Who Is Training Your Firefighters?

This episode features Josh Blum, Chris Stewart and John Vance.

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We challenge the way departments choose, vet, and apply training, separating hype from systems that improve outcomes. We show how to align classes with staffing, model procedures, and building realities, and how to turn outside lessons into standard practice without chaos.

• lifelong learning mindset and clear standards
• distinction between training skills and education why
• vetting instructors and course foundations before purchase
• handling self-funded training and knowledge reentry
• engaging disengaged chiefs through lead-up conversations
• top-down accountability for real participation in drills
• limits of copying big brother departments and tactics
• big box strategy focused on systems and risk management
• practical RIT priorities: prevention, air, orientation, extrication
• evidence-based command training and instructor credibility

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Hosts, And CTA
• 3:06 Setting The Stage: Training Backlogs
• 5:26 Episode Focus: Who Trains Your Firefighters
• 8:51 Lifelong Learning And Internal Influencers
• 13:21 Hosting Outside Instructors And Alignment
• 18:06 Social Media Training Deluge And Threats
• 22:16 Vetting Classes And Instructor Credibility
• 26:46 Training Vs Education: The Why Matters
• 32:06 Two Lanes: Dept-Sponsored Vs Self-Funded
• 37:16 Lead Up: Engaging Disengaged Chiefs
• 43:06 Top-Down Standards And Accountability
• 48:46 Big Brother Departments And Scalability
• 55:06 Big Box Fires: Systems Over Slogans
• 1:01:56 RIT Reality: Prevention And Practical Skills
• 1:10:36 How Blue Card Walks The Walk

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:43

Welcome to the V Shifter Podcast. John Vance, Chris Stewart, and Josh Loom here with us today. Welcome, gentlemen. Good to see you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

It's nice to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

Nice to be seen.

SPEAKER_00: 0:59

It's nice to be able to be on here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

Yeah, it is. We have a good topic for you today. We will be talking about who is training your firefighters. So stick around for that and find out what the guys have to say. And of course, we always welcome your comments. Look at our show notes and send us emails. The other thing we're going to ask you to do here at the top is like and subscribe if you enjoy our podcast. That helps us out quite a bit when you do that. So please do. How are you doing today in Cincinnati there, Josh?

SPEAKER_00: 1:31

I'm doing really good.

unknown: 1:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33

Busy day catching up on my computer. Computer work stuff. And talked to a bunch of agencies today. And I was talking to Jen in the office. They lots of organizations getting prices, wanting to come online, trying to figure it out. What's the blue card thing really mean? So yeah, that's all that's all good. And uh our schedule, we're already in that position of in the calendar of what works for us and what works for the organization for us to get to it, get to them in 2026. So I think I had three fire departments today. We're trying to get their trainers booked, and it's pretty much so pretty much so May and Beyond, though we got some flexibility in there for workshops for sure that we could plug in. But as far as trainers go, we got a week or two maybe before May. But if you're if you're looking for any flexibility and getting dates, it's really May and Beyond. So if you're looking for a trainer regionally, reach out and we'll try to get it on the books for you.

SPEAKER_01: 2:35

So one of the things that we do want to let everybody know too is we have some dates in Phoenix that are open. So you can go to b shifter.com, go to our events, and you'll be able to sign up there. Phoenix is lovely in January. So if you're from a cold location, you can come in here, do class all day. We'll get you out in time so you can enjoy a little evening of uh nice weather before you come back to the next class. So it's uh a great environment. Plus, the AVBCTC is the world class command training center. Go to bluecardtraining.com or b shifter.com and you can get uh signed up for that. How are you doing, Chris? What's going on with you?

SPEAKER_02: 3:14

Darn good. It'd be nice to have a bunch of people come out in January and February. You can wear shorts to the trainer here in Phoenix. It's uh it's a good time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:24

Always shorts and sweater weather, which is or sweatshirt weather, which I I enjoy immensely. Well, today's topic is is talking about who is training your firefighters and where where do we start on the training and who would like to kick this topic off here and and talk about why this is an important consideration for chiefs, for training officers, operations chiefs, because I've been victim of it myself as a chief, where we've sent somebody to class and they come back either brainwashed or with a completely different vision and idea of what the fire department really should be doing.

SPEAKER_00: 4:05

Well, I I I think I could throw out a few topics like that we will we could address throughout this, and I don't know, maybe we might not get to them all, might end up having to be part two. But I think first of all is we all have to get into the mindset of being lifelong learners, not one and done. And we all we've all lived through that and gone to a class 20 years ago, and you think you remember it 20 years later. And it's like that, that's not a that's not an ideal, uh ideal thing. And then the whole point of you know who's training the fire department's intern your personnel internally within your organization, like who who are those people? And you know, with that, you have to think about the formal and informal instructors, if you will, right? Like Chris is teaching something, this is the way we're gonna do it at the Phoenix Fire Department, but Joe has a better idea and he tells people his way. So that's that's a part of it. And then I think another one is the hosted trainings when you bring somebody into your organization to present. So, like looking at that, their background, can they even are they even instructors at their own organization? And what they're coming to teach, do they even in any way, shape, or form do that at their organization when you're bringing somebody in from the outside? And then the the last one is that outside training. When you're sending somebody out to, you know, a class somewhere on the road, a workshop, you know, sending them to one of the conferences, whatever, making sure that what you're committing to send them to, or whatever you're committing to get them trained up or educated on aligns with your fire department's really your mission, vision, and values, all of them. Uh, because so often I think people end up going to a training and it's an excellent training on maybe how to do something, but it doesn't align in any way, shape, or form with with their organization's, you know, deployment model or really the expectations of of the fire department when the when the bell rang. So this is a this is a this topic's got you know thousands of points, I think. And I think we really also have to hit on the training versus education, because when we send somebody the training, I think that's uh how do you do something. And then the education is where it really comes into the why are we doing what we're doing. And I mean, we could talk about everything from how we load hose on the fire truck and how we deploy hose to you name it, all of it, right? So I think there's a bunch of different parts and pieces there, and I think we all have to have the understanding and and lay out that expectation when we send people to train here, we bring people in that are we bringing them in because this is what we're gonna do, or are we bringing them in because this is just an idea and we want to hear some of their things and we'll we'll hash it out after they leave of what we're actually gonna do. But far too often since you know, since 1990, you know, I I've been hearing friends, colleagues, whatever, go to something and they come back and they try to institute or play out whatever skill it is that they were taught at some some training, and it's like that's not gonna work here. And you just learned that last week, and you're trying to make a solution fit where that problem that you're trying to solve doesn't even exist. So I think it's I think it's just a it's a super broad topic. So uh I just wanted to throw that out there to kind of get it started. But it starts, I think, with the you know, with the organization of what are we going to send our folks to and who are we gonna have coming here to train our people. And it can't be, well, this guy's super cool, so I'm having him come in here because he'll get our morale all up and he'll tell everybody how great they are and whatever. It it it's gotta be, it's gotta fix our organization or your organization's you know expectations and deployment.

SPEAKER_02: 8:08

In any organization right now, if you're not prepared for your members to receive or your ability to process some form of outside training for you and your members and your department, you are you are ill-prepared as an organization. Because right now, given social media, YouTube, all the other platforms where it's available, like daily, uh, and and you're not ready or you haven't thought about the whether they're getting it, how they're getting it, what they're doing with it, and and actually preparing for that, you're you're you're in trouble, right? And so the my my first message would be to get start to get a grip of it, right? Because it's happening, the it's already left the barn. You need to get your shit together, really. And then, but then having a perspective of how valuable some of this training actually can be. I came from an organization and with a fire chief who, you know, very specifically looked me in the eye and said, hey man, an education is people and places. One of the most critical forms of education is people and places. So going places, learning things, talking to people, all of that's incredibly important. And then I also worked in a fire department where we conducted, uh, shoot, I think at our peak three conferences a year where people were coming in from all over the fire department to to listen to whatever it is that we were talking about or the folks that we had brought in that what they were talking about. And and so, you know, there were a lot of people that took that information back and they tried to then operationalize it and figure out how if and how that could actually work for them. So I guess I've seen all sides of it and and obviously participating in it now. Heck, we're talking on this podcast today. That's it's part of the the lexicon of this whole deal, is we need to start to come to terms with it, recognize it, recognize its value, recognize its threat, and then be able to start to manage it. So this topic of who is actually training your folks is incredibly important. And this is a this is a vetting skill now that departments and training officers and company officers and shoot, anybody that's responsible for anybody else in a fire department needs to start actually thinking about realizing and recognizing because there are so many forms of training, you know, available to us and what is available or what is usable and what isn't, and what is nonsense and what isn't is is all really, really important.

SPEAKER_01: 10:41

Well, how do we go about validating who who the instructor is, the message they're sending, how does it align with your department's vision and mission? And then how do we validate the topic too, whether it's needed or not? Maybe that's a good spot to start.

SPEAKER_00: 10:58

I think one thing starting is we have to if we're gonna send people out, you know, it's it's sometimes it's hard to read a description and see exactly what something is unless it's a unless it's a full certification where there's a ton of information available and here's the objectives that you're gonna go through and here's what you're gonna be evaluated on. If you're sending somebody to, you know, a two-day or three-day, you know, training that's one and done, it's kind of hard to see through all the lines, I guess, if you will, of what what's gonna come out of that. So I think a piece is if you're gonna send people outside is you gotta take the good and you gotta leave the bad, and or you gotta take what works for us and leave what doesn't work for us. But that that you have to be able to see through the message. And we also have to communicate, I think, internally with our people that that that we're gonna send, personnel that we're gonna send to training, that just because we're sending you there does not mean that we're endorsing whatever was taught there to be used here, which comes back to your organization's, you know, deployment model and expectations and and how do you really operate at ABC Fire Department. So I I think far too often people go to a training and and we see this all over the place. And I mean, we see it every week, I think, everywhere that we go and do training, that they went somewhere a month ago and picked something up and they tried to use a skill and it didn't work. And it's like, well, it didn't work because they taught you how to do whatever it was, everything from a task level to tactical level to you're the you're the IC, and you were trying to again apply a solution to a problem that didn't exist. And you know, we see that. And uh Bruno, you are Bruno, I think, always used to basically call that the detour. Instead of looking at what the real problem is and going directly to solving the problem, we did 25 other things because you know somebody told us we could or we should, or I I know this skill, so that's just what I'm gonna do. And we don't start with that thinking component of solving the problem. So I think internal within the organization, we have to start with all of those things of making sure our people and our personnel understand training that's being delivered, you know, from somebody coming from the outside in or sending people out to an outside training is we may entertain the ideas that come back from it because there's a lot of really good things out there and we need to, you know, change and stay current, but it doesn't mean you're gonna come back and we're just gonna start doing that the next that next day.

SPEAKER_02: 13:33

Yeah, I kind of look at there's two lanes here for that training where folks are going outside of the organization to to go to a training or attend a class or a conference or whatever. There are the ones where the department is actually gonna fund and they're they're purposely and deliberately sending the you know the members there and giving them the time off and paying for whatever it is they're gonna pay for, and they're some basically sponsoring them to go to that. And that needs to come with some responsibilities for those members that are attending it from the organization. Hey, we're sending you to this, and when you come back, we would like some form of organized cogent thoughts on what it is you actually did, what you actually learned, what you see of value, what you didn't see of value, and then how does that connect to the way we do business, whether it's from a procedural standpoint, a resource standpoint, a response and deployment standpoint. And then we can evaluate that as an organization. And I certainly want those individuals' input that participated in that. But there's some decisions that have to get made is all right, hey, is that worth sharing to the rest of the organization? Is that a worth adopting into our the way we do uh our work or or but you know, even potentially changing policy and procedure on that type of stuff? That's pretty important. But right now, because of the sheer volume of training that's available, there's a significant amount of folks who are attending these on their own dime, on their own time, under their own, you know, their own motivation, I guess if is the right way to put that. And they're they don't feel necessarily a connection to their organization. Maybe they, maybe the organization doesn't send them. Maybe they're, maybe the individuals are frustrated by that. Or they're just, you know, they're hard chargers and go-getters, and they they they want to go to as much as they can. So awesome. I I think all of it's great. But those folks that go to that, then they harbor and hold that information, you know, and there isn't any obligation or coordination or recognition and responsibility of how that's gonna come back and get shared. That maybe get shared with them and and you know, their peers, that may get shared with them at the company level. It may not go beyond that. And sometimes it can be very valuable things, and sometimes it can be very, very harmful things to an organization, right? And things that definitely go a counterflow to the way that their standards normally operate. And so we again, organizations need to be prepared to deal with that and work with that. And, you know, I'm not a person who feels as if we need a policy on everything. And in fact, I'm probably quite the contrary, but there needs to be, I'm gonna connect this to the silverback stuff, right? If there's a solid organizational push and an organizational demand for effective quality training and quality operations, and the bosses are engaged in the work and they're they're interested in the training that the firefighters are getting, then there's a high likelihood that that comes back and that gets used in a in a very organized standard way, right? And it's not a disruption. But if you're disengaged from your members, you're disengaged from the work, you're disengaged from what's happening in the American Fire Service, then you are regular on a regular basis are going to be surprised by the things that our your members go out and get trained on and learn and try and bing bring back to your organization, maybe oftentimes because you're not providing anything for them. And so there's this, there are these two distinct lanes where I think this is really running, and and organizations really need to improve how they're going to deal with both potentials with that. And and and then the vetting of the instructors. A flyer pops up uh just a week ago in you know, in my in my region here uh for this training. It's actually sent to me by one of the guys who's who's putting it together. Says, hey, we'd love to have some of your folks here. Cool. I read it, I'm interested in it, and and I, but I have questions. And so I pick up the phone and I call. Hey, hey, what's going on? Hey, what are you doing? Who's teaching it? What what what what benchmarks are you using? What what information do you have for them so that I can start to figure out do I want to spend department resources to actually send them to this? And how am I going to use and and and and uh synthesize that information that they get and bring back to the organization? Because I don't want it to be disruptive. And I also like sending my folks to training that that makes them feel good about being engaged in in the fire service. So yeah, do the homework. Pick your phone up. If you don't know and if they're going across the country, pick your phone up and call somebody and ask them, hey, what's what hey, I saw your training. What's going on? What are you teaching? Who is teaching it? What is the foundation of it? And if they can't or won't give you that information and can't and provide that stuff to you, it's likely not a class you want to send your folks to, right? If you can't be transparent about what and how you're gonna teach somebody something to an organization, then that's to me, in my eyes, that's super problematic.

SPEAKER_00: 18:58

Chris, I think everything you just hit there really just goes back to that standard and consistent thing as a part of it, right? Like is are they gonna deliver this in a standard and consistent way? So organizationally thinking about, you know, does it fit what we are what we're really looking for? But then the second part of it is I can't send if I have a if I have a hundred that I'm gonna send to something, I can't send five to this one and hear from ABC and send five more to somebody else to hear about something else just because I'm checking a box of example fire officer one, two, three, and four. You know, it's everywhere from 80 hours to 200 hours and being delivered all online to all in person to you can put you know a bunch of different classes together and get the certificate at the end of it. Every training is is is like that, right? So it's like what is really gonna come out of that? And and then I think thinking about that thing is is it gonna help us improve our skills? And then is this consistent with what we do? And then how does it align with our productivity or effectiveness when the bell rings?

SPEAKER_01: 20:05

Well, I'm surprised how many people are teaching classes out there. They go outside their department and they're the quote unquote experts, but their own department will not allow them to teach. Have you have you seen that? I mean, I I think that's a red flag, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02: 20:20

Well, I I think it's a red flag, but oftentimes on the surface, we don't know what it's a red flag for because I have seen instances where the person that is actually teaching that it is way outside of their organizational standards, way outside of what is acceptable inside their organization. And they they have, you know, they they feel like their opinion's much more important than the organizational opinion for them. But then I've also seen instructors get vilified in their own organization and get because they're they're challenging their own system, and then the only way they can participate, and the only way they even feel engaged is actually going outside of their system to teach. So I don't know that it's necessarily a guaranteed red flag or a guaranteed, oh yeah, don't go there, or this is gonna be a you know a hot mess. But again, it's that evaluation is the nice thing about the fire service now and how connected we are is you can find somebody who knows somebody that that can give you information and give you answers about what's going on there, what's gonna be taught, what's their history, where are they from, all those things, what's their organizational position? Are they teaching something that that is at their organizational level? Or are they or or do you have firefighters teaching people what the incident commander should know and do? You know, that those things are not very well connected and and and those to me are a red flag. So I think on the instructor end of it, we we need to be more deliberate and more proactive as the people that are responsible for training in our organizations. And if they're going and and you're not sure, or you're concerned, or you're like, ooh, shit, then then I need to do my homework and I need to call and figure that out. Because how many people in all of the train the trainers that we do here that, oh wow, blue card's not what everybody else made it out to be? Well, yeah, that happens a lot, right? So uh every all systems are can be victims of this type of uh mentality or generalization and all that type of stuff. So it's let's be adults and actually start figuring out, okay, where are they going? What are they doing? I I'm not gonna send my kids someplace that that I think is screwed up. And or if I have questions, I'm gonna call and make sure that I feel comfortable doing it. And if I'm not, I'm not gonna send them, right? I I have no, I have no different feeling about taking care of my firefighters that way and and and supporting them in the places they should go and telling them, hey man, I'm I'm concerned about you going there. I realize you're going on your own time and dime and all that other stuff, but I don't, you know, they've actually injured people at that training before. I'm concerned. I I actually am concerned about you. I don't want the same thing happening to you. So I think there's a there's a varying perspective there that we have to consider.

SPEAKER_00: 23:16

I think going back to this, the the training and education part of it, and I mean they're they're so close, but they're really so far apart. So that you know, the training part of the skills is is fantastic, and we know uh uh thousands of people on the road teaching skills, right? That that are fantastic, you know, none better. And you know, maybe it's a time rest constraints or whatever, but the the a missing component to so much training is the why part of it. And they just think when you send personnel or they choose to go to this training, they think that that that's the way that it is, especially when organizations send send someone to a training, that they're like, Well, the organization sponsored this and sent me to this, so this is this is the way that it is, and this is you know, this is what we do. But we all know that there's a huge component missing of why do we do that? And you know, if you if we want to jump to we could jump right to command training. And Chris, you traveling around the country now, but working in the land of milk and honey at the Phoenix Fire Department with staffing, you know, something we hear all the time is we're not the Phoenix Fire Department, we don't have all that staffing, we can't do all of this, we don't have a command van. How do we possibly set up a command team? How would you ever get three people in a car? How would you, whatever? And, you know, one thing I think that, you know, that one thing that we do with that is we we talk about the why do you fill those positions and how do you adjust it to have that work in your region, right? So all the suburban work that we do, you know, as soon as you pull that map map out and you draw a circle that's as big as the Maricopa County response area or the Phoenix Fire Department's response area, and they're like, it's like, well, you guys got 15 chiefs on duty right there. You could get the chiefs there, right? But you talk to them about why it's important to get them there, and then you show them that it can be done. But on the flip, if we didn't do that, people would leave and say, Well, we're not the Phoenix Fire Department, and we couldn't possibly do that because we can't get that many people there. And it's like, well, you can. The model just looks different of of how how you get them there. Your deployment model, you know, just looks different. So, you know, we're we do command training and decision making and made a management and division ops and big box and all of those things. And with all of those parts and pieces, we we always talk about why. So it's it's it's both training and education because we always tie it back to, you know, the latest science or standards or actual events that have happened. It's not it's not that you're the Kendall, just say what I told you to say, right? And we're we're suffering through that still now, because it's not it's not don't have anything to do, well, it has everything to do with communications too, but that's just a very small part of the program. But when people leave and they're like, oh, it's just a communications thing, it's like, well, you missed it because it's not just a communications thing, right? It it communications is just where you're acting out that piece of it. And and I think that's where where it was that's a training thing. I just need you to do what I told you to do. And they don't understand why. But I think when we educate them and they get to understand why, then they then that's where that critical thinking and they put that hat on of, okay, what is the problem, and then what's standing in the way of us solving the problem, not this is just the way that you do it every time. We we have a system that's standardized, but the system has the strategic decision-making model so that you can make decisions to solve the problem because everything's everything's different, right?

SPEAKER_01: 26:54

Had a guy this week just talk to me about a situation because they do command training on a shift. He said our company officers are really good. It's like a seven or eight station fire department with one battalion on duty, the battalion will not train with them. So the battalion gets there and he does his minimum blue card training, but the ongoing discussions that the shift has. So how do you how do you overcome that if you have a uh especially with command training, if you have a chief level officer that is your response chief, but they're not training with you.

SPEAKER_02: 27:28

This is This is one of the most critical skills that firefighters and and company officers and just anybody who's responsible for anybody else in a fire department needs to start to learn, is you have to figure out ways to manipulate and trick people into doing the things that you want and need them to do, right? And so if you have a boss that's not participating with you in the the critical training that you need, especially somebody who's going to be your Shift BC, going to be your IC number two, then you need to figure out ways to actually get them involved without saying w maybe stopping short of saying, hey, you need to train with us more is start asking questions. Like, hey, this is what we have going on. This was an incident that we actually had. Well, how do you see it? This is this is what we thought, this is what we did, this is the way we were going to set this up, these were the actions we were going to take. Uh what what do you think? And draw them into the conversation because it doesn't necessarily have to be formal, it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, planned. But if you get them involved in the simple things, and even if it's at the dinner table, start that conversation there, that could be an incredibly important training opportunity that you know isn't necessarily wasn't planned or ness or structured inside the organization, but it turns into something very valuable. So this is where the the the the officers and the firefighters have to start to lead up. They have to start to uh draw their boss in. And I'll be honest, I'll be honest with you, you start to manipulate your boss to help you actually be better at your job. To trick them into doing their job, right? And and be able to, you know, improve that. And and trust me, there are some people that are even impervious to that. You know, they are they're absolutely disengaged and they're complete slugs and they're not going to do it, then you have a whole different problem on your hands, but that's the the there's other methods to deal with those people. But this is be upfront and serious, and it's hard for the majority of bosses who generally want to do a good job, but maybe don't know how to actually help them get engaged and break that down because they may be scared to death to talk to you. I I don't know. That that I think that's a real possibility, though. And bring them in, suck them in, and you can you can do that. I know Eric Phillips has some fantastic examples of things that he's actually done to draw other people in, other bosses, his boss into what it is that they have going on at the company level, and and then all next thing you know, it's happening at the battalion level. Next thing you know, it's hey, everybody on this shift, and and and it and it and it grows organically that way, right? So it sometimes you're not have to be so overt and force and push, but draw them in and And use some Jedi mind tricks and then and you can find yourself being pretty successful that way.

SPEAKER_00: 30:43

And with all training, no matter how it is, that's a difficult one if you're if your boss isn't participating. But like Chris said, I think that's there's still a way to get them to do it. I mean, maybe they are scared to death to come because they aren't confident in their skills or whatever, which is really scary if they won't come to training. But you know, sometimes I think that's some underlying things of the culture of the organization that if Chris shows up to this training, we're going to eat him today. And it's like, well, education and training can't be hazing that has to be there because we're trying to do better, that we're trying to get everybody on the same page. We're trying to I mean it all comes down to the service, right? We're all trying to provide the best service we can possibly provide. And, you know, IC number two is providing customer service, quite frankly, to I know people don't like this sometimes, the internal customer, which is all those firemen that are there taking care of them so that they can take care of Mrs. Smith, you know, out on the fire ground. But if if there's a separation or that division and the companies are always, or vice versa, the that they're if they can't get along and they're always eating each other in the firehouse, uh, you're you're not going to be very successful in training. But it's that thing of getting everybody on the same page. And then I think taking little wins, right? Like take take take littler steps and get some wins and get people comfortable with what's going on and everybody getting on the same page and then just keep growing it from there. You can't jump, you can't jump right into we're gonna do Mayday training if if they struggle with uh command transfer and managing four companies. So that that's the education and training part of it, right? Like some people learn at different paces, different different knowledge, skill, and abilities. So I think we have to tie all of that together.

SPEAKER_02: 32:31

Yeah, there there's I think another part of this is if you're a training boss or an ops boss, a fire chief, and you in in any way get the sense that the people that you've put in charge to be battalion chiefs aren't engaging in training the way they should, then that's a that's that's a fire chief ops chief training chief problem. They have the they have a malfunction that they're not setting clear expectations for the folks that they're putting in the positions to be battalion chiefs to engage in that training. The expectation is that they are leaders and organizational leaders specifically in the performance, behavior, and capability of those folks that they're that they're there to manage, right? So at that battalion chief level, if they're not doing it and the bosses are okay with them not doing it, it's not a battalion chief problem. It's a fire department fire chief problem. And and we do see that regularly, unfortunately, right? Especially because we we deal with a lot of folks who are trying to change your organization from the middle rather than the the than the top down. And so we we you've got to we can't walk past that and not call that out for what it is, because it it's a hundred percent legitimate and true in in many instances. And uh and if you're a fire company that has that problem and and you have the access to to people above your boss, sometimes you're gonna need to communicate to that above your boss. Because but don't do that first. You know, try and get them engaged and try and help them do the right thing. But if they're not doing it, then use other means.

SPEAKER_00: 34:05

Yeah, so that that that that whole topic is specifically on that internal piece, right? Like who who's training and how's the training going within internally in your organization? And we do see that all the time at organizations as we travel around the country that you know, three engines and a truck show up to their burn building, you know, that's at their training center, which is where we do a ton of our stuff, you know, at the classroom or whatever, and you happen to be outside or look out and see them, and yeah, the chiefs are there having a coffee clutch, you know, in their uh white shirts hanging out holding court while the companies are training. And it's like, well, that that's the opportunity to fix it. And then, you know, oftentimes from that, the next the next piece comes that uh one of those companies isn't doing what they're supposed to do because people are going to perform, oftentimes, people are only going to perform at that lowest level of what's acceptable. And if they see that, well, the chiefs aren't training, then I'm not gonna train either. Well, the chiefs are here and they're supposed to be doing this drill, and they're they should be fully packed out, geared up for what we're doing with this exercise, but they're they're not doing anything. It's like, well, the next time uh the good people are always probably gonna do what they need to do most of the time, but that other percentage is is gonna is gonna start to go that same direction. And then you have you know, half the people that are at the exercise or at this training not doing what they're supposed to do. And uh I think that comes back to that expectation thing and holding people, holding people accountable for for the expectations that were laid out. So if the training division puts something out and says this is what we're gonna do, or operations puts it out and says this is what we're gonna do, then that's what we're gonna do. And I think that we have to we have to check in so often and verify that that's not happening. And when it's not happening, we need to we need to do something about that internally, because that I I I see that going on right now around our region with sometimes with with people that show up. And it's floated down to some captains now, go to training and get off the truck, and it's like, well, this is you have to have all your PPE on for this. And they're like, Oh, our fire, my firemen are just doing it. And it's like no, you work with them, you're part of the company, and the company works together. And you know, sometimes it's that comment of, well, the chiefs are supposed to be playing a role in this, and they're not doing what they're supposed to do. So that's so we're gonna do what we do. So yeah, that that that's gotta be addressed as well.

SPEAKER_02: 36:33

Yeah, uh, one of my favorite things that I used to see at our academy, and by favorite things I mean one of the things I hate the absolute most, is companies that would, you know, be in the area of our training academy, come down on the weekends or afternoons or whenever it was quiet, and they would be training. And I would watch a company, uh a four or five person company drilling with their probationary firefighter, and the only person that has their gear on doing anything is a probationary firefighter. And there's three or four other dudes standing around watching that person do whatever it is that they're doing. That ain't training. That isn't teaching, that's not education, that's not nothing. That's making them come down and do shit that you want them to do. That's uh I that probably could fit the definition of slavery, right? And so that if if we have that at the company level, you probably have that at the battalion level. If you have that at the battalion level, you probably have that at the shift to organizational level, right? So you've got a whole host and stream of malfunctions that actually need to be fixed. And that's typically fixed top-down, not bottom-up. And that becomes really important to deal with and recognize. And that can be that can be a really hard, uncomfortable lesson for a department or departmental leaders to actually learn, be to become familiar with, learn, and then try and actually fix. But it's very much worth it. And if you have that malfunction inside your organization, sending people outside of your organization to do training is almost a sure-fired way to create more division, more failure, more crisis inside your organization. It's not gonna be better just because they go out. So uh really this is a this is a centric issue, is if you're if you're broken internally with regards to training, uh, going outside your organization probably ain't gonna fix it. The places that are are functioning the best internally tend to be the departments that are doing best with external training, right? Not only in in how they bring that and process that information, but where they send people to, how they vet that training, because they have a clear understanding of what's important and what isn't, right? So that internal stuff, it's and you said it, Josh, it's no different than customer service. If we can't be nice to each other, there is no way we're being nice to Mrs. Smith on a consistent basis. It ain't gonna happen, right? So if we're ineffective, disorganized, dysfunctional on how we train inside our organization, top down, then we are going to be that way with processing and using information from outside of our organization. And that's gonna do nothing but make firefighters and and company officers who are, you know, trying to gain information and get better at their job. It's just gonna make them more and more frustrated, right? So we've got this chicken and egg thing going on here. That the but the recognition here is you got to fix it inside before you can fix it outside.

SPEAKER_01: 39:36

Let's talk about Big Brother for a moment. You know, we we all have them. Uh Josh coined that phrase for me a while back. So we we have Big Brother in the sense of communities have that, you know, bigger fire department they look up to. We wrote about it this week and on bShifter.com. And then ultimately, you know, there's some very well-known, very charismatic, very knowledgeable, skilled instructors that go out and they and they teach their message, but it's not scalable to hardly any other fire department out there other than their own. How do we overcome that?

SPEAKER_00: 40:10

It comes back to that validation. If we're gonna, I mean, if they're going on their own, it's kind of hard to control it, right? I mean, we can control when they bring it back that like this is how ABC fire department operates, this is what we're gonna do, this is our deployment model, this is how many people we have, this is the equipment that's available. Just because you chose to go to a class or I sent you to a class doesn't mean when you come back that I can buy or you know, change our whole deployment model in five minutes. Now, like Chris said earlier, if you if you can justify and have a a good reason why we should do something, that it's best practice, or I don't want to say that we were doing anything wrong, but but that there's a better way, then yeah, we we can look into that. But far too often that comes back to the I work at the suburban fire department and I went to a class of at the big that the Big Brother Fire Department was teaching, and I want to be them. So then I I try to bring that back to you know my organization and whether it's a equipment thing or a staffing thing, or in some cases, you know, building construction, you name it, like uh things that are different. And I think a piece of that that's missing is it's very easy to teach task level stuff, and it takes it's hard and takes time to explain why, when and why we would do some of these, some of these, you know, things that we do on the fire ground, whether it's uh command, whether it's you know, division ops is one of the things that I wrote down. It's like, you know, there's there's so many places that you go and you take the one-day class from somebody who's teaching division ops, and they believe that if I'm the division boss, that if I'm at a two-story house on fire, that I as a division boss operate on the first floor of the house and I'm division one and I'm responsible for two companies in there. And it's like, well, you're you're nothing more than a glorified fireman in there. And all you're sell telling all the firemen and the company officers in there is that you don't trust them. But we we we see that, right? And it that that that's not the model, and it doesn't work. Now, in a lot of big cities, you know, there there's a layer of that that they'll put a chief officer and their aide in a position inside the building like that, not in the probably still in the warm zone, but they would operate there to gather more information or or or whatever that may be. But they're not the division boss. They're they're just operating with multiple other companies, maybe in a in a geographic area. We can we could put, you know, the FDNY, right? They'll put a chief on the roof to to just see what's going on, and they're gonna do a ton of work up there. And they got, you know, five, six, seven companies maybe on the roof sometimes, you know, open it up.

SPEAKER_02: 42:53

There's more companies on that roof that are on duty in 99% of the fire departments of the United States. Right. And I'm not I'm not begrudging the FDNY, but that the reality is that, just what you said, Josh.

SPEAKER_00: 43:06

It's real, right? And it's like you you can't take that back to ABC Suburban Fire Department that gets, you know, 13 people in 17 minutes at a house on fire. But but they they they try to emulate what they what they might have been told. And the other one I wrote down is the the whole big box thing, right? There's this comes back to the who's teaching your fire department and what are you doing and what's the real message and what's best practice and what really works. And there's a big ass difference between the Stearns and Foster Betting Company that was two blocks from my house my entire life, five to seven stories two thousand foot-long building with a basement that had, you know, cotton in it for 120 years, where they made mattresses, no sprinkler system, except for, you know, manually activated pipes that they could like basically turn on, versus the new one million square foot Amazon distribution center. And I I bring that up because yeah, that old mill building down there, uh, I don't know how, but you know, it did not burn to the ground for 150 years, though there was a fire in it once a week. And you know, yeah, we stretched two and a halves in there and multiple hand lines. And it was, I remember there was there was times where they were the fire department was there for days. And it's like, well, if somebody's teaching you a class and they think that those tactics are what we would use at a big box Amazon distribution center that's fully sprinklered, that the only ones that have had any significant fire is the ones that the sprinkler system was shut off or the fire department shut off. Our training has to look totally different, right? Because the factors that are involved. But, you know, we see it that there's four or five classes out there right now fighting fires in big boxes. And the first thing it says on there, big building, big hand line, smooth bore nozzles, reach. And you know, when we when we sit seven, eight, nine, ten times a year with Shane Ray, and then with some of the burns we've done, it's like, no, the sprinkler system is containing the fire, and the worst thing we can do is start blasting water everywhere and blast the fire everywhere. But that's that that's a that's just a one little example, right? But we've had some of that in the Cincinnati area. People go to recently went to a class on fighting commercial building fires, and there was no differentiation between the 150-year-old old mill building and the building that was built last week that's you know 2.4 million square feet at the Greater Cincinnati Airport that's fully sprinklered, or the 1.4 million square foot Amazon distribution center that's in the city of Monroe, just 30 minutes from here, where they've had three working fires in there, and every single one of them has been extinguished by the sprinkler system. Two of them on the top rack, you know, 40 feet in the air, one of them on the very bottom rack, all of them contained in the fire department, put very little water on them. That's just a much different fire. But when you're taking this broad swipe of the brush of big building, and that we do all these old school things, it it just doesn't fit. So the organization needs to, you know, vet that and then have a discussion with those people when they come back. And when they say, Oh, we need to be stretching two and a halves into every one of these big box buildings, you know, ask them why, and then have that conversation so they actually get educated on it, not just trained on, you know, what that may look like.

SPEAKER_02: 46:42

Yeah, I I think uh in a lot of these instances, we're confusing training for going to some type of spiritual revival. You know, that it's in a tent in the middle of a frickin' field and James Brown's gonna be the musical act, and and we're going in there to get pumped up and feel good and connect with our roots and and and somehow we're gonna come away from this all knowing, all better, and I'm gonna be able to work way faster if I don't wear bunker pants and all that other stuff that comes with this. We were confusing that with actually education and and learning how to do something, and which doesn't have a whole lot of emotion tied to it necessarily. You feel good afterwards, like you actually learned something, or hey, I'm gonna be better at being able to do XYZ, whatever it is. But if you're having to sell your training or what it is that you're gonna do, or or or uh your firefighters need to feel connected in that spiritual way, then I'm not so sure that they're gonna learn anything at all there, if that, if that's the case. So that goes to this whole idea, and the big box is a great example of that. There are so few people now with legitimate big box experience and legitimate big box experience in the offensive strategy putting out an uncontained fire in a building that either did have sprinklers and they weren't working, or something that overran a sprinkler system. There, the case studies out there of folks who are being able to go in and do that in an offensive strategy in one or two work cycles of crews and the in their SCBA air and all that, that that that the the sample size of that is so incredibly small, if at all, that there isn't the ability to take this imbiation, put it all together, and then be able to present it in this wide, wide, broad perspective ideas of, all right, American Fire Service, we've got this all solved. Come on in, let's talk about it. That doesn't exist right now. What we know is we're starting to know more about the systems. We're not supposed to start to know how much more complicated these buildings are. We have case studies when we didn't use the systems effectively. And let's start plugging that all that into effective risk management. And risk management is connected to taking risk for savable lives or savable property on the sliding scale based on what it is that we've evaluated. And now we're using a system and a process to actually make decisions and understand when and how we're gonna do things versus this spiritual enlightenment conference that we're gonna all do and then drink ourselves silly every night to be able to come away and feel like I got a t-shirt, I got the patch, and now I really know how to do it. They're not connected together in any real way. And again, that's part of an organization. If you're sending people to this stuff, vet it out. And if you don't know whether you you it's worthy of the vetting process, find somebody who you trust that can give you that information or help you make that decision, right? But there are so many folks out there that are talking about things that they have literally never done or they've never been responsible for on the fire ground, or they've never been responsible for in a fire organization, and they've never actually had to answer to anybody and be responsible for the answer and the actions of that organization. That's that that's all problematic, man. That is stuff that you end up in the newspaper, you end up talking to a lot of attorneys, and you and people end up losing their jobs, right? So we need to be really responsible for that, whether they're we're whether we're working in a fire department and helping our folks with that, or whether we're actually the people out there doing the training. And we we need to have a sense of responsibility. I'm gonna talk to you about stuff. That's why I feel so stinking comfortable teaching what we teach, because I know the foundation of it all. And it comes from reality, it comes from actual experience, and it was vetted through decades of evaluation of the system and and adjustment and maturity of that system. And so this is uh shoot, we could get on a roll, big box, we could talk about Mayday stuff, we could talk about uh ventilation and truck work, we could talk about all of it and and ver what what's necessary, what's important, and what isn't. And that's uh yeah, I don't think JV has enough tape for us to talk about all that.

SPEAKER_01: 51:41

Well, there are there are two things I'd like to get to before we uh wind down today. And we'll get to command training. Let's do command training toward the end of our discussion here. But rapid intervention training. I see this wide spectrum of rapid intervention training throughout our country, and some of it is stuff that's being taught, you know, 20 years ago that we stopped doing 20 years ago that's still being taught, and then some state-of-the-art training. So, how how do we vet that and really have let's talk about rapid intervention for a moment?

SPEAKER_00: 52:14

So I think I think the IAFF Fireground Safety and Survival Program, they I mean, they've probably done the most the research and group like type work, you know, developing and redeveloping that program and you know, tying in some of the things that they've tied into that program. But we see every single level of of organizations that they they go to some training on firefighter safety and survival, writ, fast, rat, whatever you want to call it, and then that becomes like some kind of primary focus, and then they train their ass off on all of these things that an organization came up with that may or may not work because most of most of those exercises were a result of a line of duty death. And then, you know, in a training environment, they tried to come up with the best way to make something work, you know, whether you were talking about you know, the Denver drill, Coglinese drill, you you name it, right? Doing that harder isn't the solution, right? So, you know, I think more focus on staying out of those positions is important for you know the writ rat fast stuff. And we've we've we've seen quite a bit of transition on that. And then I don't know how many years ago it was now, 25 or so years ago, I guess. Uh Cincinnati Fire Department sent six or seven people to Chicago Fire Department when they were calling it rat rapid assistance team training, whatever, and brought it back. And you know, everybody went through it and got it was a lot of it was turned into hazing for some people, I think, because some of it was like, this is nearly impossible that what what you want the what you want to see happen. So I think with like research from all the stuff Don Abbott did, and then all the other data that's out there, we we've seen this whole rip rat fast thing evolve a bit of what what skills do we really need that are gonna save firemen's life? And it starts with put the fire out. That's that's number one. And then don't put yourself in a position that you can't survive. And I know this job is you know, shit's gonna happen, right? And and and potentially unexpected, but we can probably prevent 99% of it. So when when we're looking at this whole written firefighter survival training, I think one, it it has to be realistic, and then two, we should look at like what are the skills that are being taught there? And is this we're gonna bring you here for 40 hours and whip your ass so that when you go home you're like, holy shit, they they tried to kill me there, and now I think I can survive anything because you know I I did survive this week, or is there some real education and training and something that I can do something with when I when I leave? And you know, that's that's that's kind of my two cents. It went from it went from like 30 hours of you know, mostly task level training to a lot of places it's you know down to like a 12 hour, not for firefighter, you know, say like survival stuff, but like writ skill stuff because some of it just isn't realistic, right? It's uh somebody had this idea and this is what I'm gonna teach, and it's like, has anybody ever pulled this off before? And it's like we we can't find any documentation on it, but we're gonna teach it anyway. And it's like, well what what is the best way and what does that really look like? And really the best way comes back to ideally put the fire out and it makes everything better, and then hopefully we don't get ourselves in that position. But there's still plenty of plenty of those classes out there that uh it's when you leave, you get the tattoo of I survived, I survived this training, and now I'm I'm Johnny badass because I made it through.

SPEAKER_02: 56:21

I I think that a lot of times when we start talking about Rick and Rit and all that removing a down or and or trapped firefighter, but you know, that's that's really the work we're talking about, and whatever acronym we want to connect to it, is knowing and understanding on the front end, what actually causes that. Like you said, Josh, what is what it what what situations are creating this that these firefighters are are finding themselves in that position, and how do we stop and prevent and eliminate or or decrease the opportunity for that to happen? That's that's a that is critical. Maybe more so than than just about anything else. However, then let's look at the situations where we actually go in and try and locate, retrieve, remove firefighters. And what do those situations look like? How are they occurring? And what is typically the solution to those? When firefighters are lost and firefighters are running out of air, that oftentimes is one of the most difficult issues that we can possess. We have a hard time looking for people in large space areas and actually finding them and being successful at doing that without creating a you know significant additional problems for every other firefighter that is going to go look for them. Case in point, the Worcester Cold Storage Fire, right? That's a fantastic, you know, incident act case study to actually look at. And then what are the other situations? The other situations structural collapse. You can look at Houston at the Southwest End fire, you can look at maybe most recently the the apartments that collapsed in Columbia, South Carolina and trapped that trapped, I think it was a total of four members inside there, and then they lost the the one firefighter. Right. When you look at all of those, the the the critical elements of the rescue involved there, it is there is a tremendous amount of work that is very specific to that incident, those critical factors, those critical elements of that, and the ability to to be able to respond to it in a in some type of consistent way. And it's it's all incredibly difficult. It's there there are so many situations, there are so many variables, and there are so many reasons why that these are happening that we are unable to build some consistent this is the magic bullet for solving these types of of Mayday incidents. So we when we when we start to think that, well, we're gonna position these companies in these places and they're gonna do these things proactively beforehand, and they're gonna be they're gonna be ready for to respond to the Mayday. Great. Okay, if that's what you're choosing to do. But do you know how long it actually takes to to put them in play? Do you know how long it actually takes for them to actually do the work that's gonna be necessary? Do they have the resources and capability to actually be able to do that? And because there's gonna be a lot of things that you don't know on the outside until you get to the inside. It's we're we're we're oftentimes we're building, trying to build this unsolvable problem to be able to solve in this in this Rick thing because it's this, it's a big giant game that we we end up playing and again looking for a magic bullet. And so when we spend time on the front end trying to prevent it, we're actually that's money very, very well spent because we know the situations that that create these for us. As we've said, we're not coming up with a whole bunch of new ways to die or unforeseen ways to kill firefighters on the fire ground. And so let's spend time trying to prevent it. And then when we start working on the specific things to do when the Mayday happens, is what do we know are the most consistent ways people are getting rescued from Maydays? Focus on that, right? Every single one of them needs air. Every single one of them needs some sort of element to extract or extricate or unconnect them or make them unlost. Right, or be found. And so, okay, you can work on certain things, but to say that all right, this is this is the way we do all of our rescue or our writ or our rat or whatever the hell we're going to call it, is we're bullshitting ourselves. We we we we absolutely and then and each other in in that. So we need to be way more way more deliberate about what the work is and all right, focus a little bit on the key most important elements, but we turn it into games. There's there's literally contests now where you can go and see who's the fastest to do whatever rescue activity they can concoct. And I don't, I guess on the surface, I don't know if that's a horrible thing, but I don't think that's the solution to this whole uh to Mayday and issue at all, quite honestly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:30

Well, to wrap it up with uh command training, and I'm gonna put you guys on the spot here because you know, really uh the the instructor cadre is Josh's responsibility, the the curriculum is Chris's responsibility. How how do you guys walk the walk with this organization and do exactly what we're talking about for everybody else?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:52

Yeah, so I'll start this off. So I'd say every single day I get a phone call or some correspondence from somebody about and tell me about blue card, tell me what blue card is, tell me what it's not. And you know, most of the time the people get way more information, I think, than they were really asking for. But, you know, one thing is is this this system has been around uh in in thought, at least in process since the 70s. So we're coming up on you know, over 50 years that this system has been being used in some form or fashion. And obviously, Chief Bernassini, you know, put all this together after he thought as a fireman and a company officer at the Phoenix Fire Department that they were trying to kill him because that that's what it means. Because they were it just yeah, it just wasn't uh like there there was really wasn't a system, right? And and so we as an organization, you know, stay tied to, and Chris is is really a pie one of our one of the people connected to it, but uh what is best practice, and then you know, staying connected to research, staying connected to the standards, and then you know, staying connected to the 5,000 plus fire departments that use the system, and you know, 70,000 something users that use the system and listening to their feedback of what's going on. And then I think, you know, part of part of our proof in the pudding is I think it's like 31 or 32 fire departments that we where we are after their line of duty death, and hundreds of fire departments after they had some kind of an event where firefighters were hurt or or oftentimes hurt and didn't come back to work. And you know, we we connect with those people and talk to them about how did it change their organization and how did it change their operation. And one of the things Chief Dyer at at the Worcester Fire Department, he I've heard him say many times that the blue card system, they've always been a great fire department, very aggressive, and I always say many, many people in the American Fire Service wouldn't be a gnat on a Worcester fireman's ass, but because they just they did they did and they do a shit ton of work, and that's what they knew, and they get a ton of resources there. And you know, after them having the system going through the training, and as they continue to build build out their model procedures for their organization, how they use it and evolve with Blue Card. Chief Dyer says pretty regularly that the Blue Card system has allowed them to be more effective and efficient and more aggressive on the fire ground because they have a system and it's organized in how they deploy. It's not a kind of free-for-all that when you get here, you just do what you think needs to be done. And you know, we've we've heard that from organizations all across the country that have made the transition. And I think that there's come there's confusion there of the unknown of the people who say a blue card, they don't go inside. You know, we they shouldn't call it blue card, they should call it pink card, all of that shit. Well, it it's it's something I said last week on on the podcast of it's the fear of the unknown. They don't even know what it is. So they question it or they say, we're not doing that, because that's just not what we do. And you know, the interesting thing is is we have uh some fire departments that are in the 10 largest fire departments in the country that use the system and they do well with it. And we have organizations that are one station that run with you know 10 other separate organizations when they go to a fire that that do well with it. So we regular we we regularly get cut phone calls, and I don't say I don't want to say it's justification, but we can line everything that we do up to standards, best practice, and the proofs in the pudding of you know, clearly the system works. And then I'm always willing to tell people, hey, call these organizations and talk to them about how it works for them because we we hear that would never work for us. And it's like, well, you don't even know what it is and and why the system is the way that it is. But oftentimes that's the that's just the easy answer of we just do what we do when we get there and it just works out. And you know, in our company we call that accidental success, and accidental success is not forever.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:53

Yeah, I think on the curriculum side of it, the one thing I'm most comfortable and confident in is that it's all explainable, it is all logical, and we can connect it to actual real instances of success when when it's used appropriately, correctly, and effectively. And we can connect it to times where you know a department or firefighters have not been successful, they have not been effective. We can connect the vast majority of the time for the lack of a system and an organization there, right? And and no use of logic there. And so it makes it very easy to actually explain what it is we do. I get it. I've been and around it, I've been around it my whole career. I'm coming up on 35 years of being in and around this system, but it has only gotten better and it has only become more explainable to anybody. And the the proof is being able to teach somebody on day one who doesn't know shit about this to on day three in a certification lab or day five and to train the trainer to actually be able to have them do using it effectively, obviously in a training environment, and then them being able to turn around and teach it to somebody else because it's consistent, it's process, it's not how I feel about it, it's not how any individual feels about it. It's we're teaching you a system. But the but the the important part of that is in our system and in our world, who's actually doing that? So the credibility and the competency that we have of our instructors to actually be able to go out and deliver that is so we get asked, and Josh probably more than me, but hey, how do I how do I get to do what what did you guys do there in Blue Card? And you know, at first my my my answer was always, hey, as soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know. But that's not a great answer. The answer is, and the standard answer is now is the the first thing you have to do is actually send us audio of you andor the folks that you're responsible for in your organization using it and using it effectively. Is demonstrate that you actually know and understand this system, that you believe in it enough to actually have taught it correctly, and that now you are executing it effectively in the real world when there's actually shit on fire and there's there's legitimate life safety concerns, and you have firefighters working in the hazard zone. That's that's how you get to be this. And I can really say very confidently, the folks that we teach with that are the lead instructors that go out and help other people become instructors, or or that they they train other instructors, have that legitimacy behind them. They can actually say and prove and and lay out pure clean evidence of no, I understand the system because this is the way we use it. And that's incredibly powerful. Very, very few places can actually talk about that or demonstrate that in the uh with the folks that are actually delivering it. So having solid information and a solid foundation to it, and then having credible, competent people that who can who can deliver it effectively, that's that's why I'm here. That's why I believe in it. That's why I'm I've invested the time, energy, and and commitment to it that I have. And so that's one of the things that actually makes me most proud of it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:31

Yeah, that that whole proof thing, you know, Worcester Fire Department, Gary Fleischer, right? Like we got audio like from them, quite a bit of audio of them utilizing the system. Cobb County sends us something on the regular of them, right? Typically it's a rescue or strategic shift or something. Kevin Alexander at Houston Fire Department, you know, and his I think when you got 88 battalion chiefs or whatever they have there, it's really hard to turn that ship of 4,500 people or whatever, but he clearly everybody in his entire district understands and and uses the system, right? We've we've we've used that audio. The Lincoln, Nebraska folks, you know, same thing. Sean Glazer at Vandenberg, you know, some of the best residential audio we ever had. And, you know, people laugh like, oh, Vandenberg Air Force Base, whatever. And it's like, no, they uh they committed to the system and they use the system, and uh a house fire isn't a big deal when you're used to fighting uh hundreds of thousands of acres or whatever they how many ever acre fires that they go to, you know, regularly, and you know, applying the system to that as well. So yeah. We're I think we're in a position that we we validate and vet the knowledge, skill, and ability and credibility of the people who are are delivering the program. And all all of our lead instructors are also committed to being lifelong learners because we we're constantly updating and evolving and connecting with them on uh what we do and how we do it to make sure that it is meeting the current standards and the needs of all the organizations out there that that utilize the system. So and none of us have that hoorah almightier than mighty piece. We want to train and educate people. We don't need to be we don't need to yell at anybody in the classroom to motivate them to complete and be successful with with the blue card system.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:44

There is a certain style of a blue card instructor that that complements the entire package when it when it comes to learning package, and yeah, definitely not not a revival. This is not the revival. Any final thoughts on this topic or anything that you want to talk about today before we wrap it up and get to our timeless tactical truth?

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:05

We can't be afraid of it. We we cannot, we have to embrace the training and everything that's going on around us. Our participation, our vetting of the systems, and where we send people will support the ones that are doing a good job, and it will cause the ones who are not or or lack the the foundation to to wither, right? And that's kind of the that's a that's a free market system, right? And so let's let's support that. And as organizations, we should. Don't you fight against it, man. You're you're you're fighting against the tide. You you're not gonna win. Figure out how to be successful with it and and integrate it, and you'll you'll you'll end up with better firefighters, and you'll actually end up with firefighters who are more engaged and interested and don't feel like you're constantly trying to undercut them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:55

You guys have time for Timeless Tactical Truth? Darn straight. All right, let's do it. Timeless Tactical Truth from Alan Brunacini. The Timeless Tactical Truths books are available at bshifter.com. Get them now, and today's Timeless Tactical Truth. Something is wrong if you keep inheriting bad situations. You will continue to be such a recipient until you fix what's wrong.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:27

Well, I'm gonna say if you keep inheriting bad situations, you need to look at what you what and how you are training your folks. Because if they are in a position because you have bad decisions because are bad positions because they're making poor decisions, or they're ineffectively operating, or they're they're conducting, you know, they're working in an unsafe manner, that's a you problem. That's an organization problem. That's a that's a that's a boss level issue, right? And that has to get fixed at your level and down, right? That the as Garrison will say, the fish stinks from the head down, right? So if that's an issue, then you've got to look at what are we teaching? How are we teaching it? How are we reviewing performance? How are we correcting performance? And how are we, you know, kind of completing that circle and and making sure that we're being more effective at talking about when we do a good job versus when we aren't. And so, so I I can't I think it would be it would be poor of us to actually look at this and say, that's anything but a leadership problem to begin with. And now you can have you can have poor performers, but we typically know how to work on those poor poor performers dealing with specific tasks. But a lot of times, the the most important tool that those bosses should have is a mirror.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:52

Well, guys, thanks for uh a great topic today. And I think we'll probably have a part two at some point because there's plenty more to talk about, but just scratching the surface. We appreciate everyone listening today to the V Shifter Podcast. Hey, make sure again, subscribe, like it, share it with your friends. Until next time. Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you later.