily in
Brooklyn around this time. You were in Brooklyn for a
really the duration of the eighties and a little bit
into the nineties as well, but you had some time
in Queens which I'll get to, but primarily as a
chiefs aid, that's another eye opening experience, which you did
for quite a bit, like I mentioned, because you're seeing
everything from the boss's perspective, and there's a lot to

(14:40):
happen within the borough of Brooklyn, especially considering it's the
largest of the five, and that gave you a glimpse,
especially with what would come later, and you make an
EMS lieutenant in ninety of how operations work from I
guess you know, the top view, the top floor, so
to speak. So how did that really influence you and
how you ended up going about your career later on?
And tell me about the chief road with and what

(15:00):
he taught you or she taught you, not only by
what they did, but also just how they carry themselves.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
The chief it was interesting that at the time I
was asked to be temporary chief, said the Brooklyn barth
chief at the time, Robert Becker got promoted to the
Chief of Field Services and Masmith, so he took his
two aids with him and his two deputy chiefs, Chief

(15:29):
McNally and Chief deget Title at the time, and needed
someone to sit in temporarily. So they asked me if
i'd be interested. I said, yeah, give it a shot.
You know, it's Monday to Friday weekends off. I can
go back to a normal schedule, get off midnights, and
I figured I'd give it a chance. So I was

(15:51):
doing that for several months and then they appointed chief
who was in Masbith. They brought him out to Brooklyn
at the time, I mean it was Brooklyn and Sunton Island.
He was the borough commander. Chief Robert McCarthy who was
who was an interesting character who I learned an awful
lot from him. But he was he was very set

(16:14):
in his ways, and you know, he was around. He
started out as a as an m v O and
then he became a initially when they started the e mts.
You know, they used to have ambulance Corman who wore
the whites back then, and then they started like the
first couple of classes of Corman, I think, you know,

(16:36):
he was in one of the early classes. So he
was around for a while. So he came to he
came to be the borough chief and being in masked
with for a few years, he didn't know a lot
of people in the field. So he said, hey, you know,
if you want to stay on, I'll give you a
give you a chance to stay here. And I tell you,
I learned everything about ems procedures from him. He he

(17:00):
know it all, you know, and he had his own
way of doing things, and uh, you know, it was
it was a great learning experience. I would try, you
know often oftentimes I would try and place Switzerland between
him and a lot of the troops and try and
smooth things up because he was a very opinionated guy.

(17:21):
But he he was right more than he was wrong,
So I give him a lot of respect. And you
know it was great. I mean I didn't I mean
the things he taught me that when when it became
time to take the little tenants test, I mean, I
didn't have to study. Was I was basically, you know,
doing all this administrative stuff every day and you know,

(17:45):
learning a lot of things behind the scenes, like you know,
working on an ambulance, and didn't realize that people have
to go to these community board meetings and listen to
the complaints of district managers. They were complaining about lack
of ambulances and uh, you know all this other you know,
administrative things and dealing with you know, dealing with the

(18:10):
police precincts and uh, you know, at the time, we
would we didn't have police radios and the EMS radios,
so every every ambulance at the beginning of the shift
used to go to the police station and sign out radios.
So you know, once in a while, you know, radio
would disappear and we get the call we'd have to

(18:30):
deal with that, and uh, you know, nine times out
of ten it was it was a cop that would
lock the radio up. In the locker and it wasn't
an e MS guide. It stole the radio, but you know,
it's it was interesting. And then having to deal with
you know, the people in Maspeth, you know that would
come out with all the different you know, ruled and

(18:52):
regulations and back then they were they were starting to
formulate the EMS operating Guide, so they Yeah, dealing with
those people in Massmith, it was it was quite a
learning experience. I mean, it's it's a good perspective because
you know, when when you're in the street, you don't

(19:13):
you don't think of half of the things that go on.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Absolutely kind of gives you a broader view of things
and I think that that helps tenfold. By the way,
Pat Pogan's also in the chat, and I know you
remember him and a good man. He is a good man.
He ended up in a distinguished career in his own
right in the NYPD of course. Mainly true. Yeah, very
very good e man for a very long time. Dn Marie,

(19:37):
I see you as well, Joebi Leige, I see you too.
So where does the budget analyst aspect of things factory?
I mean you took that role over in eighty nine,
were you kind of already doing stuff like that prior
to becoming official for.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
I wasn't And what happened at that time I took
the Lieutenant's test and for whatever reason, the city, it
was like several years went by and there was no
the list didn't come out or they weren't calling people.
And uh, a friend of mine at the time, she

(20:08):
was an ex paramedic U Nancy Gusman. She was the
budget director and uh, one of the guys that worked
for her ended up leaving going to pedietary school and
there was a vacancy, and you know, she asked me
if i'd be interested in working for her, and I said,
you know, I really don't know much about budgets. And
she said, budgets I can teach you, ems I can't

(20:30):
teach you. So it's more important that she has someone
that knows knows what the job is, and you know,
we could teach them the administrative skills. And I said,
that sounds good. You know, it's raising money, and I'll
give it a shot. It sounded interesting, and I went
to work in what was called the second floor in

(20:50):
Massmith and yeah, it was. It was a whole eye opener.
I mean again, you know, you don't realize in the
field that the people behind the scenes, you know, fighting
for every penny and budget to you know, for supplies
free ms or staffing free ms. You know. People at

(21:13):
the time, people in the management budget office of the city.
They figured, okay, you have an ambulance. There's two people
in an ambulance, three shifts a day. You need six
people to start an ambulance. And we did this whole
analysis at the time and we said, well, you don't
need six people because at any given time you have
a person they have, you know, for three weeks vacation

(21:36):
every two years, they got to go to refresher. Thats
x number of weeks. People get sick, people get hurt,
the compensation sickly. So you actually need a lot more
than six people to staff an ambulance twenty four hours
a day. And we actually that was like a big battle.
It was called staff In fact, that was my first

(21:57):
eye opener into.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
The world of and sorry to cut you off, no,
that's okay, okay, I was gonna say in regards to
logistics too, and also operational funding. It's worth noting ems
at this time because of what Bob Becker had done
and Zach Goldfarb and Steve Karr, several others had done.
As I mentioned in the program before, EMS is starting
to get away from the paper clips and shoe string

(22:20):
operations tactics, which is not any fault of their own.
The money just wasn't there during that time. So as
to your point on that, as things are beginning to
sprout up, like the EMS getting a special Operations division
at this time, and the mission is being able to advance,
be advanced forward, tell me about logistics, not just obviously
because it's not just your borough. Obviously you were in
Brooklyn and Queens, it's a city wide operation. You mentioned

(22:42):
the sick time, you mentioned the overtime, but as far
as operations are concerned to enhancing certain units or creating
new units, how did that factor into what you were
already dealing with with the personnel. It was a real
challenge was at the time. You know, we were still
part of Health and Hospitals cooperation, So not only did
we have to fight with HC for budget budget funding,

(23:04):
we had to fight with the city's Office of Management budget.
So first we had to make a case with HHC,
and HHC would treat us like another hospital. You know
that they had X number of hospitals when they have
the MS also. But then they started realizing that they
have more liability with the MS because something happens with

(23:24):
the MS and they're on the front page of the
newspaper and they have a bunch of minicam trucks outside
one twenty five Worth Street. So we were a little
more explosive to them, so they would kind of listen
to us in certain things, but you know, we would
always it was always an uphill battle.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
And one of the reasons that EMS probably I may
get some complaints about that, but EMS invested in technology
a lot earlier than police and fire. We were I
think the first agencies to have mobile data terminals, trunk radios.

(24:04):
And one of the reasons we we would invest in
technology was we didn't have a budget for people, so
we would try and do things smarter. So we didn't
have we didn't have staffing to do things, so we
would always UH CAT systems, you know, cat systems and

(24:25):
uh all kinds of technology we would try to invest
in because you'd get a bigger bang for the buck,
right But and you know, s O D kind of
evolved that of you know p D would have the
p D and fire have that has met units. But
then they you know, the issues would come into uh

(24:47):
you know, medical decontamination. You know who would do that
and uh that's how you know Steve Carr and Chief McNally,
who was the original uh Special Operations commander. You know,
they would start picking up uh you know, those functions
and you know we'd also get involved in some federal
grants at the time. And back then, you know em

(25:11):
S High their first emergency Manager, Jerry Howard, and uh,
you know, those who know Jerry knew he was a force,
uh you know, a force to reckon with. And he would,
you know, he would he would go down to the
City Hall and HC and he would get his funding
for you know a lot of things that the s

(25:31):
O D Unit would need.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
He was That's one of my biggest regrets that I
did not get Jerry on the show. Jerry.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Jerry was a true character that the Good Lord really
broke the mold. After Jerry was came out, he was,
you know, with all his stuff, you know, but when
the bombs started hitting you and you're in the fox,
he's the guy you want next to you. He was
truly an institution. Jerry, Yeah, yeah, he was. I never

(26:05):
worked directly for him because I always told him I'd
rather be his friend than work for him. And if
I haven't worked for him, it wouldn't end up well.
And I give people like Steve Carr and Eddie Gabriel
and Mike Burne a lot of credit for working with him,
and Jerry McCarty from the Port Authority, and I worked

(26:25):
with Jerry for a long time.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, but he was. He was, you know, again, a force,
as you said you summarized him perfectly, a force to
be reckoned with. And when OEM was formed in nineteen
ninety six, I mean at heights, you couldn't have picked
a better person to run OIEM if there was anybody
that could really bridge the gap that made that existed
back then to a certain degree between all the agencies.

(26:51):
And I don't just mean the NYPD and the f
and Y certainly the poor Athority Police too, which has
a lot of jurisdic Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
No, New York City and you know, fd n Y
had a had a lot to do with the creation
of OEM. My boss at the time, a Deputy Commissioner,
Tom Fitzpatrick, and you Commission of VUS and they were
very instrumental with Mayor Giuliani and you know, being proponents
to set up an independent, you know, an OEM outside

(27:18):
of the you know, the uniformed agencies.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Absolutely. Before I get to my next question, Joe Malaga
and the chat brings up an interesting question, so on
and thanks Joe. He wants to know there's a New
York State Department of Health guide New York City MS
or does the city self direct New York.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
City MS is under the auspices of New York State.
The oh, they have the authority, and they do. They'll
pull over an ambulance, they'll inspect an ambulance and you know,
if an ambulance, I don't know if they still do it,
but way back when they had the authority to take
an ambulance and put them out of service if they
didn't have the required equipment. I think back then it

(27:55):
was a party eight hundred or auticle thirty, party eight hundred.
And they could they also have the authority over the
e mts where they could hold a hearing if you know,
medical care if it gets to Albany, they could they
could do that, but they definitely have the uh, you know,
regulatory authority over the MS.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
And that makes sense. I can see why sometimes a
city is kind of independent in other respects not so
much in this one, and it would make sense they
wouldn't be. I think what's interesting about.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
If you notice on the back of every ambulance is
a New York State certified a stick a buried somewhere
in the back.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Being buried. But it is there. It is there, you know.
And again again it's needed because there's a standard across
the board, especially considering that a lot of these units
are functioning primarily at an als level. You have some
units that are operating bls depending on the day, but
primarily it is als care. So you want to make
sure they always have exactly what they need forceptive mentions.

(28:55):
Never got my bus inspected on the midnights in bedsty
because work.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
A good man another y X SOD person.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yep who went on to a career the fire Service
over in Texas.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah, and then every few years every ambulance had to
get reinspected. But I remember, I remember one year I
was I was sent from Coney Island to go to
the BRONX Lincoln Hospital. I had no idea where Lincoln was.
But I was told you have to get this equipment
to ambulances, and Lincoln was they can't pass state inspection

(29:28):
and they need to get inspected. Troph to Lincoln got
the ambulances inspected, and that one of the ambulances didn't
even have an engine in it. The engine was dead.
But the lights they had a battery and they were
able to put the lights and siren and the ambulance
got inspected. It's needed some interesting times back then.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, no, it's needed. You know, you never know. It's
always all the more reason gear checks. It's the same
thing the fire service gear checks, making sure your equipment
is right, identifying any problems before they get identify fight
out in the street on the worst possible circumstances. You know,
you don't need the embarrassment. So it's always going to
love that.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
It's good that an outside agency has the authority over
that because you don't want to leave it, you know,
if you leave it to yourself. Yeah, you're liable to
cut corners sometimes and things, so it's always good to
answer to somebody.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, keeps the standard of accountability up, which is always important,
especially in any form of a public service, let alone
a service is valuable as ems now before I get
to ninety six, which is kind of the seminal point
of our conversation this evening. Amongst many other things, what's
interesting about the roles that you had in finance, first
as the deputy budget Director from nineteen ninety until nineteen

(30:40):
ninety four, and then of course as the Director of
Finance from nineteen ninety four until that merger in nineteen
ninety six, is that you don't come into it as
strictly a finance guy, because when you bring somebody in
from the outside for a certain role, there's pluses and
there's minuses to that. The minuses being well, and we
hear this all the time, and whatever the context may
be an emergency service, he or she just doesn't get it.
They never worked the street. How would they know? That

(31:03):
wasn't the problem here. You worked the street, you knew,
and it wasn't like you worked the street for two
seconds and then left the street to go be an
administrative guy. You ran the street for a very long time,
so you had the rare dual asset of being able
to understand field experience and think like the guys who
were out there getting the work done and grinding away
on the street, but also understanding the more you got

(31:24):
familiar with it with fiscal oversights, so even if guys
didn't agree, because you're not always going to have everybody
on board, they at least knew you knew what you
were talking about because like them, you had lived it,
so you could at least relate to them.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Agreed one hundred percent. Then we were lucky at the
time because our executive director back then was a former
e MS chief, David Diggs, so you know, he was
also you know, he had probably twenty years he was
one of the first, one of the early paramedics as well,
so he he was a big proponent of bringing us

(31:58):
street people into administrator of roles. And in fact, one
of one of the policies we implemented it was whenever
we would hire what we used to call a suit
and an administrative person that had no experience, the would
make them right a few tours on an ambulance as
an observer just to see, uh, you know, what goes
on in the field, and you know what what the

(32:20):
true mission of EMS was. You know, these people would
come from wherever and they'd have no idea what what
went on in an ambulance, So we we'd stick them
out there and you know, they come back and they'd
be in shocked for a couple of days afterwards, and
uh then they'd start doing their job. But you know,
I mean it's important to have a street perspective. But

(32:41):
you also learn that, you know, a lot a lot
of other things, like you know, I would never think
when I was in the street of you know, having
to budget and have a sufficient number of you know,
tires or gasoline. But you know, try to run a
fleet of ambulances without spattires or or gasoline and you're
not going to get very far. It was, you know,

(33:04):
it was, and it was also good that you know,
I think the street experience was very important when dealing
with you know, at the time the HHC people, but
really the City's O and B, the Office of Management
and Budget, because you could have just a regular civilian
go in there and try and make a budget request
and you know, they're not can be passionate, they don't care.

(33:28):
There are no difference between a you know, a life
pack and a pack of cigarettes, and they're gonna they
last for money, and you know, the omb, guys will
ask questions and you know that they'll have to get
back to them or they won't know. And at least
when you have street people, we could explain to them
and you know, we would make a case and tell
them what's going on, and you know, we'd end up

(33:52):
getting into They would trust us, so we would tell
them in certain things like, look, you got no choice.
You have to fund certain things. It's it's a federal
mandate or it's a state mandate. You know where you
get the money from his immateial, We have no choice
in not buying this. We have to buy certain things,
you know, and other things we would tell him, look,

(34:14):
you know we could use this, you know, can we
get along without it? Yeah, but you know it's going
to help patient care or it's you know, it's it's
a nice to have versus I need to have. And
they would, you know, they would actually listen to us
on on an occasion and trust us. Where sometimes they
would call us and say, look, you know his X

(34:35):
number dollars we can give you guys, you know, what's
your priority list or you know where can you use
it first? So that you know that that was a
pretty important aspect that I learned.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
And there's a good I'm laughing not at you because
I sir enough I mentioned earlier. I'm sure he's watching
as you was. Mike Grants in the chat. Oh my god,
the og Billy gross so good to see a Mike.
I think our show coming up September twenty ninth to
be exact. And also before I get to what I
was gonna mention, another question from Juliga. Thanks again Joe
for with the questions and any else anybody else I
should say, if you have a question, to keep them coming,

(35:10):
throw them in there. What kind of a relationship did
ems back then have with hadsola then was.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
The beginnings of Hutsola and had a Hutsola like you
know other organizations had. You know, they were very dedicated
to their cause. Sometimes they're you know, overzealous in things
they were. You know, they have the good people that

(35:38):
had the bad people at the time, but you know
things were things for the most part worked out, okay,
you know the growing pains. You know a lot of
people at the time didn't understand they have certain customs
and you know, certain religious things that they do, and
you know, it's it was a learning experience. In terms

(36:02):
of helicopters, I don't think they have helicopters within the city.
I know they operate helicopters upstate Htsolar and they also
have an ad division for air transports, But in terms
of helicopters in the city, that's one thing that was
always an NYPD did medivacs and you know, they were

(36:23):
always you know, great to work with. You know, they
would you know, years ago, they used to have two
hue eyes that they got from the Army Army Reserve
that they would use them for medivacs. And you know,
way back when they were issues like in the early

(36:45):
eighties where certain pilots didn't want the paramedics to put
to bring the fibrillators on board, which they thought that
the fibrillators could interfere with the avionics on the choppers
and another growing pains and experience, and that ended up
getting worked out. But you know, I think now it's
pretty much down to a science. And even with you know,

(37:08):
aviation flying around the battalion chief to do surveys. I
think before the drum programs really took off, in certain
instances they would have a battalion chief respond to Floyd
Bennett and Aviation would fly the Battalion chief around, so
I think we probably have the best aviation unit in

(37:30):
the country.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, there's still some form of that that exists today.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
And I don't want to talking about the time the
two of us were in the helicopter and I was
flying the helicopter chasing fire trucks, which was flying the ship,
But that's for another day.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
That'll be a different show. And I guess Mike and
Dive into that one way it comes on. But a
form of that still exists, and I don't know the
exact procedures, so what I want to speak out of
school here, but there is something in that ILK still
existing where I believe, if not the FDNY itself, the
NYPD will take certain FDNY members in a helicopter depending
on the nature of the emergency, and they do still
deploy from Floydbenefields.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Oh yeah, I mean all kinds of things have progressed
since back in the day. I was just with my
new job. I was recently at a Joint Coast Guard
NYPD FDNY drilled and at FDNYM Marine unit showed up
and there was a paramedic on the unit, and I'm like, WHOA,

(38:34):
when't this happened? And they're like, no, you know, in
certain instances we have a medical crew on the marine unit.
And I was like, wow, I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, no, it's it's needed need you can.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Definitely needed. But you know, we'll get on this later.
But at the time in the merger, I said, probably
twenty twenty five years before things start really assimilating.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, And it makes sense because Commissioner Tucker when he
hit his ear mark, I believe he said this in
an interview, and I don't know if it was an
interview specifically he did, but he was quoted in the
Chief Publication, which is a popular civil service publication for
those of you outside of the area, for those involved
in all forms of civil service in the City of
New York, where he said, the future of the FDNY
is EMS, and really anywhere you go, most fire departments

(39:22):
across the country, especially those that are especially busy in
cities or even towns that get quite a bit of work,
is majority the call volume is EMS. Even in cities
they get a lot of fires. New York certainly gets
his fair share. Where I'm at, Connecticut gets its fair
share of fires. Majority of your calls are EMS, so
it makes sense to really lean into that.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
What you may not know about commission to Tucka was
he was an EMS college intern one year. Really yeah, yeah,
before he went to law school and everything. We had
him for a summer in EMS.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
There you go, and he ended up serving in a
different capacity. He was a prosecutor for a long time.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
He was the Ada in the A Queen's with.

Speaker 4 (40:02):
D A.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Brown, who was a huge buff.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
He had a Mustang with lights and sirens.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, I was gonna say, didn't he He had his
own sirens. Sometimes he would just want the police scenes fire,
you know, fire scenes, mainly police scenes in as role
as the da uh So I did hear that about
District Attorney Brown. We're talking Bill Grosse here in the
Mike the New Haven Podcast, Volume seventy two of the
best and bravest interviews with the Ft and ys Elite,
and before I touch on that merger in ninety six,
I think also just to go back to your dual experience,

(40:32):
and I like what you said earlier. You're not looking
at it with too much emotion. Emotion factors didn't because
you care about the guys and the gals on the street.
But you're also able to separate yourself to a degree.
And I like what you said, want to have versus
need to have. Some of this equipment is nice as
a plus, but is it necessary to the fleet overall?
Is it necessary to the budget overall when there's other

(40:53):
things that are more prevalent and matters that are more pressing.
It's a delicate line to walk. You're not gonna please everybody,
But I feel like having enough emotion to be invested
in the agency helps, but not so much so that
you think blindly and you think without regard to the
short term budget and the long term budget too.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Well, yeah, one hundred percent. I mean one instance, when
Steve Kerr was the commanding officer of our sold unit,
he would come in budget time and he'd give me
a laundry list of stuff he wanted to buy and
get Out'd say to him, Look, here's so much money
we can give you prioritize you know, what do you need?

(41:32):
You know, we could only give you this, you know,
figure out what's most important to you, and you know,
well we can buy it.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Exactly. And I think that's the right approach and you know, listen,
some instances, Yeah, maybe a blank and in general, not
saying specifically for EMS, maybe there is a blank check
philosophy that could work for the most part, though, you know,
a fiscal discipline will be the lifeblood of an agency.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
That's one thing in MS never experienced was a blame check.
We always got the cloor and fight for you know,
for crumbs and leftovers and things. I mean we got
you know, the first field communications unit. We we had
Charles Jordan, who was one of the Chief Becker's aides.

(42:20):
He was him and respond in law was a carpenter.
They took an old ambulance and they made they made
a communications truck out of it. The next communications truck
we got was p D gave us an impound. It
was a motor home and we stripped that put that together.
And it was funny. I was in the budget office
one day and I get a phone call from n

(42:42):
Y p D and they they asked me, you guys
still have that that motor home that we gave you
a couple of years ago. And I'm like, yeah, that's
a field communications truck. Why he goes, well, the guy
won the lawsuit, and uh, you know we weren't. We
have to return the truck to him. I'm like, cut
him a check. There's no way you can get that

(43:02):
back and it doesn't look anything like when you impounded it.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, it's been through the wars a little bit. I
will touch on the merger after we show some of
these pictures without We'll show the photos, of course of
the aftermath of September eleventh later, but some of the
early days. Bill Grosse, let's take the audience through what
this entail. You're actually with a couple of the SU
guys here. What's going on here?

Speaker 2 (43:26):
That was an R and P accident. So that was
right near Corneyland Hospital. It was Coney Island and Z
and I think a six o'clock got broadsided. So those
the midnight SU guys. In fact, one of the SU cops,
Tony Coucier, used to be a long time paramedic in

(43:46):
Brooklyn South and I'm not sure if he was a
paramedic there or an ESU cop, but you can tell
here else some full time es U people there. I'm
sure Patty Pogan recognizes some of these guys.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Yeahs as there's a few other guys that are probably
watching tonight for sure, and don't see what up? Yep,
what else do we have here?

Speaker 2 (44:10):
No, that was some cardiacqual in the six to one.
I think David Burns actually took this picture.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
All right, the apartment building, a nice little there.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
That was the I think that was not the car accident.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Think it looks like the same. Yeah, it looks like
the same overall in the aftermath there. I love the
old sults called York City EMSJA because you guys were
in green back then.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Correctly, we were in green. The white shirts. I never
understood why medical people that deal with blood and guts
were white.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
But yeah, it looks like a horror movie, you know,
at the end of it, depending on the nature of
the call. But such as the nature, Uh yes, the
mustache was fire It's one of the best mustaches I've seen,
you know, arrivals, any fireman's mustache right there, which you
had going on back Thenville. So that brings us into
that spring of ninety six. A lot what's going on
in civil service at this time because Howard Safer is

(45:04):
leaving that, you know, his role as fire commissioner, which,
as he told me himself three years ago when he
came on this program, he grew to love being fire commissioner.
He really didn't taper. Yeah, he was a forward thinking individual,
but we all knew what he really wanted. He wanted
to be the police commissioner. He was a you know,
federal law enforcement agent for a long time. Finally, when
Giuliani and Bratton had their differences in the spring of

(45:25):
ninety six, Bratton leaves, Safer gets his wish and becomes
a police commissioner. At this time, he's nominating a fello
by the name of Tom von Essen, who was the
union president at the time, and you know, nominated him
to become a fire commission which he did, which was
a whole big to do. But in the process of
this another major mergers happening. We get the merger of
the three police departments housing trans at NYPD the year

(45:47):
before in nineteen ninety five. Then comes March April of
nineteen ninety six, where essentially Commissioner Safer, his last act
as fire commissioner before becoming police commissioner, is you know,
essentially enacting this merger and put the wheels in motion.
I've talked to a lot of guys, including recently with
Mark Peck about that merger and Jerry Gombo as well

(46:08):
about that merger. But you were part of the transition team.
So I think we're going to get a perspective on
it tonight that we haven't gotten before. I'm going to
start and then you could take it from here. Tell
me about when you first heard the wheels churning about this,
maybe late ninety five or so, and then taking the
fd and Y and e MS alike through that process
to see the merger through the completion into what we

(46:30):
have today.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
The first there were rumors you know, going on for
a while about you know, the mayor is looking to
consolidate and different agencies. People thought he couldn't do it
with transit and housing, but you know, Mayor Giuliani did
the Jerry Hower method that he'd come in with a

(46:53):
steamroller and he would say, I'm gonna do what I
want and if you don't like it, fight me, you know,
take me to court and we'll deal with it. Then.
So the police mergers got done and the rumors started
talking about, uh, you know, the E M S and
FDN Y, and I forgot exactly when we started working

(47:15):
on you know, having you know, setting up meetings with
the fire hierarchy too. I guess they have to. You know,
Rudy put the word out that it's going to happen,
and they started setting up different teams to meet and
figure out, you know, how it's going to happen because, uh,
you know, EMS was a little more difficult to do

(47:38):
a merger because there's a revenue assigned to ambulances. There's
a you know, not enough to support the agency, but
there's you know, some serious money behind it where HHC
would get you know, a few hundred million dollars a
year from Medicaid because of ambulances. Where they would have

(48:00):
Remedicaid patient at HHC treats, they get an extra percentage
because of the ambulances. So how does the MS go
to the fire department and how are they going to
make up for the money that HHC could lose because
they're I can get that Medicaid money. So technically, HC
still had the certificate of need for they had the ambulances,

(48:22):
and there was ANU MLU drafted where FDNY would run
the ambulances for HC, and I would probably guess that
that's still an effect. But I mean, there was all
kinds of complicated issues, but I mean the bottom line was,
and a lot of people, you know, are don't be happy.

(48:44):
They're going to call me a lawyer, but the bottom
line was the city was looking to get more work
out of the fire department. I think at the time
they had an idle time of about sixty to seventy percent,
which means sixty seventy percent at a time they weren't
fighting fires, you know, due to the great job that
the FDNY is done with inspections and amending the fire

(49:08):
code in the city, you know, fires went down significantly.
The mayor in the city hall knew that they couldn't
close firehouses. The public would revolt if they tried closing
a firehouse. So the mayor had a quandary, you know,
what could he do? And I'm not sure who. I'm

(49:30):
not sure who the first person to come up with
the the idea was. But they were like, well, if
we have we do CFR program and we have them
respond to medical calls, we they're gonna they're gon be busier.
And did give them a stipend the guys that did
the medical calls, and now that they're doing medical calls,

(49:51):
they should you know, it makes it's perfectly logic that
you know, we emerged ems in and you know, it
takes care of that, and it's also increases issues of
minority work for us. You know that there were some
issues at the time. So I mean they you know,

(50:14):
they put a bow on the package and it kind
of all made sense.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
I think it came together pretty nicely at the end.
Because here's to your point. I'm glad you mentioned that
fires were going down at this point in time, and
that's a good thing. The city was burning itself down
in the sixties and the seventies. And I'm not making
fun of the Troit when I say this. I'm not
happy the Trait was going through this, but the city
was looking a lot like the Troit was looking for
a long time before they start to turn it around.
In terms of fire duty, the warriors are revered and

(50:41):
the firemen that came out of that generation are rightfully
revered for the work that they did and the experience
that they gained. But a city at some point needs
to turn the pendulum, and in the early nineties the
city was swinging back in a positive direction. So with that,
and I've said this before and guys can disagree, and
that's fine. And my perspective is different because obviously I'm
in connecting. I haven't seen it that up close in

(51:02):
terms of seeing how New York City operated back then
or how it operates now. But I think EMS across
the board saved the fire service because if you look
at call volumes, and this is a nationwide trend much
like crime was going down at this point in time countrywide.
So we're fires, So how welse can we best utilize
the fire department? You got an engine in the FD
and WYS case with four or five guys, and at

(51:23):
least those guys that they're not medics have at the
very minimum EMR certifications or more valuable EMT certifications. That's
a big help. And if the calls coming in right
down the street, and this is what Commissioners Safe For
touched on, you get an engine there before you get
an ambulance there, and even though response times are pretty
good back then, you're still getting caught in traffic and
that could be the difference between somebody making it through

(51:44):
the next day if it's a serious call like a
cardiac or going to an early grave. So the mortality
rate being as bad as it was back then too
as commissioners. Safer also highlighted on this program. I think
it made perfect sense, well.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Agreed, and you know, with the Fire Department merger came,
you know, some extra budget for facilities and things. I mean,
the one thing that they still haven't you know, addressed,
is salaries. And that's been it's been a sill point
in the MS since the beginning of time. I mean

(52:19):
when I came on the job, I think we were
making the fifteen thou sixteen thousand dollars a years as
an EMT and it's still you know, way way out
of whack. And you know, I don't know what the
answer to that is. It's people lots smaller than me,
you know, need to figure that out or someone needs
to bite the bullet and city Hall and you know,

(52:41):
come out with funding. You know a lot of people
promised funding for salaries. You know, I know if it
was up to Commission of on us and he would
have paid, he would increase the salaries right in the beginning.
But you know, commissioners don't have the authority to do that.
That has to go through OLR and bargaining units and
unions and you know, unfortunately no one has been able

(53:03):
to come up with the with the key on you know,
how to do that. But taking that out of the equation,
I think the working conditions since the merger have improved
on the facility side, on the vehicle side. I think
on the respect from the public, I think they get

(53:23):
a lot more respect being part of fd N. Yuh,
I know probably you know, the culture of the workers
are starting to you know, work much better together now
than they did it initially. I think initially the Fire

(53:44):
Department I thought the MS were you know, second class citizens.
But I think what also helped with that was the
you know, I guess one of the the back doors
or one of the things that maybe helped sow the
merger was the promotional test that they set up that

(54:05):
if you were an EMT you could take a promotional
test to firefighter where you didn't have to compete with
the general public. And it probably shaved I don't know,
five six, seven, eight years off the list for people
that worked in EMS for a couple of years and
then took the test. I know the first couple classes

(54:26):
were all chief and fire officers. Kids went into the MS.
So I think one thing. I mean, we're losing a
lot of MS people to become firefighters, but I think
they gained on the backside where these firefighters, you know,
once they once they're in the fireouse to like, you know,
these EMS guys, they're breaking their butts out in the field.

(54:46):
You know, that's a that's a thankless job, and they're
working hard, and I think they view the EMS workers
in a different light having come through that.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
I think, yeah, because you see the grunt work that's
being done, and when you see it up close, it
gives you a different perspective. And you know the thing
is too you got to understand. And again, this is
not in any way, shape or form a knock on
the fire department. The Ft and Wives is very busy department.
It's always has been. But in between, you know, especially
if you're in a really busy house, when there's not

(55:16):
a lot happening and you do have those moments of downtime,
the engine gets to go back in quarters. You get
to kind of sit down a little bit at the
watch tesk or up on the recliner or wherever it
is and kind of get your bearings for a little
bit until the next call comes. In EMS doesn't even
have that. You know, they're on the corner posted in
the ambulance. And that's not a New York City exclusive
thing if you're down here in Connecticut. For those that
are are up here in Connecticut. Rather, you know, it's

(55:39):
the same thing. You see an ambulance posted somewhere. Hardly
ever until the end of the tour or the beginning
of the tour when they're getting ready to go out,
are they in quarters. So they're constantly on the go.
So I think for those to see that up front
upon the merge of the agencies in ninety six, it
provided a newfound respect that it's not it wasn't just
EMS kind of throwing your nose up at them. No,

(56:00):
is they are in the trenches just as much as
firefighters are. It's different because they're not charging into burning
buildings like firefighters are, But as far as other aspects
of the job, as it pertains the EMS, they're just
as involved.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
It's it's true, and you know, I think, you know,
is it perfect?

Speaker 5 (56:20):
No?

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Is it better than it was in the HHC? I
would say one hundred percent. I believe it's it's better
for the workers, for the public and for everyone being
you know, part of fdn Y. You know, would the
MS workers have liked to, you know, become part of
NYPD on thousand percent if they you know, given a

(56:42):
chance to vote at the time, But you know, no
one asked our opinion. So you know, we you know,
we're civil servants.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
We do we're told yeah, yeah, I can. I mean,
and before I get to what your role was with
the fd and Y, it makes sense that the NYPD
would have been involved at the time because I mean,
if you go out and I said this before in
the program, if you go out to Nasau County, EMS
is under the purview of the police. So it's not
uncommon to see that. You don't see that as much now,

(57:13):
but it wasn't uncommon necessarily to see it in the
New York City area, with Nasau County being perhaps the
beaming example that was brought up. I'm sure in many
a meeting about this, But I spoke with someone who
was pretty high up in the NYPD at that time.
I won't say the person's name, I'll tell you who
it was when we get off the air, and I
asked them, you know, ultimately, because there was a lot
of pushing, especially on this individual's behalf, for NYPD to

(57:36):
take over EMS. And I said, well why didn't you?
And the individual in question says to me, well, Mike,
they didn't want to fit the medical bill. It came
down to billing. Billing is the reason. I'm not saying
this in a positive or negative way. I think the
Fire Department should have got EMS. It makes sense that
they would, But billing, at least from what I heard
on the police department side, is why ambulances in New
York City are painted red and white as opposed to

(57:59):
blue and white. Interesting concept, It's interesting, yeah, yeah, and
we'll never know the reasons why, but nevertheless, I'm sure
those details will come to light the more time progresses.
You stayed in the financial space, so to speak, even
with the merger into the FD and Y in ninety six.
You stayed in that role through two thousand when you

(58:20):
went to the Mayor's office. So now you're seeing things
on an even broader level. New York City EMS is
a big agency ended up itself. You're rolling into a
fire department. The size of the ft and why things
are even bigger and they I imagine that's even more
of an eye opener, even for someone like yourself that
have been doing this type of work for one hot
minute by this point. So as far as especially working

(58:41):
with the director or being the assistant director of Revenue
Management and later getting to work with the Deputy Commissioner
for administration, tell me about seeing things through the eyes
of Metro Technk.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Was interesting, you know it was. I actually started. We
were still in Livingston Street and Livingston Street. I mean,
if the Fire Department didn't occupy Livingston Street, they probably
would have closed it down for fire violations. That's how
bad the building was. And I remember the first day,

(59:14):
how it's safe. I came on the job. He came
up to Livingston Street and Commissioner Fih and God rest
his souls gave him a tour of the building, and
Safer turns to Fien and he goes. He goes, I'll
be right back because we're going to city Hall. He
tells the driver. He goes, take me to the mayor
and Fien's like, what's going on. He goes, well, we're

(59:36):
not working in this place. This this place isn't fit
for humans. And he comes to city Hall and he
comes back, and he comes back and he calls Fijhan
in his office and he goes, that's it. We're out
of here. Stop looking for stop looking for a place.
Rudy said, we can move, and the hunt went on
to find metro Tech. We originally found the beautiful building

(01:00:00):
downtown Manhattan. Uh Hanover Place was an old brokerage firm,
but they didn't want to be too close to city Hall.
And at the time, metro Tech was just starting and
I guess there was a big push to revitalize Brooklyn.
So they cut a deal to build a brand new

(01:00:20):
headquarters in metro Tech, and uh that's where they are today.
And uh they did a great job in that building.
I mean, it's light years ahead of what Livingston Street was.
And you know, life life was interesting and in uh
in metro Tech, it was I mean, the revenue. I

(01:00:41):
was kind of getting border the revenue, you know, doing
billing and stuff. And one thing led to another, and
you know, a couple of administrative things happened, and the
I was always dabbling, you know, with the budgets and technology.
And the Deputy Commissioner Patrick came to me one day

(01:01:01):
and he said, you know, we got this thing coming up.
Hy two k and you know it's going to be
a major budget thing, and you know we need to
upgrade all the technology, and especially fire department. You know
we have some hundred one hundred year old technology and
you know, not just thirty forty year old stuff. So

(01:01:23):
you know, would you be interested in working for me
heading up that project? And I said, yeah, it sounds great.
And you know it was you know, besides spending a
lot of money, which is always good, I mean that
was probably the one time in the city we had
a blank check. Why two k'd got because it was
there was an unknown factor. So you go to city

(01:01:44):
Hall and say, well, you know we need we got
to replace every computer, and we've got to replace this,
and we got to replace that. And you know, if
you don't give us the money, you know, terrible things
could happen on you know, January first, two thousand and
you know, no one wanted to be the guy to
say they caused the fire department to stop running and things.

(01:02:04):
So it was great. We were able to replace all
kinds of things. And I mean one of the things
I got to do was meet with Commission VS and
had like a uniformed task forst to work with White
two Q and it was you know, they had a
Chief Cancy and Chief Nigro and Sal Cassano and Chief

(01:02:26):
Burns and you know, all all these legends in the
fire department that that that you know that that was great.
I mean just working with them, and and I got
to say, they really accepted me. Uh you know, they weren't.
They didn't say that this is just someone some ems guy.
They they really treated me as as an equal. And

(01:02:47):
you know, I had some great relationships with them, and
you know, uh, you know, I saw we missed a
bunch of them, especially Commissioned FN. I got to say,
he was the true gentleman. I mean, this guy had
every rank in the fire department. He was you know,
and he would treat you like everyday guy. I mean

(01:03:12):
one day I saw him. It was a Monday, and
he said, you know, Commissioner, my wife dragged me to
get some baby clothes and some store and Queen's and
you know it was right up the block from you.
And he's like, whan't you ring my bell? Why don't
you come over for coffee? And I'm my commission I'm
not going to bother here. He's like, no, you should
have rang the bell and he was like pissed off
of me that I didn't come over. He was like

(01:03:35):
the Grant and Pete Gancy and you know, but they
were great guys and we would sit and, uh, you know,
figure out how we could spend the city's money to
improve life in the firehouses. And you know that that
started out my career working for you Deputy Commissioner Fitzpatrick,
who was another gentleman, you know he was he came

(01:03:58):
up from the streets. He was a fire officer, so
you know he knew the deal also, but he was
you know, an administration and you know he worked for
commission A Safer and you know Vanus and then you know,
it was it was great. You know, we would they
would back us even on the MS projects. I mean

(01:04:21):
it was and I had some good times up there.
Then we had a great, great bunch of people.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Oh it sounds like it. You know, a couple of
notes on some of the guys you just mentioned, you
know as Safer as far as moving out of Metro Tech,
and then I got one on Chief Burns and Commissioner
feeing Safer mention when he came on the show a
number of years ago. God do I perish that interview
in hindsight now that he's not with us anymore. He said,
I wasn't trying to bring the FD and Y into
the twenty first century. I was just trying to bring

(01:04:52):
them into the twentieth century, considering the conditions that they had,
mainly at headquarters and so on. So for then he did,
he did a very good job two years and again
he was an excellent police commissioner as well. And he
mentioned Chief Burns where he's one of the first fires
that he had as fday commissioner. He meets up with
Chief Burns like, do you think we'll be able to
get it? And Chief Burns looks at him and says, Boss,

(01:05:13):
they always go out. And I was a forty year
veteran who you would not have picked anybody better to
be in command of the South Tower that morning than
Chief Burns. And as far as Commissioner Fian who it
was rumored he knew the location of every fire hydroant
in the city. At least that's a lure about him.
When Tom Vanessen told me this story a number of
years ago, I still get a kick out of it.

(01:05:33):
He becomes Commissioner as I mentioned earlier in the spring
of nineteen ninety six, and Mayor Giuliani sits him down
and says, one of the deals I have for you
is you got to keep Bill Fihan. Don't get rid
of Bill Fihann. And Commissioner von Essen pauses, looks at
Mayor Giuliani and says, that's the condition. I was going
to beg the guy to stay, and stay he did,

(01:05:55):
and again his presence was very much needed at nine
to eleven, and I'm sure a lot of members were
relieved that he was there. And he was a warrior
right up until the end, seventy one years old, still
in the front lines.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
This is a great behind the scene story for Fanny,
if you have any FDNY firefighters listening. Whatever. So one
day Chief Gancy and commission a fee and go to
lunch for Metro Tech and they go to the old
Cormaldi's pizzeria under the Brooklyn Bridge, And so Gancy's told

(01:06:29):
me the story goes, Bill I get to the pizzeria
and there's a fire truck from the Bronx sitting there.
They're all inside eating. I'm my chief, what do they do? Well?
They probably had a medical or did something headquarters and
they parked the truck and they're all inside eating instead
of going back to the bronx. I said, so, what'd
you do? He goes, I tell Billy. He goes, Bill,

(01:06:50):
watch this and gancy gets in the fire truck and
I didn't not theice no keys in the fire truck.
That it's a button and something. So he starts the
fire truck up and he turns the lights inside irons
and he gets the attention of all the firemen in
the pizzeria and they start running out of the pizzeria
and he starts driving the truck away, but he's going
like real slow, so the guys are trying to catch up.

(01:07:11):
They think someone's stealing the truck. And he goes about
half a block and they catch up to the truck
and they see, uh, they see Chief Guancy driving the
truck and true, true Guancy, gentleman, he didn't say a
word to them, just walked out of the truck and
walked back to the pizzeria. And they read that lesson.
They said the end was laughing. They couldn't he couldn't

(01:07:35):
control them.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Yeah, I heard the story from Chief gancy Son. Actually
so and It was mentioned because Chief Dancy, Chief gancy
Sons wrote a book about him a couple of years
after he died at the World Trade Center on nine
to eleven, just about his life. It was a kid's book.
That I read that book in the second grade, and
I still remember that book to this day, Missus the
Nuzzler's class, and that they mentioned that story in the book.

(01:07:56):
And he only took it a half block and no harm,
no foul. But he was chief chief. He was a
fireman's fireman. He never forgot where he came from. And
that was the nice thing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
Oh No, And he talked to you like a gentleman.
They wouldn't talk down to you, whatever your rank it was.
It was really uh, it was a really great and
I really consider myself fortunate working with these guys.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Absolutely. And one of the last things he said to
Meyor Giuliani that morning, which we'll touch on now, was
I'm not leaving my men. This is a guy that
he was the chief of department. Same thing with Commissioner Fienn.
They had just survived for contact the collapse of the
South Tower. They were briefly buried under some debris following
that collapse, Chief Cancer was fifty four. Commissioner Fienn was

(01:08:38):
seventy one. If those guys wanted to say, Okay, you
know what, it's too dangerous here and as we should
probably take up and head somewhere safer, no one would
have blamed him for that. They just had a skyscraper
fall on time of the same thing with Chief Downey,
who was sixty three at the time, they stayed as
the Chief Stack who was in his mid fifties at
the time, they stayed up until the end.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
I still say to myself that if you know, if
you asked Bill fia and how we would want to go,
that would probably be the way he would want to
go out. But you know, with his guys like that, yeah,
that's a terrible thing to say, But you know, that's
that's the kind of guy. I mean, he was amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
There was a quote a couple of days later in
the New York Times in his obituary, and I'm paraphrasing it,
but it mentioned I think one of his sons also
did say that to your point, So you're not off
base at all to say that, where I don't think
he would the same thing with Chief down The same
thing with all of them. The quote was, I don't
think he would have been able to live with himself
if he do that. Three hundred and forty three of

(01:09:40):
his guys had died that day, So for me to
go out like that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
I came to work one morning and you know, we're
all like in the same area on the eighth floora
Metroatech and I think it was the day after Saint
Patti's Day or something, and I said, hey, hey, boss,
I said, how do we do last night? And he
goes bill because I'll let you know when the arist
reports come in like that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Okay, Yeah, isn't your New Yorker He lived in Queens
for a long time. Yeah. Yeah, Then there's there's footage.
There's a great documentary on him, about twenty five minutes
long on YouTube where.

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
Actually was there was a filmmt about the Yes, that's
commission that actually first and that uh you know funded
that film.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
Yes, I think it was called Yes It's very uh
very moving. Yes, that's the film I'm referring to. Harvey
Wang had a role in that. Harvey Wang interview Chief
mean all the way back in nineteen ninety two. As
well as he liked to be called you. Though he's
a commissioner, he always preferred to go by chief. And
with that being said, I mean, you know, listen, he was.
You see footage of him in the Nauday Brothers documentary

(01:10:41):
of him in the lobby of Tower One, coordinating things
with the other chiefs in that lobby. And I remember
one of the aids in that film mentioning, you know,
and a commissioner about us, and too, I had to
try to get Bill out of the building. Bill was
not going to leave, you know, neither was Chief Cancy.
Neither was any of them, and they were warriors until
the very end when they lost their lives in that
North Tower collapse. You know, we don't forget them, especially

(01:11:01):
now with the anniversary coming up. So I'll ask you
that morning. By two thousand you had left. You were
still in the FDI payroll, but you were working out
of City Hall with the mayor, kind of towards the
back end of the Giuliani administration, and when this attack happened,
he had three months left in his term. When did
you get down to the trade center? Did you get
down there before the collapses are afterwards?

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
I got down there right before the first tower collapsed
and I was talking to I was on my next
hell at the time, talking to a former MS chief
who is now a deputy commissioner at OEM Ed Gabriel,

(01:11:46):
and he was like, you know, Bill little fishing the
fan and we're not sure if it was an attack
of bombing or what. Then you know, we just we
just uh, we just had to start evacuating seven World
Trade Center. Can you you know, try and make your
way over to the NYPD Academy and you know, start

(01:12:11):
setting up a temporary command post until we can figure
things out. So I was down there. I didn't get
out of there until the second tower collapsed, and then
I I forgot as the building was coming down. I
ran a few blocks and I commentated a highway car
and I had them take me to the police Academy

(01:12:34):
to try and figure out how to how to start
setting up something because at some point we're going to
need to have, you know, certain command the center established.
And you know, for the first couple of days we
were over at the academy before before everyone realized that
we needed a much larger facility and they started building

(01:12:57):
out Peer ninety two. But you know, we set up
a tumper Recommand Center at the Academy. We took over,
took over the library, which was one of the largest
buildings there. We had the librarians still probably want to
kill me, was Adam Ticket. They took every book out
of it and make a floor space. But you know,

(01:13:22):
that was that was. I mean, it's crazy times. It's
you know, we're less than a week away and for
twenty fourth anniversary. I mean, I remember, you know a
couple of things that had going, you know, at the
at the command center. I mean, one thing I remember,
like it was yesterday. I was talking to Steve Carr,

(01:13:47):
I think him and another former MS person, Jim Alexander's
since passed away from nine to eleven cancers. They were
at an MCI conference in Florida. Steve at the time
was consulting on emergency management for the Port Authority. And
he goes, we're in Florida. We have no way, you know,

(01:14:07):
we can't get back to New York. And I'm in
the command center and I'm like, oh, I can't get
to New York. I'm like, there's no planes flying because
you know, there's a ground stop for a few days.
So I see the Amtrak police. I'm like, Amtrak, you
got trains running and he's like yeah, why And I'm like,
I got two guys stranded in Florida. Can we get
him to New York? And uh, you know we got

(01:14:30):
we you know, we pulled that off. And one of
the deputy madiers said, you know, we need radios, you know.
So I called my Motorola guy and I'm like, I
need a thousand radios. How how soon can you get
them for us? And he's like, well, I can get
him for you tomorrow, but I got no way to
get him to you. And okay, air Force and the

(01:14:51):
Air Force they sent the cargo plane from Florida to
Stewart Air Force Base upstate New York and fire departments
and trucks and they trucked them in. I mean, everything
was surreal. And one day the next day, Heed Gabriel
calls me and he goes, hey, Bill, you're the technology guy.
I got a guy on the phone. Can you help

(01:15:12):
him out? And I'm like, yeah, I'll try. And I
talked to this guy and he says, look, I am
senior vice president for the Mercantile Exchange. I report to
the president of the Mercantile Exchange and he just got
a phone call from President Bush and we need to
get the exchange open because we can't show, uh, can't

(01:15:33):
show these terrorists that the US economy is going to stop.
Can you assist? And you know it was we had to.
We were running fiber out out building windows to get
them back up and running and stuff. And you know,
a couple of days later, a couple of days later,
I got a phone call, like midnight in my house
from the president at exchange saying they were just able

(01:15:56):
to start trading, and you know, he just wanted to
thank me. And you know, it's crazy, it's just they
you don't even think about, but it was, you know,
I mean, it was just it was surreal. I still
you know sometimes I still think, you know, if if
that was real or not. It's you know, just the

(01:16:19):
amount of you know, carnage and people that we lost.
And and I was with Tom Vanas and when he
got the phone called that you know that they found
bothians remains, and it was, you know, as bad as

(01:16:42):
that was, just the pain and suffering that people went
through since nine to eleven, it's you know, general public
still get there's no way they can comprehend what people
are going through even to this day, the people coming
down with the these cancers and all kinds of things.

(01:17:03):
It's kind to talk about, but this is the time
of the year with the little box with the memories
open up.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
One of the things I also was doing during nine
to eleven were I don't know if you're old enough
to remember the Next TIL radios, but I would quite
I had, you know, the vice president of the Next
Tail going to all the Jersey sites that were alongside
the West side of Manhattan and pointing all their antennas
to Manhattan, so we would try and have you know,

(01:17:36):
cellular coverage. It's you know, it's just crazy, but I
meant it. You know, it's crazy. And then you know,
it's amazing how everyone abandoned together. Then I remember driving
down the West Side and people just clapping, you know,

(01:17:59):
clapping the hands as he drove by an official vehicle
and things. You know, you look twenty four years later
and you know, was that sense of camaraderie? Where is
that gone?

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
Yeah's And we have some of the pictures and they're
not graphic in nature, otherwise obviously wouldn't show them. Here,
but just the aftermath to pave the picture of and
not much needs to be said with these pictures. That's
six World Trade Center that we're looking at. What was
six World Trade Center. Yeah, which to keep in mind,
this building prior to the and it was directly adjacent
to the North Tower, was a forty seven story building

(01:18:36):
and that building was reduced to that upon the collapsed
North Tower ten twenty eight that morning, some first founders,
unfortunately were killed in that building. If you have watched
my e su or bomb Squatted interviews, you know that
that was the building in which during their last moments
police Officer John dealerra and Sergeant Mike Curtain from truck

(01:18:57):
to emergency Service. We're in. Detective Claude Richards from the
bomb squad was also win nose gentlemen did not make
it out of the build out of unfortunately a building six. Yeah,
it just it says it all right there. This is
a different picture. This is not related to We have
another another story.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
One day I was outside the command center and next
door to Peer ninety two was Peer ninety four and
we had that was the Family Assistant Center that we
set up for families of people that were missing at
the trade center and there was old couple at the time,
and they look kind of lost, and I said, you know,
can I help you with something? Steer you in the
right direction. And I'll never forget this the minute I die.

(01:19:39):
The woman turns to me and she goes, She goes,
what can you do to help me? She goes. I
had two sons. One was a firefighter and one was
an emergency service cup and I lost both of them.
It was missus Vigiano And to this day, I can't
get that image out of my mind.

Speaker 5 (01:19:56):
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
Yeah, John was John was a latterman. Yeah, he followed
his father's footsteps. His father was a legendary fireman and
rescue too. In Brooklyn he was captain. And then of
course Joevigiano. Joevigiano was basically a modern day superman.

Speaker 5 (01:20:14):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
He was shot three different times in the line of dude.
He came back to work each time, ended up in
the emergency service where he made a hell of a
lot of rescues. And they both were down there that
day and they both perished. I believe it the collapse
the North Tower.

Speaker 4 (01:20:27):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:20:27):
And that wasn't the I mean Tom langone same thing,
his brother, Pete Lang, and Pete was in Squad two
fifty two, Tom whose daughter I know very well, and
widow I know very well. He's an emergency.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
Rudy's secretary's husband was a.

Speaker 1 (01:20:41):
Yeah, Beth Patron's husband of course, So a lot of
it just it hit very close to home. And so
just moving ahead, and again, thank you for sharing your insight.
I know it's not easy, but I appreciate it because
it paints the picture of what everybody went through that day,
and every perspective shared of that day is is very valuable.
So I appreciate that. You know, you know, the end
of the administration comes in December of two thousand and one. Naturally,

(01:21:04):
any mayor, no matter the situation, is going to want
to bring in their own people. Bloomberg did just that.
So you moved on. You did some work still with
the City of New York. You didn't move on completely
from the city itself doing it work. Then you went
into consulting, and then you were thrust back into the
role where What made the response to the pandemic much
much different from the events of nine to eleven is

(01:21:26):
there was a lot to do in the aftermath of
nine to eleven. This cleanup took it well into the
next spring. It was eight months until May of two
thousand and two to clean it up. But the event
itself from eight forty six to ten twenty eight was just,
I believe, just a little bit over two hours, if
not slightly under that. So the event itself was over
in the morning, and then it was sifting through the

(01:21:49):
unfortunate aftermath of it. This was a prolonged catastrophe in
which New York City was hit very, very hard. But
a lot of people who were there in two thousand
and one, including yourself, came back into twenty twenty circumstances
way different, the emergency, way different. But nevertheless, that same
desired as you said earlier, band together and help came
right back into place. So tell me about stepping in

(01:22:11):
during that time and lending your ideas, especially with your
background at ems to what was a prolonged emergency and
emergency that New York City had never seen before or
the world for that matter.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
And quite some time, I kind of came in in
the middle because at the time I got the call asking,
you know that they were looking for some staff augmentation.
A lot of the technology people within OEM came down
with COVID and they were out sick, so they were

(01:22:41):
really lacking on their project management and you know technical folks.
So they kind of brought me in and you know
it was kind of a great fit because I wasn't
one of these you know, consultants from out of town,
the no learning curve. You know. They put me in

(01:23:02):
and the write director at the time said, Art, this
is great. You know, he didn't know me, but uh,
you know I knew uh, you know, one of the
one of the deputy commissions over there, Henry Jackson, for
like twenty something years, and he's like, well, you know,
put him to work. And you know, we had to
set up you know, the different COVID centers and networks

(01:23:22):
and different buildings and just dealing with you know, the
all the National Guard and all the federal people coming
in and you know, setting up you know, this was
a pre vaccination, but they were, they were setting up
testing centers and and it was it was you know,

(01:23:46):
it was strange. You know, you planned for years about
the pandemics and things, and you don't think you're ever
gonna you know, be in the middle of the one.
But it was, it was, it was, it was eerie.

Speaker 6 (01:23:57):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
The only good thing about the about COVID was it
it took me like eighteen minutes to get from my
house to NIGHTSOM, which is normally an hour and a
half drive in traffic. But it was, you know, it
was it was crazy. I mean dealing with the different
agencies and you know, certain people they wouldn't have staffing

(01:24:21):
because no one would come in. Everyone's working remotely. How
to give remote people access to you know, all these
city networks. You know, no one ever had to deal
with that before. There were all kinds of challenges that
we had to face during those times, and it was,

(01:24:42):
you know, it was challenging times. You know, another time
we're you know, just coordinating with FEMA. You know, FDN
Y were getting their butts kicked, you know, between CLO
volume exponentially increasing, you know, e m S people getting sick,
and now they're invoking you know, mutual aid for the

(01:25:06):
first time coming into New York City instead of New
York City providing the aid. Where I think we had
to get you know, three hundred three or four hundred
ambulances you know from FEMA coming into New York City
from all over the country, and you know how they
how are they you know, working with the Fire Department.

(01:25:27):
You know, the Fire Department CAD people had to develop
like an EMS program with the ways built into it
so they could direct them on you know, how to
get the calls and things. And you know, we were
working with you know, the first night, We're providing a
lot of phones and radios to the FDN Y for

(01:25:47):
all these FEMA ambulances and setting up staging locations and
they were at Flo Totten and in the Bronx and
FDNY was really I mean, if if they didn't fall
apart and you know, cease to exist during COVID just
because of the sheer co volume and things, it's the

(01:26:08):
testament to the people then that you know, what they
did in the short period of time, the entire everyone
in New York City, from the hospital workers to nurses,
to the paramedics and EMTs, to firefighters to I mean
to the cops. I mean, god knows how many people
came down with COVID at the time. And you know,

(01:26:31):
and I still think back on that. I mean, there's
there's no rhyme or reason, you know, I know, I
had healthy friends that died of COVID, and I had
sick friends that got COVID and you know, they recovered completely.
So it's it's bizarre to me. And you know, the
city was thrown just an effort to provide food for

(01:26:52):
all the emergency workers. That was a monumental task.

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, it's crazy. I think
it's been five years, Bill, five years. It feels like yesterday,
but it's only it hasn't been that long. But you know,
it feels like you know, you know, listen, I don't.
That was not a very fun time for a lot
of people, especially for those people like yourself who were
heavily involved in the front lines. And still you're still

(01:27:19):
again helping out back to the private sector with first Net.
As we said, we would talk about again. First Net
is one of the real great aids to public safety,
especially at New York City, and a lot of it
still to this day, is communications everything. And they much
like they say in real estate, it's location, location, location,
and emergency work any type of emergency work, law enforcement,
fire service EMS or otherwise, it's you know, communication, communication, communication.

(01:27:43):
So tell me about your role with first Net. What
first nets mission is and how nice it is still
af through all these years be helping out the first
spotter community.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
And you know, it's it's really bizarre, like first Net
was born after nine to eleven in the nine to
eleven commission then, so like things kind of going in
a total circle. But you know what happened after the
nine to eleven Commission was the government said that there
were communications issues where first responders couldn't communicate during nine

(01:28:15):
to eleven for you know, whatever reasons, and the government
was going to step in and fund the nationwide broadband
network for first responders and at and T ended up
winning the bid and first Night was created. And you know,

(01:28:37):
I was minding my business one day and a friend
of mine reached out to me on LinkedIn who worked
for first Night at the time. He was a former
Cisco worker and he worked on nine to eleven restoration
for the city and long history with data communications in
the city and someone I really respected. And he said,

(01:28:59):
you know, and I with him when I was consulting
at the Police department, Uh, you know, working on them
ipd's a smartphone project, and he was like, you know,
I'm not sure if you're looking for a job, but
if you are you know, first Net is looking for
New York City, not a salesperson, kind of like a

(01:29:19):
relationship manager to deal with issues and things. And you know,
I asked him what it was about and he told
me and I said, well, you know, gets me back
in the game dealing with the public safety and you know,
I can help out the agencies and their mission. And
you know, I said, I'd give it a shot. And

(01:29:40):
you know, it's it's interesting because it's you know, it's
something I believe in. But it goes back to the
core mission of helping people and you know, helping the city,
you know, do do their job. And you know, the
first Night actually has you know, dedicated spectrum for first responders,

(01:30:02):
so it's not like you know, they give priority to something.
There's actually a dedicated bandwidth for first responders. And you know,
we've been doing a lot of good things in the city.
The city is one of the early adopters for first
Net and you know a lot of the federal agencies

(01:30:22):
are using it in state agencies and you know, we
we provide service at all major events and you know
it's something too further the cost to you know, help
help their responders do their job better.

Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
Absolutely, and again you can. I think it's a great
time across the board rather be the police service or
in the fire service to get out on the job,
mainly for a variety of reasons, but mainly because of
the technology that's available now. There are so many resources
that I know, someone like yourself that was working the
ambulance back in the eighties early nineties has to say, boy,

(01:31:02):
I wish we had this back when I was doing it.
The resources available now just from a technological standpoint alone
is amazing. It's really made the job almost something that
you can do. I mean most components. Some components still
got to get down and dirty. That's always going to
be a part of it. But other components, like even
for example on an EMS run the fire department I'm

(01:31:22):
involved with here at Connecticut as a civilian employee and
also a volunteer, has this where Auto Medical, one of
the amts, while the medic is doing their assessment, will
be able to gather a patient history through an iPad,
the date of birth, the patient's name, the record pops up,
the medications they take, you know, what allergies they may have.
For health history, they may it can all be logged

(01:31:44):
like that pen and papers still keep the hat.

Speaker 2 (01:31:46):
Years ago started electronic what do they call it epcrs
or you know, way back when we used to have
an ambulance core report with a carbon paper. We used
to carry these books and you'd have to write it
then for st you have to struggle with people's signatures
and you know, yeah, you're trying to write in a
moving ambulance and you know that's never a good experience.

(01:32:09):
And you know, well, I was still at the fire department.
We tried doing a a a laptop based ambulance core
report and the technology wasn't there yet. The hardware it
was big, it was bulky, it didn't work right. But
you know we were thinking, I mean, now they do it,

(01:32:31):
and you know, I think they transmit the information to
the hospital. I mean you could probably you know, eventually
upload video to the hospital. So say someone's I don't
know if they have and seizures or something, they could
probably do a video of the patient, you know, with

(01:32:51):
high speed video. And you know the next thing I
could see AI coming in to assist with maybe you know,
EKG diagnosis or something. I mean, the technologies, the leaps
and bounds. I mean, you know we have you know,
smart ambulances and smart police cars with mobile broadband networks

(01:33:13):
inside of it. You know, a police car, a fire
truck now could have maybe four or five six wireless
devices in that. So I mean it's endless where it
can go. I mean, you know, eventually when they start,
you know, smart highways and things and roadways. You know,

(01:33:36):
we could have who knows make it, Maybe we could
have traffic patterns changed for emergency response vehicles. Right now,
every traffic light in the city is connected via broadband
networks to a first Net network. So instead of dealing
with the old Copper Verizon lines to control the traffic

(01:33:57):
light controllers, everything's controlled via first met now. So I
mean there's no end to the technology where it can
go these days.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
Absolutely hour and a half slowm By. I really enjoyed it,
and this has been a great conversation. As I knew
it would be another former New York City EMS FT
and YEMS gentleman delivering I'm like we have a podcasts
As we knew that he would time for the rapid
fire five hit run questions for me, five hit and
run answers from you and we have music now to
back it up, which I like. Courtesy of producer Victor
on the ones and two. First question the rapid fire.

(01:34:29):
Most valuable lesson from the ambulance.

Speaker 2 (01:34:33):
Listen, do the right thing, treat all patients the way
you would want to be treated.

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
There you go, simple advice, but effective and to the point.
This is a funny one most stressful budget meeting you
ever sat It.

Speaker 2 (01:34:47):
Probably during the Dinkins administration when they were cutting back
on our budgets, and it ended up that there was
no way for us to avoid laying people off, so
we had to. I mean, it wasn't a large amount

(01:35:07):
of people, but you know it's not going to be
field staff, so it was we had we had to
lay off administrative staff people and no way around it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
Yeah, that's pretty stressful. Third city agency that surprised you
the most.

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):
Probably the Main's Office of Management Budget O and B,
something that people don't hear much about, but they're extremely powerful.
They control the purse strings and you know, you could
have you could have some kid that just graduated college,
you know, trying to make policy for agencies. So you

(01:35:46):
have to you learned the art of negotiating and you know,
trying to keep your temper in check because you know
someone could get mad at you and just cut a
budget from the reason.

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
Yeah, I could see that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
Good thing about how it's safer days were. You know,
when you have that relationship with the mayor, you could
kind of steamroll the O and B people. Yeah, he
would come back from a meeting and he would say,
I don't care what omb said, Rudy, Rudy's gonna let
us do what we want, so don't don't listen to him.
And he was pretty imposing. How I don't know if

(01:36:24):
you remember. He used to carry He used to have
a stickball bat behind his desk and he must have
been about I don't know how it was six four
sixty five and he would start spinning that stickball bat.

Speaker 1 (01:36:35):
Yeah, there's a picture of him on online. You could
find it. He's playing and I showed it before. He's
playing stickball with Boessen. There was a stickball tournament going
on here.

Speaker 4 (01:36:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
I used to do that Metrifec.

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
Yeah, nineteen eight, nineteen ninety nine around there. It's a
great picture. And my miss Howard he was. He was
a good man. I'm really a chance to have him
on this show. Fourth question of Rabbid Fire. Best decision
you feel your made during COVID.

Speaker 2 (01:36:58):
I think it was just it's assisting, you know, wherever
I could, helping, helping the crew out, you know, trying
to take a load off the guys there. You know,
most of them were exhausted, overworked, and you know, just
just just helping them out. Nothing really stands out individually.

Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
A simple answer, but again covers the point. And by
the way, thank you Chris Epting for gifting out the
memberships in the chat. I always love when you do that.
Thank you very much. Final question of rapid Fire. What
do you hope your legacy is in terms of your
public service to New York City.

Speaker 2 (01:37:33):
M It's a tough one. I just hope that you know,
the contributions that that I helped with the various teams, uh,
you know, make life better for you know, the workers
in New York, the visitors and people that live in
the city. You know, whether it was revamping a few

(01:37:57):
times the nine on one system, or you know, a
whole other project we worked on that you know we
didn't touch on, was building the city's three one one system,
you know that was that was one of May of
Bloomberg's big priority. You know, when he came in, he
sat down with us and he said, you know, there's

(01:38:19):
there's ken pages of New York City phone numbers in
the telephone book. He goes, there should be there should
be two lines in the phone book. There should be
a line that says for emergencies called nine one one
and for everything else called three one one. And he
gave us a year to build a project. And he said,
if we didn't build it, my boss was the commissioner

(01:38:39):
at the DOTT. He said, we'll be looking for a
new commissioner at the time. So that was that was
That was an incentive to him. But you know, I
just want to think that I had in a small
part I helped make life easier for for the city.

Speaker 1 (01:38:59):
I would say you succeeded. Good way to put a
bow on things. Thanks for the music producer, Victor. That
was their app fire. Hopefully we'll get a sponsor for
that so as well, Hey why not body armor? I drank.
I drink their stuff all the time. So if you
guys are listening, you know, listen, throw a sponsorship our
way here. I'm Mike, and you haven great conversation before
I say goodbye to the audience, if you have any
shout outs to anyone or anything that you would like

(01:39:19):
to give. Bill fire Away, the floor is yours, my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:39:22):
Just shout out to all all the dinosaurs out there
that are listening that you know, helped helped mold of
my career and stuff to Steve and Mike and Dave Burns.
We've been been through a lot of stuff together and uh,
you know, and toll you new people uh out there.

(01:39:45):
You know, don't despair. You know, you guys really make
a difference. And you know people people appreciate the work, don't.
Don't don't think no one appreciates you totally and well
the public safety work is you know, I always say
in New York City is like a big dysfunctional family.

(01:40:07):
You know, we'll always sit and fight, but God forbid,
something happens to one person in the family, everybody else
comes out to defend them.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
Yeah, that's I think that's the perfect way to put
it in. That is a good way for sure to
put a bow on this one. Thank you, stick around.
We'll talk off air. Bill, Thanks again for your time
this evening, and as always, thanks to you producer Victor.
Great job as always on the one.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
Thank you, thanks for the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:40:30):
Oh you're quite welcome stick around. Like I mentioned, we'll
talk off the air. Thanks everybody that tuned in tonight.
I appreciate all you as always and your activity in
the chat wherever you're watching from LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, or
x slash Twitter. It is always appreciated. And this, like
I said many times over, this show is not where
it is without all of you with the audience, So
I always will appreciate you. No matter how big this

(01:40:52):
show gets, it is what it is because of each
and every one of you. So coming up next to
the mic the New Even podcast. We were supposed to
do this interview last month. Scheduling things up popped up
that made it unfortunately not feasible to do at the time,
but it's feasible this Monday. I mentioned her before, I'll
mention her again. Kim Woodward was a CIA intelligence operations
analyst for the agency from nineteen ninety one through two

(01:41:12):
thousand and two. So I know she's got some stories
and I look forward certainly to hearing them for what
will be a very special edition of Beat Profiles Police
Nationwide when she comes on the program to discuss that,
and of course, next Friday will be another volume of
the Best of the Bravest Nationwide with a chief out
of Philadelphia, Tony bum Padre currently a deputy chief in
the Philadelphia Fire Department and has recently written the book,

(01:41:35):
so we'll highlight his career in depth when he comes
on the program again. That's next Friday at six pm.
This Monday also six pm Eastern Standard Time. Now, for
those of you listening on the audio side, you're in
for a treat. One of my personal favorites and one
of my personal favorite bands from their nineteen ninety nine
album Make Yourself Incabis comes your way with Pardon Me

(01:41:56):
in the meantime on behalf of Bill Gross, producer Victor
and all of you. This is in volume seventy two
of the Best and Bravest Interviews with the Ft and
Wise Elite, my colone, We'll see you next time. I
have a great weekend, everybody, stay safe, and we'll see
you Monday.

Speaker 4 (01:42:15):
I'm not bothering me well burn, I'm bow Well.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
A decade ago, I.

Speaker 4 (01:42:43):
Thought I would be at twenty three of our Just
Spontaneous Bust with Me, but I guess that it comes
over you anomenous landscape. I'm never ending conablity.

Speaker 2 (01:42:54):
I need you to hear, I need you to see you.

Speaker 4 (01:42:56):
But I am happy I can take an exploding an that's.

Speaker 5 (01:43:00):
A fell let's see. So that iss time so runs

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up to fight.

Speaker 4 (01:43:31):
By say, two days ago, I was having a look
in a book, and I was the bitch run up
about his knees as an action beliefs lely, I been thinking,
I'm gonna bust the chichen.

Speaker 7 (01:43:49):
I's a welcome baking you wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):
The burdens of the planets, got the.

Speaker 4 (01:43:54):
Bugs and the barrels of being any lady.

Speaker 5 (01:43:58):
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Speaker 6 (01:44:07):
Answer as Pele find time.

Speaker 7 (01:44:20):
About fame, the same, never big, the same.

Speaker 5 (01:44:38):
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Speaker 5 (01:45:04):
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Speaker 6 (01:45:12):
To about the way crab friends, not about a slave.

Speaker 5 (01:45:23):
Of friends. Secon

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Episode 368: The Best of The Bravest: Bill Gross (Volume 72)

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