Even as a boy growing up about an hour outside New York City, Tom Kuntz wanted to be a firefighter. Today, he's a chief, half a continent away in Red Lodge, Mont. The path between the childhood aspiration and the adult reality is uniquely his own, yet representative of most who wear the white helmet. But it's what he has accomplished along the way that makes him Fire Chief's 2006 Volunteer Chief of the Year.

Still, every journey begins with the first step, and for Kuntz, it was taken while still in high school. “I had a friend whose older brother was an EMT,” he recalls, “and I kind of latched onto what he did as something I thought I wanted to do. I would get EMT textbooks and read them for fun. Later, between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I took an EMT class, became an EMT, and found I really enjoyed it.

“It was while I was still attending college that a friend told me, ‘You should join the fire department.’ She actually went to the fire department and got the information on how to volunteer and brought it back for me. And with that little push, I joined the fire department in Ithaca [N.Y.].

“It was a great experience. They had a very good program there and I learned a lot about firefighting and the fire service. I also advanced through some of the EMT levels. Serving with the Ithaca department is where my love for the fire service really began.”

Firefighting was a volunteer vocation, however, because he was still a college student — and a philosophy major no less. Some might puzzle over a future fire chief studying philosophy. Others might observe with tongue-in-cheek that chiefs often are self-styled philosophers anyway. Kuntz is merely pragmatic regarding the issue. “People always ask, ‘What good is a philosophy major?’ But I've found that having studied philosophy has been very helpful to me throughout my life. Being able to appreciate the different ways people think and being able to look at arguments from different perspectives can be a real asset. I really enjoyed it as a major.”

As college graduation neared, Kuntz contemplated a career as a firefighter with the Ithaca department. He was already a company lieutenant, although that wasn't a command rank as a volunteer. “I actually tested for a career position,” he explains, “but after I finished school … things happened. My senior year in college I met Eliza, the woman I eventually would marry. She had plans to spend the summer after graduation out in Wyoming near the Montana border. I had always wanted to drive across the U.S. and see the country.

“To make a long story short, I went out there in the summer of '92 and met up with her, she and I really liked the area, she had a friend who owned a house in Red Lodge where we could live, and there was a job opening in Red Lodge for someone to run the ambulance service in town, and that happened also to be the assistant fire chief position for the Red Lodge Fire Department. I applied for the job, got it, and we've been in Red Lodge ever since.”

East Coast calling

New to the Red Lodge department, Kuntz still maintained ties to Ithaca. “In the fall of '92 I got a call from the volunteer coordinator of the Ithaca Fire Department. She said she had been working on a new National Fire Academy pilot course called ‘Volunteer Leadership Administration’ and thought I would be a good candidate for it. So I signed up.

“At that class, I met people who have helped me along the way ever since, like John Buckman and Fred Windisch, and encouraged me to get involved with the Executive Fire Officer program. So after taking that course, I applied for the EFO program and was accepted. That helped me a lot with my career; I learned a lot from the program.

“And I learned a lot from the people I met in the program, too — that aspect was almost as important as the coursework itself. By talking with the others in the program, I learned about their struggles and their triumphs, and I was able to grow myself.”

In 1996, Kuntz added a new challenge to his life: He became a restaurateur. “I decided that I wanted to open a restaurant for some crazy reason. And I think there may have been some dissatisfaction in the position I was holding [the assistant chief/director of EMS position with the city fire department]. So in 1996 I stepped down and opened the Red Lodge Pizza Co.” He would later add the Carbon County Steak House to the eateries he operates. Kuntz was still a volunteer firefighter, just not an officer. But that didn't last long.

“Later that year,” he explains, “the chief of the area's rural fire department resigned, and I was appointed that department's chief. Let me back up a minute here and explain that in Red Lodge we have two fire departments, a city department and a rural department. When I first arrived here, when there was a rural fire, the firefighters would go to the rural station, put on rural gear, get in a rural truck, and go fight the rural fire. If it was a city fire, the firefighters would go to the city station, put on city gear, get in a city truck, and go fight the fire.

“About 2001 or 2002, we moved all the equipment into a single station. So then we would go to that station, put on our gear, get in a city truck to go to a city fire and get in a rural truck to go to a rural fire. Then, in about 2004, we were able to put together a reciprocal resource-sharing agreement. Now we go to the station, get in our gear, get in a truck, and go to the fire. We still have two separate political bodies, because of the way Montana law is written. Different pieces of equipment still have different owners. But we have one group of volunteers, one station, and we respond with the most appropriate piece of equipment for the job rather than responding with the equipment that belongs to the district where the fire is.

“I still remember that on my application to the EFO program, one of the questions asked was ‘What would you like to accomplish in your career?’ And one of the things I remember listing was, ‘I want to be able to bring the city and the rural fire departments together, so they can function as a single fire department.’”

In 2004, the chief of the city fire department resigned and Kuntz was appointed to that position, as well. Today he's responsible for the city fire department, the rural fire department and the ambulance service, managing all in a volunteer capacity while wearing the helmet of “Fire Chief of Red Lodge City and Rural Fire.”

Open spaces

Combined, the departments cover the city of Red Lodge and Rural Fire District #7, a total of about 500 square miles. The population served is about 5,000 people, and much of the land in the district is public land. As a tourist/vacation community, the area has a number of seasonal vacation homes. “We run about 500 EMS calls and 100-plus fire calls a year,” Kuntz says. The “we” he mentions are the departments' 42 volunteer and three paid personnel.

The area has a significant wildland component to it that adds complexity to Kuntz's responsibilities. “Probably 20% to 30% of our calls are wildland fire calls,” he estimates. “Some of those are routine, and some can be significant. It is not unusual for our district or for one of our mutual aid partners to have a fire that is 3,000 to 5,000 acres.

“Considering the amount of wildland we have to cover, we're fortunate in the Red Lodge area that we have very good relationships with all the surrounding fire departments. Some of those relationships were born of necessity. In any given year, there likely will be at least two or three fires where six or eight or more departments will be involved. Already this year we've had five or six of fires where we've had 10 or more departments on the fires.

“That kind of activity demands that you have good working relationships with all the fire departments in your area. It necessitates good mutual aid agreements, as well as good operating plans. We need and have a good statewide communications plan, and have the ability to communicate with all of our mutual aid partners. These kinds of things don't just happen on their own. One of the things we accomplished as a fire council, using grant funds, was to make sure that everyone had adequate communications systems and had the ability to communicate with each other. That hadn't always been the case, but our fire council did resolve that issue.”

Characteristically modest, Kuntz fails to mention he has been a member and officer of the Carbon County Fire Council for the past 10 years, and if pressed, disavows significant influence. “I certainly can't take credit for the fact that we have great relationships. It has been a group effort to bring our county and our neighboring counties together so we can respond in a seamless manner to fires. Each county has a fire council, and everybody involved worked hard at making it happen.”

Able and active

With the benefit of following the advice of other chiefs already made evident through his experience with the EFO program, Kuntz followed the counsel of old friend Windisch to become active within IAFC. “Fred encouraged me to run for a position on the board of the IAFC's Volunteer Combination Officer Section. I did and was elected. That was in 2000, which was a significant year for wildland fire in Montana. Through my work with VCOS, I made some connections and started to address some wildland fire issues and that resulted in Gary Smith and I — Gary Smith is a fire chief from California — being asked to start a wildland fire policy committee, and it has grown from there.” Indeed. Today Kuntz chairs the IAFC's Wildland Fire Policy Committee. And although it was slow going in the beginning, the efforts of the committee have shown significant results.

“When we first began our work with the wildland agencies and were trying to build relationships with the federal agencies, the IAFC wasn't necessarily thought of as a significant player in the wildland fire arena. But we've managed to change that. Now the organization is recognized as a leader — a political leader and operational leader — when it comes to wildland fire response. Our committee has participated in several significant processes with the federal agencies, and we've been able to participate in a lot of policy-making that has had a very positive impact on our country's ability to respond to wildland fires.” Kuntz also gives attention to wildland fire policy issue on the local front through his activities with the Montana State Fire Chief's Association, where he is second vice president.

A belief in people

That Kuntz is a busy man is an understatement. You would think a list of accomplishments would be an automatic response to the question of what he feels is the most memorable aspect of his career to date. But you'd be wrong.

“It isn't the events,” he says simply, “it's the people. Ultimately, what allows you to accomplish anything in the fire service is your ability to build relationships with people. And I've been lucky in that I've met a lot of great people who have helped to mentor me and bring me along and support me. And that is the most memorable thing about the fire service for me.”

That philosophy carries over to the Red Lodge department. “One of the things we believe in our department is that people are our most valuable assets. We're always trying to figure ways to foster their development. Probably you're going to ask me, ‘What's the biggest challenge a fire chief faces today?’ I'll tell you: The challenge is properly managing people. It doesn't matter if it is a career or a volunteer fire department. Being able to adequately foster development of the people is a huge challenge.

“And people today are different in their needs. The pressures on their lives are very, very different. One of the things we find in our department — we have a lot of volunteers that have young children, myself included — and it doesn't matter if a volunteer is male or female, they all have a lot of parenting responsibilities they're trying to manage. That's something that wasn't necessarily as true 20 years ago. You weren't trying to find day care so your volunteers would show up. And there are other, varied pressures on people's time: work pressures, family pressures, a need for time to just be social. And we — the fire service — have to compete with all that.”

Kuntz is quick to point out that a failure to foster development of staff adds to the problem. “In the fire service, we generally tend to reward people who perform well at their jobs with promotions. The challenge to that is that simply being a great firefighter or a great engineer does not necessarily make someone a great officer. By the same token, sometimes the person who can't pull the hose as fast, or hike as fast in the wild, or maybe isn't so good at running a pump, might be better at managing people. You have to be very careful.

“Also, to make good decisions — and this is something I struggle with — you have to have the right information. My advice to any chief is that you always have to be looking and listening and trying to understand … because sometimes the easy way is not always the best way. But in your effort to listen and understand what people are saying so you make good decisions, you have to be careful you don't do it to the point where no decision gets made! It is a very fine line. I definitely have made mistakes because I've made decisions too quickly, and there have definitely been times where I listened too long and didn't make a decision when I should have. But, I keep trying to find the balance.”

The Montana lesson

A conversation with Kuntz, though, leaves one with the sense that his best work for and with the fire service is yet to come, as he looks to the future with a cautious eye.

“The fire service is blessed with being one of the most respected and trusted organizations in the country. But there's a lot of responsibility that goes along with that. That responsibility leads us into an all-hazard, all-risk response environment. The reason that we're headed there is because people trust us and they trust our ability to do the right thing. In a sense, there's a contract that's being made with our customers and our people, and that contract is something that we have an obligation to uphold. And that can be very challenging for the chief officer.

“People expect us to be prepared and to be ready to respond. And it takes a lot of work to do that, whether you're the chief of a small volunteer district or the chief of a large career department.

“To be ready to respond means a lot of interpersonal and interorganizational challenges have to be faced. And I think as a whole this is where the fire service could struggle. We have to learn that we can't rely on other people and other organizations to solve our problems. Look at recent history, and you see there has been an expectation that ‘other people’ will come in when things get really bad and solve the problem.

“One of the things you learn living in Montana is that you have to be friends with your neighbors, or you're not going to be able to handle your big problems. And I think that is going to be a challenge for the fire service in the future: being able to actually be prepared for all those things that the public expects us to be responsible for, because they trust us. We tend to be a can-do organization, and sometimes we fail to ask for the resources we need to do the job. Our challenge as the fire service is to position ourselves to be able to get the resources to be able to meet the public's expectation.”