In May, the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Gregory B. Cade as the Federal Emergency Management Agency's assistant administrator for the U.S. Fire Administration. Sworn into office July 17, Cade now is responsible for supporting state and local fire service programs and implementing FEMA initiatives for emergency readiness, firefighter training and equipment.

Before his appointment, Cade served as fire chief/emergency services coordinator for the Virginia Beach (Va.) Fire Department. For nine years he managed 900 personnel and a $38 million operating budget in a department with 19 fire/rescue stations responsible for 311 square miles of land and 35 miles of coastline. He also oversaw the Virginia Task Force 2 Urban Search and Rescue Team.

Cade has 39 years of experience in the emergency services. He began his career in Prince George's County, Md., was fire chief in Hampton, Va., before becoming chief of Virginia Beach. He has a bachelor of science degree, is a graduate of the Harvard Fellowship Program, and is a member of Fire Chief's editorial advisory board.

How are you enjoying your new position now that it is official?

It's been like jumping in the middle of a stream and learning how to swim. Part of the dilemma has been trying to be involved to get a feel for what's happening, but trying and not step across and stomp on anyone's toes before the Senate voted and make them think you think you got the job and are acting like you do before you do. It's been an interesting tap dance.

According to FEMA, your title is assistant administrator, yet you also are the U.S. fire administrator.

It's a confusing title. I'm the assistant administrator in FEMA because David Paulison's title is administrator. For the USFA, I am the fire administrator.

When were you first contacted about the position and how long is your term?

I was originally contacted in April 2006. That's when I was asked to send in my resume. My term is until January 2009 when President Bush's term ends, when all of his political appointments cease.

How do you see your role as administrator of the USFA?

I see my role of the heading the U.S. Fire Administration as being the fire service's voice at the federal level for the programs and the integration of the fire service into what's going on, whether it's homeland security in general, preparedness specifically or in response to whatever incidents occur.

Is it really appropriate to call the organization the U.S. Fire Administration?

It's probably a title that needs to be changed, but the dilemma is that so many people are used to seeing it from a branding standpoint that I don't know that they will change it. I don't think it accurately describes what the fire service does today. We — the insiders — know what the fire service does today, and that's a whole lot more than responding to fire incidents. I think the general public somewhat understands that, but it does tend to get lost in the greater conversation.

What are your top three priorities coming into the position of fire administrator?

My first priority is to try to get an assessment of where we are with the health and safety initiatives. As you know … Paulison made a commitment to reduce the number of firefighter deaths by 50% over 10 years, and I certainly have been working on health and safety issues within the fire service for a long, long time. I want to see where we are with those issues and what impact the 16 Life-Safety Initiatives of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation have had and what's the role of the USFA to improve upon that effort.

The second priority is to look at the improvement or the use of the National Fire Incident Reporting System and the National Fire Data Center that are part of the USFA. I think the timeliness of getting the data out is not where it needs to be.

In today's world you can go on the Internet and find what happened 30 seconds ago, and fire chiefs need that kind of information right now. We can't provide it that quickly out of the National Fire Data Center, and that's something I want to look at — moving it to some sort of a Web-based program and make that information available in a little bit more timely manner.

There's a ton of information and [the center is] the largest repository of the fire data in the United States. While it's very effective in being used for historical analysis, I don't think it's as user-friendly for up-to-date information. I found that out when I was going through my confirmation process and was just trying to find out how many fire deaths there were in 2006. That kind of instantaneous information was not available in January when I was preparing for the Senate confirmation process. So the data's there, it's just not easy to get at and I think we can improve the participation if and when you can make it more of a Web-based program so that people can use it easier.

My third priority — not the last, because there's tons more to do — is to look at how our training programs can continue to be cost-effective and distributed in conjunction with our partners at the state and local levels.

One of the things I heard clearly out of the Senate confirmation process and also from the House members who I've had a chance to meet is that the smaller departments — especially the rural and volunteer departments — just can't do training at the level they need to do to prepare themselves to deal with incidents. From a cost-effective standpoint that's a role the National Fire Academy, working with the states, can develop and push those programs out for delivery.

Those are the three things that will take me the next 18 months to go.

It's really encouraging to hear that the Congressional leaders are listening to and repeating the needs of the rural fire departments.

It is, and at least the ones that I've met are very concerned and realize the role that the fire service plays in homeland security and dealing with disasters.

People say to me, “Why do I need this level of training?” and “Why do we need this level of equipment because I'm here in the middle of my state and I can protect my community and that's all it takes?” Well, I reply to those folks that I was in New Orleans right after Hurricane Katrina, and there were a whole bunch of fire departments from Illinois that were also down there and it was my assumption that if you polled those Illinois firefighters and asked them a month beforehand how many of them thought they'd be in New Orleans for something other than partying on Bourbon Street, they'd have looked at you as if you were crazy. But there they were, working alongside the New Orleans Fire Department, providing protection.

We've got to raise the consciousness in the fire service that we can be any place and therefore we've got to be prepared for it. These large-scale disasters have proven that this is going to happen. Look at all the fire and emergency departments that participated with the New York city fire department after 9/11, and look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and all along the Gulf coast; there were lots of other departments involved that never thought that's where they would be.

That brings up the National Incident Management System and the interaction with other public agencies. The role and level of emergency management seems to be interpreted differently across the country. What role do you see emergency management playing with fire departments?

What you'll find is that the emergency management community and the fire service community are certainly interlocked.

When I was the fire chief in Virginia Beach, I was the emergency services coordinator for the city. I think there was a survey by the [International Association of Fire Chiefs] several years ago to determine how many of their fire chiefs or their members were also the emergency management person for their community, and if I remember it was well above 60%.

At times … a lot of people tend to forget that the fire service may in fact be the emergency manager for their city. And even if they're not, they certainly are one of the critical components of the city management.

My experience in dealing with emergency management and emergency managers is that their role is a coordination role. You don't generally have any assets they can deploy someplace; they've got to get whatever they need from somewhere else, and that somewhere else for a lot of localities is the fire service community. So they've got to be in tune with what's going on with emergency management.

As far as NIMS goes, there's no one or no service that uses an incident management system more than the fire service [does] on a daily basis and has for decades. We are the experts in using it, and we need to take that expertise and share it and help expand that pool of people that are using it in to the communities. From my perspective, that's the critical role for the fire service; they can be the whole center of excellence on how they can use the National Incident Management System. I see it as a natural fit.

What in your background are you going to draw from for your new position?

Well, hopefully what I'm going to draw from first is my street-level experience. For the last 40 years, that's what I know and bring that to the federal conversation. I certainly have first-hand experience dealing with large-scale disasters, as well as little bitty trash fires. Hopefully that perspective and background will be useful.

In addition to that, I have had the good fortune in the later part of my career of being involved in a lot of the national issues with the International Association of Fire Chiefs and other organizations that I belong to. So hopefully I can bring that blend of frontline experience and leadership capability to the federal conversation and maybe bring that perspective when people are discussing what's going on and what's going to happen. I can at least chime in with “you need to think of these other things” or “no, that's a great idea … this is how we can make it work.”

What message do you have for Fire Chief readers?

We have got to continue to push forward with the culture of preparedness that we have in the fire service and extend that out to the community. We know that disasters are going to come whether its terrorist events, natural disasters, tornados or wildland fires. The community needs to be prepared in how to deal with those things and there is no one better to fit that role, in my opinion, than the fire service. That is the message we have to get out to the fire service and the fire service has to get out to the community.