Last month in this space, I wrote why I thought 2012 would signal the death of the old fire service adage “200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress.” I’d like to follow up on that.

Whenever I give a presentation at an industry conference, I usually tell the story of when I tried to sign-on with our local volunteer fire department many years ago. I grew up with three brothers, so I was somewhat a tomboy. My father was a lieutenant in the department, and two of my brothers became part of the first cadet program and, eventually, the first career firefighters hired.

Just after I got married and moved nearby — and with encouragement from my husband — I went to the fire chief’s office to volunteer. I explained why I wanted to be a firefighter, my commitment to the department (I already was in the ladies auxiliary) and my ability do the job. The chief listened, then leaned back in his leather chair, removed the big cigar from his mouth and told me to “go home and have babies.” Needless to say, it was not the response I expected or wanted.

I told my dad how unreasonable I thought the chief was; he told me not to argue with his chief.

When I was growing up, girls really were limited in career options. Prior to my firefighting attempt, I wanted to join the Air Force. My dad made it clear that was not an option — even though it would have meant a military-bankrolled college education.

Fortunately, times changed, and I eventually ended up with a job at the largely male United Parcel Service in the 1970s. Later, the fire chief who turned me down redeemed himself by introducing me to the editor of FIRE CHIEF, who soon hired me as an associate editor. But even in the late 1980s, the magazine’s then-publisher told me that as long as he was in charge, “There will never be a female editor of FIRE CHIEF.” He was right — but when he finally left, another publisher saw the wisdom in hiring for competency instead of gender.

And during my last 15 years at FIRE CHIEF, I’ve been fortunate to witness an increase in diversity in the U.S. fire service. There are fire-service organizations at the national, state and local levels for racial and gender minorities that offer support and networking.

But is it enough? This month, Associate Editor Mary Rose Roberts offers an update to a topic that FIRE CHIEF has covered many times in its 55 years: diversity in fire service. And it is clear that many emergency-response organizations still do not reflect the communities they serve.

Many of the prejudices of my generation are considered outdated by generations raised since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Hopefully that means a new generation of leaders in the fire service will bring with them a new openness to diversity.

It’s natural for human beings to seek shared interests about which they can communicate with each other. For me, finding out that a stranger rides a Harley, is a parent or a firefighter immediately breeds a sense of commonality, whether the other person is male or female, black or white, young or old. Perhaps that is what the fire service needs. And professional conferences — which, at their core, are designed to let individuals share similar experiences, knowledge and understanding — are a good place to start.

Maybe it’s because of my personal experiences, but we raised our daughters to believe that they could be anything they wanted to be if they worked hard. Today, each one of them has a job that tradition would have denied them 40 years ago.