(Transcript is automatically generated)

Robert: [00:00:00] So we went from a call where we had one trauma patient to a call where we had four trauma patients. We were all gunned. So listening is so important. Don't listen to talk. Listen to listen.

Narrator: You are listening to EMS with your hosts, Erik Axene and Matt Ball. 

Matt: Well, Erik, I've made the transition from, operations over to [00:00:30] admin. Been in that role about two weeks now.

Erik: Commander?

Matt: No, not Commander

Erik: Caesar.

Matt: Yeah. Ha Caesar, no, not Commander, not Caesar. EMS captain excited for the new role.

Erik: Awesome.

Matt: But I've been learning obviously working in operations for 20 years. There's sometimes, depending on the department, there's a disconnect between the field and admin. And a lot of people say it's the dark side,

Erik: the white shirts. 

Matt: Yes. The white shirts, the admin chiefs all that kind of stuff.

And one of the things that I'm learning I knew [00:01:00] this, coming into it, but one of the things that I'm learning is building trust is a huge issue when you're up an admin. Whether it's a captain role or a chief role, the operations, the guys in operations, they need to know that they can trust you, right?

Yep. And good leadership. And that's that stuff that they don't teach. They don't teach you when you're going into admin how to build trust. 

Erik: That's part of the reason we taught that at EMS World. Trust, trust centric leadership. That's right. It's huge.

Matt: That's right. Yeah. And so a lot of departments are good at that.

Not every department is good at that, but today we are very honored [00:01:30] to have chief Robert Reardon from the Duxbury, Massachusetts Fire Department with us today. Chief teaches on leadership is an outstanding fire chief. So welcome chief. We are super excited to have you on here today.

Erik: Welcome chief. 

Robert: Thank you for having me. I guess I'm guilty as charged. I have a white shirt. I'm an admin, so I don't know what we're in for, but I think we'll have a good time. 

Matt: Yeah, we're definitely gonna have a good time. And he's not from East Texas. I know everybody's thrown off thinking he's from Longview, Texas with that accent, but he is from, just Duxbury's, just [00:02:00] south of Boston.

Erik: Yeah. A little bit further east than Longview. 

Matt: Yeah. Just a hair further east and a little bit north of Longview, Texas. We met Chief Reardon when we were up at a conference. Yeah. Gillette Stadium.

Erik: Stadium, yep. Yep. That was fun.

Matt: He gave an outstanding talk that we're gonna talk about, but before we get started I know Chief would not brag on himself, so I'm gonna give a little background on Chief Reardon's experience.

He has got over 25 years in the fire service. Currently the chief of the Duxbury Fire Department and the Emergency Management Director for the Town of Duxbury, [00:02:30] Massachusetts. He's a graduate of the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program Harvard's National Preparedness Leadership Initiative and Naval Pro Postgraduate School school Center for Homeland Defense.

He's a former journalist with over 10 years of experience in news media before entering public safety, which gives him a unique perspective on crisis communication and media relations. And he also teaches national courses on social media strategy PIO training, leadership, and managing your [00:03:00] department's public image.

So again, we're super excited to have you here today, chief.

Erik: And he's also. A root beer aficionado. 

Matt: That's right.

Robert: Root beer. Connoisseur, connoisseur. We've had a few root beers together.

Erik: Yeah, that's right. 

Matt: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We were very impressed when we were up there and we heard your talk. It was first off, you were an excellent speaker.

Yep. But your story of your department is very impactful. That whole room was on pins and needles, which is hard to get a bunch of first responders to pay attention for more than five minutes, [00:03:30] and you grasp their attention. If you want to share a little bit about the incident that kind of launched all this and what happened from that's, we'd love to hear it.

Robert: Sure. And I think one of the important, first off, thanks for having me today. I really appreciate the opportunity. It was great meeting you up at Gillette Stadium, home of the World champion New England Patriots. I think there was, oh, come on. Had six trophies up there, but 

Erik: I did not okay talking about that team.

I can't even say the name.[00:04:00]

Robert: Alright, we'll come, we don't wanna come back this year. Seriously, I figured I'd get a few of you guys fired up. I, if I brought the Patriots, 

Erik: I'd feel a whole lot better about this conversation if the Dallas Cowboys were doing well. But go ahead. We'll let you have here.

Matt: I love it. Love it.

Robert: And the Patriots aren't doing that either, so all, all good.

But no I appreciate the opportunity and what I tell a lot of people is I'm not an expert in trauma. I'm not an expert really in anything, but I've had some experiences where I've grown through and learned a few things. And if I can take those [00:04:30] things that have happened to us in our department and others can learn from it, then we're doing a good thing.

And this, unfortunately, I've had a few incidents where I've been able to take that information and help others. So back in, in 2023, our fire department took a 9-1-1 call for a woman who had jumped off a roof. Pretty standard. Nothing crazy. We deal with trauma all the time, right?

Accidents shooting stabbings. And I, when I say us, I mean everybody, we all deal with these tough calls. The firefighters arrived there. We only have six people on shift. And when they [00:05:00] arrived there, they were taking care of a patient, a trauma patient, a patient who actually ended up, jumped through the window, headfirst head, and landed headfirst into the pavement in the wintertime.

So the ground was hard. While they were there treating the patient, a a man came up who was a woman's husband, was obviously concerned. And then said he was gonna go check on the children. And when he went inside the house, they heard some yelling. So the captain sent two of the firefighters in there.

And that's when the firefighters found three young children under the age of [00:05:30] five in, in cardiac arrest. So we went from a call where we had one trauma patient to call where we had four trauma patients. We were outgunned. Yeah. We went there with one ambulance. And think about your ambulances.

What do you have in your ambulances? Do you have multiple PD kits? Do you have multiple, AEDs 12 leads? Do you have, what do you have set up? So we instantly needed to go for mutual aid. Yeah. Like I said, completely outgunned. We have mutual aid coming in. We're calling in off-duty personnel.

[00:06:00] Very traumatic call. I responded from my house and as soon as I got there, I knew we had something that we had never dealt with before. I had only been a chief for six months, and I remember walking up the drive when I remember seeing the look in people's eyes. It was something I had never seen again.

We see trauma and horrible things all the time. This was a completely different level. So I instantly the first thing I did is I talked to the captain. I got a pre initial report. He told me what was going on, and I instantly walked away, picked up the phone, and called for a critical incident.

Stress team [00:06:30] never done that before. Now. Don't click off right now and say, oh, this is, don't tell me you're gonna talk to me about trauma and critical incident stress stick around a little bit longer. Because I was that same guy. I was that same guy who had no experience with critical incident stress teams.

I had never been to a debriefing, diffusing any of that, had zero experience. And this is where I say they don't teach chiefs how to do this. I don't think they teach really any of us how to do a lot of this stuff. They don't give us a background. They teach us how to run incident command.

They teach us how to do fires and run jaws and things like that. [00:07:00] But when it comes to taking care of ourselves, helping helpers, as I say, when our helpers need help, they don't teach us that. So we had a team come in talk to our members. And I remember after that I met with them and I said, all right you have two, two choices here.

Either you can stay here all night with us at the firehouse, you won't be allowed to go on calls. We'll be here to help you, or you can go home with your loved ones for the night. Now again, something I don't know what I'm doing. Never done this before. But I just thought, hey, maybe some of the guys and girls, they don't wanna go [00:07:30] home.

And you know how it is, it's tough sometimes sharing this with loved ones, but they all decided to go home. I had brought in some cover companies from other towns to help us out while we were getting other staff in. Again, none of this, I had no playbook, I had no information on this. Next morning, I was up early, obviously this is weighing on me heavily and I, I took off, I left the house and first thing I did is I went to the donut shop.

We have a place that has really good donuts that we get. I got those, [00:08:00] got a couple boxes of coffee. I came in and I sent an all page out to everybody. I said, come on in. We have donuts and coffee. Come to the firehouse, kitchen table. I wanted to get people to come in and talk. How do you get people to come in and talk?

We know what firefighters like, they like food. So that was my first thought. And so it started, we got some people up to the table and people started talking and. I always say this before this moment, I had never seen a firefighter cry and I had never seen anybody cry at the fire firehouse kitchen table.

[00:08:30] So that was shocking. Yeah, right away. After that I went downstairs in the office, tried to catch up on some stuff, and not long after that I went to the watch desk and I saw one of the people who were on the call and I said, Hey, how's it going? I was hoping for doing Great Chief, or this is the opposite.

Big guy comes in, hugs me, cries, and says, I don't know what to do. And that honestly was a point where I was like, I need to figure this out quick. So I told him, I'm gonna get you help, I promise you I'm gonna get you help. I went back into my [00:09:00] office and I always say things happen for reasons. I got a text from somebody from Boston Fire, a friend of mine, and he said, what do you need?

Anything we can do to help? And I picked up the phone and I said, I need. The people who have seen the worst things ever in life to come down here and help our people. And I told him what was going on and he said, gimme a little while. I'm gonna get you the best people. So by 11 o'clock that morning, I was on a conference call with them.

They said, we're gonna have a team down there. Can you get everybody there? And I said, yeah. Before that happened, I had said to my [00:09:30] administrative assistant, I said, I want you to organize meals. I want you to get me a good lunch and a good dinner in here. Don't just get anything. I don't care how we pay for it.

I want meals in here. She said, okay, I'll take care of it. So she started arranging that and within an hour she came in to telling me that she was getting calls that the town townspeople were gonna set up a meal train and they were delivering meals from restaurants for us, for the police. Four o'clock in four [00:10:00] o'clock that afternoon, we had Boston Fire Critical Incident Stress Team.

They were in my office and they said, they started telling me who they were and what they've seen and what they've done. And finally I started to feel a slight bit of relief that I had some people who were gonna help me. They knew what they were doing, and they laid a plan out and they said they had said, chief, what do you need?

And I said, I don't know what I'm doing. I've never done this before. One of the first things they said is, this is such a tragic incident. We're gonna suggest you do a family night, that you run a night for [00:10:30] the loved ones. Because quite often they forget about those people. So we did that and that started the, that started what I needed to do.

They laid out my playbook and we went in there and we did our debriefing, diffusing every member was there. And it was great because we had people who had credibility, who had seen horrific things, who had horrific trauma, and they were able to relate to them and. What Boston Fire [00:11:00] started that day was a relationship that still stands today.

And all the stuff that they had going on they had people down here regularly with us having coffee with us, giving us resources opening resources that I didn't even know existed. 

Matt: That's a, you talked about the, how it was other firefighters coming down to help other firefighters, in your wisdom, you knew that being a good fire chief, that, if you would've brought in some counselor, they would've come into the fire station and they would've given counselor [00:11:30] talk and they would've tried to relate and that would have, as you well know, instantly put those guys on the defensive.

Lady, you got no idea what I just saw. Have you ever seen three dead kids at the same moment? And then you gotta treat 'em like you've never been in. It's like telling somebody that's lost a child. Oh, I know how you feel. No you don't. If you've never lost a child, you don't know how I feel.

And brilliant to bring down guys, like you say from Boston, who have certainly seen some stuff calm down, that credibility [00:12:00] firefighters are only gonna want to deal with other firefighters. It takes a very special counselor to be able to do that, and for you to be able to acknowledge I don't know what I'm doing, and ask for help.

I'll be honest, that's a rare trait with a lot of fire chiefs. 'cause they, some of them think they know everything. And so kudos to you for having some humility and knowing I don't know what to do here. That's brilliant. 

Erik: I also like the connection that you made with food. 

Matt: Oh yeah. 

Erik: You mentioned a couple things when you came down to the kitchen [00:12:30] table fellowship around that table.

Yeah. The conversations, the crying, the tears, but you brought donuts and coffee, right? Yeah. I mean there's something about food and the fellowship that we share while we eat. It gives, it creates a safe environment. I know when we had a tough situation when I was medical director and your former department. And we lost someone. I remember I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what to say, but I went to the grocery store and I just loaded up a cart full of steaks and and the guys so grateful for that. Yeah. And I remember that made a [00:13:00] big impact. It's probably better than anything I could have said.

Matt: Yeah. 

Erik: That's why I, when I hear you talking about food, that's really a universal thing that really creates some sort of a connection. I don't know, something about eating. 

Matt: It's a little bit of comfort. 

Robert: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think some of the happiest times I've ever had here at the fire station are at that kitchen table.

We've shared so much together and it just came naturally. I just said, lemme just bring some food and see if I can get some people here. And then after I was here for a little while let's [00:13:30] set some meals up. Because one of the other things is, we had a over half of our department who were at that call, so there's your group there.

But one thing I didn't think of when I had the, had one of my firefighters come in that morning in tears closing my door and he says, I wasn't there last night. I didn't know what was going on. I would've come in, if I had known what was going on, I should have been there. So I had survivor's guilt. People who were tied up with family that night, like there was I had so many different things going [00:14:00] on, so many different struggles. And so that stress team wasn't just for the people in the call, it was for everybody. And it was so how can we support our other members? And some difficult conversations.

But like you said, when you bring a fire team in there the good ones know how to talk to us. When you walk in a firehouse, how they talk, the average person doesn't. But when the stress debriefing started, that's how it started. And that's a level of comfort. Alright. Yeah. I'm with my people here.

I feel safe. [00:14:30] Yeah. And these are firefighters who have been through line of duty deaths and have seen horrific things. And Boston Fire I don't know, maybe they have 1600 members. They dedicated so much to our department and surrounding member departments, and I'll never forget that.

Matt: That's amazing. Do you have a plan set up now if your department experiences another traumatic event or call like this, that you can initiate that kind of a response almost instantly? 

Robert: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. [00:15:00] We've built so many connections from then that we it's almost second nature and unfortunately we tend to be the ones when other departments have problems, they call, and again, I go back to because they don't have that roadmap, we haven't been taught that.

The good thing is I've now been invited into chief officer training, yearly at the fire academy they trained chief fire officers, and this is one of the classes that I'll be presenting. I'll do the one that I did at Gillette. I had already been doing social media and media marketing and we're tying it in with that.

So I'll do [00:15:30] four hours and basically try to educate our future leaders, Hey, this is what's going on. This is how you can navigate it. And I'm not a doctor. I don't play one on tv. I just went through some horrific incidents and trauma and we've done the best we can to build the team and trust, and you said it earlier trust is the most important thing that I have here.

And I do everything I can to honor that. And I think that's why things worked so well here, because [00:16:00] those firefighters came in here every day and the door would close and they knew that. I wouldn't tell anybody. Anybody a single bit of that conversation. And I got people, resources and help and I would share it with nobody, not because I value everything that they shared with me.

And all I wanted to do was to try to get them to back to, a level where they could function. And originally I had people who wanted to retire, people who wanted to leave. And [00:16:30] unfortunate that hasn't happened. We've worked through it. We have a long road. Anybody who knows who's been through something as horrific as this isn't gonna go away.

Yeah. We just have to learn the new normal. 

Erik: You said it earlier, just a moment ago, everybody knew you wouldn't tell a soul. You, you everybody knew. So what you're telling me and I think what's obvious here is that you have built a culture of trust at your department. That's, I think, a problem to some departments that haven't built that culture.

When you hit a a [00:17:00] crisis like this you really need that community and that trust to work through it together as a team around that kitchen table. But when you don't have that culture of trust, it can really become problematic. And I, one thing that Matt and I have said a few times with trust is you can build trust in drips, but you lose it in buckets.

You gotta be so careful. It's such a fragile thing too. Absolutely. You really gotta value it and protect it. And it sounds like you've done a fantastic job of that in your department, and [00:17:30] that's such a refreshing thing to hear with your story. 

Robert: One of the things that I talk about when I do this presentation at the end is I, when I have chiefs in the room, is I.

Ask, why do you do this? What's your why are you a leader? And for me I bring up the picture of our department. That's my why. All those people, because I've had people who have said, oh, you're doing an amazing job. You're doing incredible. All I've done is take care of people, right?

[00:18:00] If this is our job. And I go back to the person that, that that runs onsite academy, takes care of firefighters, first responders, nurses up here in Massachusetts. And he said, chief, you're incredible what you've done. And again, I go back to I'm just doing what's right. And he said, there's so many chiefs nowadays that they look to run people out.

When this happens, we're gonna run this guy out. We're gonna push him out. And my, my thing was just the opposite. We're gonna do everything we can to save the people that we're invested in and [00:18:30] that are resources to our department. And I'm proud that we haven't. Pushed anybody out. We'll hopefully we'll have 'em for many years.

Matt: How did you, I was thinking the same thing once again. We were on the same page about leadership. Talk a little bit about, for the fire chiefs, the guys that are new to admin, how did you build that trust? Because you can't, like you said, you can't build it the day of the incident. If the guys don't trust you the day of the incident, you're in trouble. You have to build that over years. So what are some things that you did day to day with your [00:19:00] crews that built that trust?

Robert: I'm fortunate. I've come through the ranks. Started as a firefighter, EMT, got my paramedic, went to captain, deputy chief. And I think through that entire time, I've always done I've always tried to do right by, by our people and do the right thing. And it doesn't matter what it is, whether, trying to bring in great training, try to do things for the station no ulterior motives.

And it's funny, you know how things [00:19:30] work. You talked about it earlier, sometimes a disconnect between operations and administration. And when I have someone who will come in and they'll ask some crazy question, Hey, we're gonna paint the trucks all purple and, some, something crazy.

And I sit behind the desk and I, and one of my most common things I say is, did you ask yourself when somebody said that, have I ever done anything to hurt you guys? Have I ever done anything to try to take anything away from you? Think about that. No, we're not gonna paint the trucks purple.

But, that was just an example. But I've always tried [00:20:00] to, just not talk, to talk, you gotta build that trust and do the right thing and support the members the best you can. And I try that, 

Erik: even if your team disagreed with purple trucks, right?

They would follow you though. And they hey, chief knows what he's doing. I don't agree with the purple. I personally wanted pink, he said purple, let's go for it. I, that's a silly example, but sometimes I think the measure of leadership and trust is when some folks don't agree, but they still are right along.

Hey, you know what? I don't agree with Chief [00:20:30] Reardon on this decision that he's making, but you know what? I trust him and I'm gonna follow him. And I think that's a powerful thing to have. And I think people respect the fact that you're not just tickling ears out there and telling people what they want to hear, that you can lose respect pretty quick.

Anyway, like Matt was just saying a moment ago, when you've built that culture of trust, you're in a good spot to deal with a crisis like this. Yeah.

Robert: One of the other things you said, and I think this is important for chiefs, is be approachable, right? Yeah. Open [00:21:00] book. People know that they can come in here. So you're gonna say that you're gonna paint the trucks another color. I love it when someone comes in here. I actually welcome it because those are the people that are gonna tell you before you make a big mistake, Hey Chief, is it really?

What are we doing? Are you really doing this? Why? Yeah. And I remember I had one of my members come in here, it was when we were changing staffing. We were adding staff, and they came in here and I don't think this is a good idea. He told me the deal. And I told him what was going on.

He goes, the guys don't know that you need to go out there and tell 'em that they, that [00:21:30] makes sense. And so he saved me. I went upstairs and I started talking to the shifts. This is what we're doing. Oh, we didn't know that. So again, that all goes to trust. And being able to connect with your people.

And so I have an open door policy. They roll in on a regular basis and that's important to build those relationships. And I. Do you know who your men and women are? Do you know who their husbands and wives are? Do you know their kids? Do you know anything about their personal life? Or are you just gonna go out there and tell 'em, Hey, did you get that truck checked?

Is the floor clean? No. Like when I go out there, that's one of the first things you [00:22:00] know, Hey, how your kids doing? Did they graduate high school like we have guys getting married, we have guys having kids. What do you know? That's not always the case. I get it. This job is busy. Your head spins.

But try to build that connection because all those ways that you connect when something happens will help. 

Erik: And I think that's the commodity that you deal in. And you said it, relationships. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Erik: Building relationships is how you build trust. Yeah. Relationships, you know the names of the Absolutely. You know the names of your firefighters right?

First off. And then you know how many kids [00:22:30] they have, you know their names, you know the wife's name. You've, you understand what they're going through a little bit. You, you've really invested in those relationships and I think when people feel invested in they really start to trust and value that relationship.

And I think that's, again, it's just a part of how you build cult, the culture of trust. 

Matt: Yeah. And the why I you said it earlier, that's one of the things that I've, we've been talking about in my new department is, you gotta tell 'em the why. Back when I was in operations, we would get a [00:23:00] memo or we'd get an email or a policy and it's what are we doing this for?

And it's difficult, especially in a larger department. It's difficult to explain that why when you're working in a bigger department. But that's so important that especially as the head of the department, the organization, you gotta communicate that why and make sure the same message is getting out to the brand new guy.

Hey, this is why we're painting the firetrucks purple. I know it sounds crazy, but there's a reason behind. We don't just do things to do things, [00:23:30] with as an EMS guy, I get it. All, we've had a lot of changes, what are we doing this for and what are we doing that for? And it's look, we're not just doing things to do it.

We're not just adding things to the protocols and to the ambulance just to add things. We're doing it because it affects patient outcomes. And then when they hear that, they're like, oh, I didn't know that. It's yeah, that's why we're doing it. So it's so important as from a leadership perspective to explain the why, especially when you're making a change on something.

'cause we all know we love change. 

Erik: I like that you're, [00:24:00] I like that. Your why is that picture of all your personnel. Yeah. I mean that each person you value each person. And you, like you said earlier, I love to hear you say, we work hard to keep people here that we've invested in. You care about them.

It's that's a powerful tool. 

Robert: Yep. Last thing I wanna do is lose somebody. And one of the things learned a lot, become a chief, when you're a firefighter in a group. Your group's the best. And every other group out there sucks. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that on this podcast, but, and I hear it all the time. Shift one's the best shift. Wonderful. [00:24:30] And then shift two. Oh yeah, shift two is good. Shift three is better than four. You know what I mean? It's, but as you get to become chief, you get to see, just like your children, if you have children, you get to see what each shift brings to the table.

And for me, every shift here brings me something different. They all do things differently. It doesn't mean that any of them are bad. Some have strengths, some have weaknesses, and you have to capitalize on their strengths to get that work done. So the one thing I see is how valuable they all are, but unfortunately, and I have [00:25:00] that view from up above.

So I'll have somebody come in here and say, oh, shift whatever. And if my guys watched it, they know what shifted is they didn't clean the dishes. It's a constant thing. And, but I see the value of all of 'em, and I see what they all bring, and they're all very important and they're all important pieces to this puzzle.

And when they go out there to get the job done, it's unbelievable. It's lights out. The stuff that they do, I, I get them the tools and resources and they get it done. We just gotta get, we [00:25:30] just gotta get through our group rivalries, which we never will. That's okay. 

Erik: We see something similar even outside of the firehouse here at our organization at Axene CE

We see it. Where I think we appreciate our, the different perspectives that we have. And Matt and I just spoke in St. Louis on this about how we have some neurodiversity where we see things from different perspectives. And not only does that help us as a team together to just appreciate our strengths and there's also an awareness of our weaknesses.

In fact, just this [00:26:00] morning before our podcast my schedule got all crazy just in the morning everything fell apart and I felt, I didn't just feel bad about it. I actually understand the way this guy thinks with how it's really tough to make decision changes all of a sudden.

And Matt's thinking about you and respecting your time right away. Where I didn't care. I'm kidding. I did. But no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But no, really though, that's the way he's wired. Very respectful of time and scheduling things, [00:26:30] whereas I'm just trying to I was like, I was just trying to keep my head above the water this morning, and it was interesting though for me though, as a team member with Matt, is it's not just me saying, Hey, I'm sorry that we changed the schedule and my schedule's. Like I actually understand him a little bit and he understands me. And we were able to communicate better. And I think you just said it too, different shifts have different strengths and weaknesses.

And if you understand as the chief what strengths they bring to the table and what weaknesses they have or they need support, that's just, there's another bullet point [00:27:00] of building trust in your department, which you've obviously done. 

Matt: Let's take a quick break, chief, and then we're gonna come back. I know you have a second part of your story that we want to hear, so let's take a quick break and then we'll come back.

Sure. Sounds good. Alright, chief, we're back. We talked about the incident that kind of brought you into the whole cism kind of stuff and then there was another kind of story, another side to this that is really personal for you that you wanted to share with us. 

Robert: Absolutely. So I get it. [00:27:30] In my media career, I saw horrible things.

I almost every night I went to shootings, stabbings, just horrific things. Nothing bothered me. I honestly was like, is something wrong with me? Fire career, 20 plus years, again, a couple things, slightly, but no, nothing that kept me up at night or bothered me. So we had this incident happen and it was horrific for our department.

And about three months later I was driving home on the way back from a fire and a woman jumped out in front of me on the road [00:28:00] screaming for help. So I pulled my cruiser in and I looked over, I. And I saw a person who was slumped over in the car. So I called on the radio neighboring town, start firing EMS.

We have we have unconscious. I went over there and it was a gentleman who was slumped over and there was a gun. And he had, I didn't have all the information. I was putting it all together, trying to take care of him. But before that incident ended, while we were taking care of him I found out he was a fireman [00:28:30] and he had just committed suicide in front of his fiance.

Been to plenty of suicides. Unfortunately that's what we do. But this was different. There was a connection. My biggest fear out of the incident I just told you about was that one of our firefighters would do something horrific. And that's everything I've done to help. Just unraveled for me.

It wasn't one of my guys, but it was still somebody from our profession, [00:29:00] my brother. And that broke me. So nothing, I've never felt that before. This was a Saturday night, so I just tried to push through it. I'm gonna keep this quiet. I'm not gonna talk to anybody. No one needs to know. I don't need to tell anybody what's going on.

And that's the way I was gonna roll. And Monday, I knew Monday when I rolled in here, I just, things weren't right. I could tell I was agitated or whatever. I had things to do. I'm running around and I remember I came back in the afternoon and one of our firefighters came in my office, the chief's office, and she [00:29:30] comes in, she closes the door, it's my office.

What are you closing the door for? And I remember she comes up to me and she says I know what happened the other night. And I said, okay. And she said, you need help. And I remember at that point, breaking down. And I said I can't get help. Why? Because I'm the chief and I do that. I'm gonna show everybody that I'm weak and that I can't handle this stuff and, I might not get another contract.

[00:30:00] They might wanna fire me. And, all this stuff's going through my head. And luckily she wasn't afraid to tell the fire chief what he needed to hear, and that was, or you can show everybody how strong you are and you're not afraid to get help. So at that point, I said I gotta go home. And I left, went home, and I told my wife and I cried.

And that's not something typical that I do. [00:30:30] I could tell you that. Yeah. But I said, I need some help. So I sent a message to the department. I typed out a, an email to everybody. Just told 'em, Hey, this is what's going on. This is what's happening, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go get some help.

And basically I said, everything that I've been. I've been saying to them like, don't be afraid. Don't be worried about the stigma, blah, blah, blah. I was afraid of everything that I had been telling them about not to be afraid of. And then I got a text after I hit send. Within a few minutes I got a text chief, I'm coming with you.

I'm gonna get help too. [00:31:00] So it took me to come out for that person, right? Everybody here, all the people that got help, everybody was afraid of the same thing that I was afraid of. So by her coming in here and pushing me, it's allowed me to go out and to do what I'm doing today and say, it doesn't mean you're weak, it's the right thing to do and make sure you support your members.

So that was very tough for me. But what I can tell you was, it was an amazing experience and it [00:31:30] worked for me and I learned a lot about it because I had always not fully understood how trauma affects people. And the whole circle of getting help and everything, it all worked for me. I followed the steps.

I tried rapid eye movement. When I did rapid eye movement. I'll never forget it when they were doing it, and again, I don't know if I can swear, but I'm gonna, when they were doing it in my head, I was going, oh shit, this is not gonna work. Why? Because I'm a f fireman and I know better. Yeah, it [00:32:00] worked.

Yeah. Not only did it work for me, it worked for so many of our people. So I say this because it all helped me and it's easy to say, don't worry about the stigma until it's you. And there's a lot of people who I've had the opportunity to present this at Harvard University and the Naval Postgraduate Academy.

I went to Texas and every time people come up to me and they say, your story resonates 'cause that's me. And so I think the more people I'm able to tell, maybe the more people who can [00:32:30] get help. And I think we can say, I know we can save lives. This is the right thing to do. We should be helping people, and we gotta make sure we help ourselves because if we don't help ourselves.

We're gonna be no good to the people out there who are trying to run calls. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Erik: I don't wanna derail your second part of your story, but something that really resonated with me was your willingness to be vulnerable and such a powerful tool as a leader. Because oftentimes I know me as a physician even in, in, in whatever leadership position you have, sometimes it [00:33:00] can be a lonely place where you don't feel like, man, that patient I just had was pretty tough, but I got all these nurses and other doctors depending upon me.

I gotta be strong. And it's a real strength though, is really recognizing it and being willing to be vulnerable appropriately at the appropriate time is such a powerful tool. I've read a book not too long ago called Leading With a Limp, and it talks a lot about this concept of being open and honest with your team.

That's a big leadership skill and sometimes hard to do and you gotta [00:33:30] do it right and do carefully. 

Matt: Yeah, I've heard a lot of counselors too say that, you had said that you had a long career before then. Been on lots of incidents, scenes, a lot of things, nothing bothered you. And I heard a counselor once say that, it's crazy.

I shouldn't say crazy. It's interesting how, whether it's a military person or a first responder goes through this long career and they see all these things and then they see this kind of benign little incident and it just [00:34:00] absolutely breaks 'em in half and you're like. You're a 20 year guy in this little car wreck or whatever, and she's that's just how the mind works.

You just, it's like you've just filled your bucket to capacity and you can't take one more thing. Doesn't matter how big or small it is, you, it's overflowing. You can't take one more drop and then that drop hits that bucket and you're just you're done. You can't deal with it. What's, which goes to your point of, that's how it happened.

Erik: What's the title of that book? We've talked about it before. The brain keeps score. Yep. They, these [00:34:30] things accumulate. Yep. Yeah. They absolutely do. 

Robert: And the other thing, this all goes back to trust.

If I didn't have trust, would that firefighter come in here? 

Matt: A hundred percent. 

Robert: Would the other firefighters after I sent that text me?

Matt: Yeah. 

Robert: Would people come into my office after that to say, Hey, how you doing? What can we do for you? Yeah. And that's what happened. It became full circle. I was helping them and they were helping me. They weren't afraid to check on me. Awesome. Call me. And that's what they did. So many of 'em did [00:35:00] that phone call, Hey, just checking in.

How you doing? Probably more. 

Matt: And that's because you did that for them when they needed you, you stepped up, you took that leadership role, you brought 'em the food, you got 'em the donuts. You realized, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm outta my element here. You brought them help. They saw that you truly cared about them.

As people forget about the fire department, you cared about who they are as people and their wellbeing. And then the roles got reversed and they, that's how it works.

Erik: Yeah. We talk a lot about this with [00:35:30] trust centric leadership, but there's something called servant leadership. Being a and chief you really emulate this.

And this is something I try to emulate too. I think if you really want to be an effective leader, you gotta learn how to serve. And how can I better serve the people around me to help them to optimize their gifts and abilities? And what weaknesses can I help to bolster up? How can I support them?

Those are the questions you're asking. Which I think is another mark of a great leader is the ability to serve. The willingness to serve, it's it's leadership [00:36:00] is counterintuitive in that the more you lead, the better you're are a leader, the better you are a servant, I believe.

Robert: And one thing that I'm a firm believer of is, I know I'm the chief, but more important is my relationship with people. 

Erik: Yep. 

Robert: And I treat the custodian that comes through here, no different than I treat anybody else. I know his name, I say hi to him. I check in on him, I wanna know about his family.

No different than [00:36:30] the firefighters here. Everyone's part of this team. And that's how it is in this world. And for me, I learned that by watching my father. My father and I tell this story, my father was an alcoholic and before I turned one, my mother said, you need to either stop drinking or you need to leave.

And he went and he stopped drinking and he opened a halfway house. So when I was younger, I used to, I grew up going to that halfway house, but what I watched is the way he talked to people. Now, these are all guys [00:37:00] down in the luck alcoholics 40, 50 years old, right? And when he'd come in there, he'd be like, Hey Jim, I want you to meet my son.

It was like I was gonna meet Michael Jordan, and that's how he introduced me to people. And there was never anything about, I never heard anything about the disease that they had. What I did hear about was their families. And, hey, this guy's down as luck and he needs some work. So he'd hire the guy.

And I watched how he treated and took people, took care of people to try to get them better. And I think all of that, watching that helped me here. And I try to [00:37:30] use that same way that he treated people to treat people everywhere, right? Everything that we do is based on relationships. Yep. And I think that a lot of people miss that.

And I think sometimes when we move up through the ranks, there are chiefs who, you'll bet a meeting and they'll talk about their members. And that's not that's not how I do it. I look forward to getting here. I got here the other morning, we made breakfast together.

We made a big breakfast, and we had it for the ongoing and the off ongoing shift. Those are things I enjoy. There's nothing better than going up [00:38:00] there and and having f lunch getting invited in. I've been invited in so many times and different shifts to have breakfast with them. Hey, you wanna come in for a dinner with us?

That's great. Yeah. Like I enjoy that. Yeah. And that's, you wanna talk about building trust, that's how you do it, and it comes naturally when you treat people the right way and you actually sincerely care about them. 

Erik: You talked about going to the station, sitting around the kitchen table, knowing the names.

What other tricks would you give someone who wants to build their [00:38:30] trust as a leader? What other things do you do to fight against that? The typical system in the firehouse? Very militaristic, very, top down, very lonely at the top. What else do you do as a fire chief to build that camaraderie?

The relationships and that trust? 

Robert: Yep. So you said, and I'm just picking on you tricks. For me, it's really being genuine. I truly care and love working with the people here. And I think that's part of, it's no different than when you have a baseball team. I've [00:39:00] coached a lot of my kids' sports.

And when you generally care about people, it becomes easy, right? There's, you don't have to try. I want them to know who my, the names of my kids and my wife and I wanna share my stories. And I think that's the biggest thing when you care about people it comes around. And that for me is probably what drove me the most, is that care for everybody here.

Matt: I think that's, that is the take home point for, some leaders out there, some chiefs or whatever that [00:39:30] again, you could be tactical tactically a great fire chief. You could have all the degrees on the wall that you want. You can get 'em, fire stations and equipment and all the best stuff.

But are you building relationships with your department? And I realize that's. Again, that's difficult in a larger department, when you've got 2, 3, 500 members, that's more difficult to do. But then what you do is you build the trust in, your assistant chiefs, they build the trust in their division Chiefs, battalion chiefs, [00:40:00] the captains, and you can build trust from the chief's office by saying Hey, I'm not micromanaging you at the fire station.

You run your crew, how you run your crews, right? That builds trust. But if you're not, I guess what I'm saying is from an ops guy who I feel like I'm always gonna be an ops guy 'cause that's where my heart is, right? Is, it's not all about just paperwork and spreadsheets and budgets and all these other things, right?

It's about building those relationships. And that's great if you're good at Excel spreadsheets. [00:40:30] But if you're not out in the firehouses and you're not. Building those relationships, having lunch, having breakfast with the guys, bringing 'em by coffee, things like that. You're missing out on a huge part of your job and your role as a leader in your department.

If you're not doing, and if it doesn't come naturally to you, then you could, doing spreadsheets doesn't come natural to me. Sitting at a desk does not come natural to me, and I'm having to do those things. You've gotta push yourself to go out to those stations and get uncomfortable to build those relationships with those guys.

Erik: Some of my [00:41:00] greatest trust building moments as a, now I'm not a fire chief, but as a medical director in the firehouse, were those times when things didn't go well and I had, there's some disciplinary action that was necessary. The way that I handled it was an opportunity to build trust. Yeah. It doesn't have to be these positive things.

Sometimes these negative experiences like a crisis can be an opportunity to really bolster some of the trust that you have and really galvanize some of those relationships. Yeah. Did you find that chief with this situation? 

Robert: Oh yeah. Yeah, [00:41:30] that's, you couldn't be a hundred, more than a hundred percent correct on that one.

When I first became chief I was involved in a couple of discipline things that I needed to do and I struggled with them. But what I did is I turned those as opportunities to invest in people. I gave them an opportunity to actually do some things they had never done before. I said, I recognize what happened here, but I'm gonna give you an opportunity to turn this around and to do something you've never done.

And it's funny 'cause I, I have to bring HR in the town on some of these things [00:42:00] and I remember one of them, they had an avenue they wanted to go and I said, I have an avenue I want to go. And I said, this is what I'd like to do. And they're like, that's a pretty, and I said, we will invest in this person.

I said, we do the, we do this other thing. We're gonna turn this person sour for the rest of their lives, but we're gonna give them an opportunity now if they mess up again, then we have a, have something to deal with. But I think this would be a great opportunity. And that's, I think, so that's another way that we've tried to build some trust here.

Erik: That's awesome. 

Matt: One of the things that you said in the first story that [00:42:30] I think I'd like to go back to is when you offered, you can either stay at the firehouse or you can go home to your kids. I had a very similar situation with a pediatric patient, really bad trauma case. And as soon as we got back to the station, I had a good captain and he came out to us and he said, if you guys need to go home, let me know.

I'll call the BC and you'll be cut loose for the day. It's covered, but if you want stay here, you're, whatever you guys wanna do, it's on you. And we sat around, [00:43:00] we all sat around like you were talking about what do we want to do? And at least for me I felt like in exactly along the lines of what you said.

I'm gonna go home and my wife and kids have no idea what I just experienced. Being a, a paramedic, dealing with this super sick kid they have no idea what that feels like, what that looks like, the, all that stuff. But my brothers and sisters that I was on that call with, they know exactly how that feels.

'cause they were there and their dads and their [00:43:30] moms. And so to me it was more cathartic to stay at the fire station and to sit around with those guys and just continue on our shift together. We were obviously still able to, emotionally run calls. We were prepared to do our job, but I felt that it was more comforting for me in that situation to stay at the station and and talk through it with people that were there.

But I definitely appreciated the fact that my officer was, I. Was aware enough to make that offer to [00:44:00] you. Like you, you have two options. Yeah, you can do this or you can do this. It's up to you. But they're both open to you and I think that's another thing that company offers, need, company officers need to pay attention to.

Robert: Yeah. I, I, ever since this, I tend to be somebody that, I'll get a phone call, Hey, this department just had something, do you mind reaching out? And I always say, I'm not a doctor. I don't play one on tv. I have no stress team training. All I am is a guy that happened to go to a couple bad incidents with a [00:44:30] couple of our people and we've worked through it.

We've tried to team build, we've tried to change the trajectory of going downhill to uphill. And some of those things that I didn't mention that we did, we organized paintball against the cops. Let's go head to head. Let's take them down, right? Let's build some bomb.

Matt: Nothing will make you feel better than shooting a bunch of cops with paintballs. 

Robert: I'll tell you, we had to take them on our team eventually and split it up because the firefighters was killing the cops. I'm sorry. I love it. We rebuilt the honor guard. We went to the Red Sox game, Celtics game, went to the Bruins game.

We we, Bob Kraft [00:45:00] invited us to see all the trophies. He brought us on field. He had signs thanking us. We did the honor guard for the Patriots. We brought in high level training.

Erik: Who, who is that?

Robert: Oh he's just the owner of the world Champion. 

Matt: Ignore this guy. He's the Jerry Jones of the Northeast.

Erik: I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Sorry. I interrupted you, chief.

Robert: Yeah, that's all right. We can handle this. We had a, I got funding from the State House. We built a gym at the firehouse, right? 'cause I wanted to invest in the people and those are the things that we tried to do. High level training.

High level speakers [00:45:30] from around the country to come in here and to build us both on the EMS side and on the fire side. We tried to do things that we've never done in ways to help, help us grow mentally. And I think we've done a as good of job as we can, but we're not done. We've just passed year two and I have a year planned of high level training and speakers that we want to bring in here and to just stimulate growth.

Matt: That's awesome. 

Erik: Listening to you talk earlier I I. If you'd asked me to [00:46:00] outline what I would do for some sort of a crisis intervention as a medical director, if I was called to do that, one of the things I wouldn't have done is thought about the folks that weren't there. The survival, the, survivor's guilt.

Survivor's guilt. Yeah. And one of the questions I wanted to ask you when we were at Gillette together, and it's great to talk to you now so I can ask you some of these questions. Sure. Is what else was a surprise to you in dealing with this crisis that you could share with us? You mentioned the survivor's guilt and the people that [00:46:30] weren't there that needed help.

Were there some other surprises that you experienced that you could teach us and maybe make us aware of? 

Robert: Yeah. There were a couple things and one of 'em was, and I talk about it, was perception. I remember when one member came in here and said, you're not doing enough for us. And I remember at that point I had been doing a ton.

And I told him everything that I wanted to do and he said, yeah, I don't wanna do any of that stuff. And I said, okay. So I worked to get that member help. But I think the [00:47:00] single biggest problem in communication is that illusion that it's taken place. So make sure that you are over communicating.

Yeah. But then you'll get somebody who probably says that you didn't communicate enough. So that, that for me was definitely a surprise. But another one is how few agencies actually do anything for their people. And I'm gonna give you one example. There's multiple people that touched this incident that got no help.

The nurses, [00:47:30] they were getting nothing, absolutely nothing. We know this because our firefighter's wives work at this hospital and they were getting no support. So we invited 'em in. They actually got invited obviously in the family's night. There were police crime scene photographers. That never were talked to once.

And I worked to get them the help that they needed from their supervisors. After this incident, I've had numerous agencies reach out, one of which was the Secret Service. The Secret Service asked me to come in and do training for [00:48:00] them because of some stuff. And I said, you know that I'm the chief of Duxbury Fire.

This, we have 28 people. Why are you calling me? And so they had the rundown and they said, didn't you do this? And didn't you do this and didn't you? And I was like, yeah, I guess I did. We need you to teach our leaders this so that we can help them when traumatic incidents happen. So I think that one of the biggest surprises was that other people aren't doing anything.

And some, I think some chiefs might bury their head. [00:48:30] 'cause again, it goes back to we've never been taught how to do this. 

Erik: That's interesting. To another question to build on that observation of yours is you're clearly at the tip of the spear with these kinds of things which is a great place to be and you're being recognized for it.

You're speaking you're here today. The Secret Service is reaching out to you, right? That guy, what's his name again? Craft. He, I'm kidding. Robert Craft. But seriously though that's a unique position that you're in. And so [00:49:00] my question for you is with all of the other departments, I think 30 or 40,000 departments in the United States, there's a whole wide spectrum of preparedness for things like this.

There are some departments that are just absolutely, utterly not prepared, no trust, bad culture. And then there's, everybody between. If you were to give advice to anybody listening right now, any leader within a department, or anybody in a fire department or any company really for that [00:49:30] matter what was, what's the first thing you tell 'em?

Where would someone start to build what you've built as far as your culture and being successful and positioned in a way to handle a crisis like this? 

Robert: Listen just be there to listen. That's one of the first things I did as chief. I brought everybody in. And we started on a clean slate.

I've been here 20 years. Hey, maybe I had a problem with this person on the ambulance or a call or whatever. But we laid it out. We're starting fresh.

What do you do here? [00:50:00] What do you want to do? How can I help you do your job better? How is your family? I had some pretty personal talks with people. I know a lot of stuff about people here that nobody knows, and they'll be the, like I told you before, it doesn't matter what it is.

They come in here, when they're having problems at home and people are sick. They're the ones, they come right into me where so many people won't do that with their chiefs. But they come into me and sometimes their captain doesn't even know. People on their shift don't know, but they know that I, no judgment.

I will do anything I can. [00:50:30] So listening is so important. Don't listen to talk, listen to listen to help them out and give them anything that they need. And I try to do that. I sometimes think, I should be a therapist, but, it's okay. It's because I care so much about them and I want, I wanna help them.

Everyone's got a lot going on. You've heard it before the iceberg, right? We only see the top of it, but all down here, everyone's got all this stuff going on. And when they wanna come in and tell me that, Erik he's been a pain in the ass today. There's know, Erik's got a lot going on. He's got things going on with family.

He's got things going at work. He's got kids [00:51:00] going here, he's got that going there. Give him a little break. Give him a couple weeks. That's I think that goes a long way because you know what? You're gonna mess up as a leader. I say it every day. I make mistakes every day. I don't know everything.

I just try to do the best I can. I try to make the best decisions, but when I do mess up, I think I have a little bit more in the piggy bank, right? I got a little credibility there where it's like, you messed up, you didn't do it intentionally. Whereas, and I think that's all built by that trust, the listening.

Erik: Yeah, we sometimes forget with the word communication, [00:51:30] it's not just talking, communication is listening. It's more of listening, hearing people's story. Such a powerful tool. So I think again, I said this before. I really loved your answer, and I think that's something I can learn from. We can all learn from.

We gotta listen more than we talk. 

Robert: I'm gonna tell you a 32nd story about listening. I became chief, two people I love and respect here. Two firefighters, one came in and told me what the other one had done to them, and I was shocked. So I called the [00:52:00] other one in to hear their story, and he told me the story and it was equally shocking.

So they both had perspectives on something that was done, and I got to look at it from up here and I brought them in and I said, here's what happened. And we all talked about it, and it was a great understanding. But again, that's it's tough. Everyone's perception is different.

So listening and not judging people is so important. If I had jumped into judgment and gone after, that other person, it would've been a bad situation. But I, yeah. I'll tell you 

Erik: a story too. As a [00:52:30] physician, I could be the best doctor in the world and have the best clinical skills, the best tools, the best, whatever it might be, right?

The, from the most prestigious schools, outside of Harvard, right? It's whatever. But if I'm not listening to my patient, I'm no good. I'm no good if I can't hear the patient's story and understand the problem, understand the pain points, understand what they're going through, I can't help them.

So [00:53:00] again, a huge deal. I see it every day in the, when I'm treating a patient, I've got to listen to their story so I can then use the skills I got. They don't do me any good if I'm not listening. I'm not listening. You got to do that. 

Matt: Love that you said that I was on the other side of what you just talked about.

A situation where, stuff was said and not it wasn't like an individual thing, but long story short, no one came to the firefighters that were involved in this situation. [00:53:30] None of our leadership came to us and said, what? Tell me about what happened here. Nobody, I. Yeah. And they took this other person's word at gospel, truth of, okay, that must have been what happened.

And yet this group of firefighters had over a hundred years of service to the city that I worked in. And not one person came to us and brought us in one by one. Hey, tell me about, this is what I heard. Tell me what happened. Nobody. And that was when [00:54:00] all that played out the way that it did, that was the biggest thing that I remembered, was man, yeah, we wrote statements.

But no chief, no leadership came to us individually and said, gimme your perspective of what happened here. I got this person's perspective, but let me hear your side. And so for chiefs out there, what you said is so true that there's two sides to every story, and the truth lies in the middle, probably, right?

Get every side of the story. Absolutely. Absolutely. Before you jump to judgment and go, you're in trouble. You're getting wrote up, so important. [00:54:30]

Erik: Should we have chief, give us some closing thoughts or how do you wanna end this, 

Matt: Matt? Yeah, absolutely. This is your show. We have thoroughly enjoyed meeting you up at, in Boston.

We had dinner together, thorough. And you know what I'll be, I had dinner with him twice. You're lucky. I'll be honest with you, chief, when we went out to dinner that night, I had no idea you were a chief. I had no, and which is kudos to you because I've met a lot of fire chiefs that, they wanna let you know real quick who they are.

We had dinner, I thought, oh, my family, I got [00:55:00] family in Boston. I'm like, this is just an old Boston boy. He's just a good old guy. Enjoyed having dinner with you. And when you got up and talked, I'm like, holy cow. There's a whole nother level to this dude than I thought there was. And I was thoroughly impressed.

Robert: Yep. I that is probably the highest compliment you gave me because I'm not that guy that's gonna walk around here I'm chief. I'm not, I don't, yeah. There are times where you need to do that. Yeah. Get over yourself. When people ask what I do, yeah. I'm a fireman. That's what I say. I don't say that I'm a chief.

I love it. I'm a fireman. Love it though. And I [00:55:30] did it the other day and someone's he's not a fireman. He's actually a chief, but I'm a fireman. And they don't need to know that. And I'm proud of what I do and I'm proud of those relationships and I'm proud that, people pick up on stuff like that.

I have a very close fire chief friend who is chief of a sitting north far from here. And that's the way he is too. You'd never know, he'll mix in the crowd and he'll be with a group of firefighters and when I go up to the kitchen table, nothing stops, the talk doesn't talk, doesn't stop.

We have a great time and it's okay to, it's okay to be with [00:56:00] your your people. It's okay. There's two different, two different viewpoints. There's chiefs who say you, you can't be friendly with your guys. And there's also chiefs who say, you can and I'm that one who says, I think I can.

But my firefighters have to know there's a line, there's a line where when I need to get down to business and if there's a problem, I have to deal with it. But this isn't personal. Yeah. And it's not gonna change because I, I went to your wedding or whatnot. But it's okay to be, it's okay to like the people you work with and it's okay to build those relationships.

And I'm not a, I'm not [00:56:30] afraid to say that. And my, my people mean a lot to me. 

Erik: It's obviously that's true. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. We met some of his firefighters and it's obvious that's true. 

Erik: Yep. They'd go through the fire for you evident in meeting your firefighters there in Gillette.

I think 

Robert: with, we both would, right? They'll do anything for me as I would do for them. This is a team. This isn't all about this isn't all about me. And it's not all about them. We're a good team. We work well together. And the last piece of advice I'll give you is union and management can work [00:57:00] together and they can work together.

We both have. We both have things that we need to do and we have a goal in the end is taking care of people. But we can help each other all day long. And if you can master that relationship you are only gonna be more successful. 

Erik: Taking care of people. That's what this is all about. That's right.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Not just our patients, but each other, our team.

Matt: When your team's taken care of they serve their communities better. That's right. 

Robert: Absolutely.

Erik: Yeah. 

Matt: When you got firefighters that are out there nervous about what the fire chief's gonna do next, they're probably not gonna have their mind in the [00:57:30] game when it comes to that structure fire or that sick call.

So that's another side of it that is huge. Chief, we thoroughly enjoyed having you on here. I don't know, this was, I, this is one of the best podcasts that I've done for sure. Yep. So definitely appreciate your time. 

Erik: Would've been a whole lot better if you didn't mention Robert Kraft. 

Matt: We're gonna have to bring you down and take you to a Cowboys game.

Robert: Oh, that, is that a professional team or 

Matt: I love it. I love it. 

Robert: That's great. It was an honor to be on [00:58:00] your podcast, really was. I really appreciate you the opportunity and to meet you in person. You guys are doing great things. I love the training that you presented. It was incredible. I know our firefighters keep asking, there was one thing that they want and they want you to come here and do training for our members because it was absolutely incredible.

And, you can have smart people who do training, but your training was not only smart, it was engaging and it was presented in a way I've never seen it before. So we need to we need to team up and do some stuff. 

Erik: We should 

Matt: checks in the mail [00:58:30] Chief. 

Erik: There you go. There you go.

Matt: Oh, appreciate that.

Erik: This is great. Thanks again for your time. This is amazing. We usually end our podcast with a little bit of a fist bump. So here's a fist bump to you. 

Fist bump to you chief. Love it. See you on the next one. Be safe out there. 

Sounds great. 

Matt: Take care, chief. Bye.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to EMS, the Erik [00:59:00] and Matt Show.