Jim Ed Nimmo: OSFA President’s Report

The last season of my time on the board is about to begin.

The truth is I wish I could have accomplished, and when I say accomplished, I really mean facilitated, more in the time I spent moving through the positions on this board.

I have never really utilized this space to give vanilla reports and gratitude that were just a rehash of the various scheduled events the OSFA puts on every year. I have tried to make my reports something of substance, interest, humor, or all three; something I would want to read.

When considering those elements, substance is the most difficult to put in writing. It isn’t difficult to say something of substance, but it is very difficult to do it in such a way that no one interest group is offended to the point that they no longer hear the message, or worse yet begin to actively work against the goals of the organization. Truth, reason, and accountability are of little value once that threshold is crossed.

There are three main interest groups in the OSFA. Active career firefighters, active volunteer firefighters, and retirees. Within each of these groups, there are internal interests that are often at cross purposes with one another.

To further complicate these interests, there are comingled or tangent groups who exercise influence on the interests of the main three, some of which are legitimate, and some of which are not. None the less, they still have influence.

I thought for my final report in this magazine as the President, I would go over these main three interests and what I think the future holds for them, or at least what they should or should not be concerned about.

First, active career firefighters. Up front, I will say this is my group. It is what I know. I’ll also admit that as my time in this group wanes, I’m not sure I still recognize what weighs most on the mind of a firefighter with a few years on the job, but that doesn’t keep me from being able to recognize what the future holds for this group.

The only thing I had on my mind at a few years on the job was how awesome it was to get paid to do what I do. However, at some point, the “more” started to take a toll. I can’t say the “more” has any real value at the end of the day, because the “more” did not put more money in the bank (although almost every “more” was accompanied by the suggestion that doing more would somehow lead to the other).

The “more” didn’t lead to more bodies on the truck. The “more” didn’t lead to better equipment. Most of all, the “more” hasn’t led to an increased feeling of accomplishment for the only job I love.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy actually helping people, but a strong argument could be made that the “more” we have transitioned to doing as the fire service isn’t helping those in need. At least not a need that can be addressed, it has led to enabling.

If you want to know the real toll on mental health in firefighters, real firefighters, it isn’t a result of horrible calls and high stress (although those are there). It is the impact of living and training for high stress events while constantly responding to calls where all we do is offer the illusion of help.

One of the largest factors that will change things in the future for career firefighters is technology. Easy now, I’m not going to talk about robots and suppression equipment this time, I’ve done that before. It won’t immediately impact line firefighters who are actually out on the line doing the Lord’s work, but it will eventually.

A day is coming when a large section of what middle management (yes, I’m talking about various white shirts, Chiefs, and Staff Officers) does daily can be done by an algorithm, an app, a program, or some kind of software. The truth is that day is already here, it will just take some time and a few environmental factors for those that count the beans at city hall and make decisions in khakis and business suits to realize it. That crunch is already being felt by middle management in the private sector.

The second factor is something is going to have to be done about Emergency Medical Service. The never-ending expansion of what defines an emergency is going to have to come to a head.

If you are a leader in your department, you had better be defining what that end looks like. I’m talking about decreasing the definition of what warrants a response, level of response, and urgency of a response from both transport and non-transport fire departments. If you think expanding into the social services realm is a means to an end, it is not, it is just a means to a never-ending loop of inadequate funding and ultimately an unhappy workforce stretched too thin (a situation you really have not had to deal with).

Come to terms with what your organization does, what tangible impact it has at 80% (and I’m being generous here) of medical runs, and the truth is clear. I know it’s a difficult task, it requires real work, unpleasant decisions, real executive level work, and I don’t think the solution can be copied from someone else’s homework. You can say I’m wrong, but I’m not.

To all the locals, at least the big ones, but the smaller ones as well in this state. My hat is off to you at the inroads you have made in local, county, and state politics with an establishment that has not traditionally been our friend.

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PRESIDENT

Jim Ed Nimmo Tulsa FD jimnimmo7@gmail.com

1ST VICE PRESIDENT

Tony Lopez Midwest City FD tlopez@midwestcityok.org

2ND VICE PRESIDENT Donnie Bennett Oklahoma City FD donben1889@gmail.com

3RD VICE PRESIDENT Cary Provence Yukon FD cprovence@yukonok.gov

PAST PRESIDENT

Cliff Davidson Ringwood FD davidsoncliff@yahoo.com

June 6, 2023

42nd ORFA Convention in Tahlequah

June 7-10, 2023

129th OSFA Convention in Tahlequah

June 7-10, 2023

91st OSFA Women’s Auxiliary Convention in Tahlequah

Sept. 19, 2023

OSFA Public Education Summit at the Bethany Children’s Center

Jim Ed Nimmo, continued

I think we currently enjoy as a whole, at least on the surface, a good relationship with the political establishment in power at all levels, but it has only been that way for a relatively short period of time, and only because we don’t ask too much from them.

At the end of the day, we are like a side relationship. That’s OK, but there is a price. We are never going to be a primary relationship, and we’ll never replace what big money does for politics. Unless of course, one of us is sitting at the head of the senate, house, and the Governor’s office.

I don’t know if our pockets are deep enough, or our skeletons are buried deep enough to make that a possibility, but as one of my old professors used to say, “politics is the art of the possible.”

For those of you whose careers are not passed noon yet, start thinking about your tomorrow. You are building the foundation or lack thereof now. This job provides a good living, even if it is relative to where you live. It provides a generous retirement, but that retirement will never be generous enough.

It ties into something I was told when I started at Muskogee which is “You will have the opportunity to make a second living on your days off, but don’t get your bills higher than what you can pay for with this job.” That sounds obvious, but in a society driven by consumerism and immediate gratification it is hard to achieve.

By the time you retire, you had better have your money right enough to afford to live comfortably on half, and when I say half, I mean what half represents the day you retire, and what that same half will be worth 30 years from that day. I’d also suggest you consider where your better half fits into that equation, because unless they are producing their own income and retirement, the half they will be spending from comes from yours.

Know this, the funding crunch on the pension system related to plan B, and measures that have been taken to shore it up, as it is