How’s your leadership pipeline?

This episode of the Better Every Shift podcast is sponsored by the Firestore. Learn more about getting the gear you need at prices you can afford by visiting thefirestore.com. Hey everybody, welcome to the Better Every Shift podcast. My name is Aaron Zamzal. I'll be your host today. I am a company officer in Wisconsin. I'm also a writer, author, and speaker here on Fire Rescue One and just damn glad to be the host, especially on days like today where I get to bring in a friend, I'd say mentor, fellow company officer who has really helped introduce me to some great education and really helped me kind of grow personally. It's Battalion Chief Jesse Schilling from Sarasota. Welcome, by the way, Chief. How are you doing? Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Doing pretty good today. Can't complain. It's sunny in Florida. It's not too hot. So it's not snowing. It's not snowing. Not snowing. Not yet. And you can walk outside without a parka, a hat, and long underwear and gloves. Yeah. So Sarasota County, Florida Fire Department, you're a Battalion Chief. You had safety and recruitment there. You've had 19 years experience there? Yes, 19 years. Almost 20? Yeah, I nearly promoted battalion chief of safety and recruitment. And before that, I was a lieutenant for just about eight years. And then in the final years of being a lieutenant, I was doing a lot of action battalion work. Spent a year as an interim battalion in my current position. So I had a good chance to template, see if I liked it, see if I wanted to continue this route, switch to a 40-hour work week versus working 24-48. So that was a huge shift and change in the operational culture going from 24-48 to 40-hour work week after 18 years was a little bit of a shock. Still adjusting, but there's definitely pros and cons to both. But overall, it's been a very positive and beneficial move for my health and professional. I was going to say a little bit more sleep. So you're a battalion chief and you had safety and recruitment, and that's on a 40-hour initiative, right? A 40-hour schedule. But it also helps you, I think, probably gather and get a little bit more organization around. I know you had the firefighter wellness. You do risk management. And then also leadership development, which we'll talk about today. and it looks like you've kind of progressed from that front line all the way up through. And one of the things we want to talk about is you and I met at FRI in regards to the IFC company officer section because you serve on their board and you're also on the IFC iWork Council. First and foremost, tell everybody like, I was just, I didn't know that that existed. And I've talked about it a couple of times on the show, meaning the company officer section. When you look at IFC, International Association of Fire Chiefs, you're thinking chief. And I always thought, ah, I'm frontline. I'm, you know, now I'm a, right. I'm just a company officer, but there's this whole section with all of these resources and all these people that are helping each other. Tell me a little bit of what's the company officer section about? Why should we know about it? Doesn't matter where you are in the fire service. And some of the things that you've found have been beneficial. So yeah, like you were saying, the company officer section, everybody kind of forgets that you don't have to be a chief officer to be part of the company officer section. This company officer section started back in 2010, was a task force. IFC was recognizing that they needed to kind of start helping develop company officers for professional development and just kind of strengthening the connection with IFC and just company officers in general. By 2015, it was a formally approved section. And now they're in their 10th year, this is their, you know, 10th year anniversary of having a, being a formal section, but, you know, it's taken a long time to get here to where we're at now, but yet we're still at the very beginning of the formation of the company officer section. There's so much potential. It's just right now focusing on getting the word out, like you don't have to be a chief officer to be part of the company officer section and, you know, just focusing on that and then showing people what we're able to do. So some of the products that we're getting ready to push out is a mentorship program. So we can take firefighters who are spying company officers or if we have company officers that are spying chief level officers or even if we have chiefs that are looking to network and increase their engagement as well to join this mentorship program, we'll pair you with the right mentees and just to continue to further enhance your career and your opportunities within the IFC and the fire profession as a whole. There's so many different things out there that you might not even realize are an option for you, but we have the ability to connect you and gain you access to things you may have never even thought about. Yeah, I think one of the things that stood out to me was there are some great resources on how to transition from that frontline firefighter to now that company officer. And it's a how-to manual, right? Like it's said right in there, here's some of the challenges you'll face. Here are some of the ways to combat it. And it gives you more, you know, for me, right? Like control is everything, especially when you come into a new position, you're constantly grasping for things that you can understand and control when everything is so new. It's like, hey, that's part of the process. And it kind of took me through that. You know, I also use some great mentors I've had. You know, I'm very fortunate. I get to talk to mentors like yourself every day or every week on the program. So I have that, you know, network. But that network actually is there for anybody. It's not just me. Like, you know, when I met you down at FRI, we started talking and I'm like, all right, man, I need this. I need to officially join. I was kind of introduced to a lot of the resources just through other interviews. And, um, and right. And we were digging in even, you know, behind the scenes. What are some of the things that you recognize that you used and, and are using currently from this section? Uh, a lot of it's going to be going towards the succession planning. That's kind of one of the big things that drove me to this section was its emphasis on preparing the fire service and other fire departments to start bringing their people up, getting the education, the training to pursue those next steps and to lead. You know, I don't feel that that has gained a lot of traction because we still have a lot of departments out there that don't have succession planning in place. And how do you get people to move up in the ranks if they don't know what they're supposed to do? And that was one of my biggest attractors was like, okay, so what do I need to do educationally? Where should my eyes be looking? Everything could be crafted and tailored to fit your department, your organization, your career path. But I like that about it. That was my biggest draw. And then looking into the mentorship program, connecting with other organizations, other entities. I mean, we have great collaborations with the hazmat groups, the EFO section, safety health and survival group, you know, just having those abilities to reach out when there's questions that need to be asked. One of our biggest issues in the fire service is being in a silo. You know, in my department and most departments, myself personally, for the longest time, I was in a silo. I only looked internally. I did not look at externally. I didn't know what was going on in the department across from me. I didn't know what was going on in the department across the country for me. And so once that veil kind of came off and I started looking around and spending time in the company officer section, I was like, well, there's so much more out there. And, you know, and then even taking that step of applying to be on the board member, which was, you know, like, should I do it? Should I step out of my comfort zone? Like, OK, it's fine. I'm like, I'm OK with being rejected. And then saying, no, like now we're not interested. I'm like, that's cool. I'm OK with that. Well, I got lucky and was chosen. So now those opportunities have only increased now that I'm on that board and part of the company officer section. And one of our focuses is to take even the people that didn't make it, just the members of themselves. We want to help them grow. That is our biggest emphasis. We just want to keep growing our company officers to be the best leaders that they can be. You know, one of the things that I would like to see start coming out more is a focus on emotional intelligence in the fire service. We have to be better leaders. We have to be sympathetic. We have to be understanding. We have to be good listeners. We have to be active in all those things. We deal with so many people, whether it's external people that we're responding to, to help assist them, or even the people that we were dealing with in our stations. And especially at the company officer level, you have to be a really good listener. You have to take care of your people. We don't provide those tools in the fire service as a whole well. We'll teach you tactics. We'll teach you how to put a fire out. We'll teach you command operations scenarios all day, every day. We're really good at that. We're just not the best at soft skills, hard skills, like just in general, talking to people, taking care of our people. Yeah. And, you know, that's a big focus in mind because it also kind of plays into the recruitment side of things. Because if we're not taking care of our people, why would they want to come? Yeah And that and part of it too is our generation you know I think that was one thing that right you look back at how you were brought up right There was always this suck it up kid Like I get it But we now exposed to more data We're now exposed to more research. We're now exposed to, you know, actually like tracking what works, what doesn't work. And, you know, we were talking just there's still hazing. There's still safety issues. There's still, you know, issues where, you know, mental health becomes a huge crisis because a lot of that does go back into leadership. And we were maybe not paved the right way in some cases, but we also have to take the responsibility to make it better than when we found it or when we went through. And I think that's one of the things that I'm finding that IFC, that this company officer section is saying it's okay and here's some resources to help that, right? Like, you know, learn from maybe bad leaders instead of relaying that on, you know, and I know those are conversations that happen on the regular, right? When you guys meet and when we have conferences, you know, what are some of the other things that surprised you when you joined and just started to look out and go, holy cow, I never knew any of this existed? that probably the amount of resources and that are out there. Oh, like in the sense that we just think of ourselves as an operational level. We don't realize that there is teams of scientists and researchers all over this country that are looking out for our mental health, our physical health, our emotional health, all of it. I didn't realize how many there were. Most operational people have no idea. There's a huge network of people that are doing scientific research to make our profession better. And we have to listen to it. We need to start listening to it. And that data and that science, right, as a company officer, you need to at least understand what they're saying, right? So, so part of that, like science to station is one of those organizations, um, you know, on the mental health side. Also like, you know, you and I talk like anytime you have an issue as a battalion chief, right? You got a laundry list of people you can call and say, Hey, have you guys ever come across this? Right. Like, yeah. And that's the, that's the nice thing. I mean, being in a Metro department, I recently learned in the past couple of years, what a Metro department was, was just purely based on size. And I initially ended when I first got in this position was communicating with some smaller departments. And more like on the injury tracking, how to understand what's happening within the organization. What are they doing? What could we be doing? And I quickly learned that size matters and that I was talking to the wrong people who might have had one injury per year. So then I reached out to DC Fire and I was like, hey, what are you guys doing? And then to understand more of what they were dealing with at a larger scale like us, like what's happening? What can we do to make things better? Are they dealing with the same issues? Absolutely. We all are, for the most part, have the same issues. It's just little nuances in personnel or tracking methods or any of that. But at the end of the day, we're all the same. But if we can communicate with those other departments, you can make things more efficient or a better process or get time back by making a better process. It's a big thing. Yeah, I think that's the thing, too. Like there's so many common things. Now, granted, you kind of learn, like you learn the foundation with maybe some of these smaller departments, but then how do I apply it to a much larger scale? And there's some people that are already doing that, right? Like there's some people that, hey, so, you know, everything from like, hey, can you share that spreadsheet? Or now that some are using AI, can you share that, you know, AI strategy with me? And I think that's one thing that we have to constantly, you know, push. it's sometimes uncomfortable to reach outside your own department isn't it it is yeah i mean it's you're asking strangers for information so you have to get out of your comfort zone and it's like it could be a little awkward you know encourage you to be nice you're respectful but at the same time the fire service is a great copy and paste uh profession everybody's sharing information anyways so it's not like it's a surprise you know we ask people all the time for information and that's okay. This isn't college. You're not getting honor locks. No one's checking. As long as it makes sense, if it's tailored to your department, it's compliant, it's compliant with your state, it's NFPA, all of that. But there's just so many resources out there. We're very resource rich right now with information. Whatever you want, someone's probably already done it before. You just need it, make it better and move forward. In my current position, while I've been with my organization for, you know, just 20 years. There's just a lot of stuff that would never existed in my entire career. So one of my, one of my jobs is to go back in time and fix a lot of the things that were just broken, not updated, needed cleaned up, needed to be more efficient. So then once that's done, hopefully I can focus on the future, present and future. What can we do better moving forward, especially in the physical safety space? I know you're a big fitness aficionado. That's one area that I'm wanting to push us to. So if we have a physically healthier workforce that'll reduce our injuries, which is one of the hugest consumers of our finances is injuries and time off and time loss. And if I can reduce that, that's my goal. When you get to the from day one to retirement with your mind and body intact, that's my goal. and that should be everybody in a position like this is goal. It's just to be able to get people there safe, healthy, enjoy retirement. Yeah. I think, um, Nate Rice, uh, is a chief that I've, I've talked to numerous times is big on community risk reduction. And, and I think, uh, CRR plus DRR equals a happy, healthy career. And that's community risk reduction plus department risk reduction is really the, the, the formula, right? And you're kind of thrown in at both of those, If we can reduce the amount of the small traumas, injuries, and calls within our area, which gives us more time for the actual emergencies, it helps with our mental health and then it allows us some time that we can focus on our own health. But all of it comes back to a comfort zone. You mentioned that numerous times. So how comfortable were you writing an article for us? Oh, not comfortable at all. nothing like being completely open and vulnerable to the entire fire service even with this podcast it's like super uncomfortable but i i've i have found in the past few years that to get out of your comfort zone and see what you're capable of like that was that's probably one of my most enjoyable experiences right now my professional development is stepping out of my comfort zone am i capable of that can i do that I'm like, holy crap, I can do that? It's just a weird feeling, but it's also such an achievement. I mean, if you were to flash back to who Jesse was in high school or academically, I never thought I would have an associate's or a bachelor's degree working on an MBA when in my ninth grade year, I only earned three quarters of one credit and barely graduated because I was not great at school. Now to flash forward to my 40s, I'm taking multiple classes, continuing my education. It's very surreal, but also very rewarding. I love my department. I love our profession. I think that's probably one thing I'm getting is more sentimental with my age, that I really care about the fire service. and leaving it better right just a little bit better even a better right um which includes bettering yourself i mean it takes a lot of people 19 years to get their college degree that's what my brother keeps telling me oh yeah yeah right yeah but but it's it's that mindset like you gotta you gotta get uncomfortable and your article by the way i want to point it out because it's actually it's very well done and it talks a lot about um you know the basics of resetting recruitment fundamentals. And I did want to touch on that a little bit because it is a huge issue within the fire service, right? Like how are we getting our next generation firefighters? I've mentioned it numerous times and you and I have actually talked about it. Like we do not market ourselves very well. So, you know, what did you find out and what are the, what's the essence of that article? What I was noticing is that you look at the media attention of the fire service. It's so negative. I mean, it's like we're dying of cancer, we're dying of suicide, we're dying of this, we're all getting PTSD. You know, it's just not great. And that's what sells. I mean, you know, negative articles, negative headlines, that's what's attractive. And you think with COVID and everything else that's happened, that, well, maybe this is one of the biggest reasons that we're just not getting the applicants on a national level that we used to. You know, some departments are doing great, no problem. Whereas the smaller departments are struggling. because you know this profession does take a lot but that's why like if you can rephrase reframe okay what are you doing to combat those issues what are you doing for health what are you doing to prevent cancer do you have two sets of gear are you encouraging and forcing and policy uh you know preliminary exposure reduction gear washing are we cleaning annually semi-annually after a fire like what are you doing and say what the mental health side what are you doing for mental health? Do you have a peer support program? Do you have culturally competent clinicians, you know, where your personnel can reach out to, to find the help and support that they need? You know put that in your forefront tell people Hey this is what we doing This is the efforts that we have right now you know to combat these bad things that yeah they part of our profession but we could reduce it We can mitigate it the best that we can And if something does come up you have the resources or tools to get you the help you need and to prevent it Right. Whereas other professions, you're still having some of that trauma. They're just not talking about or dealing with it. It is in the forefront a little bit. I think, too, like the sleep thing, I know that some departments, especially down in Florida, they're combating it with, you know, the four shift or the four platoon. And I know that firsthand that a lot of those departments that switch to that have zero problem with recruitment at that point. Right. Like even emphasizing, you know, hey, we're we're looking into or we take these things into consideration and we try to have resources to help our employees. Right. Like we're not leaving them out on this island. I mean, what other things are really working in recruitment right now that you see? I think a lot of it kind of is like a grassroots campaign. You have to be out there. You have to be communicating, engaging at a local level with one schools, all the schools. Like we go to colleges. For a lot of people, this might be their second career where they're at their early 20s and they're like, you know what? I don't like an office job. I don't want to be stuck behind a desk. But they don't realize that being a firefighter is a possibility. that you have the ability to get into an amazing profession where you're not stuck behind a desk. You're the day changes consistently, constantly. It's always something new. It's, you know, the education, there's always something to learn. You're never not going to, you just, you're never going to stop learning in the fire service. There's just too much as much as we could wish we knew everything is just impossible, you know, and just inspiring those. I mean, we see kids adults all the time. They're like, wow, I never even thought about that. And then it just clicks. The Firestore. Equipping protectors with passion. Every decision we make as a company is about you, our customer. We wouldn't be where we are today without you, and we don't take that lightly. We understand that having the right gear can mean the difference between life and death. Our goal is to get you the gear you need, when you need it, at prices you can afford. Visit us at thefirestore.com for everything but the truck. and shop our family of brands, including Streamlight, MSA, Lion, Fleer, and more. Now let's get back to the show. And then the other area that I'm finding is working with vendors. So like we have Firedex who does our fire gear. So they listen to some of my crazy ideas and to even be able to kind of have more adolescent gear size so people can try on our gear. Because right now, if you were to try on my jacket and you're a teenager, you're going to be dwarfed in it. You know, I'm not even a big guy. So if we can get them to kind of feel what it feels like to be a firefighter, get them more comfortable. It's more exciting. It's like connecting, you know, more emotionally engaging and physically engaging. And, you know, having partnerships like that is great. And hopefully we can take that and just keep growing it and growing it. And then hopefully we're going to have a big regional training facility completed, I think, December of 2026 next year. Yeah. Super excited about that. Super excited about that. Yeah. I mean, this is a massive facility. Again, being able to bring them there and give them the ability to get hands-on. I mean, there's some great programs. I know like Renegade Inferno Society out in Oklahoma. They take a female cadet program. It's like a two- or three-day program that gets you hands-on, gets you in the gear. You're pulling hose. You're getting exposed to fire. That is such a great program. That's what I envision here. I would love to see that templated and broadcasted out across the nation. Hopefully that's something that we can work on. And that way every department has the tools and the ability to create a program. Like here's your program. Here's what you need to do. Go get it. That's what I would like to see. And then too, there's a lot of scholarship opportunities. I know the Florida Fire Chiefs Association has a scholarship. Our local technical school has a scholarship for fire and EMT. Or if you're here in Sarasota, it's basically free to go to fire and EMT school. There are scholarships all around and that's a great point. If someone is restricted by – that's what's restricting them from getting involved, right? We've got to eliminate those barriers. And I've seen even this past week where social media paramedic guy, Salty Paramedic, created the American First Responder Association for scholarships to help pay for EMT and fire school. So it's like there's people that are seeing that there's a need to eliminate these barriers all over the place. And if we can do that either locally, nationally, or have all these other organizations say like, hey, we're going to eliminate all this. Let us help you out. And hopefully even like with the IFC, whatever we can do to kind of help. That's the goal. Increase recruitment, eliminate those barriers, whether it's financial, fiscal, whatever it is. That's the goal. Well, I think too, as a company officer, we also have to understand that we are a liaison between the public. So there's, and I'm using it, this is fresh in my mind. We just, I just had a shift the other day where we had a car accident and a FedEx driver recorded it all and was there helping this, this woman before we got there and, you know, was just very calm, collected help, you know, with the officers. And afterwards I, you know, as a young guy, I just said, Hey, you know, we're hiring or our application process is open. And he just looked at me and I said, you could drive FedEx on the side. You can become a firefighter and do this full time. I said, you did a great job. I'd love to have you on my crew. And we have like some cards you can give them where you can just say, hey, go to whatever fire organization it is. But I also think that one of the things, we're not good at asking in the fire server. We're not good at asking for money. We're not good at asking for people. We're not asking. We don't ask for anything because that's not why we do the job. But we have to get comfortable with that because people don't understand it. If you're not saying anything, especially in this day and age, right? It's the squeaky video gets the likes. We got to be out there with that because we do compete. So I think that's the other part about grassroots is find people you want to work with and tell them about it. Cause like I didn't, I got in full time at 36 only because I didn't know it was an option. You know, uh, how did you know, how were you exposed to the fire service? How did you know you wanted to do this? So, yeah, I had no idea. I wanted to go in the fire service either. I happened to move down from Wyoming to Florida. And at the time, my mom's roommate was in fire school. I was like, okay, cool. I'm like, and it wasn't even on my radar. I was getting ready to go to college, trying to figure out life. He's like, well, why don't you go to EMT school while you're trying to figure everything else out for college? I'm like, all right, I did that. Went to EMT school, which was like heavily fire-based. And kind of like a lemur, I was like, everybody's like, okay, after EMT school, we're going to go to fire school. I'm like, yeah, sure, why not? I got nothing else going on. And it just snowballed. I mean, again, it's just those little moments of capturing someone's attention. Be like, hey, this is an option. Can be successful. Like, I'm a product of it. You're a product of it. I mean, people just don't realize that it's a possibility. It just takes communication and inspiring those people to like, hey, this is an option. We were at a recruitment event last week. And it was mostly for trades, which we're a trade. a lot of these kids were in mechanic school green school and they're like well why would we want to be firefighters I'm like well you can continue what you're doing there making X amount of dollars and you can also become a firefighter and take your trade that you just learned in marine operations or AC and be a firefighter and then you're going to make an insane amount of money plus you got a pension, health insurance, health trust all of that and they're like oh I didn't even know that was an option like yeah we only work 8 to 10 days per month it's not a bad gig Yep. Yeah. And the other part of it is that, or you can make the same amount of money and only work eight to 10 days a month and be home for your kids. But I think the other part about it is contributing and giving back. And we don't talk enough about that. You mentioned that, you know, that we talk about just the downside of the, of the fire service. That's what's out in the mainstream, I think more. And then when people are exposed to it, they watch Chicago fire or California fire, which we all know is like, come on, man, that's not reality. You know, so for that company officer, you know, thinking about, hey, you know, how can I contribute to benefit the fire service? Are there any other resources that are coming out that you're excited about that kind of align with that? I think right now the biggest one is our mentorship program. That's probably the biggest resource. We're really excited about that. Just again, just to get open people's minds to different opportunities. what we're doing or what's possible within the IFC, what's possible as an officer or even a future officer. The other thing that we're now a part of is the CFSI. We have four or five board members that are going to be part of the Congressional Fire Service Institute's Emerging Leaders Program. That's very new. I mean, that's taking, you know, really a lot of company officers, a lot of people within the fire services in a whole to Congress, basically. We're going to go to D.C. and we're going to learn on the politics side of things, which is going to be pretty amazing. It's going to be a different experience. Again, one of those things that you don't think about when you think about the fire service. Okay, what does the politics at D.C. look like when it comes to the fire service? Yeah, how to not get kicked out of the White House. I think that's your and my goal, I think, because we're on that committee. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's going to be very interesting. Of course but in all seriousness so far like you know the first couple of meetings it really what they are They teaching us like here Here the terms to use here how you get your meetings here the talking points And it's a brilliant kind of I love that mindset because right. Like we're we're big, dumb animals. And we sometimes come in and go, why aren't they listening to us? Well, they will. But we have to have the same voice. And what I've found so far with CFSI and what we're doing with even NFFF, part of their fellowship program, is all about getting on the same page, talking about the pertinent issues. And then how do we transfer that? How do we communicate that? And it's funny. That's what you started with when we started this whole conversation, right? How do we better communicate to our own people? And how do we better communicate to the communities we serve? You know, and looking at that, like personally, like as you've gone through your journey and as you continually learn more, like the biggest changes you've kind of seen in yourself and where do you want to continually grow? The continuing education has been so valuable. You know, I've had every class I take, I can almost immediately apply it to whatever I'm doing professionally, which makes me feel good in the sense it's like little glimmers, little shines. that like, hey, you're on the right track. What you're doing professionally, what you're doing educationally is applicable to everything you're doing right now. It makes me feel really good about myself because there's times during accounting where I'm like, why am I doing this? I don't want to do this. Get me away from this as fast as possible. It's not fun. And just the ability to share that information with those that are coming up. They're like, hey, I was you. I was 98% of the fire service. I had no idea any of this was going on. if I can share that information, if I can just be like, Hey, engage you with like, Hey, this is what's going on on a national level. These are the resources. This is happening outside of your world. If you want to get more involved, you can, you can get involved as much as you want. You just want to be, have some situational awareness of what's going on nationally. Or if you want to get even more in depth on the politics side, the safety, health, or survival side, there's so many different options, but it's just, whether it's like people learning to become a firefighter or even with firefighters in the fire service, Like all these are options. It's limitless of what you want to do, what you want to become a part of. It's never ending, you know, but we just need people to be aware and start venturing out of their comfort zone, venturing out of their, their silos and just getting exposure to everything else that's going on in this profession. Cause there's a lot. Like, I think sometimes too, one of the hard parts about being a new company officer is asking your, um, you know, your crew or those people you're leading, like, how am I doing? It's more about being vulnerable and being willing to ask those questions. You know, like I don't know everything. And if I don't know, I have to be confident, comfortable admitting that and being able to go to my boss or another chief and be like, hey, what do I need to be doing here? What am I missing? What are those puzzle pieces? And that's OK. I mean, you don't have to know everything to be able to do a good job. You just need to know who to ask and where questions to ask and be humble to ask. I mean, and that's okay. Even as a company officer, you know, you need to be able to communicate to your people. Like, I don't know that answer. Or even like you said before, like having, Hey, am I doing a good job? What can I do to be better? You know, am I missing something? Am I not being attentive? Am I distracted? You know, having those open conversations and just being, having more candor and being understanding. And it goes both ways because if you open up to your crew, your crew is going to open up more to you, you know, and just it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to not know everything, you know, and if you have a big ego, you need to keep it in check. Like, don't be that guy. Don't be that guy that nobody wants to talk to because you're just going to be a little them, degrade them, you know, not inspire them, not promote them, not lead them. You know, don't, don't suppress people. Don't suppress your people. I've seen that a lot. But it's something that I hope to get away from. I'm seeing a shift in culture from high ego people that like a suppressive culture to seeing a lot of younger generations pushing beyond that, gaining more knowledge, more leadership skills. That is the way we're going. We're changing. We're improving. Have good officer academies, leadership academies, lieutenant's academies, captain's academies. Implement that. Build that into your academies so it's like constant. You know, whether you're going to be an up and coming officer, you're already an officer. There's levels to being able to have those hard conversations with your crew or to be able to understand and receive feedback from your crew that it's OK. We can build that out in training. You know, you can build everything out through training. Just keep it in there. You know, keep growing your department, you know, develop those skills, develop that emotional intelligence, develop that psychological safety within your organization. that it's okay to speak up, that you're going to be hurt, that you're not going to be shot down. It could be your first day. If you see something wrong, it's okay to speak up and say it. You have 15 years on, 20 years on, and a room full of chiefs. And if there's something wrong, you should feel comfortable that, hey, this is going to end badly. It's okay to speak up. It's just changing that culture and getting everybody on the same page and understanding. But I think the fire service is going in a good direction for that. Well, with leaders like you and what you guys are doing with the IFC company officer section, I think that's – I feel like we're in good hands. Bringing it all back together, somebody listening, they're like, well, I don't know if I want to join another organization. How can I go and learn a little bit more about this? What's their next step? My recommendation would be to go check out our company officer section website. You can go through some of our old articles that are on there. Everything's about to get revamped. Connect with us on Facebook. We have a section there. We're trying to engage with our, you know, our members on that section. And then also if you become a member, you can go into a, there's a forum on the back end of the IFC for the company officer section. So if you have questions, you can post a question or you can even reach out. I think a couple of our emails are on the site right now. Just reach out to us. We are all very down to earth. We're all accommodating. We all want to see everybody succeed and grow. Yeah. You know, if you have questions, like you said, like, well, how does this pertain to me? we can explain it and we might, you know, if you have an interest, like one of the ones that we keep getting quite a bit of is like the hazmat side. You know, we have some great people in hazmat on our board that are connected on a, on various other boards. So we can kind of help guide you in the right direction to help find the answers that help suit you to make you a better officer, chief officer, firefighter in general. Yeah. And to direct you into that, like to the other resource, because there's so many on there and I'll have to, I got to compliment you guys. When I remember, and by the way, if anybody is interested, another reason to go to FRI, you don't have to be a chief to go to Fire Rescue International to the IFC's national conference, company officer. And it really will help introduce you to people kind of like-minded people like yourselves and just be able to ask questions. I remember when I went down to join, you guys were closing up shop and I just walked in and I'm like, you know, I've learned so much about what you guys are doing. I need to join. I've just been procrastinating and I think we must have had 10 people all of a sudden just talking right just about well hey here's some things to look at and man we should really start looking into this and lo and behold now you and I are on some committees together and you know met a lot of other people within that section and I'm learning more about just IFC and just the fire service in general and you know so I I greatly appreciate how just how open you were and, you know, just welcoming. When I came down there, you're just like, yeah, you know, there's no pressure to join. But if you do, here's some things that you can look forward to. Right. And like you said, you never imagined that it would lead to articles and now interviews and that. And, you know, so thanks so much for writing the article. It's a great article. We'll leave a link here. Appreciate it. And right. Like, I think that's the other thing is as you grow and you join these organizations, you may have a thought that you're like, well, I wonder if anybody else has the same thought. That's one of the things too. Like I'm, I, I, I love it when someone listens to the podcast and says, Hey, I want to write an article. I have this idea. We were just talking to Janelle behind the scenes. She's looking for people that want to do that. If you don't think that you are going to be a company officer, if you don't think that you can contribute, you don't think you can write, well, look at me for God's sakes. I'm still doing this. Right. And as Jesse said too, You know, never thought he would write an article, but you can always reach out to the show at bettereveryshiftatfirescou1.com. And Jesse, I know you're always willing to have great conversations with people, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We're more than welcome to reach out again. Whatever we can do, I think everybody has the same goal. You know, making everything better the next shift. Like you want to make everything better for the fire service. That's our goal, you know. And it's not just your goal. It's not just my goal. there's so many people out there that are just trying to make this profession better. Perfect, man. Thanks. You left it easy to close, right? So now all I got to say is get out there, learn something, do something and share something to make you and those around you better every shift. Thanks for listening, everybody.