Navy veteran Richard “Smokey” Dyer is used to working effectively in high-pressure, stressful environments. In fact, he thrives in them. Within the fire service, his leadership has promoted better labor-management relations and improved firefighter physical fitness, two goals that have bedeviled many a chief.

As a former president and board member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, Dyer was deeply involved with the IAFC/International Association of Fire Fighters Joint Wellness Fitness and Joint Leadership Partnership Training programs. In his five years as chief of the Kansas City (Mo.) Fire Department, he has tackled several labor-management initiatives, including an overhaul of the recruitment, hiring and testing processes for recruits. Many of these accomplishments build on his 22 years with the Lee's Summit (Mo.) Fire Department, 13 as chief.

Dyer has completed both the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program and the Commission on Fire Service Accreditation's Chief Fire Officer Designation. He has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in public service administration.

This award is very well-deserved. What one thing would you single out as your greatest achievement?

There's just been too many great things that have happened in my career, the people that I've been able to work with and the accomplishments of the departments that I've been with. I can't think of any single accomplishment that I would highlight.

What are some of your passions today?

I would summarize it as constant and continual improvement in the fire service, and primarily my thrust in that right now is doing that within the Kansas City Fire Department.…

And one of the things that I'm passionate about is the way I believe, and I have to stress it's my belief, a theory, that the best way to have an improvement of the fire department, and especially a career unionized fire department, is through the labor-management partnership process. That's really my passion, and right now what we're attempting to do is to be a working laboratory in our fire department, showing that the cooperation and the partnering between labor and management can bring about a significant improvement of the organization that will provide increased and improved services for the public and, at the same time, make it a better place to work at.

Part of the hypothesis of this experiment is that those other things that you want to accomplish are kind of sub-points to that major objective. So whether it's creating a safer fire department, whether it's improved emergency medical services, whether it's approved training programs — all of those things may be very important objectives, but unless you have a good framework of making change in an organization and change that will stick, you can have a lot of good ideas and a lot of initiatives you want to accomplish, but unless you have a system and a foundation to make those changes, they won't actually last.

Fire chiefs in an organization may last two years, three years, four years, maybe 10 years, … but if everything then is the rubber-band effect where it snaps back to where it was before that individual was chief, what did you actually accomplish? So what we're trying to do and what I am passionate about is creating a system where those decisions, those changes, those improvements have organizational buy-in. The initiatives become organizational initiatives and not a particular chief's initiative that has the chief's signature on it, but the signature is that of the organization. By changing the culture of the organization and the expectations, then those changes become permanent until they're changed again.… Then you can really bring about an ongoing, continuing improvement that really impacts the public and the personnel of the organization.

You implemented some of the hallmark labor-management programs as president of the IAFC; for example, the Candidate Physical Ability test is certainly a lasting mark there.

Right, and we're just trying to use that same type of model and process. To me that was kind of a controlled experiment process to see if we could come together and accomplish something and then have them further that type of relationship of moving forward here with everything that we're doing within the department.

What advice would you give to a fire chief who's having really difficult labor-management relations?

The first thing that I would do is investigate the potential of bringing the IAFC/IAFF labor-management partnership training program to their metropolitan area. That program is how we started off, and … here in Missouri, we were the first. We hosted the first pilot class ever that was offered, and it's taught jointly by one representative of the IAFC and one representative of the IAFF. The attendees are the chief of department and the union local president, and you spend an intense two-day training class together and then go back and try to initiate some of the suggestions that are offered in the training program. Then you come back together six months later for an additional two days of training.

That's what I would recommend to a department that was currently having an adversarial relationship; try to bring that program to your region or to your state. Unfortunately for a single, individual department, that program is generally sponsored by a state fire chief's organization or a regional fire service organization. Take the lead instead of being passive and waiting for somebody else to do it. Step up and be the individual who takes the responsibility for trying to get that training program into your particular area because that may give them at least a starting block to enter into a partnership program. From there, you get a lot of ideas on how to proceed.

One of the things that we have done is, the Phoenix Department and our department presented a workshop at the IAFC conference in Denver on providing suggestions to chiefs on how to implement a program and how to get it started, and what are some of the real advantages and what are some of the pitfalls to be on the look out for. So if you don't bring the specific training program to your region or your state, then the other thing I would recommend is to get to conferences … and listen to what other departments are doing and participate in those types of workshops.… There's quite a bit of information out there on how to implement a program and get it started, at least at its initial stages.

Interoperable communications systems have also been important to your department.

… Here in the Kansas City area, we think that we have been one of the departments that has promoted unique regional cooperation. We originally started that with the Metropolitan Medical Response System from when we were originally receiving grants from the Department of Health and Human Services. Then, again because of our close connection and working relationship with the IAFC, we learned that the Urban Area Security Initiative funds would be coming down the road. It was our understanding that when the UASI funds would be received, they would be much more significant in terms of dollars than we had been receiving through the MMRS grants.

We decided that we were going to need a better decision-making model on how to do our regional planning and preparation for terrorism events and events that were going to be our priorities for the expenditures of those funds. So then we took the lead on creating a regional homeland security initiative, and we headquartered that in our regional council of government, which is called the Mid-America Regional Council. The MARC board is headed by all elected officials. We took our five counties on the Missouri side of the state line and the three counties on the Kansas side of the state line — we're unique in that not only are we trying to do this regionally, but we have a state line that runs right through the middle of the region — then put together a model in how we would deal as a region with all of the terrorism issues. That includes things like the Metropolitan Emergency Information System that … includes interoperability of communications; of dealing with standardized hazardous materials; teams bringing all of our self-contained breathing apparatus to the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear requirements; working on a regional mobile command center that would be multi-disciplinary.

I'm trying to just mention the stuff that's pretty related to fire and not the initiatives that are in law enforcement or health, strictly emergency management and all the other disciplines that are involved in our efforts. So the fire service has been a key leader here in the Kansas City metro area of creating this regional initiative, and in our discussions at the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Conference and of the UASI cities, we think that we are in a leading role. In our discussions, it seems like the city of Baltimore is also doing an excellent job in being out on the forefront in a leadership role in the UASI area. I think that's probably also applicable in Los Angeles with the city of L.A. in L.A. County. I'm most familiar with what's going on in Baltimore right now.

Is there anything right now that you're working on in your department?

Right now we're working on creating two regional high-rise response units, so we're very concerned about our capability to handle significant high-rise incidents. If we were to have a weapon, whether it's fire, explosive, chemical or a dirty bomb, whatever it may be in a high-rise building, we're concerned about our regional capability to respond to that type of incident. So we're working to improve that response capability and have tentatively funded two high-rise units that we will design and determine what we will need to have that capability.

We're also worried about the threat of fire utilizing flammable or combustible liquids such as was used at the World Trade Center on 9/11. We're worried about what we've been told by the intelligence analysts to be prepared for terrorists hijacking tankers with flammable and combustible liquids and taking them to venues and target hazards. We're working on preparing to purchase three regional foam tankers to give us a quicker response and ability to quickly combat fires involving significant amounts of flammable or combustible liquids so as to be better-prepared if they were to run a tanker into an arena, into the lobby of a high-rise building or into a public venue and to increase our rapid response capability for those types of incidents.

What do you think of the Department of Homeland Security trying to spread a more consistent incident command system across the country with NIMS?

We really don't see it as much of an initiative for us. We're very pleased that the Department of Homeland Security made the policy decision to base NIMS on the Incident Command System that the fire service has been utilizing and perfecting for the last 30 years. We have had a regional Incident Command System here in metropolitan Kansas City. We have already taken the policy decision, I think within the first month of NIMS coming out of Homeland Security, of adopting it as the regional Incident Management System. So really, the things that the fire service has done are already in place here in our department. It's going to be the other professions and governmental institutions that haven't been using that kind of structure. People in health departments and public works and those types of agencies are going to have the larger challenge.

You seem to be very skilled at leadership. What are some of the ways that you developed that?

That's been developing over a long period of time; I wouldn't know how to describe my leadership style. I don't think that I probably fit any type of mode that could be described or that you could find in a textbook because I feel that I'm committed, especially in this labor-management partnership, to a very participatory type of management system. But I think that if you were to interview people who do or have worked for me, they would also describe me as a control freak, somebody that often leads with significant intensity. I don't think that I fit any one description or mold; I mean, it seems like a lot of dichotomy and a lot of conflicting types of styles, I guess I would say.

Do you have any words of wisdom to offer other chiefs?

Well, I do teach classes in leadership and seminars and so forth, and it's hard to boil them down to little gems of wisdom because I think that they are so extensive. But I guess the ones that seem to be the most important to me is that you have to have a passion for what we do, and then if you go ahead and perform your duties with integrity and by being yourself, generally about everything else will work itself out. Now that doesn't mean that you won't have some difficult challenges, but I think that it is very difficult to be a leader in our business….

The vast majority of people, whether career or volunteer, are very passionate about the service that we provide. So if we don't have the passion that they do, they will rebel and not give us the opportunity to lead and manage the organization. And you know, we have a lot of people who will get up and lecture us about how to be successful and what traits to display, but I think that if we're not ourselves that firefighters can see through that pretty quickly.

The one thing that firefighters are is pretty down-to-earth people. Regardless of their particular position and their rank, whether they're getting paid or they're volunteering their time, they're pretty hard judges of character. They don't want to be around or work with phonies, so you have to be yourself regardless of what books you read or what seminars you go to or what you're told on how to be a leader. If we have that integrity, we deal with them straight up in an honest fashion and recognize that their opinions count, also. All of us are in this together, and to me making decisions that by consensus most can support is better than the best decision made by the chief. If the majority of the organization can't support it, then probably that decision is only a theory anyway. I would rather have a good decision that the organization can support than the best decision that the majority isn't going to support. Because without that buy-in on the decision, it probably isn't going to be realistically implemented anyway.

If we let other people help us make the decision, then it probably will not be the best one or the perfect one. Well, without the buy-in, then we won't get it implemented and it won't stick anyway. That's how many of our departments end up with such adversarial relationships that we are a lot of times spending our time, effort, resources arguing over the implementation of somebody's decision. If we can come to a joint decision that most of us can support, then we don't have to waste those resources. That means we can make a lot of decisions and bring about a lot of improvements in a short period of time. But if we're not agreeing on them, the majority of us can't support them, then things bog down and we're not making very many improvements if any. Then we point the finger at each other to discuss whose fault it is. Who's the problem?

… Using a sports analogy, if the coach is calling plays that most of the team can support, it's probably a pretty successful sports team. If the manager or the head coach is on a different wavelength than the players, then generally the change is made of the head coach. They don't change all the players, and that's the same in the fire service, whether it's career or volunteer.

You're a cancer survivor. How did that experience affect you?

There are cancer survivors who talk a lot about that, and I realize it's important in their lives, but I just try not to do that myself. I think the prime thing happening during that period is again pointing out the things that are really important in life and bringing that back home, which wasn't like turning on a light bulb for me. But it was a time to allow me to refocus, and I think that my oncologist, he was one of those who helped me focus in on that.

I can remember shortly after I was diagnosed that my wife, daughter and I were meeting with the oncologist about the treatment plan and the options we had and how to proceed. The question was asked “What was the opinion of the cause of cancer?” and so forth. My oncologist was pretty adamant that he felt in his professional opinion that the cancer I had was brought about by my occupation and by me being a firefighter. So the question was asked by my loved ones, shouldn't — regardless of how successful the treatment is — this be something he shouldn't do anymore? To get out of the service, even as chief, even though he's not exposed nearly as much to the products that most probably brought this about, still responds on significant incidents, is exposed to smoke and vapors, chemical off-gassing and so forth.

The oncologist said, “What we're trying to do here is save his life, prolong his life, and this is who this man is. He's a firefighter. He's a chief. Why would we take that away from him?” And then everything else kind of gelled around that. Just longer years doesn't always mean that you beat something. It's how you lead your life. Are you focusing on things that are the most important to you, and are you enjoying your life? If you're not enjoying what you're doing, whether it's being a fire chief or whatever, then my advice is make a change and make it as fast as you can. I think sometimes we get locked into life, into doing things we don't know how to extricate ourselves out of, but we don't know how to make a living or support our families. I understand those are all critical issues, but if I'm not going to enjoy being a fire chief, then I'm not going to be here. And I think that I would have less chance of my cancer becoming active again if I got out of the fire service.

When I heard the oncologist say, “This is who this guy is,” I thought, “Yeah, he's exactly right.” … Other than what I do with my family and being a grandfather, about everything I do is not what some psychologist would say is a balanced life. Because about everything that I do is connected some way with fire, other than my family and so forth. I can't say that my hobbies are fishing or golfing or woodworking or any of those.

The Western Missouri Fire Chiefs nominated you for this award. How has your membership in regional organizations helped you as chief?

It's part of what is great to me about being a fire chief in this metropolitan area, both on the Missouri side, the Western Missouri Fire Chiefs, and then on the total metropolitan side we have the Heart of America Fire Chief Council. So on Western Missouri we meet monthly, and I've been part of that group for the last 27 years. The Heart of America Fire Chiefs meets quarterly, and that takes in the chiefs from 72 different fire departments throughout the metropolitan area. Both are networks of tremendous support for the fire chiefs in our metropolitan area.

I know that we're not the only metropolitan area in the country to have this, but it's surprising to me how many metropolitan areas really don't have an active regional chiefs organization. Not only is it important for the things that we do about our fire departments working together, but it's important to me to have that support group, friendship and peers to help you along. A lot of times it is said that it's lonely at the top. Well, those of us who are in regional areas have the opportunity in these metropolitan areas to have a support network. I realize that is more difficult when people are chiefs in cities that are isolated and a considerable distance from any other departments. So we have a group of people who have come up through the fire service together — for an extensive period of time, from the time we were firefighters — and it's just really rewarding when you've known these people as long as you have and have the professional networking, but also the personal friendship and relationship.