Massachusetts Fire Chief 2009

CAPITOL HILL was limited with our United States Senators and members of Congress. Each year of the past nineteen, the Congressional Fire Services Institute, CFSI, has organized a large dinner and day of activities in Washington D C. This dinner and events bring Fire and Emergency Services leaders together with our Elected Representatives to develop a dialog and gain support for funding and programs to enhance public safety. For many years, only the President of FCAM would attend the events along with a representative of the two New England Fire Chiefs organizations. Having attended the dinner as President of both the Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts as well as President of the New England Division of the IAFC, I recognized the value of this interaction between Fire Chiefs and Federal Ofﬁcials. In the mid nineties, I launched a campaign to be elected as Vice President of the IAFC based on a platform that promoted grass roots lobbying nationwide as a means to gain the funding that was sorely needed by the Nation’s Fire and Emergency Services. While the election didn’t go my way initially, the effort helped plant the seeds that led to some great legislative successes for the ﬁ re service. The Leadership of FCAM embraced these efforts and they endorsed the concept of holding a Fire Chiefs’ Association of Massachusetts Legislative Event at the Nation’s Capitol, in conjunction with the CFSI Dinner. The Chiefs’ Association held its First Annual Legislative Luncheon with our United States Senators and Members of Congress in 2002. The event drew approximately 70 Fire Chiefs and was attended by the entire Massachusetts Delegation. By all accounts, the event was a great success and it caught the attention of the IAFC, as I had been elected as 2nd Vice President and would be installed at the annual conference in Kansas City later that summer. The following year the event grew to almost one hundred Fire Chiefs as well as many guests from the IAFC. Over the next two years, we experienced difﬁculty getting our Senators and Members of Congress to attend the luncheon and keeping them in the room due to conﬂ icts and Roll Call votes taking place around the noon hour. After some deliberation by the Executive Board of FCAM, it was decided to try a breakfast event with the intent of having an audience with our Senators and Members of Congress early in the day before their busy day began. This proved to be a wise move as our attendance rebounded to the levels of our early successes. The breakfast format allows the Chiefs to attend smaller meetings with individual Members of Congress as well as visits to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to visit wounded troops. This coming year the FCAM Chiefs will visit the Arlington National Cemetery, where some of our FCAM Members who served in the Military will place a Wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown. The real success has been that the efforts of The Fire Chiefs’ Association have been duplicated by many other States’ Fire Chiefs Organizations. Today, the Nation’s Fire Service enjoys a higher proﬁ le at the federal level and many Fire Chiefs hold prominent positions in the hierarchy of the federal government. This year’s CFSI Dinner and the FCAM 7th Annual Federal Legislative Event will be on April 2nd. The Chiefs will host a luncheon in the Members Room at the Library of Congress at 11:30 AM till 1:00 PM. Hope to see you there. ❚ 16 | M ASSACHUS E TTS FI RE C H I E F 2009 http://www.apollosafety.com/

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Massachusetts Fire Chief 2009

Massachusetts Fire Chief 2009 Contents A Message from the FCAM President Code of Ethics/Vision Statement Bonds of Service Legislative Report The Fire Chief for 2009 and Beyond Leading a Combination Fire Department Remember When Fighting for Code Change Leadership Matters Fire Risk Management - Fire Chiefs - Codes The Current Economy and its Effect on Fire Departments Statewide Fire Mobilization Plan Beware of the Truss Index of Advertisers

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