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     Recently I had a pinnacle event occur in my career. I was participating in the Job Related Physical Abilities Test at work. I found myself after running this test saying what the heck just happened?  A friend of mine was on duty and assisting with the testing.  He asked me after i completed the exam if I was OK?  The conversation continued with me asking how do I look?  His reply was, "Like you crap."  I replied, "I feel like it as well, I may be a statistic."  there was some humo

    Since 1985 I have been involved with training in one way or another.  I am completely convienced that outstanding organizations in our realm become outstanding by helping their people grow and progress through a formalized training program.  Organizations who don't train find dozens of excuses not to institute training programs.  One of the most frequently used excuses is funding.  Unfortunately training is all too frequently viewed as a discretionary expenditure.  Training funds are usually the first cut fr

Over the past 3 months I have had the opportunity to be in a lot of different regions of the United States and I have taken that opportunity to conduct a study of just how well we have the basics of our job down. This was accomplished by asking what areas firefighters, company officers, chief officers and instructors thought we needed to focus our training efforts on. There was an overwhelming number of responses of be need to go back to the basics. In asking further what they thought the basics included they focused on hose line operations, search and rescue, utilization o

      As we are entering the budget preparation season we know that unfortunately, training is al to often viewed as a descretionary expenditure by many governments and organizations.  Training dollars are usually the last budgeted and the first to be eliminated.  It is a battle to get city, town, village and county managers to make the investment.  They alway want experical data or proof it will work.  This type of thinking has been going on for years upon years which stems from these individuals buying into the "The Big Lie": The return on

Over the years I have sat in many of classroom, participated in countless hands on training drills and evolutions, but I have found that the education that was gained from talking and listening to people who have been in the business for many years has proven to be one of the best learning experiences ever. It has often been said that after the class or sitting at the bar after a conference program is when the real education begins. Some would argue, but I have found it to be true. This is when you can get one-on- one with the in