Appearances
Upwards and Onwards
Right before New Year’s Eve is the traditional time for us all to reflect on the previous year and think about where we’d like to go in the future. For me, this is a very special year as this December I received a promotion to Captain, and only a few weeks later, I became a Dad.
While we adjust to the family changes that these events will bring in 2015, I’m adjusting my schedule to be able to be available for my family and my new crew as much as needed. This means that I’ll be missing many of my friends and colleagues at many conferences and events that I’ve been attending for years. While this makes me a bit sad, I’m excited to be able to one day introduce my son to some of the great men and women that I call my brothers and sisters in emergency services, from all across the world.
So if I miss seeing you face to face this year, I’m sorry, but know that I’ll be thinking of you when we’d normally be getting together and know that Betsy, Danger and I wish you a wonderful holiday season and a joyous and prosperous 2015 for you, your family and your crew as well!
From Lake Placid to Lake Tahoe
Fall tends to be about the busiest time that I have presenting at conferences and this September kicked off with three weeks of travel to some of my favorite conferences with my favorite co-EMS Educator who also happens to be my ever-lovely wife Betsy. As we hit the road together for what will be the last time for a bit (as we’re preparing for the arrival of our first child in December) I think we’re paying special attention to enjoying spending time with friends that we meet along the way.
When we began this venture (traveling and teaching) that’s what we decided to do and I’m glad to say that with the large commitment that it takes to bring our show on the road we still enjoy every minute of it.
We began at a conference that is new to us, the Initial Assessment Conference in upstate New York at beautiful Lake Placed, right by the Olympic Center. A very cool place with very cool people. Next stop was further down in New York and a bit closer to home for us, but one that we wouldn’t miss for the world, the Pulse Check conference whose educational content is organized by our good friends Mike McEvoy and Richard Beebe. Our third stop and final trip together for a while was a bit further. I presented the a preconference session and the opening keynote presentation for the National Association of EMS Educators NAEMSE Symposium. I’m happy to say that despite the challenge that the King wildfire nearby in California presented, the conference was very successful and for those of us who got to tour the area a bit, Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada mountains were amazing.
The reason that I mention it is that I believe very strongly that to remain safe, effective, happy and sane in emergency services, you have to be able to enjoy your work and your family/personal life. Sometimes you have to make sure that you’re taking time so these two aspects of your life don’t encroach on each other. Other times you if you can make those two things work together, that can be okay to. Either way, if you get a chance to travel, whether it is a short drive or a 5 hour plane ride away, take the opportunity to not only learn something new from someone from another part of our great country, but take a minute to make new friends or enjoy the company of old friends in a new place. Take every opportunity you can. Any steps you can take in that direction will be worth the walk. Trust me.
Thanks, and I hope to see you out there!
New and Improved
For some of us there is something inherently strange about self-promotion on the Internet.
Nowadays it seems as if that’s what the Internet is built for, and perhaps it is, but as excited as I can get doing an education program in front of a group, being on the Internet shouting “Hey world, I’m here!” just seems awkward.
That being said, if I’m going to have some kind of presence on the Internet I would like it to do a good job representing our profession well as well as me personally. I designed this site to work well and (hopefully) look good doing it. I’m proud of the programs and services that I provide and I’m glad to make it easier for people to do so.
If your uniform says something about you when you’re at work, and I think it does, then I believe that one’s presence on the Internet should be equally clean, neat, and professional. And so I hope you enjoy the Internet “Class A’s” that we have here and that you find them useful.
Thank you for stopping by!
Fire Rescue International 2014
Fire Rescue International 2014 will be my fourth year presenting with the Company Officer Leaderships Symposium and I’m proud to be participating once again.
In addition Chief Rob Wiley and I will be recording The Command Post Podcast for Fire Chief magazine live on Wednesday, August 13th beginning at 5pm. FRI2014 Attendees are welcome to come by and share their thoughts on the biggest challenges facing emergency services in 2014 and the years to come.
National Fire Academy EMS Programs
I’m very proud to have had the opportunity to attend the National Fire Academy EMS Programs back to back programs on Quality Management and Hot Topics in Research. Any opportunity to attend a National Fire Academy program is one to be seized and, while two weeks is a long time to be away from home, getting to programs in one was too good to pass up.
As hokey as it may sound, the best part was meeting people that I now truly consider to be good friends. You can tell from this photo, taken just at the end of the first week, that this was hard work and that we were going to pull through together.
Like any emergency responders who gather at the National Fire Academy I hope that I was able to contribute a little while I know I learned a lot and made some new friends to last forever.
FDIC Fire Department Instructors Conference 2014
It was very exciting to have the opportunity to present again at FDIC 2014. I delivered a pre conference session on EMS providers and rescue technicians working together during vehicle extrication. I had the great honor a few years back meeting a fantastic person who was working to organize the educational content for a regional EMS conference in New York. That person was Mike McEvoy who, in addition to being an awesome person, also happens to be the Fire/EMS Editor of Fire Engineering Magazine. Not only has Mike become a good friend, you also can’t beat him as a guide to show you around the great city of Indianapolis.
There are some moments in my career that I will never forget; my first extrication, my first cardiac arrest, the first time I let other people into a burning building. I can now add to that list the time that, during a conference with literally thousands of firefighters from all over the world, the man running it, Chief Bobby Halton, saw me in a hallway and stopped to say “Hey Rommie, hold on, let’s talk!”
And we did.
In the hallway. Sometimes that’s where the best learning happens.
