1st Vice President Mike Byrd Pay It Forward

job (International Association of Fire Chiefs, 2016).

How many of us remember our first day at the fire station, whether it was in recruit school or your first volunteer drill night?

Did you feel as though you were being prepared to enter the profession to be successful, or did you feel as though you had made a grave mistake?

For many of us, we were fortunate enough to have someone who cared enough to take us under their wing and act as a mentor.

More than likely, our mentor had someone mentor them or had a bad experience and wanted to break the cycle.

These types of firefighters are a crucial component of organizational leadership, and remember, leadership does not equate to rank.

These mentors use a form of informal training that teaches newer personal knowledge, skills, or abilities that are difficult to guide through formal training (Brady, 2012).

Some things cannot be taught in a classroom or read in a textbook. Mentoring, succession planning, or paying it forward, whichever term you wish to use, creates an environment where fire personnel learns from the experience of others.

Every fire department has that old firefighter who never moved up for whatever reason. That career lieutenant is a valuable source of knowledge. We can only hope they embrace paying forward this experience that was given to them and not holding onto it.

Formal fire service leaders must embrace these individuals and encourage them to pass on what was loaned to them.

Education has its value. However, it can never overtake experience. This informal training has more than likely saved more firefighters.

Unfortunately, these crusty old firefighters and their value are overlooked because they did want to wear white helmets or go to college or fire academies.

Chief officers and company officers are also responsible for sharing their experiences and how they became successful.

In the past, many fire service professionals felt that knowledge was power that could be used by someone else to move ahead of them.

They would hold onto the knowledge that would prove to be helpful to others. That is a sad fire service tradition that needs to go away.

We hope that concept has died off with the fire service dinosaurs. We also hope the dinosaur eggs left behind them will not continue that tradition.