He uses words like simple, basic and common sense. He is to the fire service what W. Edwards Deming was to manufacturing. He doesn't micromanage, gives credit where credit is due and learned his management philosophy at his mother's knee.

Our 2006 Career Fire Chief of the Year Chief is Alan Brunacini of the Phoenix Fire Department, one of the legendary fire chiefs who have had an impact on the American fire service. Brunacini's professional career spanned 48 years, and though he retired as of Aug. 1, we're certain his voice will still be heard.

When did you first aspire to be a fire chief?

My becoming a fire chief was very evolutionary, and it occurred in stages. The Phoenix Fire Department was not very refined in those days, so a lot of the promotional process was pretty self-defensive. I hate to say that about my own system, but honestly, my own aspiration was to be a battalion chief. I was interested in fire operations and still am.

What I really wanted to do was be a response chief, but in the system I had to continue to promote myself in order to make the changes in the operations part of what we did. Things like safety, company operations, the beginning of an incident command system; it was trying to make some order of the fireground, because that's mostly what we did. If there had been people in the systems — officers, leaders and managers — I would have been tickled to death to help them and I would have been tickled to death to be their response chief, but that honestly wasn't the case. We were a pretty unorganized, wild and wooly operation.

Honestly, I didn't lay around dreaming of being the fire chief. I was lucky enough to go to Oklahoma State University Fire School to study fire protection. Back in those days it was a very vocational program that related to fire department operations, so I was a perfect student for that program. Now it's evolved into more of an engineering program, but when I went there you took courses in fire department operations, and that's the reason I went there. Then I was able to bring back those experiences to Phoenix and keep working in the system.

If you were at OSU back in the '50s, that was pretty progressive for a firefighter.

I went and got educated when it wasn't very popular to get an education. In 1959 the fire service was not very skillful in the way it dealt with education. I was interested in tactics and strategy, command and hydraulics, and using fire apparatus and structural stuff; that part has really stayed with me my whole career, even as a fire chief. I've probably operated more like an operations chief than any chief around. I was lucky to be in a place where I could do that.

In the early '70s you were an instructor at a community college. Many of the young firefighters and captains who took your classes eventually became part of your officer base. Did you realize what you were building at the time?

I don't know if I did. They were more like colleagues. When I got back from Oklahoma State I had a chance to teach in the community college while I was a fairly young firefighter. The students that I got to congregate with were the future bosses and managers in the system. A lot of the conversations, the contact and the interaction that we had in those classes sort of became the foundation for what we did when we got in a position that we could change the system.

It was a great opportunity to know those people in an academic way, even though what we did was pretty vocational, but you had a 16-week semester and you got to hang out with people for a longer period of time than you normally would.

Your former officers said they valued the fact that you let them take ownership of projects and that you never took credit.

I think I realized early in my career that the more involvement you could get, where you would let people participate, the more they felt that they owned the kind of things you were trying to change and create, and simply, the more effective they were.

I think, too, that if you listened to the people that were going to do those programs, they were really smart, resourceful people. Every time I have participated with a Phoenix firefighter, I have learned something that I didn't know before. It didn't take very long to figure out that 15 people could make a better decision when you're trying to improve a department-wide system than a single person can.

Normally it's a lot more effective if you're patient and you listen to them and you let them try things, as long as they're not dangerous — and they're not because you have really smart, resourceful people. It really isn't rocket science. It's just basic human relations because that's the way I felt. I know how I felt when the system let me participate, and mostly I knew how I felt when the system didn't. I don't think I was any different than the people that were working with me and for me.…

I think people in an organization begin to believe in that organization and trust that organization when you let them own their own part of the organization. The more we cut them out of that and move away from that, then you have people that mistrust each other, and pretty soon there are secret meetings. You have an elite group of people that are managing an organization. They're making deals and everything is a secret in that organization. I wouldn't want to go into a fire with that environment in the work group that you depended on to either live or die on. Do you trust the organization and the people who run it? It's not very complicated.

The other feeling is that the people who run the organization like you. It's easy for me because I always liked the people in the organization. They're smart and resourceful; they're crazy, mischievous; they love to play games and have time to play games. If you want to play games, they'll play and always win. I never try to play games with firefighters. I kept it simple. We had five words to run the organization: Prevent harm. Survive. Be nice. Some people think that's simplistic. Maybe it is and I'm old-fashioned. Sorry, I'm old — I can be old-fashioned.

A lot of chiefs have tried empowerment, but it backfires. Did anything ever come back to haunt you?

I have never had a problem with a Phoenix firefighter who had been empowered ever getting the organization in trouble. We learned a lot, and sometimes we said there's a better way of doing this. But the fact that somebody was able to make a decision on their level I think was a compliment to the people in this system.

The average Phoenix firefighter cares about the organization. They care about the city and don't want to embarrass themselves or the people they work for. They care about Mrs. Smith, and that's why they joined. They were very well-socialized by their parents and don't need to have a lot of junk they have to remember because their mother taught them how to behave and how to act when they left home. We ought to take advantage of that and keep it simple. Mostly, “be nice.”

You make it sound awfully simple.

Some people might say that's too simple, but most people will long remember the way you treated them [rather] than what you did. The way you influence people and how they feel about you is based on the way that you treated them. You can be the most skillful, professional well-dressed person in the world, but if you didn't establish a positive feeling for them and that you cared about them, then they aren't going to have a good memory.

Now when you stick that in an organization like a fire department, what you discover very quickly — and it's not different from most organizations — what you do on the inside gets acted out on the outside. If I tell a firefighter I want him to make Mrs. Smith comfortable, I ought to try to make that firefighter comfortable. If I say that I'm concerned about Mrs. Smith's safety and security, I ought to be interested and provide a believable and real level of concern and attention to that firefighter's safety and security. It's not really that complicated, and there's a food chain that goes from your boss to your worker to your customer.

If I want to improve the performance in how that customer is treated, then I need to change my behavior. The only thing I can control as a fire chief is my own behavior. When I got up in the morning, the only person I could manage was Alan Brunacini, just like every other human being on the planet. If I wanted firefighters to do something, the most believable thing I could do was the thing that I expected them to do. It's really simple.

You keep saying “simple” and “common sense,” while chiefs today are attending Harvard Fire Executive Fellowship and Executive Fire Officer programs.

I think that anything we can do to learn to be better managers — and some of that is academic — I think those are good programs. I got a master's degree in public administration, and I was very appreciative of being able to do that. They taught me a lot of things I was able to use. I'm not a very academic or a theoretical person. I think those are good things, but I think that's just one part of a fire chief's education and development and the things they need to understand to be able to do their jobs.

One of your officers said it was “fun to go to work in Phoenix,” which I can imagine with the rapid growth and changes in that area since the '70s. Would it have been possible in an older, established community?

We were lucky to be in Phoenix, and I don't mean to minimize that at all. I think it's more about the way people are treated and how they are regarded in the organization. I think it would be possible if bosses paid attention to and managed the fun that people have doing their jobs.

Is it legal to have fun? Is it legal to make work interesting? I think that part of the empowerment process is that people want to enjoy the work that they do. They want that satisfying work that they get feedback on; it reinforces them when they do good and coaches them when there is a problem.

We hire 50 people out of 3,000 applicants. We don't draft people to be firefighters. You have the most absolutely terrific work force on this planet. What I figured out — and maybe it's being a little, short, fat guy that looks like Groucho Marx — I would take “yes” for an answer. If you wanted to do a good job and you wanted to be involved and you had a good time coming to work, I said, “Okay! Come on down!” It was never threatening to me, and I never had the feeling that they were undisciplined because they were having a good time. If you look at the normal indicators of personnel performance, the Phoenix Fire Department is the national model.

I never spent a dime on an attorney. I've never been to court over a personnel action. … We have almost zero turnover in the system. Why not enjoy that? What a place to be a boss! I hear all these people saying they can't get their people to do what they want them to do and they're not accountable, and I sort of smile. I understand those things go on in organizations, but that hasn't been the case in Phoenix. The firefighters do a terrific job. The customers love them. In my career they pretty much did everything I asked them to do.

I think they trusted the system, and if they tried something that didn't work, we either went back to the system or we went back to what happened before. Nobody got beat up because they tried something that didn't work. If there's a better way of doing something — in fact, if it's closer to where the idea was put in the system — the better it was.

When you hire firefighters, they're all going to pass a fitness test, CPAT and whatever else you're going to throw in. Is there some secret ingredient you're looking for?

We tell people that up until the interview it's all pretty standard — the medical test, the CPAT exam, the same background check. The first thing we ask … is do you want to spend 24 hours in a fire station with this person? Do they simply have the capabilities, the personality and the attitudes to take care of Mrs. Smith. It's not very complicated.

The people who interview become very skillful and understand this. When you become a firefighter, 10 or 12 times a day you're going to have to go out and take care of Mrs. Smith for 20 minutes or an hour because that's what we're in business to do. Can you do this for the next 30 years? And do you have a personality that I would want to live with in a fire station for 24 hours? That's pretty compelling, if you think about it.

You've had a longtime commitment to officer development. I understand some 30 fire chiefs have come out of the Phoenix Fire Department. Countless firefighters across the nation have read your books. You've had an incredible impact on the fire service, particularly west of the Mississippi. Is there anything you would have done differently?

I tried to answer that as I went along. There's a lot of times we didn't know what we were doing and we'd say, “Hey, we're making this stuff up as we go.”

There are two approaches to managing a fire department: You can either be a general or you can be a shepherd. I think when you have a hazard zone, you ought to be a general. You ought to line up; there should be a standard kind of way, expected rules, relationships and functions; and it ought to be choreographed because if we're going into a hazard zone, it's the boss's responsibility to get them out of the hazard zone.

Other times, I think a fire department doesn't march very well. If you look at those systems that try to make us “march,” … those are generally not very happy systems. Firefighters are pretty smart people, and if you say, “Here's a place where I want you because there is a hazard zone, time is compressed, consequences are severe” — let's say on a fireground — “I want you to be very, very disciplined in this situation,” I think firefighters say, “OK, that makes sense.”

The rest of the time if you say I want everybody doing things the same way, having slavish kinds of schedules — looking at appearance is a huge issue in the fire service — then pretty soon we start to care more about the way we look than the way we do, and that's a very special thing to me in the time I was a fire chief.

I think we ought to look uniform and professional and be neat and clean, but honestly, for the almost 40 years I was a fire chief I never worshiped uniforms, and that drove a lot of people crazy and still does. I worked in a system that worried about the uniforms we were wearing yet didn't wear turnout coats on the fireground. I'm concerned about you taking universal precautions and having thermal protection when you go into a fire. Again, in the hottest, driest, most arid place in North America, it would make sense to me to wear a T-shirt and shorts. If you came to Phoenix, 10 minutes after you're in your hotel room, you'd be wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

It's an intelligence test! About 40 years ago, we said why don't you guys wear navy-blue, fire-resistant T-shirts and shorts. I didn't think it was that big a deal, but to some people uniforms are a big deal and that's fine. I think that the more casual your uniform is, the easier it is for people to relate to you.

It's odd that in this uniform hysteria we go through, that 80% of the calls we go on, we will take Mrs. Smith on a gurney to a place where people are wearing scrubs. Scrubs that have teddy bears, sailboats, ducks and all kinds of things on them. I've never had a customer say, “You took me to a place where those people were not wearing starched white uniforms!” Nobody complains about the hospital being informal. That's just a quirk I have.

What advice do you have for future chiefs?

Have a good attitude, always be kind and never give up. It's not very complicated. You're a role model whether you want to be a role model or not, really and truly. People are going to remember the way you treated them.

Somebody said there are only three things in life to remember: kindness, kindness and kindness. Mrs. Smith remembers it exactly the way Firefighter Smith remembers it. Change in a fire department takes a long time. It's a cultural tradition that we're trying to make in our fire departments and every fire department. When you take that on, you better figure it's going to take a while to do that, so you better not give up. It's not very academic. It's very practical things that people can do. Write it down, read it once in awhile. I think you can use it as a fire chief.

What would like to be remembered most for in your professional career?

If I wanted to be remembered for anything, it would be that I hope I was effectively concerned about the welfare of our firefighters, and I hope that I participated in at least one tiny part in a system that cared about the customers, and I hope there was a strong connection between those two [groups]. And that the firefighters had the resources and the support to go out and take care of the customers when they needed to. If I did that, hell, then I got to do it in my own way; I was lucky.

Every day, the worst day I ever had, was beautiful. I kind of live in a dream world. I couldn't have been in a happier place with a better group of people to spend your whole career. I have loved being a part of the fire service, and wherever I go I find those same kind of people. I see Phoenix wherever I go; it's a different version, so it's interesting. Chicago is not Phoenix, but it's a terrific place. We've all got to hang out with each other.

What I'm doing now is I'll make a transition to whatever is next for me. You don't stop doing something you've been doing for 50 years. So I go on to the next stage.… It's not age, it's stages.

MORRIS ON PROGRESSIVE VISIONS

I spent my last years of a 30-year career with the Phoenix Fire Department as an assistant chief for “America's Fire Chief,” Alan Brunacini. Going to work every day was always fun and filled with accomplishment. That kind work environment illustrates Bruno's philosophy to always find ways to make the Phoenix Fire Department better in serving the community and have fun doing it.…

Bruno was always ahead of his time. The impression many fire officers received after an engaging discussion with Bruno was his consistent futuristic vision. He always seemed to see things as they would be a decade ahead. Many of the management team would come home from a lunch with a new idea sketched out on a napkin.…

Bruno invested in a progressive officer development program that created a very talented management team. The program included monthly and quarterly training events — not meetings — for the management team.

In dealing with the management team, once he and a team member settled on a decision regarding a program or project, the team member was sent off to implement. Bruno often would say that the smart fire chief should “get out of the way” and let the job get done. He was pretty much a hands-off leader. The management team had fun completing the project and accepted full accountability, good or bad. Bruno always gave credit to the people who did the work. I never saw him brag about himself.

Bruno's leadership style also included sharing information with the entire fire department. Members from the street firefighter to chief officer served on a variety of committees. Meeting minutes were shared with the organization via weekly “buck slip” information packets, the department's 24-hour cable TV channel and other means. Keeping the fire department well-informed was an everyday practice.

The theme of change was an adopted practice within the Phoenix Fire Department. Bruno would visit each recruit class in the first weeks of training and chat about the department's culture and change, always saying that “the Phoenix Fire Department eats change for breakfast.” That culture of change allowed the Phoenix Fire Department to constantly better itself.

So what did I learn from Bruno that allowed me to be a better chief officer?

Being human and a “good boss” leads to more success than being an autocratic dictator. Bruno always mixed with, and connected with, firefighters and all members of the department. Leadership is allowing folks to move forward to better themselves and the organization. A fire chief's responsibility is to provide the support and tools necessary to allow subordinates to be successful.

Relationships mean everything. It's necessary to develop a positive relationship with everyone you work with, both within and outside the department. Good relationships build trust. This makes it easier for the department to continue to move forward.

Good labor relations always lead to more progress in bettering the department and serving the community. Good labor relations also improve the lot of the members of the organization.

Chief officers, of all ranks, need to identify and develop the rising stars of the department. This responsibility includes personal mentoring along with a structured officer development program.

Officers also need to think at a global level and toward the future, no matter what their position is within the department. Being a “maintenance” chief doesn't move the department forward.

A remarkable fire chief has retired from active service. Chief Brunacini made his mark, both locally and nationally. We in the fire service are better for it. And I suspect Bruno will continue influencing the American fire service for some time from the contentment of retirement.
Chief Gary Morris
Rural/Metro Fire Department
Maricopa and Pinal counties, Ariz.

COMPTON ON CAREER GUIDANCE

It was mid-January 1971 when I reported to the training academy to begin my 27-year run with the Phoenix Fire Department. I was only 21 years old and recently had returned to Phoenix after spending two years in the U.S. Army. At that point, the department was only one-third the size that it would become during the time I was there.

I had no idea that serving in that department would be the most fortunate career experience I ever could have asked for. It's where I was potty-trained, raised and developed as a firefighter and fire officer. I've often said that they should have charged me tuition every year for the opportunity to work there.

Phoenix was growing like crazy in the 1970s, and that growth continues to this day. While many fire officers manage and lead fire departments that have stayed the same size for many years (or even become smaller), we lived the unique experience of building a fire department in a city that has become the fifth-largest in the United States.

Phoenix had many talented chief officers who were ahead of their time in the 1970s and early 1980s. Chiefs like Earle Roberts, Clell West, Larry McMillen, George Oates and others would move on to different departments as successful fire chiefs during their careers, and I was lucky to get to work with all of them while they were in Phoenix. However, the person who had the most influence over my career and my development as a fire chief was Chief Alan Brunacini, and I am proud to tell that to anyone who will listen.

I served as assistant fire chief for Alan for 15 years. Even before that, I had taken college courses that he instructed. What he believed in was clear, and his vision for what a fire department could become was inspiring to me. Alan was my boss and mentor, and we also became friends. We visited and drew models almost daily about concepts, ideas, issues and philosophies relating to incident command, firefighting tactics and strategy, management, leadership, teaching, training, various processes, systems, and politics. He encouraged me to continue my training and education and to get involved at the national level to play a part in the overall direction of the fire service. Alan has a way of making people believe that they can make a difference, and he lets the individual figure out where those opportunities might be.

It would be impossible to list all of the experiences and knowledge Alan contributed to me that influenced my performance as a fire chief. It really wasn't so much what he told me to do, it was what he helped me think through, understand and learn that made him such a gifted mentor, and I've watched him do the same for others. There are many golden nuggets that were instilled in me through my relationship with Alan, and a few of them are as follows:

• Focus on the mission, the service and the customers, and stay engaged in the fire department and the fire service.
• Support the firefighters and other department members who are trying to do the job. Work to keep them safe, even if they don't always like that.
• If you can't get exactly what you want in a specific situation, take what you can get and come back another time for the rest.
• Relationships are critical, and that includes labor — management relationships.
• Put capable people in key positions, and help them grow and succeed.

I could go on and on, but this list represents a good sampling.

Chief Brunacini didn't try to create people in his mold; he would help people excel and develop in their own mold with guidance that was intended to help them along their way. Whether people agree with everything he says or does isn't important; nobody can argue with the contributions he has made to the Phoenix Fire Department, the fire service in general and to the many very fortunate people who had the opportunity to work with him.

I'm one of the many beneficiaries of his generous sharing and guidance, and will always appreciate him for that. Working for Chief Alan Brunacini was like going to school … every day.
Chief Dennis Compton (Ret.)
Mesa (Ariz.) Fire Department

VARNER ON CULTURE CHANGES

I was part of the original fireground staff program. Alan was invited to do a program about it for the Fire Department Instructors' Conference in Memphis, and we put together a little two-screen program, the likes of which FDIC never saw before. After that, Alan was invited to do full-day programs around the country, but all we had was that 30-minute program.

When I first came on the job, Alan was a captain at Station 1, and I spent a few shifts there but not many. When he was a battalion chief of Battalion 3 and based at Station 14, we developed a friendship. I did a lot of fire photography in those days, and he was one of the few people that used the photos in teaching, so I'd provide a pretty steady stream of fire photos.

When Alan went into training and became the assistant chief of operations, I had both a personal and professional relationship with him.

When I look back, what I see is that I had so much exposure to many things that were above my level as a firefighter or as an engineer and even as a captain. I got to meet people and sit in on meetings. We had a lot of people coming to Phoenix for meetings, and I got tasked with picking people up at the airport, helping with logistics and then sitting in on the meetings. I look back at some of the icons of the fire service, and I got to meet these people. People that I've known for years and years, I met them by the Fire Command program or something else I was doing with Alan.

I'm one more fire department removed from Phoenix now. When someone new comes through there are changes, but I think there's value if you're successful in integrating those changes into the organization. A culture change is very slow and sometimes very difficult. Phoenix Fire Department is probably going to go through a cultural change with Alan gone. It will evolve over time, and I think us old guys will look at some of those changes and say “I can't believe they're doing that….” There will be younger guys saying, “Well, it's about time they started making some of these changes.” There will be values that Alan instilled in that fire department that will be there forever, and there will be other things that will change over time. You hope that the ones that stay are the good ones because those are the most valuable.

If you look at the things that Alan talks about, it doesn't matter whether we're talking about fire operations or EMS, how you deal with your boss or how you deal with the public, the aspect of customer service is always there, and I think that's one of the most valuable things for the fire service to completely understand. That's the only reason we exist: to provide that level of service to our customers. We have to leave them with a positive impression with the (statistically) one opportunity that we get to do.

There's a part of [Alan's retirement] that's emotional — and Alan doesn't get very emotional — but for me, he's been my fire service “Dad,” and he has been that to a number of people. He's been my friend, he's been a mentor, an encourager. If I can give even half of that to individuals in the fire service, then I feel I've been a success myself. He is one of the most unassuming guys…. He's a guy who's pretty straightforward. He's a guy who is incredible at getting you to answer your own question. If you ask him a question, he asks questions right back until you answer your own question.

You look at the tremendous amount of love and respect he has with the Phoenix Fire Department and the fire service as a whole. I don't think there is any individual who has focused more on the safety of the firefighters, the skills necessary to do the job and our customer. It's something continuous since that first presentation in Memphis. He's always maintained a sense of humor, a sense of very, very real. It doesn't matter who you are, he'll take the time to talk to you.

Alan understands budgets as well as anyone. One of the budget people in Phoenix government asked Alan, “Is there anything you won't do for the firefighters?” Alan's reply was, “Probably not much.”
Chief Bruce Varner
Santa Rosa (Calif.) Fire Department