In Response to "Resume Ready?" by Editor Janet Wilmoth, published Command Post on March 11, 2005:

In response to your article cited above, we do use our retired fire chief officers.

I and others ran a campaign and successfully placed former Fire Chief and former IAFC President Mike Brown as the newly hired executive director for the Washington State Association of Fire Chiefs in the beginning of 2005. In this position he will direct the activities of our annual state educational conference as well as the numerous divisions conferences as well. He works directly with our lobbyist to sponsor, support, monitor, and defeat issue key to the fire service in our state.

In this position he will many times represent our state to national committees and to the federal government.

Additionally we use our retired chiefs as our reps in the County Emergency Operations Center. They have the practical experience and on a long deployment you must be 3-4 persons deep to cover the positions on a 24-hour basis for as long as the emergency exists. Budgets today mandate more resources towards the line rather than administrative staff. This provides a trained resource that the retirees enjoy as well as assisting the Department. We also use retired law enforcement administrative staff in the EOC.

We constantly use retired chiefs to sit on phases of promotional orals boards. Their long experience in personnel gives us a good insight into these potential supervisors and leaders. Many of these same retired chiefs act as mentors to aspiring department personnel, helping the next generation to become their best.

We in Kitsap County, Washington, have been fortunate to have some truly outstanding leaders in our small county. One IAFC president, 3 Western fire chiefs association presidents, 4 state reps to the Western Fire Chiefs, and 4 state chiefs association presidents, 6 board members to the State Chiefs Association. As well as numerous appointments to national committees including NFPA and the International Code committee.

This is all just in the last 10 years.

So if Ronny (Chief Coleman) ever gets bored, we'll take and put him to work, just let us know. He knows how to get here; he has been here
before.

Mick McKinley
Assistant Chief
Bremerton Fire Department