Dedication, expertise and commitment to excellence are key ingredients to the recipe for success both in life and in the fire service. Fire Chief Magazine's 2001 Volunteer Fire Chief of the Year, King of Prussia (Pa.) Volunteer Fire Company Chief William Jenaway possesses all of these qualities.

A fire service volunteer since 1969, Jenaway has built an impressive list of credentials and accomplishments in his career, including recognition as one of the first 15 chiefs to receive Chief Fire Officer designation by the Commission on Fire Officer Designation, where he now serves as a peer reviewer.

Outside of heading an 80-member volunteer department, Jenaway works in the fire protection engineering and management field, currently serving as the executive vice president of VFIS, a provider of insurance and related services to the emergency services. He says his dual careers have complemented one another and helped him to be a better fire chief through his ability to educate his staff.

“I think that understanding building construction as well as fire protection systems gives you a better opportunity to not only understand fire movement and fire growth, but ultimately how to manage the code process, the deployment of resources and how to stay a step ahead of the way fire progresses through buildings and moves,” he says.

Jenaway has served as president of the Congressional Fire Services Institute for five years and has been involved in the organization in some way since its inception. He has served on a congressional advisory panel on domestic terrorism, as well as with numerous state and national professional organizations. He has conducted over 150 presentations at fire service conferences in the United States and Canada and serves as a college lecturer on fire protection topics.

In addition, he has authored five texts, over 200 articles, a board game and four children's books related to the fire service. He enjoys spending time with his wife, Joan, and daughters Kelsey, Katie and Lizzie; coaching his daughter's softball team; and watching college basketball.

“Bill represents the epitome of the 21st century fire chief. He realizes that being a fire officer is no longer a matter of standing in front of the fire building and directing his men and women,” says Gary Touchton, chief of the King of Prussia VFD from 1988 to 1996.

“He has recognized for a long time that the modern fire chief must also be a community leader, involving himself in the political and commercial aspects of his city. Bill has been able to bridge the gap between all these entities, and make the protection of lives and property a mutual cooperation within the community.”

A promising beginning

Growing up as an only child in Fredericktown, a coal-mining community of about 10,000 in southwestern Pennsylvania, Jenaway was influenced by family members involved in public safety and community service.

“Back then I had an uncle who was in charge of local civil defense operations. I had another uncle who was in law enforcement. I won't say it was family orientation, but there was a lot of activity around then in the households,” he says. “Discussion, involvements, meetings, any family get-together back then had some discussion of public safety.”

Following in the footsteps of his father, then the assistant chief of the East Bethlehem Township (Pa.) Fire Department, Jenaway joined East Bethlehem as a volunteer firefighter in 1969 at age 17. Although his father loved the idea, his mother was a little wary.

“My mother was the one who questioned it. She didn't understand why. In fact, I remember her words. She said, ‘Isn't one person enough?’ I was drawn to the interest of helping people from both the fire and EMS standpoint back then.”

Originally, the one-time pre-medicine major had plans to develop a career outside of the fire service. Fate intervened, however, says Jenaway:

“I went to a local college where I was able to commute for a couple of years and I was able to continue the firefighting activities and the ambulance work as well. I guess it was my junior year of college when I actually decided I wanted to pursue something in fire protection and started looking at fire protection education alternatives. I found it to be more interesting, more exciting, and back then, there was much more opportunity.”

Jenaway progressed quickly through the ranks of the East Bethlehem department; in 1973 he was named fire department captain at the tender age of 22. “I don't know that I was overwhelmed or anything of that nature, but I would say that it was a challenge that I sought and I wanted to see if I could really do this,” says Jenaway.

Four years later, he was named chief of the 45-person department. Even though he was only 26 at the time, he says the citizens of the community weren't apprehensive about his youthfulness. “I think those communities relied on the decisions made by their fire department personnel, and they recognized that they put people in charge that they felt could do the jobs,” he says. “I never once was questioned, never once.”

King of Prussia chief

In 1980, Jenaway's fire protection and safety engineering career brought him to King of Prussia, Pa., a suburban Philadelphia community of 20,000 full-time residents and 250,000 daytime inhabitants. By that time, joining the department in his new community was a natural choice for him.

“At that point I was teaching weekend classes and doing some limited speaking, but I had already gotten into the groove of doing not only the municipal fire protection thing, but trying to help others learn the discipline as well,” he says. After 13 months, he became assistant chief, then was promoted to deputy chief in 1988 and chief in 1996.

Under Jenaway's leadership, the King of Prussia Company has achieved state and national recognition, including becoming the first all-volunteer department to be recognized as an accredited agency by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International, an achievement he cites as the biggest of his volunteer career. “That was something that required total team involvement of the officers and we were scrutinized on every aspect of work that we do,” he says. “I think it said a lot about our organization, our people, our commitment.”

Jenaway and his company found the process to be challenging, even frustrating at times. “There were times that we felt extremely good about the progress that we were making, and then at times felt that we were almost demoralized because there was something that we felt we were not doing or not completing,” he says.

Even so, Jenaway says the accreditation allowed his company to establish a long-range strategic plan and helped the credibility of the fire service in King of Prussia. “Because of the visibility of our community and the fact that so many people go through there every day,” he says, “we felt that we were just simply more visible and needed to be in a better defensible position on our capabilities should anyone ever feel that we did something wrong.”

Although Jenaway acknowledges accreditation may not be right for every volunteer department, he offers advice to those willing to complete the process.

“I would suggest that everybody do the self-assessment. Most volunteer fire departments still don't have good planning processes in place. So, if nothing more, it gives you a tool to plan your organization's future,” he says.

“The second thing is, divide the work. Have a coordinator and just don't worry when you find a problem, try to work through it, take it as a challenge and find a way to accomplish it, rather than say, ‘I'm not going to deal with this.’ Be proactive rather than reactive.”

Jenaway says he finds measuring the growth of the people on his staff and watching them earn recognition to be the most rewarding aspect of his job. A recent inventory called his attention to the fact that in the past four years, the King of Prussia Company has received 17 individual awards, ranging from scholarships to Pennsylvania Training Instructor of the Year to valor awards from the state.

“Those types of recognitions indicate to me that people are growing, that they have increased interest and that in some way, shape or form, I've touched them and they have touched others to improve the fire protection of the community,” he says.

Engine Company Operations Assistant Chief Steve Volpi agrees: “Training and a solid social environment are critical to our success and a volunteer fire service. Over the years, Bill has been instrumental in making these happen in King of Prussia.”

New technology, new focuses

In his lifetime, Jenaway says the smoke detector has had the single biggest impact on the fire service, essentially changing many response and suppression dynamics. “The earlier warning gives you a quicker response,” he says. “As a result, the fires are less demanding then they used to be many years ago.”

In the future, Jenaway says he thinks the decrease in structure fires will lead to a fire service that's even more diversified and community service — oriented than it currently is. “Twenty years ago, we were dealing with the advent of ems into the fire service. Then about 10 years ago it was hazmat; today it's terrorism. I think the target will continue to move as new issues are identified and new tasks are being given to the fire department,” he says.

“I think we're going to have much more significant community service involvement. That will require different focus by the fire officers. It's going to require different equipment to be purchased, it's going to require different types of approaches to training and public education programs.”

Training

Throughout his career, Jenaway has been committed to advancing his education and knowledge of fire-related subjects. He has earned certificates for 3,000 hours of formal coursework in addition to degrees from the Community College of Allegheny County, Pa.; Waynesburg College, Waynesburg, Pa.; California University of Pennsylvania, California, Pa.; and a Ph.D. in management from LaSalle University, Philadelphia.

He says his advice to a rookie firefighter would be to take as much training as possible. “Every bit of training you can receive will help you better understand the problems you will face and also help you if you get involved in a serious personal threat situation,” he says. “Don't just look at firefighting training, but look at issues such as building construction, how sprinkler systems work, how alarm systems work, all the different peripheral areas to traditional firefighting.”

Future plans

Jenaway says he's not quite ready to retire as chief. He is committed through the end of 2002, and is hoping to have another two-year term after that.

“I think that every person who goes into the role of chief should establish some objectives that they want to see accomplished,” says Jenaway, “and they will, in a relatively short period of time, see when it's time for them to move on and objectives can be better met by people with other skill sets.”

“I think the chiefs today have to understand that they can't sit in the fire stations and plan their destiny,” Jenaway says. “They need to understand what the general population and the politicians expect of them.

“To do that they have to be out in the public, they have to be out with the business community, they have to be telling their story on a regular basis to the schools and they have to find a way to be part of the overall community.'Chiefs need to understand they can't just sit in the fire station and plan their destiny.