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July 2011

B U I L D I N G B R I D G E S

Developing a Safety Culture

Unlawful Harass-ment and Dis-crimination Policy

Have you heard of RAPIDS?

“Dog Tags” to “Passports”

Failure Simply isn’t an Option

Fire Station 17—Ground Breaking Ceremony

Fire Station Alert-ing System

Editorial Staff:

Kimberly Wilson-Cho

Elmond D. Taylor

Christina Smith

Nancy Hall

Shawn Jones

Bailey Martin

Laura Nunnally

Lauren Bonneville

Safety depends on individ-ual decisions, not luck. How do you successfully encourage individuals to make the right decisions?

Safety is all about going home in the same condition we came to work. But it takes hard work. It takes supervisor commitment. It takes employee involvement. Most of all, it takes every-body paying attention and working together for a com-mon goal.

When thinking about safety within the fire service, it is easy to get tunnel vision and focus only on the fireground – but where does that leave OSHA regulations; Health and Wellness; Driving and Seatbelts; Sleep deprivation effects; bloodborne patho-gens; PPE selection, Care & Maintenance; Basic safety precautions like slip, trip and fall hazard prevention; to name but a few. As an or-ganization, we can’t just fo-cus on a small part of the safety picture.

According to the Occupa-tional Safety and Health Ad-ministration (OSHA), since 1970, 75,000 lives have been saved and millions of injuries and illnesses have been prevented through ef-fective occupational safety and health management sys-tems. How big is the prob-lem? The statistics are stag-gering:

Lost productivity from workplace injuries and ill-nesses cost companies $60 billion each year (OSHA)

A total of 120 million worker days were lost due to occupational deaths and injuries in 2008 (National Safety Council)

The median days away from work due to injuries was 9 days, with more than a quarter of days-away-from work cases at 31 or more days away from work in 2008 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Where do these costs come from? There are both direct and indirect costs associated with work-place injuries and illnesses. Direct Costs in-clude things like: Workers’ compensation payouts; medi-cal fees; legal fees; etc. While Indirect Costs include things like: Replacement worker costs; lost production/productivity, Administrative processing costs. Industry experts have studied injuries and costs since 1970 and have formulated a variety of risk management Cost of In-jury (COI) tools to help super-visors better understand, model and predict injury costs. One such tool devel-oped by the National Safety Council offers a simple way to see how injury costs affect organizations’ business ef-forts. By measuring yearly incident costs against com-pany profit margins, one can see how much incremental revenue is needed to offset the injury costs

Yearly Incident Costs

Profit Margin

1% 2% 3% 4% 5%

$1000 $100,000 $50,000 $33,000 $25,000 $20,000

$5,000 $500,000 $250,000 $167,000 $125,000 $100,000

$25,000 $2,500,000 $1,250,000 $833,000 $625,000 $500,000

$50,000 $5,000,000 $2,500,000 $1,677,000 $1,250,000 $1,000,00

(Continued on page 8)


U N L A W F U L H A R R A S S M E N T A N D D I S C R I M I N A T I O N P O L I C Y

July 1, 2011

Dear Richmond Fire Department Staff Members

Subject: Unlawful Harassment and Discrimination Policy

The City of Richmond policy regarding Anti-Harassment is clearly established in Administrative Regulation A.R. 4-6. In keeping with this policy, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services is committed to a stringent anti-discrimination policy and to providing a work environment free from unlawful harassment.

As the Chief Executive Officer for the Richmond Department of Fire and Emergency Services, I state definitively here and now that I endorse and will enforce the aforementioned policy to the fullest extent possible. Additionally, I am in full agreement with the position statement adopted by the International Association of Fire Chiefs which states:

The IAFC firmly believes in a “zero-tolerance” position for acts of inappropriate and illegal discriminatory behaviors in the fire and emergency service. This is applicable to all persons at all times.

Discrimination in any form that is based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin whether it is individually based or institutional, creates separation and promotes division. Such discrimination is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Discriminatory behavior will prevent efforts to build a quality, cohesive and pro-fessional fire service. We must specifically promote tolerance, combat hate and reaffirm the principles of jus-tice and nondiscrimination.

As such, the Richmond Department of Fire and Emergency Services will not tolerate anything less than a diverse, accepting and inclusive workforce. No member shall participate in acts construed to be discriminatory at any time.

There is no escape from equal and respectful treatment to members of our organization and the public we serve. We are all burdened by decisions made in the past by persons we may have not known. Today, there is no reason for injustice to be cloaked in a code of silence. Fire and emergency service agencies/organizations must acknowledge that unacceptable discriminatory behavior may exist and take proactive initia-tives to develop an accepting and inclusive workforce.

Diversity is the life of the organization, and I intend to make sure that our Department remains vibrant by valuing and fostering diversity through mutual respect and understanding. Finally, it is incumbent upon each and every member to join Department Leadership in addressing inappropriate behaviors and actions immediately and definitively whenever and wherever they occur based upon individual “duty to act” and knowing that “silence implies tacit approval.” Anyone failing to do so will be held accountable as will those who engage in such behaviors and actions.

Sincerely,

(Signature on file)

Robert A. Creecy

Chief of Fire

R I C H M O N D F I R E D E P A R T M E N T ’ S 2 N D A N N U A L R E G I O N A L F I R E S C H O O L


Last year Richmond Fire hosted its first ever Regional

School. For our first attempt, we had the second high-

est attendance for regional schools in the Common-

wealth of Virginia. This year, we’re projecting at least

350 participants, 140 more than attended last year.

The dates for the 2011 school are October 8th & 9th ,

although four of the classes are slated as preconfer-

ence, and accordingly start on October 6th. Currently,

we have four sponsors and expect to have at least ten

by August. Thank you to all who participated last year

either as a student or volunteer. Your efforts helped

make this inaugural attempt a huge success. If you

would like to be a volunteer, student or participate in

any way, please contact Lt. Christopher Conley. A

special thank you to the following from last year:

Volunteers-Command and General Staff

Lt. Christopher Conley-Operations/Coordinator

Lt. Kurt Gran-Planning

Capt. Darl Jewell-Logistics

Capt. Patrick Schoeffel-Logistics

FF Gary Lewis-Logistics

Volunteers-Pumping Appara-

tus

Lt. Jamie Potter

FF Michael Murrin

Volunteers-Catering

Capt. Sylvester Henderson-Sylvester’s Delights

Brothers and Sisters Combined Inc. Local 995

-Nancy Hall

- Melvin Carter

W E L C O M E . . . L A U R E N B O N N E V I L L E

Full Name: Lauren Young Bon-neville

Hometown: Northern VA

Marital Status: Single

Do you have any children? Only a dog that thinks she’s a child

Hobbies: Dog walking, though that may be more her hobby then mine, relaxing at home, spending time with my family, watching movies, specifically horror movies, working on my tennis skills, and channeling my inner gaming nerd.

Position at the Department: Administrative Program Support Assistant.

What do you do: Lots! But my daily task is opening the door because people forget their badges ;)

Why do you think your job is im-portant to the

department? I am the first person the community sees and talks to when they stop by or call the RFD. I provide them with their first impression of who we are and what we stand for. I hope to represent you all well!

Jobs before the Fire Department: Special Education Teacher for Chesterfield Co. and Computer Sales at Best Buy

What is your favorite part about working for the Fire Depart-ment: Being a part of something! I have learned so much and continue to truly admire what each of you

have chosen to do with your life. It is a privilege to say I work for the RFD when people ask!


Have you heard of RAPIDS?

Well, Richmond has a lot of rapids in the James River, in-

cluding class 5 which are very powerful. However, the

RAPIDS this article will focus on involve PROCESS AUTO-

MATION. This process automation will affect and modern-

ize RVA’s full range of administrative, financial and human

resources systems.

On March 17, 2011, Mayor Jones kicked off the City of

Richmond’s new Enterprise Resources Planning project, or

ERP. ERP would later be renamed RAPIDS or, Richmond

Advancing Proven Innovative Direction. This project

touches every city agency and has changed agents from

every city department. This initiative will allow RVA to con-

tinue its pursuit of being a leader in the “business of gov-

ernment” by improving processes, efficiencies, and ulti-

mately service to employees and the citizens of Richmond.

Part of the Mayor’s vision is to build a high performance

government and to become a tier one city. RAPIDS will

help to achieve this by increasing accuracy and transpar-

ency of the information used to make decisions. It will also

standardize and automate many manual processes, im-

prove access to information and keep all data in one place

rather than several across the city.

RAPIDS will provide employees with more self-service ac-

cess to your personal information. You will be able to up-

date and use employee-specific information online, via a

secure browser, that is personalized to an individual’s role,

experience, work content and information needs. Change

agents from each department are meeting monthly to be

updated on the project and to be conduits of communica-

tion to and from the project team and City of Richmond em-

ployees.

RAPIDS is here to stay and ultimately will affect you and

those business processes that govern how we use and ap-

ply information. In the near future, you will have several

opportunities to hear from the RAPIDS change agent team.

These will be informational sessions designed to inform

and update you on the intent and status of the project. Ini-

tially, this information effort will be rolled out to Battalion

Commanders and Company Captains.

Myth vs. the Realities of RAPIDS

1. Myth: This will go away.

Reality: Change is here to stay.

2. Myth: It will help if I get upset about this.

Reality: Controlling your emotions increases your control over the situation.

3. Myth: This is a bad thing for my career.

Reality: Progress often masquerades as trouble.

4. Myth: I can just keep doing my job like I have been.

Reality: If the organization is changing, you proba-bly need to be changing too.

5. Myth: Top managers know a lot more than they are telling.

Reality: The odds are that high management is being as open and straightforward as the situation permits.

6. Myth: Management does not care about us.

Reality: Management has to make some tough decisions, and it’s impossible to keep everyone happy.

7. Myth: I’m not in a position to make a difference.

Reality: You’re either part of the solution, or part of the problem.

8. Myth: Top managers are supposed to make these changes work.

Reality: We’re all responsible to do our part to make these changes work.

9. Myth: The changes weren’t really necessary.

Reality: What’s necessary now is to make the changes work.

H A V E Y O U H E A R D O F R A P I D S ?

- Melvin Carter

H O W M U C H D O Y O U K N O W A B O U T T H E R F D ?


- Lauren Bonneville

“ D O G T A G S ” T O “ P A S S P O R T S ” , T R A N S I T I O N I N G O U R A C C O U N T A B I L I T Y S Y S T E M


For several years, the Richmond Department of Fire and Emergency Services has struggled with an Ac-countability System that has been extremely challenging at the “system components” level. Quite simply, we’ve had a good policy, but the pieces and parts were never user friendly. Though Salamander’s product, with the two dimensional barcode printed on the accountabil-ity tags along with scanners were cutting edge, the application of the system using the “dog tags” proved cumbersome. In addition to prob-lems with the intended use of the tags, the big floppy collection boards have been difficult to manage, due to the awkwardness of the boards, as well as the inability to quickly see the represented companies and personnel attached.

Because of known inefficiencies in our established system, Chiefs Creecy and Carter wanted our de-partment to explore transitioning to a passport style system. This vi-sion to move to a new system co-incided with three pivotal events; the “Regional High Rise Training”, the multi-agency trench rescue on Grantwood Road, and the “Regional Big Box Training”. Each event exposed the need for better accountability within our depart-ment, as well as better integration with our regional partners. As we began to explore the possibilities internally, the Richmond Metro Op-erations Chiefs were having con-versations about a regional policy and established the Richmond Metro Accountability Workgroup. This workgroup worked for several months drafting a regional policy, which has since been approved by the Richmond Metro Operations Chiefs.

Once the Metro Richmond Perso-

nel Accountability Procedure was finalized, we had the challenge of amending our internal policy. We had to ensure that all the features of the regional policy were included in our internal policy. We had to also ensure that there were no con-flicts or inconsistencies in the two policies. One feature that had to be added to our new internal policy involves “Levels of Accountability”, which did not exist in our old policy. The first level of accountability is the Unit Level, which will be imple-mented during the initial stages of incident operations, as responding units/crews arrive on scene and are

given assignments by the initial IC (normally the officer/acting officer of the first arriving unit). The second level of accountability is Command Level, which may be implemented by an officer/acting officer upon his/her arrival on the scene and after the transfer of command from the initial IC. The third level of ac-countability is Enhanced Command Level, which may be initiated at the discretion of the IC when it be-comes necessary to delegate the task of collecting Unit Riding Lists (URL’s) to an accountability assis-tant. This action does not relieve the IC of the overall responsibility of incident accountability; rather it pro-vides a more specific base of ac-

countability. All incidents which require point-of-entry control and/or those incidents with extremely haz-ardous conditions (confined space, big box, etc) will require Enhanced Command Level Accountability. The first two levels aren’t foreign to us. We just haven’t been using the described nomenclature. We will, though, need to be trained on the third level, which requires additional information being given during PARs.

Though, the Metro Richmond Per-sonnel Accountability Procedure’s verbiage is generic enough to ac-

commodate a “dog tag” or “passport style” system, Richmond and Henrico both decided to move towards the “passport style” sys-tem to better interface with our regional partners. Now, the ques-tion for us became; engraved tag or printed tag with name and two dimensional barcode? After sev-eral rounds of debates, the printed tag became the choice for two rea-sons. First, the potential advan-tages of electronically tracking our resources cannot be ignored. As Salamander refines their software;

scanning on and off duty, Salaman-der interfacing with FDM and CAD as well as the instantaneous links of fire fighters to certain hazards and incident types are all enhancements that have been discussed. Sec-ondly, the investment that has al-ready been made with Salamander helped to shape our decision. If we were to use engraved tags, the thought was that the aforemen-tioned digital enhancements would get pushed further and further to the back burner, and we’d never realize the potential that the Salamander system provides.


E M P L O Y E E S P O T L I G H T … . M R . A N T H O N Y M C L E A N


Anthony McLean has been the Coordinator of the Office of Emergency Management for more than two years. His job consists of various aspects such as managing all elements of assigned operational programs including planning, training, program evaluation and modification. Additionally, he is responsible for implementing the City of Richmond Emergency Operations Plan by coordinat-ing response activities of local, state, federal, and private organizations while allocating local resources during emergency and/or disaster situations.

Prior to joining the City of Richmond, he served as Op-erations Supervisor for the Virginia Emergency Opera-tions Center (VEOC) for more than 10 years. As Opera-tions Supervisor his responsibilities included, but were not limited to, fiscal, personnel, directing and supervising the Emergency Support Functions (ESF) during VEOC activation and working effectively and collaboratively with other state, local, federal governments, non-governmental and private agencies. He also managed the Virginia Emergency Response Team (VERT) which consisted of more than 65 volunteers.

Family: Married, one daughter

Hometown: Baltimore Maryland, Go Ravens!

What do you enjoy doing with your family?

Vacationing (anywhere!)

Describe your greatest (or one of) accomplishments/achievements.

There are several, however; since being a city em-ployee, I must say the need to educate our citizens in emergency preparedness has been most beneficial and we were able to accomplish this through the Survivor Day Training sessions. The training sessions which were aimed to ensure planning, preparedness, response, re-covery and mitigation are not just actions taken by public safety officials and private partners, but also our citizens. The four hour program was designed to provide citizens with information and planning tools in the event of a widespread disruption of public services, commerce, and transportation due to a local emergency. Upon complet-ing the training session each family received an

Emergency prepar-edness kit.

The kit is designed for a family of two to provide essential items for up to three days after a disaster and is in-tended for storage at home and to be used at home or in a place where someone may go if local authorities ask for an evacua-tion. This training increased our citizen’s sense of security by being well trained and prepared a large number of citizens at one time regarding basic emergency preparedness.

There are real benefits to being prepared for emergen-cies. In addition to reducing fear, anxiety and losses that accompany disasters, the impact can be sometimes be lessened (moving items out of harm’s way in case of a flood; making of list of medications, important family docu-ments to be kept in a safe place). What are the most diffi-cult challenges for you in getting the message of Emer-gency Management Preparedness out to the public?

The window of opportunity to provide our citizens with emergency preparedness and what I mean is that, there is a sense of urgency up to 6 months following an event and during that timeframe emergency preparedness is on eve-ryone’s mind. Preparedness, recovery, and mitigation are primary topics; however, once that window of opportunity has passed, emergency preparedness doesn’t have that sense of urgency. And it’s not that citizens do not believe it’s important but citizens begin to think, it’s not going to happen to me. The challenge is getting our citizens to un-derstand that being prepared for an all-hazard event is ex-tremely important and this alone may reduce fear and anxi-ety by having an emergency preparedness kit, by having a plan and being informed. Our Survivor Day Training ses-sions have provided much assistance in this area.

H Q - V C U S P I R I T D A Y

Thank You for Participat-

ing on VCU Spirit Day!


So, is the investment worth it? This is often the question facing personnel when evaluating a workplace safety purchase, such as personal protective equipment (PPE). Consider a hypotheti-cal case of an eye injury that could have been prevented by a $5 pair of safety glasses or $10.00 pair of goggles. Is a $5-10 in-vestment worth a potential shortfall of more than three-quarters of a million dollars?

Direct cost of eye injury $10,000

Indirect cost of eye injury (using industry standard of 3x direct cost) $30,000

Total nominal cost of eye injury (direct + indirect costs) $40,000

Profit margin on job 5% ÷ 5% (0.05)

Added revenue a company must generate to recover the injury cost (C/D) $800,000

Worded differently, the nominal cost of the injury (direct + indi-rect costs of injury) will reduce available money for other initia-tives like new apparatus, equipment, facilities or personnel by $800,000. In the bigger picture – to outfit the entire department in new structural firefighting gear cost the department just over $1.2M; the cost of staffing (personnel and benefits) for a fire station (three shifts, 4 on duty members each shift) is around $1.0 M, replacing the LP12 equipment with the current LP15 and LP1000’s was just over $250,000; the list goes on…

So at the end of the day, whose responsibility is safety? How does an organization (or individual supervisor) reduce personal injuries and their impact on our bottom line? People cause inju-ries; people can prevent them. Thus, we must train and lead people into safe behavior. This is the essence of developing a safety culture; an environment in which people consciously seek safe ways to work.

Building a safety culture is not a safety function, but a project management function. And no safety director can do it alone. This means you, as an individual employee or supervisor, are responsible for building the culture. Regardless of how you manage other projects, safety culture is best built in a methodi-cal way. Consider the “ATTAM” approach: Assess, Train, Teach, Assign, and Monitor.

Assess. Observe people working, and take notes. What are the recurring unsafe acts? Make at least a mental note of each un-safe act as it occurs and begin to probe the question "Why are these unsafe acts occurring?" Is this a training issue, or lack of available tools or resources? And then begin to address the behavior.

Assess your crew to determine who can champion the correcting of attitudes, behavior, and ignorance. Who are the key players? Identify the people, and then identify their attitudes and basic safety knowledge.

Train. Once you've selected your safety champions, you must do

more than just name them. They must learn the causes of injury and alternatives to practicing those causes. You must train everyone that safety is equal to or greater than all other goals. Safety champions are teachers, but they are only as effective as their training and the backing of management allow them to be.

Teach. Your trained safety champi-ons teach safety to the rest. The simple teaching method has three parts. First, stop when you enter an area. Scan the area, then look, listen, smell, and feel for unsafe conditions. Look for such things as improper tool use. Listen for a high ambient noise. Smell for gasoline fumes. Feel for high heat.

When you notice an unsafe act, approach the employee, making him or her aware of the unsafe practice. Then you must follow up to ensure that employee corrects it. You also teach by looking for safe acts. For example, if you see an employee performing an action safely, let that person know you recognize and appreciate his or her attention to safety.

Assign. Some unsafe acts wouldn't happen if you could correct environmental problems. For this, you must hold individuals re-sponsible. If it's nobody's job, nobody will do it. Make specific work assignments and hold individuals accountable for certain safety objectives.

Assign individuals to inspect equipment and work areas for problems such as poor lighting, missing guards, damaged equipment.

Assign ownership of an individual problem to an individual (who may lead a group in resolving it).

Assign individual safety ownership of specific actions like MSDS books in the station, checking eye-wash stations on a regular schedule, etc.

Assign someone to audit inspections, safety tours, safety meetings, and other activities.

Monitor. Check your safety culture progress by asking key ques-tions: How are employees responding? How are your safety champions carrying out their duties? Do they need more train-ing? What are the recurring types of unsafe behavior? Are safety inspection reports precipitating action? Is it easy to report unsafe conditions or equipment? Are you replacing unsafe equipment? Are you rewarding /recognizing your employees appropriately for safe or unsafe acts?

Everything boils down to two questions:

Do your employees know how much you value safe behavior?

Are you sure you want them to know?

D E V E L O P I N G A S A F E T Y C U L T U R E ( C O N T ’ D )

- Tracy Thomas

F A I L U R E S I M P L Y I S N ' T A N O P T I O N


Virginia departments find regional consensus on an accountability system that is used during multi-jurisdictional incidents.

If you think there isn’t anything worse than being the incident commander at a major fire, then try being the ac-countability officer for that event. Both the IC and AO constantly ask them-selves:

Where is everyone?

What are they doing?

Are they OK?

What if they aren’t? We have at our disposal various tools that help us keep track of all person-nel, as well as policies and proce-dures that guide us on what to do when things go bad. We call this our accountability system. Concerning the tools, there are lots of choices, from brand name and store-bought to homegrown and custom designed, and every fire-service organization has found something that is working for them.

But what happens when neighboring agencies respond to that major fire and some show up with “dog tags,” others with “passports,” and still oth-ers with barcode scanners — and you are the IC who has to make all of those parts work seamlessly? How will you handle a missing crew or mayday call given those multiple systems and dissimilar procedures — especially when every firefighter at the scene instinctively will want to spring into action to save their sisters and broth-ers? The life-and-death reality of such a scenario is that you have to get it right on the first try.

This article describes how four depart-ments in and around Richmond, Va., attempted to answer those tough questions by adopting a regional pol-icy that allows reasonable accommo-

dation for existing hardware already in use by various departments, but pro-vides one clear common operating framework when those regional part-ner agencies respond to mutual-aid incidents.

WHO WE ARE

Richmond is the state capital and is independent of any county. The James River runs through the city and is the natural boundary for many of Virginia’s counties. Henrico County wraps around the city north of the river, while Chesterfield County brackets it on the south, ef-fectively land-locking the city’s 62.5 square miles. Together these locali-ties form the heart of the metropoli-tan area, which is surrounded by additional counties ranging from suburban to rural. Richmond is home to numerous Fortune 100 and 500 companies, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court and the 5th District Federal Reserve Bank. The city has more than 200,000 residents, with a com-muter work-week and visitor popula-tion approaching 500,000. Mean-while, Henrico and Chesterfield counties encompass 244 and 466 square miles respectively, and each is home to about 300,000 residents. Just beyond Henrico lies Hanover County, which encompasses 471 square miles and has a population of about 100,000.

These four core localities have full-time paid or combination fire depart-ments that comprise the bulk of available emergency response re-sources in the Central Virginia re-gion and represent a work force of more than 1,500 uniformed firefight-ers, of which roughly 350 are on duty on any given day. Clearly, no one department is staffed ade-quately to handle the most demand-ing incidents that can happen, whether it be a working fire in an unsprinklered high rise in downtown

Richmond, a shopping mall or apart-ment complex fire in the suburbs, or massive or multiple wind-driven wildfires in the rural reaches of the region’s outer boundaries. All are very real possibilities, and some already have happened — as re-cently as the past few months.

Many years ago, conversations among the fire chiefs of Richmond and the growing suburban depart-ments led to the formation of the Richmond Metro Fire Chiefs Asso-ciation. Today membership includes not only the four big departments, but also departments serving five surrounding counties and the cities of Petersburg, Hopewell and Colo-nial Heights to the south, as well as Fort Lee and Defense Logistics Agency Supply Center.

Mutual aid has been provided across borders for decades, and Richmond and Chesterfield have enjoyed automatic aid along the common border for years, but poli-cies and procedures only recently have been aligned with the very real potential that one day, all of these neighboring departments will find themselves at an incident and func-tioning as one force.


F I R E S T A T I O N 1 7 — G R O U N D B R E A K I N G C E R E M O N Y


The Honorable Mayor Dwight C. Jones

Cordially Invites the Public and Media to the

Official Groundbreaking Ceremony for Fire Station 17

DATE: Tuesday, August 2, 2011

LOCATION: Canoe Run Park

2211 Semmes Avenue

TIME: 10:00 a.m.

O N - S T R E E T P A R K I N G I S A V A I L A B L E O N W E S T 2 2 N D S T R E E T .

If you require any special accommodations please contact Kimberly Wilson-Cho at

(804) 646-2128 or [email protected]

“Building a Better Richmond”

E M P L O Y E E S P O T L I G H T : J A M I L A F L O W E R S


-Kimberly Wilson-Cho

FullName:Jamila Akisha Flowers Hometown: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Current City: Richmond, Virginia

Education: Varina H.S.

Marital Status: Single

Pet (s): 2 dogs Drake and Peanut

Do you have any children? 2 girls Ashawnti 6, TaVonya 13

Position at the Fire Department: Level 4 Fire-fighter at Station 17

Movies: Comedies, Suspense and Drama, Love Stories

Music: Neo Soul, R&B, Old School R&B Favorite Color: Blue

Jobs before the Fire Department: Viasystems, UPS

How long have you worked for the city and briefly describe what you do in your position with the department: I have been with the RFD for 10yrs. & I am a firefighter

What do you enjoy doing with your fam-ily? Travelling, having movie night, cooking

If your life was a song, what would the title be? I am Superwoman by Alicia Keys

Do you cry at movies? If so, which movies make you cry? Yes, the love stories and emo-tional ones

What would you do if you had a million dol-lars? Take a long vacation then build my mom her dream house and help my family

Are you a good dancer? Yes, I can cut a rug.

What was your most embarrassing moment? I’ve had a few

What is your favorite part about work-ing at The

Richmond Fire Dept? Being able to help people and seeing the look of people when they see that I am a fe-male firefighter. I love being a firefighter, being a role model for my kids, my family, and my community.

How would your co-workers describe you? Funny, down to earth, hard worker, good cook, caring

What is your proudest accomplishment while working at The Fire Department? I have a lot of proud accomplishments. Becoming a fire-fighter for the City of Richmond has been an honor. I’ve received 2 very honorable awards Medal of Valor and Meritorious Service Medal for my actions on the fire ground.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Mind reading

If I came to your home and looked in your re-frigerator, what would I find? Milk, juice, fruit, vegetables

What did you get in trouble for, when you were a kid? Getting a bad grade in English

F A I L U R E S I M P L Y I S N ' T A N O P T I O N . . ( C O N T ’ D )


ROAD TO REGIONAL AC-COUNTABILITY

For as long as anyone can re-member, firefighters have en-gaged in coffee-table talk regard-ing what their fire chiefs ought to be doing. Such chatter definitely touched upon the notion of re-gional training. Five years ago, the fire chiefs at the region’s four largest departments decided to act on that notion. Over lunch one day, it was proposed, as a place to start, that these departments develop a common fireground procedure for high-rise incidents.

At the time, Henrico was the only locality other than Richmond that has a high rise in its environs — presently one 1950s-era apart-ment building — everyone at the table recognized that recent ex-plosive growth in the surrounding counties would be deterred only briefly by the economic downturn, and that it was only a matter of time before true-definition high rises sprouted among the many mid-rise, mixed-use develop-ments already occupied. No one needed a formal threat and risk assessment to see the need for a common high-rise procedure across the region.

After this procedure was drafted and approved for adoption among the four large departments, shared command-level training and functional exercises were completed, followed by joint “boots-on-the-ground” full-scale training for more than 1,200 per-sonnel from across the region. Last year, a similar process was completed for “big-box” incidents

there are countless big-box stores, massive distribution ware-houses and manufacturing plants throughout the region — and more than 1,600 firefighters trained together from more than a dozen regional departments. The multi-phased approach included policy revision, training develop-ment, a “train-the-trainer” pro-gram and a full-day seminar led by renowned command-training expert Don Abbott. This was fol-lowed by weeks of scheduled one-day training evolutions of joint, multiagency personnel.

Virginia departments find re-gional consensus on an ac-countability system that is used during multijurisdictional incidents.

While it might seem odd, mayday training was only a minor portion of the big-box training and ac-countability was only addressed using what each department brought with them. Nevertheless, huge gaps in capability and com-patibility were revealed — not surprisingly — as the phases and evolutions progressed. Learning what did not work was a critically important and profoundly valuable experience that presented the next opportunity for collaboration: the drafting of the Metro Rich-mond Accountability Procedure.

Using the same course develop-ers and the same principal play-ers, the individual department SOPs were evaluated for similari-ties and differences, as well as preferences, likes and dislikes. Common ground and a common purpose spawned compromise

and consensus. After review and revision through several drafts, we now have one procedure that all have endorsed and fire chiefs have approved for publication and distribution.

The next phase already is under-way, as each department is imple-menting this policy change inter-nally. Concurrently, Richmond is transitioning from its “dog tag” hardware to what most of the other departments are already using, a hook-and-loop nameplate/unit rid-ing list platform sometimes re-ferred to as a “passport” system. This action was not a requirement of adopting the shared policy, but rather an affirmative step toward regional alignment since most other localities successfully were using that system already. While the policy provides for flexibility among the participating depart-ments, it only makes sense to move toward one unified platform, especially if a given department is less than satisfied with its current hardware. (Continued on page 15)

“ D O G T A G S ” T O “ P A S S P O R T S ” , T R A N S I T I O N I N G O U R A C C O U N T A B I L I T Y S Y S T E M ( C O N T ’ D )


What we’ve decided on features the best of both worlds. We’ll gain the ease and simplicity of the “passport style” system without losing the electronic features of the Salaman-der system. On each front line ap-paratus, we’ll have one stationary Unit Riding List (URL) and one de-tachable Unit Riding List (URL). The purpose of the stationary URL is, in the event of a catastrophic oc-currence, to positively identify all members assigned to an apparatus. The detachable URL gets removed from the apparatus and taken to the IC or Accountability Office. The de-

tachable URL serves as the princi-ple medium for unit accountability. The Company Officer maintains a URL that represents each front line apparatus (Eng./Quint) in his/her coat pocket. The purpose of the Company Officer URL(s) is to serve as an identification aid for the officer as well as providing a readily avail-able URL for point-of-entry control. Each front line apparatus will have a 13” x 16” Initial Command Board with Velcro on the back. This board will serve two purposes: as a tacti-cal worksheet for the initial company officer and as a collection board for

URLs. Each Battalion Chief will have a large Tactical Worksheet/Board that will be used by the IC for functional accountability.

We’re sure that the new accountability system will improve our on-scene ac-countability and safety. We look for-ward to rolling the training out and implementing the policy in the next couple of months.

F I R E S T A T I O N 1 7 P R O J E C T

Full Name: Robert J. Benfanti

Hometown: Buffalo, New York

Marital Status: Married

Do you have any children? Yes

Hobbies: Cooking, Lacrosse

Position at the Department: Project Analyst (Procurement)

What do you do: Source and procure services & supplies the City of Richmond Fire & EMS requires to run its operation.

Why do you think your job is important to the

department: Everything you need to run your operation and you create a requisition for, comes to me

Jobs before the Fire De-partment: Teacher, Supervi-sor, Lab Tech, Systems Ana-lyst

What is your favorite part

about working for the Fire

Department: Getting stuff

that fire fighter’s need, that

help save someone’s life, including their own.

W E L C O M E : R O B E R T B E N F A N T I

- Nancy Hall

The Station 17 Project committee is aggressively work-ing to remain on schedule. Please review our progress this period:

Station 17 Formal Bid was approved by procure-ment 5/18/11. News paper ads are being pre-pared.

Pre-Bid Meeting - 6/1/2011

Groundbreaking Ceremony - 8/2/2011

The Station 17 project committee would like to thank the department and the community members for all the

support that has been given.

- Kent Taylor

- Kimberly Wilson-Cho

B U I L D I N G B R I D G E S E M P L O Y E E S P O T L I G H T : T I M O T H Y M I C H A E L B U T L E R

-Lauren Bonneville


Full Name: Timothy Michael Butler Sr. Hometown: I don’t have one because I was a USMC BRAT.

Current City: Mechanicsville, VA

Education: Believe it or not, I’ve only got a HS di-ploma with a couple college classes under my belt.

Marital Status: I’ve been married to my wife, Jessica, for ten years now.

Pet(s): We have a rat named Rosie.

Do you have any children? I have five children that I know of. They are Katy (12), Mychal (9), Aydan (3), TJ (23m) and Kylie (9m).

Position at the Fire Department: I am a firefighter assigned to Rescue Company 3, “C” shift. Movies: Full Metal Jacket, Top Gun Music: Dropkick Murphys, Welch Boys, Reverend Hor-ton Heat, Del McCoury, Buju Banton and Pantera just to name a few. Favorite Color: Blue

Jobs before the Fire Department: I worked as a shipping clerk in a warehouse and as an Emergency Communications Officer for Stafford County and City of Fredericksburg.

How long have you worked for the city and briefly describe what you do in your position with the de-partment: I’ve worked for the city for ten years now. I am a firefighter as well as a hazardous materials tech-nician. We deal with the one thing that most firefight-ers run away from as well.

What do you enjoy doing with your family? What-ever we do as a family is enjoyable. Nothing is more valuable than being in each other’s presence.

If your life was a song, what would the title be? My life is just a pile of demos and I’m still working on the song. It’ll be great when it comes out though.

Do you cry at movies? If so, which movies make you cry? No.

What would you do if you had a million dollars? A million dollars would probably help with essentials like a paid for house with land, kids’ education, vehicles, etc…A million bucks is hard to come across, but I don’t doubt that it’s easy to lose.

Are you a good dancer? Not without a few drinks, then you’re guaranteed to get a good laugh.

What was your most embarrassing moment? I’ve done a number of embarrassing things, so there really isn’t one that stands out.

What is your favorite part about working at The Richmond Fire Dept? The meat and po tatoes of the job; fighting fires, vehicle extrications and just about anything else that actually puts me to work.

How would your co-workers describe you? I’ve heard something like, “Butler will stand there and carve a walnut tree with a butter knife for 24 hours just be cause you told him to.” Regardless of how you look at the statement, I’ll be honest that it is reminiscent.

What is your proudest accomplishment while working at The Fire Department? Being assigned to Res- cue 3. A firefighter being assigned to a Rescue Com- pany holds a significant value to me, especially as a fourth generation firefighter and I will always treat it as something special.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? I’ve got a ton of superpowers already, they just need to be polished up. I still have my cape at the cleaners.

If I came to your home and looked in your

refrigerator, what would I find? Various fresh

vegetables, fresh butter and eggs, about five gallons of milk and a few bottles of Guinness or Blue Moon.

What did you get in trouble for, when you were a kid? Everything. Funniest moment was when I said a foul word in elementary school and sister Sarah (the principal) told me to find the bar of soap and pop it in my mouth. I told her I couldn’t find it, so she got a dixie cup full of liquid soap and made me hold it in my mouth for a few minutes.

TAKE-AWAYS

Like interoperable communica-tions, personnel accountability is one of the most critical elements of any successful fireground or emergency incident response. Tremendous amounts of money and planning have been invested on local, state, and national levels to improve our communications systems so that we may talk with multiple agencies and other juris-dictions, near and far. Can the same be said about accountabil-ity? Regardless of the color of your fire truck or the patch on your shoulder, do you know whether the accountability system that your department has adopted will work when it has to, and will it work ef-fectively in conjunction with your neighboring departments when you cross boundaries?

The various fire departments in Richmond’s metropolitan area all used various systems, but until they participated in regional train-ing, they had no way of knowing whether they could maintain ade-quate accountability on the fire-ground. That training exposed the weaknesses that existed — ones that would have had an immediate impact on the ability to locate or identify personnel in need of im-mediate assistance during any response when that mayday call came.

When the Metro Richmond Train-ing Chiefs Section convened to look at each individual depart-ment’s system, the members im-mediately acknowledged that no system was better than any other. They then discussed options for integrating the various current sys-tems into one in which all compo-nents could be used to meet the critical goal of accounting for all

firefighters on scene, continuously and seamlessly. The many perti-nent questions that were tackled included:

Who is assigned to manage the accountability duties at an incident?

What are the different levels of ac-countability?

How should personnel accountabil-ity reports be constructed?

Who has responsibility for identify-ing missing or trapped firefighters in a mayday situation?

How should the demobilization of resources through accountability be managed? The end result was a policy that not only provides a regional account-ability framework, but also provides each jurisdiction with a system that still addresses its needs and is user friendly under most — if not all — circumstances. Most important, it immediately accounts for all person-nel and manages on-scene re-sources, especially when a mayday is sounded.

In addition, the system is scalable, meaning that high-tech barcode-scanning systems—such as the one developed by Salamander Tech-nologies—can be incorporated in the future, so that the system can grow and adapt in response to the complex, large-scale, ongoing inci-dents that have become all too com-mon of late. In the future, we might even see the development of a digi-tal database of resources and an automated process of identifying, credentialing, and tracking re-sources and responders.

In summary, in contemplating how to develop a regional accountability system that works, you need to ask the following vital questions:

Does my department have an accountability procedure?

Have our members trained on its components?

Are incident commanders utilizing the system properly?

Will it work with our neighbors?

Can we prove that it works relia-bly, each and every time, without fail?

One thing is for sure: someone’s life is riding on it, and that some-one could be you, your crew, your department. Are you willing to bet your life on “pretty sure” or “I think so?” We decided that we were not as confident in our accountability system as we once thought, and we no longer were willing to con-tinue living in the shadowy land of “maybe” and “I hope so.”

This article is intended to provoke thought and discussion that can lead you and your coworkers to-ward asking and answering some really difficult questions. In doing so, it is likely that you will discover that you have a lot of work to do to achieve “bomb-proof” accountabil-ity.

F A I L U R E S I M P L Y I S N ' T A N O P T I O N . . ( C O N T ’ D )


- Robert A. Creecy


D O I N G O U R P A R T T O B U I L D A B E T T E R R I C H M O N D

-Elmond Taylor

A portion of the “Building A Better Richmond”

campaign includes giving attention to the built en-

vironment such as as capital improvement pro-

jects. Toward this end as members of the Fire

Department we are doing our part to Build A Bet-

ter Richmond by means of facility improvements,

beatification, and construction.

Thanks to Tony Jones and his staff we have

made much needed progress in addressing long

standing issues with the fire stations. Recent

work completed includes but is not limited to the

following:

Electrical systems upgrades

Generator installation

Roof replacement

Front and read apron replacement

Walkway and entrance replacement

While we all recognize that much more work is needed in the fire houses, we are appreciative of the

efforts already made.

I routinely pass by fire stations and see where crews are working hard to beautify their surroundings.

Just in the past three months I have seen our folks mowing the grass, planting greenery and flowers,

and giving general attention to the exterior appearance of the fire houses.

Elsewhere in this newsletter you will read about the Fire Station 17 progress. The design of this sta-

tion’s exterior is meant to complement and enhance the overall attractiveness of the surrounding

neighborhoods. While money is tight we continue to plan for major renovations at fire houses 10 &

13; I do not have a definite timeline on these renovations but will continue to make it a priority.

We appreciate the effort of all that have had a share in making Richmond a better place through par-

ticipation in one or more of these efforts.


F O O D F O R T H O U G H T ! W H A T I S Y O U R J O B ? ?

In today’s professional climate

there is an increased effort to

improve the efficiency and ef-

fectiveness of today’s work-

force, which lends to

the question, what is

YOUR job? By defi-

nition it could be de-

scribed as one re-

sponsibility or duty,

or possibly the exe-

cution or perform-

ance of a task. So,

as it pertains to you,

how do these defini-

tions apply to you? Of course

there are policies, procedures,

and guidelines that address

what your potential tasks may

be, how they should be ap-

proached, and the parameters

in which one must operate

within. With that being said,

how familiar are you with YOUR

job that is encompassed within

your assignment or task. Do

you recognize your responsibil-

ity and are you proficient

enough to carry it out? Are

there any organizational con-

cerns that may hinder you from

being completely aware and/ or

proficient at an assigned task or

duty? (i.e., request or assigned

EXPECTATIONS not CLEARLY

defined or POSSIBLY not oper-

ating in the most efficient man-

ner). Have you not dedi-

cated the time and effort

into becoming more pro-

ficient in the areas that

you may be called upon

to accomplish a given

task. I think the state-

ment of “JUST DO

YOUR JOB” is extremely

broad and non specific

and often open to inter-

pretation, which in turn yields no

clear cut answer. Try asking

someone and see what kind of

answer you get.

- Erik James

2 0 1 1 A N N U A L D E P A R T M E N T A L A W A R D S

A reminder notice!!

We are pleased once again to request nominations for the 2011

Annual Awards. We hope that you will take the time to reflect on

previous activities and sort out incidents that are worthy of recog-

nition. Please participate and select candidates who have gone

beyond the call of duty to serve their City. - Kimberly Wilson-Cho

F I R E S T A T I O N A L E R T I N G S Y S T E M


N E W S L E T T E R R E C I P E S

- Lauren Bonneville

The department continues to work toward replacement of the fire station alerting system (FSA). Chief Scott Schoenhut, Lieutenant John Spanbauer and I have teamed with DIT and DEC to develop a RFP for the FSA. We are now in the process of evaluating the pro-

posals received. This is a lengthy and detailed process. We want to make sure that we make the right choice. Our goal is to have a state-of-the-art alerting system that employs much of the new technology that is available. Both Scott and John have proven to be a valu-able resource during this project and we appreciate their efforts.

We had hoped to have the new FSA completely installed and working during the summer months. It now looks like we will not make that goal. But we will

continue to make this a priority project and work diligently to-ward its completion.

Fireman’s APPLE PIE Prep Time: 15 min Level: Medium Yield: 8 servings (9 in. pan)

Ingredients

1/4 cup margarine, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

In a medium bowl, cream margarine and sugar. Beat in the egg. Mix in the cinnamon, salt and flour; stir until smooth. Fold in the apples, and then pour mixture into a 9 inch pie dish. Bake in the preheated oven for one hour. The pie will make its own crust.

Tips

Add cinnamon and nutmeg for more filling flavor!

Serve a la mode!

- Elmond Taylor

Anyone interested in writing articles for the

newsletter, please contact Lt. Bailey Martin.

Future Issues of this Building Bridges Newslet-

ter will include:

St.17 Groundbreaking Ceremony

Employee Spotlights

Fire Station 17 Project - Update

Recruit Graduation

JULY

July 16 & 17th – Hanover Fire EPC Instructor Class

AUGUST

August 20th & 21st – VDEM Instructor Sym-posium*

August 22nd (through De-cember 10th) – Online Fire Science Technol-ogy Classes*

August 27th & 28th – 3rd Annual Tri-City Regional Fire & EMS School*

SEPTEMBER

September 11th – Rich-mond 9-11Memorial Stair Climb

September 17 &18th – Vir-ginia State Fire Training Weekend

OCTOBER

October 13th – Fire Officer IV Training

October 20th – Fire Officer IV Training

NOVEMBER

November 10th – Fire Offi-cer IV Training

November 17th – Fire Offi-cer IV Training

*Please see announce-ment for specific class dates and times as these may vary

U P C O M I N G E V E N T S

I N C L U S I O N & D I V E R S I T Y C A L E D A R

I N F O R M A T I O N B O X

January

Martin Luther King Jr. Day - January 17

February African-American History Month

March

Women's History Month Irish American Heritage Month

St. Patrick's Day - March 17

April Celebrate Diversity Month

May

Jewish Heritage Month Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

Senior Americans Month Cinco de Mayo – May 5

June

Gay and Lesbian Pride Month

July

Anniversary of Americans with Disabilities Act - July 26

August

Women’s Equality Day – August 26

September Hispanic Heritage Month –September 15 to October

15 German American Heritage Day – September 15 to

October 15

October Disability Employment Awareness Month

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Polish American Heritage Month

November

American Indian/Alaska Native Heritage Month Veterans Day - November 11

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