FEO Parnell had over 35 years on the job and still cared enough to be the guy to clean his windshield every day. FEO Parnell started every day by washing the rig and specifically cleaning his windshield carefully. Engine 50 of the DFD had a man named Dave Parnell as the FEO for the company. The DFD uses FEO (Fire Equipment Operator) as a position in the company. An excellent example of this can be found in the documentary “BURN,” about the trials of the Detroit Fire Department (DFD). There is obvious respect among the company for their Senior Man. The Senior Man wears the uniform proudly and represents the company as we all should. This person will fix what’s broken, whether it is equipment or a person who needs some help. He/she is someone who picks up trash and washes the rig because they want to. The top answer is someone who leads by example. However, they help us uphold some traditions as we move into the new world of firefighting that started after 9/11/01. It’s something we all know of but can’t easily define. We all know of many of these sayings that have been passed down but can’t find them in books. It is a hundred-year-old concept that isn’t in the manual of operations or the policy books. In the Sacramento Fire Department, it is known as the “First Whip” because the position goes back to the days of horse-drawn equipment. It is a conscious choice to be a Senior Man. It is a position of responsibility without rank or pay. These top eight sum up the thoughts of the members of the CHFD and may well differ from your department. A Senior Man in the fire service will surely differ from that of industry but may more align with the informal position in the military, you judge. It isn’t easy to define what a Senior Man is, because there are so many examples and opinions. Someone who’s opinion is trusted by the officer.The position is not based on time on the job.The top answers to the Senior Man question were: The first step was to distribute an informal survey internally that asked the members two simple open-ended questions: What is a good firefighter? And what is a Senior Man? The information that BC Gaeta passed along to me did not come from research or what was read in some leadership book but the honest thoughts and opinions of everyday firefighters who deal with the Senior Man, good or bad. Doing this allows you to replicate this same informal study and see if it is the same for your department. This is not a research project or a scientific study by any means but one that uses the everyday firefighter that you all have. After finding the article and reviewing it, I decided to incorporate many of BC Gaeta’s ideas and use it to how important that Senior Man is to you as you work to prepare those rising stars in your department to take over your job one day. This got me thinking of the article that I stuck away and how it can help today’s fire service leaders prepare tomorrow’s leaders. I thought it was an exciting idea but put it away thinking nothing of it until now when, as I was reading an assignment from one of my students at Columbia Southern University, the topic of the Senior Man was part of the assignment. He called it the Senior Man, and while not politically appropriate for today’s fire service, I will stick with this traditional term but mean it for both men and women alike who serve their communities. He told me of an informal survey he had started using of the members of the Cherry Hill Fire Department (CHFD) at the time. We spoke of his desire to complete his Master’s and then took on the EFO program, which both he eventually completed. On this day, I had a meeting with one of my BC’s, Tom Gaeta, and we spoke of mentoring and his plans for the future as he was an up and coming officer in the department. It is no secret that the fire service is “graying” and we, as today’s leaders, need to prepare the future leaders and not take what we have learned and simply go into the sunset without passing it along. We all know that mentoring is the best way to pass along both historical and institutional training and knowledge we have obtained over the years to those coming up to take our jobs. One day in 2013, I was looking at how to set up a mentoring program when I was fire chief in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
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