This is part 1 of our series of interviews at the Washington Fire Commissioners Association Meeting Annual Meeting in 2023. We talk to these Fire Chiefs and Commissioners about our three pillars of a successful and well functioning department: People, Purpose, and Path.
If you’d like to submit a question or an AMA episode or would like to work with us to improve your public service team, go to: www.teamprotego.com
So thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Tell me what brought you to the conference. Well, I try to hit every
educational opportunity I can. And of course, conference is one way to
do that. This one in particular because it incorporates the Washington
State Commissioners, which are our bosses. Mm hm. And this is a time
for us not only to get together with other fire districts and bring my
staff here to other also collaborate. But you got the fellowship and
the educational opportunity all rolled up into one. That's wonderful.
Don't get away as an opportunity to have all my Commissioners in one
place and be able to chat over dinner about what's going on in
Department in the District in our community. Wonderful. And tell me
about introduce yourself if you could, and tell us the context of
where you work and some statistics about your people in town.
Absolutely. So, my name's Eric Kicks. I'm the Fire Chief of King
County Fire District 20. We are a unique fire department. We are a
combination department, which is situated right in the middle of
Seattle, Renton, and the city of Tukwola. We are 3 square miles with
about 20,000 residents. Okay. We have a major highway going through
our district. We do a lot of automatic mutual aid with Tukwila and
with Renton. And again, what makes us unique is that combination part
of our department, where we still have volunteers in an urban setting,
which makes our department very desirable for people trying to get
into the fire service that want that real urban feel in that city
feel. Because like I said, we respond to the Renton Airport, to Boeing
to V. Mac where the Seahawks are. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So we're very
fortunate to have a variety of diverse calls and also our community is
very diverse as well. That's amazing. I'm constantly being asked by
people about I want to become an EMT, I want to become a firefighter,
how do I do it? And I say, well, go to a volunteer department and
they'll put you through your EMT training for free potentially, or
your training, they'll get you started. And they live in urban centers
and they don't have access to being volunteers because you can't leave
the city to make a rig for a call. And not all departments have the
residency programs and the sleep over and things like that so you can
call. So that's fantastic. I didn't know that existed. Yeah, so does
We're barely hanging on to our volunteer program because we're so
successful in our volunteers getting hired that our numbers are
shrinking fast. Oh wow. We've actually had to hire more career
firefighters. And to anyone looking to become a firefighter, they
can't be shy about it. You know, they have to knock on the doors of
the fire station. They have to look for mentor. They have to ask
questions. They can't wait for it to come to them. They have to go out
and get it. That's really great. I appreciate that you brought up
mentorship because that's what I hope to do is connect all of these
people that asked me that question. So speaking of people, then tell
me, have you guys been able to surround yourself with the right
people? How is recruitment and retention going for you? Recruitment is
easy. It's the retention part. You know, again, with the amount of
volunteers that are getting hired, we would do a class of volunteer
academy with eight people and end up at two at the end. And spend
about $30,000 in overtime for the academy. Which, you know,
mathematically that doesn't really work out. Yeah. That's not a good
return on in, it's a bitter sweet because it's like my children, when
they get hired somewhere, it's a great feeling for them to call me and
say, geef, I got a conditional offer. And you know, it's better sweet
for our departments for that to happen. Sure. I think it's important
for departments like yours to embrace that role. Though there are
certain departments that are sort of pass throughs where we start
people off, we put through the training. No sooner do we get them
trained, then they leave and they go elsewhere. And I think that's a
fact and that's, that's a hard road to handle. But maybe there's a way
to lean into that, to embrace it and to say like we take pride in
training people really well. We take pride in when they go into these
other agencies. And by the way, maybe those other agencies could throw
us a bone in some way. Maybe give us some consideration or something
that's funny, you say that 'cause that's exactly what's been talked
about a lot, but it never happens. Oh, oh gosh. I know. I want to fix
everything like. Okay. So tell me about your purpose. Do you think
that the members of your agency have a shared purpose and they're
moving toward that purpose? I believe we do, mostly because a lot of
our career staff actually were born through the volunteer program. So
for many years our career firefighters only hired from our volunteer
staff. So we know them very well. We know their personalities, their
work ethic, and so when we hire them, we're very confident that
they're not only going to pass the career academy, but they're going
to make great firefighters and great employees for the community.
Yeah. Which has worked out well for us. And getting back to the
volunteer side of things is when we do our banquet every year, we call
them alumni and have them come back for the banquet. Oh, I'm clapping.
I'm literally clapping right now. That is amazing. I have not yet
clapped on the podcast, but that is. Very nice. I love that. That
that's great. That is really embracing Then this idea that you're
training people well and you've got a lasting relationship even if
they're no longer active in your department. Yes. Perfect. How about
the path ahead? What? Do you have a clear path ahead? Do you see where
you're going or are you still working on that picture? We are
definitely working on that picture. Our success has kind of been the
death of us a little bit. Because again, we do. We started out with 30
volunteers about five years ago. Mm hm. And we're down to eight
volunteers today. Mm hm. And again, they're getting hired all the
time, so it's hard to hold onto them. So we've actually hired more
career firefighters to shore up our staffing. Working out great for
us. But that next step on a volunteer program is what we're really
looking at right now. We don't have, I kind of cut off the mailing
list and applications right now because we just don't have the
capacity to do another career or another volunteer academy and lose a
bunch of people at the end. Yeah. How about any sort of merger
opportunities with other volunteer agencies? Maybe sending people to
their academy or splitting that, any possibilities? Yeah, that's one
of the things we talked about. There's a few other fire districts in
what we call zone three, South King County, which is um, Claw and
Mountain View Fire and Rescue. And they are actually in the same boat
as we are. As far as you know, how do we maintain a program when
people are getting hired so fast? Yeah, you know, and so outside of
zone three, we really haven't collaborated with any other volunteer
departments. Oh wow, interesting. Someone who was just here, it's
going to be part of the podcast is the exact opposite problem. They
have great retention. But very few recruits. Smaller, much more rural.
So there's less of a pool of population add to it, but they've worked
on that. The culture of family and cultivating, really keeping people
in. And so of course, it's a very different thing. You're training the
rest of the world basically. Right. Yeah. So thank you so much for
coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate your. You're very
welcome. Thanks for having me. So, Dan, thank you so much for being
here today. What brought you to the conference? What made you pick
this conference? Well, we are a fire district, so we have five fire
commissioners, and they would like to attend this conference, and they
would like me to attend with them. Okay. All right. And can you
introduce yourself in terms of the department that you work for? Maybe
some statistics about what you do. Sure. I am the fire chief of
Mountain View Fire and Rescue. We are in southeast King County, a more
rural agency. We have 70 square miles, about 35 firefighters at this
time. And I came to this department three years ago as a deputy chief.
Previously was with a qualifier for 17 years, and in March I took over
as the fire chief. Okay. All right. And Eric recommended you. He said
he's bragging on you and says you're the first female fire chief in
King County, so congratulations. Thank you for that. Thank you for
choosing to go up to that level because I think there's a lot of
really talented and wonderful women that are in fire and EMS and
police, and they just they like what they're doing and they don't
necessarily promote up. So I'm always really pleased that you made
those choices. So thank you. So today we're asking people about people
purpose and path. And so I wonder if you can tell me, do you have the
people that you need? Are you getting them? Are you recruiting them
and retaining them? I actually feel very good about the people that
we're bringing on. So three years ago when I started, we had 24
firefighters. We're at 35 now, so it's a significant increase it is,
in the number of firefighters and the success rate is very high. We've
done a really good job of, um, recruiting and I feel like what I'm
doing is bringing on people that I would like to work with. And I
still strive every day to make my job more fun and more enjoyable. Fun
is sometimes a bad word because it makes it seem like we're not being
responsible. But I'm looking for people who will help enhance that
environment for our firefighters. 'cause my job overall is really to
make our firefighters job more enjoyable. And they serve the public
way better when they're having a good time with their job. And so if I
can find people that same mentality where they're here for the right
reason, not just to be in a job, but to actually be in a family. I
think that that serves the community better. Super sorry about that.
Yeah. I was like, That's the first time that door has opened this
whole day No. And I saw it happening and thought it's not going to hit
her. No, sorry. It's okay. Okay. All right. So we've covered people.
Well, actually I'd like to go back to what you said. You're hiring
people that you want to work with. I think that's a fantastic
sentiment. How are you finding them? I think it's just through. Well,
twofold. We are just, I'm part of the interview panel, so I get to
kind of experience people when they're at their most stressful point,
which is the interview process. And so I kind of look through the
nervousness and get to the people who actually have enthusiasm in
their character and in their voice. But overall, if I meet someone
just in the world in general and they seem like someone who's athletic
in their nature, who seem like they were fit enough to do the job. I
just ask them if it's something they'd be interested in pursuing.
Yeah. And then at that point, I steer them towards doing a ride along
with us. We're doing almost a ride along a day with the public. Or
either firefighters, potential firefighters, or people from the public
who just want to know more about the department. I think that just
reaches more people, people who just have that drive to get more
involved with something they're unsure about. And that actually gives
me a lot of confidence in them too. If they're willing to stick their
neck out and come right along and meet our people, they're going to be
more successful in the interview as well. Wonderful. I have a great
opportunity to talk to EMT trainees and fire science students at the
community college where I teach. And they're asking questions like,
you know, how do I get the job? And I'm like, well, first of all, go
ride along. Mm hmm. The departments love it when you show an interest
in them. And more importantly, if it's not the right department for
you, then you'll figure it out on the ride alongs. Right. So kudos for
doing as many of the ride alongs as you're doing? Yeah. Yeah. And
anyone that wants to I'm willing to help anyone who wants to get
better at the interview process or the testing process. I don't always
have as much time as I did when I was newer in the department. Mm hm.
I'll find them the right person for sure too. All right, I am now
imagining contacting you down the road for another podcast on that
topic. So yeah, that's wonderful. Okay, how do you feel your
department is doing with regard to having a shared purpose? Do you
feel like you're moving towards something together with the shared
purpose? Yeah. I think that's I think our folks hear about it all the
time. For me, I really want them to enjoy their job. And we have
mission vision values. And I don't care if they memorize what the
mission vision values are, but I can just tell by interacting with
them daily if they're really enjoying what they're doing at the fire
department. Okay, wonderful. Yeah. And it's just getting enough time.
Like I wish I had more time to go and have lunch with them and
interact with them more daily. Yeah. Right now, it's every other day
or every few days. I really get on their morning meeting where all the
firefighters are kind of having a zoom call just because we're all so
remote. But I like to just get some face time with them. And if
something's wrong, everyone already knows that they can't come to me
with a complaint. And if I hear about some complaint, I challenge them
to fix it so we don't have to worry about complaints anymore. We're,
we're at this process right now where our department is on the move
on, just improving overall. Mm hm. And I think the environment is
really good right now, so don't come to you with a complaint. Come to
you with a solution for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great plan. Yeah.
Okay. And how about the path for the future? Do you see where your
department's going? Do you feel like you have a clear path? You still
working on it? Well, I always say that I don't exactly know what my
next step forward is, but I know what's been in my rear view mirror,
and I know that I'm not going to repeat errors that I've seen in the
past, not necessarily just mine, but ones I've experienced in my other
department. But I think we're at a point where we're collaborating so
much with the other entities that we serve. So we serve the city of
Black Diamond and we serve the Muckle Shoot reservation. And to me
it's like we have three different fire departments. So the opportunity
with all three entities, our district, and the city and the tribe has
been so good. And we interact with all three with public events. And I
attend all the elected official meetings that I can. And I think we're
just at a really good trajectory right now. So that sounds fantastic.
I literally feel bad sometimes because I always say I don't mean to
come across like I'm too happy about things. But the positive
direction for our department is there right now. And I'm just I'm just
kind of helping steer the ship, but the folks in the department are
really the ones who are driving the enthusiasm. So Wonderful. Well,
thank you for sharing your time today. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
No, thank you. Sorry about that. Okay chief. Well, thanks so much for
agreeing to be on the podcast we spoke yesterday, and so you know a
little bit about what we're doing here, but I wanted to talk to you
about your people, your purpose, and your path, Judge. So can you talk
to me about your people? Are you getting what you need when you're
hiring? Are you recruiting and retaining people? We are getting what
we need. Hiring. We're in the process, like most departments, there is
a nationwide shortage of paramedics and we are hiring basically only
paramedics currently. We've struggled in our retention because we are
a small rural fire department, we don't pay as much as some of the
larger departments. Some departments are paying $15,000 signing
bonuses and things like that, And they have a $10,000 a year raise or
$10,000 more wage. So they're getting through our program, they're
getting through probation. We get them through the JATC program, which
is here, you know, become a Journeyman firefighter, and then they go
to a larger department. So, we're back filling in rural departments.
It takes a special type of person to want to stay in a rural
department. You know, we have the longest transports, the longest
trips. And And we don't have a two minute transport. Our average call
is 2 hours long, okay, where we're going. So it's a challenge to get
people who want to work in those type of situations. We don't have new
stations, we don't have big brand new fire engines all the time and
stuff like that. So yeah, it's almost like a junior league for a part.
And if you ask lots of chiefs from smaller departments, it's the same
thing. Yeah. And that is definitely what I'm hearing. You said a lot
of things about what you don't have, and I know it's a real struggle
to compete with wages and so on like that. What do you have or what
would you like to have to help attract these people? Well, I mean it's
a positive place to work. We have a lot of fantastic employees, team
members, they're from our district. The biggest issue we have is
people that if they come in and they're not from the area. Mm hm. You
know, they come in from Seattle or Tacoma or very big cities where
there's a lot of people and then they come out and it's, you know,
very rural. It's a different world for them, so they tend to want to
go someplace else. But the people that are there are very close knit.
They're tight knit. You know, with only a maximum of 30 career
firefighters, everybody knows everybody's name, their kids, name what
sports they're in, things like that. So they all live, a lot of them
live in the district, so it's their people that they're treating. You
know, if you hear call go out, everybody knows the address. Yeah. In
the whole district, out of 140 square miles, I could tell you that
that's whoever the Johnsons, the Smiths, whatever, so they know that.
So that's one of the big benefits to that. And it takes a certain
amount of buy in for people to want to be in that type of situation,
you know. So we actually have had very high success hiring people from
Eastern Washington who don't want to work in larger cities. They're
used to the rural area, long transports, long responses and actually
treating patients for a long period of time as opposed to just two IV
syene and getting them to the hospital. I think it's interesting to
think about places that are inner city and talk about their
progressive protocols and all of the amazing skills and wonderful
things they can do in the carrying blood and operating independently
on some of these things. And yet with such a short transport, you
never get past oxygen and nitro. You never get to the fiber analytics,
you never get to the blood products and things like that because
transports are so short. So there's this real personal challenge that
you undertake to be a paramedic in a rural area with such long
transport times and making, you know, going all the way through your
protocol and then recycling and starting all over again. Right. Yeah.
I spent 24 years in Seattle and so with the Medic One program, which
is an incredible program, but yeah, you see that all the time. At that
time it was Seattle and it was Phoenix and a couple of other places
doing all the major studies, but yet again, it's a two minute
transport. Exactly. So you're not seeing all that stuff. You know,
you'll stay on scene long enough because the ER's don't want a patient
that's not innovated and has two lines in. If it's trauma, you know,
whereas well, we have plenty of time to put lines in and all that
stuff because it's a 45 minute transport. We cover from the the base
of Mount Rainier ALS the base of Mount Rainier all the way to Roy. So
our ALS is 210 square miles. Okay. So we have long transports. So you
get to you definitely fill out that entire aid report when it comes to
the flow chart of vitals and meds and drugs and things like that?
Absolutely. Do you feel a common purpose in your department? Do you
feel like your people are they have a shared purpose in what they're
doing? Yes. We've been in a transition for a while. We've had I've
been at South Pierce now for just over three years. And before that,
we had the interim fire chief, and they had a four year chief before
that. So there's been a lot of transition from leadership style to
leadership style, but since I've been there in the last three years,
I've hired one third of all the firefighters and paramedics. Okay, so
we are working on changing the culture. We're reorganizing the fire
department, going to shift battalion chiefs instead of daytime
assistants, so for the safety of the firefighters, and coordinating
with the surrounding fire departments such as Graham and Central
Pierce and Ashford LB. So we're going more in their leadership style
and command structure. So there's a lot of things that are positive
about it, you know, but like anything else, you have a culture.
There's a few people that fear change firefighters. What do they fear
most is change. Yeah. But I think, overall, with the support of our
Fire Commissioners, we have very strong support from the Fire
Commissioners, and our admin staff has had some turnover. But right
now, it's working really well together. We've just finalized two
contracts. Contract with Eatonville. We're going to work on annexing
the town of Eatonville next year. So we'll be whole, our fire
district, we won't have any other cities, towns, anything in it. It
will be just South Pierce Fire and Rescue. So that'll ease up on some
of the other political tensions that go on with small towns and things
like that. So, yeah, I think everybody is positive going in the same
direction, but, you know, you're always going to have a Nasa area here
too. That's unfortunately, you can't make everybody happy as a fire
chief, but I think we're moving in the right direction. Okay. And
you've talked about direction, you talked about what you're hoping to
do with annexing other areas. Do you have a path that you're on or are
you still seeking that path? Do you see five years, ten years down the
road? Well, yeah. We're already looking at five to ten years down the
road. There's a big push in Pierce County for emerging fire
departments, regional fire authorities. We have some excellent fire
chiefs that are in larger departments that are working together.
They're doing regional training facilities, joint training. So they're
moving towards, and multiple fire departments have the same union
already in our department, so they're just bargaining units in the
same local. So there's a lot of continuity between them already. So I
would forecast, you know, within five plus years, there's a good
chance that South Pierce may be part of whatever they're going to call
the larger department. Just because for the citizens right now,
everything is based our budgets based on assessed value, and being all
rural fire department with 24,000 people in 140 square miles, mostly
rural. It's a fairly small budget, so we are doing a great job with
the budget that we have. But you know, we still cross staff with two
people. Cross staff, engines and medics. So medical aid, jump on the
medical unit, fire, you jump on the engine with a minimum staffing of
six people for 140 square miles. Wow. If we were to be a part of a
larger department, they would fully staff an engine four person engine
company, as well as a two person medic unit. So you double your
ability to respond, you know, things like that. It might cost a little
bit more money, but overall, the service would increase just because
of the sheer numbers and the budget that they have, Judge. All right.
We have the smallest budget of any career fire department in the
county by far. Okay. How's your community relations within this large
area that you covers? Lower population, giant area. But how's your
relationship with the community? What kind of outreach do you do? We
have a fantastic relationship with our community. We just last year
passed an EMS levy with the highest percentage ever. We just passed a
fire levy lift this year with the highest percentage ever. I believe
the annex next year is going to fly through. We are very involved,
even with our low staffing, we are involved with lots of public
events. We are working towards, you know, transitioning from pub
education to CRR community risk reduction. So we're working towards
that, adding events, being involved. We do a lot of, I mean, we've
probably done 15 trunk retreats. We do high school school visits, home
schools, rodeos, Everything you can think of we're involved with. And
again, the nice thing about that is we go to football games. Some of
our firefighters coach all the PB football, so we're going to football
games. We're out there all the time and and the support shows that
through our social media and things like that. So it's, we do a great
job with the people that we have and that's just going to increase as
we move forward. That's wonderful. Well, you said that it's okay for
me to come down and interview you there and I'd really like to do that
and learn more about your department. Yeah. If you've got a whole day,
'cause it takes a whole day to drive around, drive around the
department. It's a big department. There's a lot of good things going
on. You know? Again, we're challenged in some ways, but I think the
attitude of the Department overall, again with the Commissioners and
everybody is moving forward and it's going to do nothing but get
better once we get the annex complete and then we'll just have to
start greasing the wheels for the future. Okay. Perfect. Well, thank
you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time, my pleasure
to have a wonderful oh, good morning, chief. Thank you so much for
being here. Can you introduce yourself, your department, in the
context that you're here at the conference? Sure. My name is Bob
Holman. I am currently a fire commissioner with Grand Fire and Rescue
down South Pierce County. Okay. Yeah. And give me some statistics
about grand fired, okay? Sure. Grand Fire is covers 70 square miles.
We have 107 firefighters in suppression with obviously a support staff
of about 20. It's a mix of kind of a difference between urban and
rural. I mean, we kind of make that transition because some of it's
urban, some of it's rural. Mostly rural, I would say. We provide all
kinds of services besides your fire and EMS. We also have combined
Hazmat team, we have a little bit of a water rescue team that I'd like
to see enhanced because we have a lot of bodies of water and we don't
currently have anything but surface water. And so we provide a full
range of services there. We have a paramedic program that's one of our
challenges is to recruit and retain paramedics. And it's just, yeah,
it's a regular community, you know? Okay. Well, we're here today
talking about people purpose and path. So the first question I have is
you mentioned already that you're having some difficulty recruiting.
Can you talk about your challenges in recruiting and how is retention
going for you? So our challenges in recruiting tend to be a little bit
more centered around the paramedic field. We've been struggling with
this for gosh, I've only been a commissioner for four years. But ever
since I was a commissioner, this has been kind of a focus and it has a
lot to do. Initially, I think we were under paying the paramedics, so
we would train them. They'd go through the program and they'd see
something better and more money and they'd leave. We worked on the CBA
for Graham to prove the differential for paramedics. We've gotten to
the point now where we're offering $15,000 hiring bonuses for
paramedics, lateral paramedics, so they don't have to go through the
school. So that's actually been fairly successful in the last two
hires. We've been able to get three last time and three this time. So
it looks like that's working and because the incentives spread over
time, we're guaranteed to at least have them for a few years before
they decide to leave. We're hoping that that doesn't happen, but I
think people, the culture, gram, were growing leaps and bounds. So
since I got on the board in the last four years, we went from having
17 people on shift, having 34 people on shift. Wow. Yeah. So we've
almost doubled our force. We've passed the FBC fire benefit charge.
Our funding mechanism has been shored up, so funding stable. We're
getting new stations, we're buying new rigs, so the morale of the
whole fire department has just increased 1,000 times. And I think
that's going to be huge for our retention. We have a great public
relations Gal Briana. She does a great job of social media, and she's
known in the fire service all over the place because of the job she
does, and I think that helps. I think people see what Graham's doing,
they get excited about it, and then because of our new funding
mechanisms and our staffing levels being increased, we're doing a lot
more regionally. It really opened the door when we stopped having two
person engine companies and Croft staffing the rigs and doing all that
to make it a little bit more desirable for other departments to say,
hey, you know, we can include you now? Basically, yeah. Okay. Because,
you know, the whole thing is we don't want to call for a ladder truck
when we think there's only going to be two people on it. Yeah. Or not
staffed or whatever, you know, So you upgrade the consistency and, you
know, you're going to get called more Judge. And as a commissioner,
you're really responsible in the money basically how the money goes
out. How do you make those decisions on what upgrades to make
obviously the hiring and the paramedic recruitment and so on. But
getting your staffing up, how do you how do you get that funded? How
do you get people to pay more? Well, actually, so I don't know if
you're familiar with the fire benefit charge. We used to have just
regular taxation where, you know, you'd have $100.50 per thousand max,
and then you'd have an MMO or EMS Levy. We passed a permanent MS.
Levy. Gosh, I bet it's been ten years, so we always have that to rely
on. And we had an MMO and maintenance operation. And when we did the
FBC, what that does is it puts more of the onus of the funding on the
commercial businesses and the large properties. And it's based on the
fire response, it's a square footage charge that every home pays. It's
fair to everybody. And what that ultimately does is it lowers your
assessed valuation collection to $1 per 1,000 and then you collect the
FBC. So most residential properties actually took a reduction in
taxes, went to the FBC, so that obviously benefits, you know, 80% of
the population of, of course, to commercial properties pay a little
bit more because a fire response at a multifamily dwelling or, or
strip mall or whatever, you know, requires more resources. So it's a
super easy sell for the constituents on funding. It's consistent,
which is nice because this year we've took a drop in our assessed
valuation, which you never like to see in a fire department, but I
think it's probably statewide, if not everywhere. And what we can do
then is we can adjust the fire benefit charge price to level out our
budget, so we never take a drop in budget, We never have to lay people
off. We can adjust that to legitimately provide service. The nice part
about it is when we passed it, we said we would it would not exceed
25% of our budget. It can statutorily go to 40% but we said we would
go above 25. We're currently at 16, which is great. And that's the
raise this year of the FBC, what we're asking for. This is currently
coming up in November at our next meeting to approve that raise, but
this constituents won't see. Won't see a raise in their taxes. We just
have to kind of do the show game and, you know, raise one a little bit
to cover the last, So yeah. You mentioned earlier that your
department's had an increase a boost in morale since the staffing has
improved. So do you think that your department has a shared purpose?
Is there a sense of purpose that you're all moving forward along?
Yeah, absolutely. You know our department, along with South Pierce,
who you just talked to. Ta their people, our people, Central Pierce's
people. They're all one local. So the firefighters are all, they're
technically indifferent in bargaining units, but it's all one local.
So you don't have the labor issue to crack when you start doing real
regionalization. And so I think the firefighters are probably more,
they see the advantage to efficiencies. And, you know, for our people,
it would be a significant increase in pay if we went with Central
Pierce or we did regional, And it wouldn't cost the citizens anymore.
It would actually lower the price of the Graham constituents. So I
mean, there is a benefit to that because I know as a board member, I
retired from the Renton Fire Department after 35 years, and so it's
interesting to see the difference in in perspective. You know, when
you're a full time firefighter and then you go to a commissionership.
You know, that's exciting. It's exciting to regionalize and it's
exciting to increase your efficiencies and they just see more options.
So people are really I mean, the firefighters would do it tomorrow.
Yeah. But we want to make sure that we're thoughtful in the process as
we move forward with both South Piers and Central Piers and East
Pierce. That all works for the whole entire organization. Okay. Do you
see a path forward? Do you know where you'd like to be? 5.10 years.
Are you able to plan that far out? Yeah, I think so. We have a great
we did our strategic plan actually during Covid. We actually passed
our FBC during Covid two at 70% rate, which was our chief, then Pat
Dale. He did a great job. You can imagine trying to market a tax
during Covid. Covid. But on the other side, people are going the fire
department, you know, everybody needed the fire department during
that. So it was kind of a catches catch, can there. But yeah, the path
forward is, like I said, working for efficiencies. Now we're doing
combined IT, we're doing communications the same. We're doing public
education together. We're looking at logistics. What we did a poor job
of when we increased the firefighters, we didn't do a good job of
support. So we had to hire our HR director, we had to chief financial
officer. All that stuff was really firefighters that were put into
those roles as they went up the ranks. And it doesn't work when you're
doing a multi million dollar budget. You need to have people that
actually know that work. And so we've hired some really good people.
We're starting to look at all those efficiencies for logistics and
fleet and facilities and all those things. Yeah, we can see a path
forward too. I could see the whole entire South County, just like King
County has been doing over the last few years. We have a new training
consortium we've just launched last year. So it's funny in the fire
service, when I started there were lines and all the chiefs wanted
their kingdoms. Mm hm. And now it's getting, so we're getting the
right people in the right positions and they understand that. It's not
about that, it's about what you can do and it's exciting. It's
exciting to see that growth. Wonderful. Yeah. Well, thank you so much
for being here today. I really appreciate your time. Yeah, of course.
Of course. I've enjoyed it. First podcast? Your first podcast? Yeah.
Well, we'll make sure that you have your Ing. All right. Thank you
both so much for being here today. Can you introduce yourselves with
your department in the context that brought you to the conference
here? Dan, Commissioner, Chair for the Hat Island Fire Department,
Snowmah County Fire District 27. And Brad Tine, commissioner, and
firefighter EMT for District 27. All right. Well, thank you both for
being here. Can you tell us a little bit about the unique nature of
your fire department, your lifestyle? Well, I've been on this island
for almost 38 years, and our district has grown from a few
firefighters to now we're at 38 on file, although that's not who all
show up for the monthly meetings. But our district is small and
remote, and that's the very key, is remote, and we have no other means
off the island. Other than by boat or if it's a helicopter. Okay. All
right. And Dan, there's a 50 year round residents on the island but
about 250 resident says, is that right? There's actually about 50 full
time residents all year round, but I think there's more than 300 homes
now. Homes now. Okay. Because they're barging homes over. Okay. And
that means that, for example, your winter population is probably
closer to the 50, but in good weather, your summer population on the
weekends can be closer to several hundred because of the amount of
homes out there. Yeah. I would say maybe 200 in the summertime. Okay.
Would would be the maximum. Okay. And it's greater on the weekends.
The population rises and falls with the weekends and of course, the
onset of summer, the big weekends, the three day weekends, it more
than doubles, so we have quite a population on those days. Okay. And
we're here today talking to people coming to the conference about
their people, their purpose and their path. So my question to everyone
is, how are you doing at getting the people that you want? Getting the
service from the people that you have. Recruitment and retention.
That's an issue on our fire department right now. Well, our population
is aging for one, and so I think a lot of people are aging out of the
service. And most of our calls, like most fire departments, are 99.99%
medical instead of fire. We have very few trained EMT's. We only have
five that live on the island full time, which granted that ratio is
really good. One EMT for every 17 residents basically is how that
works. Yeah, that is. But I think what we call the hobbyists that only
come out once a month. It's the core group of people that manage the
whole thing. And that is about ten of us all together, so it's really
small. Once a month training isn't enough. Mm hm. It takes a lot of
commitment. And I think a lot of people are hesitant to make that kind
of a commitment. They want the T shirt, but they don't want to make
the commitment. All right. So Rad, we also are talking about the
purpose. How do you think that your department comes together behind a
shared purpose or a sense of purpose for what they're doing? The core
value or the purpose of the fire department is really drawn from the
pool of resident firefighters that we have. We are all on a single
purpose and that is providing care. 99.9% of our calls are all
medical. It's such a small community. We know the patients have
empathy for population, and especially our patients. So I think that
we really try to bring that to the whole fire department, whether it's
the people come out on the weekends or come out and stay for a couple
of weeks and serve on the fire department. But we, as a core group,
have one goal in mind and that's to provide service to our residents.
It seems to me you've both said the same number, like 99% of your
calls are medical, and that is an accurate statistic for you out
there. And that's an interesting thing because in general, fire calls
are about 20% of what fire departments do, and EMS calls are 80% and
that, you know, a few percentage points in either direction. But
you're a small island with an aging population, and technically
there's not a lot of mischief to get into on Hat Island. You know, you
can go to the golf course and have an accident. You can have an
accident at home and of course, general illness. But what you don't
really have is drinking establishments, restaurants, driving. There's
not that many cars on the island. So your statistics are very
interesting and stand out in this group that I've been speaking to. I
wonder if both of you can tell me what you see for the path ahead. If
you can imagine five or ten years down the road. Or maybe what you're
doing to prepare for the path ahead. Well, I've been thinking about
this a lot because I work on the budget for our department. When you
come to our fire station, it's more like a museum rather than a
regular fire station because all of our equipment is old and used. I
would like to see more permanent residents involved in the fire
department, greater involvement with the community, the people that
are there all year round. I would like to see more focused training on
our specific needs. That's why we hired somebody to come out and do
wildland fire training because that's a very specific need for our
island, and we had a wildland fire a few weeks ago. We need more focus
on professional training because our volunteers aren't up to the task.
I Sure. Yeah. Training, I guess what I'm thinking is able to get
younger people involved is our biggest problem. And it's basically
because it's mostly a second home to get the younger person. They
either have to be working from home or they have to be independently
wealthy to be able to live out there to make any kind of a living. Our
biggest hurdle that we are trying to get the word out to anybody who
moves out there and whether it's there weekenders or not, we just try
to grab ahold of these people that are becoming residents and try to
promote the fire department, Make the fire department something that
they want to be a part of. Well, I appreciate you both being here, and
of course I know you and I love you guys. I love Hat Island. So this
is particularly special for me. But we also just had an interesting
experience where we sat together in a grant writing seminar here. And
I have 1 million ideas and you guys have just solidified a few things
even more that maybe I can talk to you about. Oh, that's actually been
fun. We appreciated for us to talk about. Yeah, yeah, definitely
appreciated. Thank you both for being here. Very appreciated. Thank
you. Welcome. Anytime, anytime.