← Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table 
Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 73: Tim Kreis, Executive Assistant Chief & Tim Gammage Jr, Captain/Executive Vice President - Labor & Management Relationships
01:46:06
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- [00:02]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Leaders first. You gotta make sure that your people feel like they can come to you like you. If you're a few people are telling you the truth. That is a. You cannot allow that to happen. They gotta feel like they can come and they can tell you the truth. From a labor management perspective, communication is so important. And I always, you know, think about like these three questions about communication. Like, what do I know? Who needs to know? Have I told them? What do I know? Who needs to know? Have I told them? And in doing that, you know, I get illuminated to like, he needs to know that. Tim Gammage needs to know this. This thing came up right? I'm not always perfect in but I strive to be. So I think that's a big thing, labor management. I think that going back to the value piece like you heard him say it, I'm going to say it again if I haven't said it yet already. When I think about the tough problems that come into my into our office, I'm always thinking about what's the right thing for our firefighters and safety and what's the right thing for customer service. Like, those are the values that I'm always looking at.
- [01:05]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Building.
- [01:07]
Chief Tim Kreiss
The First Responder Liaison Network is proud to present to.
- [01:11]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
You the Kitchen Table podcast.
- [01:16]
Host
Join us as we explore leadership from perspectives around the globe.
- [01:19]
Chief Tim Kreiss
From firefighters to fire Chiefs, civilians to.
- [01:22]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
CEOs.
- [01:26]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Our conversations have one simple goal.
- [01:29]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Build more leaders.
- [01:37]
Host
Welcome to the Kitchen Table. Today's episode we bring on two guests, both from the City of Phoenix Fire Department, Assistant Chief Tim Kreiss and Captain Gammage Jr. Today we're discussing the labor management relationships as well as concepts such as ownership, accountability, relationships and more. Chief Christ has been with the Phoenix fire department for 23 years. He has worked as a firefighter, fire inspector, engineer, captain, and has climbed the chief officer ranks from battalion chief, division chief, deputy assistant, and now executive assistant chief. During his time as a captain, he was assigned to Engine 910 in central Phoenix and worked as a lead facilitator at the Command Training Center. Chief Kreiss led in the fire Marshal's office as the Deputy Chief and led operations and community risk reduction as an assistant Chief. Chief Christ has worked with his labor counterpart as a co chair of their largest labor management committees. He was the incident commander for the COVID 19 and led the Regional Public Safety Operations, a fire and police work group during COVID and periods of civil unrest. He was the chairman of the Arizona Counterterrorism Information Center Executive Committee. Today, Chief Christ serves with Captain Gammage Jr. In leading fire labor management efforts on behalf of Fire Chief Duran. Also, he chairs a Regional Strategic Planning Committee, Arizona Fire Service Mutual Aid ESF 4 for the state Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, Phoenix Emergency Manager and Incident Commander of the city's Unified heat response team. Captain Gammach Jr. Was sworn into the City of Phoenix Fire Department in September of 2007. He has spent time on Rescue 34 and Engine 34 in the southwest portion of the valley. Tim Gammage Jr. Was promoted to captain in 2017 where he has spent several years serving all around the Valley including working as the fit in Battalion 7. In 2018 he became a trustee for Local 493, the United Phoenix Firefighters Association. Most of his work as a union officer was in the Operations Division. Captain Gammas Jr. Is currently the Executive Vice President of Local 493 and the Phoenix Chapter President, which currently has about 2,900 members local wide and 1865 members from the City of Phoenix. Early in his career, Captain Gammage Jr. Was the mentorship Coordinator for the United Black firefighters, formerly the J.W. robinson Society. He later became the Vice President and is still very active with that affinity group. It goes without saying, but it is a pleasure to have both Chief Christ and Vice President and Captain Gammas Jr. On the kitchen table today. How are you guys doing?
- [04:27]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Well, thanks for having us. I love talking about leadership. It's something that's been instilled in me by my parents at an early age and as well as by the mentors I've been around in the fire service and outside of it. Look forward to being on here with Tim and talking about what we do.
- [04:48]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too. It's great to be with you and I'm proud to have my partner from Labor, Tim Gammage, with me here too. I've had great mentors throughout my career. I've had the opportunity to work with Tim on fire trucks and and now in the leadership positions that we both occupy and work together on on behalf of the Phoenix firefighters and the community we serve. I have a special appreciation for the Gamage family having the relationship I have with Tim, but also his dad was my boss, his dad was my battalion chief and I got to work with his dad for many years. I'm having lunch with him a couple weeks here see him again. But it is a pleasure to be be here with you and with my partner Tom.
- [05:32]
Host
So just last episode we had Battalion Chief John Lovato Jr. On the show from Florida and I had mentioned to him at the time of the recording that the state of Florida specifically had the most guests onto this show. And here today, I could say with certainty that the Phoenix Fire Department, specifically that department, has had the most guests and the most leaders here on the kitchen table. And as you both know, the guests on this show come from recommendations from the guests that are currently on the show. And so the first question that I have is, I want to ask you both, how is it that Phoenix Fire Department specifically breeds so many great leaders?
- [06:13]
Chief Tim Kreiss
The Phoenix Fire Department is very, very lucky that we had some really incredible leaders starting back some 40 years ago. So the. The two folks who I think were most instrumental from a leadership perspective in our department's history was a guy named Pat Cantelli, who was the president of the Local 493, and his partner in management, a guy named Alan Brunosini, who I suspect many people listening to this program have heard of. They realized in a very special way, but they realized in a very special way how important it was for both labor and management working together with common principles like doing the right thing for our firefighters and doing the right thing for the community. And when we committed to things like the labor management process that we enjoy here in Phoenix today, and the spirit of working together to do the right thing for our firefighters and for the community, that's a really good foundation to breed success in your organization. The Phoenix Fire Department has been and continues to be an organization that I'm proud to be a part of because it's so willing to innovate and change. And that history of innovation and change, I think, has resulted in a lot of benefits to the organization. I think that our ability to get support throughout the city of Phoenix, government structure, elected officials, city manager's office with our city partners, all of that is founded in my mind, in our labor management partnership. In other words, us working together. We are so much stronger working together, so much more effective, especially when our principles and values are the same. And I think that that's the foundation, a willingness to change and try new things. In my opinion, that's the recipe of how fortunate we have been in this department with our people.
- [08:20]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah, I'll just echo a lot of what he said. I think the main thing is the collaborative nature with which we do business here. And as chief or Tim said, that started with. With those two individuals Pack and tell me and Alan Brunesini. I think leaders in our organization, for the most part, set their egos aside and. And use all their resources to make decisions. And. And that goes Both like when I'm making decisions as a labor leader and Tim can tell you this, very rarely, if, if ever do I say, hey, this is what we're going to do. I usually have to say, well, let me see what the rest of the guys think, or girls. Because when you make decisions in a siloed environment, you have a good chance of making bad decisions. And here we try to use all our resource, all our knowledge of every individual that's, that's here to make decisions. Because in our process, you can be a booter or probationary firefighter and be involved in decisions that get made, or you can be the fire chief. And obviously he has the ultimate decision. But Chief Duran does a great job of listening to the members and making decisions in a collaborative way.
- [09:53]
Host
We're dating back, these are 40 some years where this will say with Alan Bruni, because yes, I'm sure most, not all the listeners here will know who Chief Bruni was. But Pat can tell was the counterpart. So much like what you two are today.
- [10:07]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah. So, yeah, so Pat can tell me was the union president and Alan Bernini, of course, the fire chief. They had their, their Pat had his, his vice president and I believe it was Billy Shields at probably during that time. I know he was one of them. And, and like Billy and might have been Dennis Compton, it certainly was Steve Christ. My dad was the executive assistant chief here. He worked with his counterpart on labor who served in that executive vice president position dating back to those days too. So it was everybody kind of working together that, that made it successful. And in today's Phoenix Fire Department, the union president is a guy named Brian Willingham, who's dynamite, awesome leader. He's a fantastic guy, Brian. And this is one cool thing about the fire department is, you know, Tim and I, I think we were at Station 60 together. I remember working with you on that truck on a shift. Anyways. And then, you know, I was at Station 60 on a shift and Brian Willingham, who's now our union president, was at Station 33, which is the nearest station next to us on a shift. And Ray Ochoa, who's another assistant chief, is at Station 7 on a shift right next to the. So I mean, those relationships are really, really positive. But, but Chief Duran and, and President Willingham, they work. It's just as closely as Tim Demich and I work together.
- [11:34]
Host
Well, it's fascinating more than anything because I don't see it often and obviously I'm siloed up here. Rarely do I would. I see we'll say where a guest say it's a fire chief, a deputy chief, or even vice versa, say it's a union president that will say, yeah, let's talk leadership. Let's, let's bring on my counterpart here and be able to. I mean, I guess what I'm, what I'm seeing here is I've never seen this before.
- [11:57]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Okay.
- [11:58]
Host
Where it's like, you know, let's go in and do this together. Like, I'm not saying that, that labor management are on opposite sides, but obviously at the negotiating table. Yes. Like literally and physically they're on the opposite sides, but at the same time, you work together on the same side. And I guess metaphorically or you know, or literally speaking. And so I guess that goes with the success, right? Because it sounds like what you two do, obviously right here, doing this podcast, you are, you're doing things together. And then as we talk about leadership, we're talking about breeding great leaders. You know, we're talking about because of this great relationship between labor management that what you're saying, dating. This is not just a relationship between just you two. It just, it's just so happens that you two get along so well. But this has been dating back for decades. It sounds like.
- [12:40]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
I think we both have the same goal, right? We want to take care of our members and take care of our community. We're just coming at it. Sometimes we actually have the same perspective, but sometimes we have a different perspective. And we are, every now and then we have issues where we're on opposite side of things and, and you know, I may have a different opinion than Tim or another union leader may have a different opinion than another chief that they're working with. And to me, we just have to be professionals and handle it like business, like you. As emotional as our job is to us and our members and our community, when, when we're making some decisions, we have to treated unemotionally. I know Tim is an ethical person. I know he's a moral person and he has great character. He's just going to see some things differently than me. I'm pretty sure he feels the same about me. And when we have a disagreement, for me, it's in the past, like it, you know, we're handling a situation, he feels a certain way, I feel another way. Once we get through that, he's still the same guy that I met driving engine 30, I don't know, 15 plus years ago or when I, I remember working overtime on Rescue 31 when he was the skipper over there. And and you know, not to toot his horn, but he's done an excellent job everywhere that he's worked. He's been knowledgeable, he's been capable, and he takes care of business. So I'm not gonna let one situation, one disagreement get in the way of our, you know, relationship, as we would say in Phoenix. Like, you know, we, we're gonna have hundreds or thousands of decisions we gotta make in the future. You can't dwell on one disagreement and ruin it for. Because it's it. If I, if I were to hold a grudge, it doesn't just hurt, you know, Tim Gammage it, it, it's hurting 1864 other members, including, and that includes the chiefs that are on the job too. So, you know, for me, I just try to handle things unemotionally whenever possible and leave the past in the past when we have negative experiences and then remember the positive experiences I've had with, with all my counterparts, as you said.
- [15:32]
Host
Earlier, running with it just one step further, I would imagine, right. Because like I said, dating back to so many years of this great labor and management relationship with the city of Phoenix, like if you were to step away from your position as the Vice president or Chief Christ, were to step away at his, you know, in his position as leading, you know, fire labor management efforts, I would just imagine, right. And correct me if I'm wrong, like the next person will say that. It'll be, I'm not gonna say seamless, right. Obviously the transitions are challenging always. But I would imagine that this relationship is going to. The successes, we'll say, of the relationship that's built upon here at the city of Phoenix is going to continue regardless of who's in these positions, what it sounds like, because like I said, it has dated back for 40 plus years, like what you mentioned. So that again, it just, it's amazing, right, because we'll see it a lot, right? Like, you know, you'll see, maybe we'll say a deputy chief, fire chief gets really long with so and so president, but then this chief moves on or this president moves on and then dynamic changes because of personalities, stuff like that. But what you're saying is you're talking about keeping it the business. You're able to keep things in the past, right. That's a leadership trait all within itself. Right. To be able to do such things, to know that you're representing 1800 people and you're able to understand what's best, what the mission and goals are like what you're saying.
- [16:49]
Chief Tim Kreiss
So, so I'VE been assistant, so I was a deputy chief and I got promoted to assistant chief in 2019, I think. Yeah, 2019, for sure. So I was an assistant chief for five years, but I've been the executive assistant chief for like six or seven months, maybe eight months. So the guy who was in my seat before, a guy named Scott Walker, the labor got along with him great. And I. I had great respect for him, too. He's an amazing guy. Vice President Gammage, how long have you been vice president? I mean, you've been in labor leadership for a while, but how long you've been vice president?
- [17:28]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Right. About the same time. Six, seven months. Yeah.
- [17:31]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Salute.
- [17:32]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah.
- [17:33]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah. Just happened. We just switched those positions up and.
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Host
Again, going back to the original question about 10 minutes ago, is talking about the breeding of many great leaders within your fire department. We could see why. And I would imagine it also bleeds into other areas. Right. The relationship that's built in this avenue. Right. We're just talking about labor management. Right. We're not even talking about operations and training and community risk. We're not even talking about that. But you see the successes of the relationships here, it probably just bleeds into other areas of the department, which is.
- [18:02]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
I think, one of the most important things when you do disagree is you have to be respectful, and that's what allows us to keep the relationships as they are. Now, I'm not going to say there isn't heated moments every now and then with people, because it does happen, and hopefully those individuals don't hold grudges or take things personal. But as long as you keep things respectful, in my experience, you're going to have good relationships. Now, if you're personally attacking people or things like that, then you can have issues. But for the most part, if I have a disagreement with Tim, it's about a concept or idea. It's not a personal attack. And as leaders, we can't have our ideas be tied to us. I don't know if that makes sense. But what I mean is, if I. If I have a disagreement with Tim's idea, it doesn't mean I have a disagreement with Tim. It's the idea.
- [19:12]
Host
Agree. Yes.
- [19:13]
Chief Tim Kreiss
For the chiefs listening, and that is. I mean, Tim talked about, leave your ego at home. That's an Alan Bernasini quote. Egos eat brains. And that's a. That's a real popular quote from him. But, you know, my mindset on things working with labor is if you can help them, you should help them. If Tim needs something, like if he's like, hey, can you. We need to work on this. I'm. I'm gonna lean into yes. Like, I want to get to yes on those things. I want to help him. There's sometimes that, you know, there's some management stuff. I just very rarely. There's sometimes I can't do that one, you know, but most of the time we can. And I think that there is so much power for your organization when you're working on the same side and focused on what's right for the firefighters, right for the community. We are literally living this right now. I would contend that. I mean, I've never seen an investment. What are we hiring 400 new firefighters in this period that we've been working on this initiative to bring response times down and activity levels down at our stations. So, you know, just this last year, we got another increase in our budget to bring on 134 more additional firefighters. That's going into our budget. July 1, we're building seven fire stations, $280 million with apparatus and equipment. That's all new stuff. Right. And that I would contend the reason that success in that is because labor and management are working together on it. We both want the same things. I don't know. I mean, you probably know, and there may have been, but I cannot think of a bigger investment in a fire department in American history in such a short period of time. And the work is only just beginning. We got many of those things behind us. The funding is there. We're buying property, we're buying fire trucks, we're hiring firefighters, we're spooling up the academy. All those things are happening. But, like, literally last week we met labor and management because we got to march this thing out. Like, we have to manage getting all this stuff done now, which is a great problem to have. But when you're working with labor on stuff, like when I meet with our elected officials in city management, like, it's a very good thing for me to say, oh, yeah, I'm working with Captain Gammage on that. President, vice president, damage on that one. Right. That's a powerful thing for us as an organization, and I would advocate. If you can do it, do it. Absolutely.
- [21:38]
Host
Well, you said something very key. You were mentioning if you can help, help. Obviously there's times where you know you can't. We had a. One of our previous fire chiefs, he served from 2016 to 2022 at the. Actually came from Chandler, Arizona. And so he would mention a little bit about Phoenix quite some time. He talked about Alan Bruncini. But he had mentioned kind of what you just said about getting to. Yes, I know, I know. That's a concept theory. It's a book even. But he was talking about, you know, our organization, the one. My organization. We thought our. We had a culture of no. It was a culture of no. And it was a habit, right? From the union, from the executive team, from the city council. Everyone was just getting so used to saying no. But kind of what you just said is like, if you can try and help, help, try to get those yeses when you can. Small yeses, small yeses. It'll turn to big yeses at some point. And there was a point in time where we were. I mean, we. Like you said, we were growing so fast. It was we. The organization I'd been In the first 10 years, we. Growing was not even a part of anything. It wasn't even. There was no growing. No one knew the word growing. And then we growed. We grew so fast. It was like, oh, my gosh, can we slow down? But I bring it up only in the sense that right when you said the things of like, if you can help, help get to yes, it just brought me back. And it was just, interestingly enough, this individual worked side by side with the Phoenix Fire Department.
- [22:50]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
That just.
- [22:51]
Host
It clicked in my mind. One of the topping talking points here, Chief, is making decisions at the speed of relevance, ownership, communication guidelines, pride, value based decision making. I know we're going to talk a little bit about ownership later as well, but talk a little bit about that being something that you want to kind of bring forward as we talk about leadership today.
- [23:10]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah. You know, I think in the fire service, we do a really good job of training and mentoring our folks to recognize when you have discretionary time, you take it. Right. And. And, you know, when I'm on a fire truck, I'm going back to Captain on Engine 910 or Engine 31 or whatever, right? Like. Like I've got. All of us have seconds to make decisions. We pull up to a house fire, we pull up to a strip mall fire, we pull up to a big old box fire, whatever it is, right? You got seconds to size that thing up. You got seconds to come up with your plan. You throw your SCBA on and you're in the. You're in the hot zone, and you're, You're. You're executing your plan as IC number one. I think that when we talk about mentoring our managers outside of hazard zone operations or outside of the fire ground, we talk about Using discretionary time. I think there's a. There's a. There's some definite truth to that. But at the same time, I think the most powerful way to say it is to make decisions at the speed of relevance is we take too much discretionary time now. Our decisions are irrelevant. They're too slow. Our decision to stop something that we need to stop, our decision to make a phone call or elevate something, whatever our decision is, you know, just needs to happen to me at the speed of relevance for discretionary time.
- [24:33]
Host
Take it. I like that. I like that. Because it's true. How many times? And I. I'm guilty of it. It's like so many times. It's like someone asks a question or what she do, and I'm like, oh, I got to offer something right away. It's like, do I really. Do I need to hurry up with an answer? I mean, most of the time, no. I mean, obviously, in an emergency scene, most of the time, yes. But even then, I. And funny thing is, I always tell people, because I used to teach at the recruit academy, but for some reason, when you're a new firefighter, you love the radio, right? Like, oh, I want to talk on the radio next. So I always tell people, it's like, no one's waiting for you to get on the radio. So you can actually think for five seconds right before actually getting on the radio and actually make it sound like you know what you're doing versus getting on the radio and say, oh, I sounded so terrible. And I always say, well, why'd you get on the radio so quick? You could have waited eight seconds. The incident commander wasn't waiting for you. So I like that. Discretionary time. If you have it, take it, because so many times you don't have it, and you don't need to make everything. Such a speedy decision. So I love that.
- [25:27]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Be careful of the trap, though. Like, if you allow that discretionary time to sit wrong in the back of your mind, then all of a sudden, you might be too slow to make certain decisions, and I'm not. And, you know, certainly on the fire ground, we have to be hawks about that. Like decision making at the speed of relev. As it relates to, you know, buildings falling apart and killing our people like that. We need to pull people out before we get to those conditions. That stuff is clear. But there are other scenarios and other decisions that we need to make. And just. Just think about speed of relevance. Use your experience, your training, your time, and make the decisions you need to make. That can matter to make a difference for our folks, whatever it is you're dealing with.
- [26:06]
Host
Yes, absolutely.
- [26:08]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
I would say the reason why that is important is because you usually have to gather more in those situations. So whether it's, hey, am I understanding this policy correctly? Hey, do I need to talk to my labor counterpart? Or if I'm labor, do I need to again refer to the policy or talk to another labor member or management? Usually it's an information gathering process is why you need to take that time. Even if it's just your own thoughts, like, I need to think this out and make sure I'm not missing anything. That chief hit that, the nail on the head with that chief.
- [26:54]
Host
The next part here is talk about adversity.
- [26:56]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah, no, this, this is, this is a big one for us. And I saw it so clearly during COVID and I even put it in memos and I was saying it a lot. There's this, this quote, adversity doesn't build character, it reveals him. And you know, going back to COVID 19, that was not an easy time for our organization. You know, people are getting sick and all those things are happening. People are losing their lives. That, that stuff was real. But you had all sorts of challenges in the organization and staffing and all the things that we're dealing with. And I'll never forget we were, we were coming up on one of the other variants where, you know, kind of ex. A lot of people got sick in a hurry. I think it was maybe winter, fall of maybe 2021, you know, and we're watching this and, and I'm, I'm sitting, I'm actually sitting at church and I'm looking around the church and, and it's a big church. And I'm thinking, and I saw this report about this new bear. I'm like, oh, geez, if this thing spreads like everybody says, we're going to be in trouble from a staffing perspective. And we had been working together, labor and management on all sorts of stuff to keep staffing up. But we had gotten together on a plan that included a whole bunch of different things, but it also included the ability for our members, if they wanted to, to Defer their local 493 days that we call them that here, their Kelly days, I think, in other systems. And I'll never forget when the soft shift command gave me, you know, labor management worked on this and we rolled it out to the firefighters and everybody jumped on board. And, and, and at that time I was working on a fire truck because we'd sent all of our chiefs back into the field to help lead by example during staffing, right? Like, I was on north shift command with the staffing chief, Chris Healy, who Tim knows. But. But Chris and I are running. You know, we're doing our normal jobs, but we're occupying the shift commander rig on C shift, which is where we needed to help at that time. But I'll never forget looking back on it at the staffing report and at the time that our folks. We had the most folks off because they were sick was the time that our leave usage went completely the other direction and it completely leveled it out. I was so unbelievably amazed by the quality of our people to rally to that. We had people canceling vacation. We had people signing up to work. We had people deferring local 493 days. And the trajectory of folks getting off the truck was completely matched by the trajectory of folks stepping up to be there for each other in the community. And it actually kind of gives me chills thinking about how unbelievable it was. But I have that line graph in my head. In that moment, the organization really stepped up. So. So I think, you know, the character of the Phoenix Fire Department in that moment was very well revealed to me.
- [30:04]
Host
Well, that you said chills. I mean, I kind of have chills as well, because that's cultural, right? I mean, you had mentioned chiefs got back in the trucks. I mean. So I'm thinking back. Not just back. I'm thinking on where else would that happen? We'll say. And obviously it probably happens in a lot of places, but so many times we'll see from. From the. And I want. I'm interested in. See, the captain's thought process on this is like, from the labor standpoint of, well, no, we can't. I'll just throw an example out there. We can't have chiefs on the trucks because that is an engineer's position or that's captain company officer's position. They're. They're, you know, that. That's. That's our work. We'll say. Or so to speak, our work. We need that to be filled by our people because it's taken away our work. So I guess it's not a que. It is a question, but I kind of. I kind of want to see where this goes. You talked about lead by example. It's almost like we. We want that. We want people to step up. We all. We always ask people to step up. And so at some point, it was like, where's that balance? And it's like, I mean, chiefs are willing to come back and get on the truck, so we don't, you know, brown out stations. I mean, that's a good thing. Right? But then at the same time, you see sometimes where it's like, no, you can't have that because that's quote unquote our work. So can you guys speak on that and how that works?
- [31:16]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah, let me clarify one thing there. So when I say on trucks, we were put deputy chiefs in. On battalions. We're putting deputy chiefs as on all of our battalions. And our shift commanders have battalion safety officers, which are captain positions. We were backfilling all of those from top down because we knew that if. And his, his dad was one of them. So his dad was the south district commander. He was one of, I think 12 of them, the deputies that, that all did this, including myself. So probably 14 or 15. But in any case, you know, he was working on Battalion 5 and the Chief on Battalion 5 was assigned there is working with him. So that's so. And in doing that, then that was less shifts that we needed and we could use those captains where they belonged. And, and it was like we said, a big part. I mean, it helped a little bit. You know, we talk, you know, 15 folks, right? It helped a little bit. But it, but I, it was also leadership by example. Like, we're stepping right now. We need to be here. So that's what we did.
- [32:19]
Host
No, and that's. Then I think that's what's so cool about it, is it is about leading by example. Even if it's. Even. I always say, like, even if it's just a thought, we'll say like, the chiefs are going to step up if there's holes, but then they don't need to step up because the holes are filled by everybody else already. It's like, okay, good. But you know, whether it be literally or just by the example of thought is where it goes. And like I said, I think that's cultural. But yeah, cap your thoughts on, you know, how this dynamic continues to work.
- [32:48]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah. So as a, as a labor leader, to answer your question with that, it obviously would depend on the situation. But what I will say, I was the co chair for our staffing committee committee for probably two years or so. And, and one of the things I would say to members is I don't believe in browning out trucks. We, we are obviously my job is to take care of our members, but I would say equal to that is taking care of the community. You know, I, I Live in Phoenix. I have a large family that lives all over Phoenix. So I believe that they need to be taken care of like we said we would when we said our oath when we graduated from the fire cat. So if that means. And that's why the chiefs did it, the same reason, because they. They want to take care of their community. So if that means Chief Christ has to work at south shift command, as he just said, that's what he's willing to do as a labor leader, I'm willing to let that happen if that's what's best for the community in the situation he's talking about, honestly, that was best for the members as well, because if we got trucks out of service, that's a longer response time for the second new engine. If I'm on a fire and have something happen or whatever the case may be. But I also wanted to speak to the adversity thing. And I know sometimes firefighters hate using example parenting examples, but they do apply often. And one example I thought of while Chief Price was talking. As we talked about earlier, I'm coming back from a basketball tournament for my son, and he's becoming a pretty decent player this last year or so. But if. If I think back to two years ago, he. He leaves practice one day and he tells me, he said, dad, everybody told me, why are you here? You're not even good. We don't want you on the team. Things like that. In 2025, I think they call it bullying. But I, as a parent right there, I could have intervened, right? I could have went to the coach and said, johnny said this, Bobby said this. But at the end of the day, I'm trying to build a man who's gonna be. Let's say he's in a fire station one day, somebody may say that to you in a fire station. Obviously, it's Chief Christ and I's job to make sure that we create an environment where everybody's welcome. But sometimes people slip up. As we all know what I. What I told my son is, first off, you don't ever treat anybody like that. You remember this? And because. Because you're gonna play with somebody that maybe isn't the greatest player. But that doesn't mean that they don't deserve to be on your team or that they deserve to be treated less than. And second of all, if you. If you. If you feel like you're not where you need to be, work harder and do what you need to do to be the player that you want to be, you turn around a Year and a half later, and my boy's doing just fine. Everybody on the team loves him. He's a great asset on the team. And I won't say where he ranks on his team, but he's doing pretty damn good. Had I, as a parent, in my opinion, saved him, is how I. And said, oh, we're switching teams, or, oh, I'm. I'm gonna go off on Johnny's dad now. I did talk to the parents and say, hey, you may want to talk to your kids, because I think you have to in a parenting situation. Shoot, even on the fire department, there are certain things you got to report, right? But you have to. You have. If you don't ever face adversity, especially. And when we're talking about kids, if they don't experience it as youth, when we're dealing with them later in life, it's. It's. It's tougher. Or as a new firefighter, if you, if you never face adversity in your academy, everything's easy. You're on probation, and then all of a sudden, six years down the road, you're taking the captain's test, and you don't end out, end up where you want it to be. Maybe you're one of the people saying, it's the chief's fault or the union's fault instead of looking in the mirror and, what are my weaknesses? What could I have done better? Adversity is necessary. Whether. Whether we're talking about, you know, leading, whether we're talking about just being a good human being. A lot of the things we don't do in life is because we experienced it, and we're like, that's not how you should treat people. Hopefully some people go the other route and say, hey, I'm gonna do this, and some. But that's. That's not what we want on the Phoenix Fire Department, that's for sure.
- [38:20]
Host
We don't have the luxury as company officers to always get that rock star firefighter, right? We don't. Your job becomes easy at that point. But that's not what company officers and good leaders get paid to do, right? It's easy to be a company officer if you get the rockstar firefighter every single time. You're getting your money's worth. When you get the one that's struggling, one that's brand new, one that fails a lot, because then test your abilities as a leader, a company officer, a mentor, a trainer, all the above, right? And so that's where the real winners take place. And good leaders is helping those that struggle to be to then not struggle.
- [38:51]
Chief Tim Kreiss
That's so important, especially for the audience that, that this show draws and it does. I would contend that for us as leaders, like we need to, our character is revealed. When things are hard, like everybody's good. When things are going good, Everybody's good. At 9:00 in the morning, you finished up checking off the truck. Shift changes behind you. Right. But how are you at 3 o' clock in the morning after your third fire and 15 EMS calls and everybody's tired. Like what, what is your leadership look like? There's. And then to your point about the people, I love that because like if I'm a battalion chief and I got, you know, 15 Tim Gammages as captains in my battalion, well, good for me, right? I've got an all star bunch of captains and crews. Great. But what I'm looking for is the battalion chiefs or the captains or whomever who can take somebody who's struggling and make them good. If you, that's the best thing you can do as a leader. I mean that's the most fulfilling thing. Of course, you know, we, we have work blessed in the fire service that we have really good people. At least I've been my experience at Phoenix. But if I can take somebody who's, you know, struggling a little bit and get them pretty good, right, get, maybe they're not going to be a superstar ever and that's okay. But if they're going to be really good contributors and contributing to our ability to deliver service and getting along in the station, all those sorts of things, that's the, that's the number one thing for me is the leadership position. It's not what I can do with the all Stars, that's important too. But what can I do with folks who are struggling? That's the best thing.
- [40:29]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
And to tie into that, oftentimes I've only worked for the Phoenix Fire Department, so maybe in other departments the culture is different. But sometimes the way that we communicate when people are having issues, let's say it's a social type issue, they don't fit in. We're not direct communicators. Sometimes we, you know, joke with you or some people even set you up to fail or in, in some people for whatever reason may not have had the life experience to know, hey, I'm doing wrong if this is happening. So all that to say, you know, to chief's point, sometimes you just have to tell people, hey, you're not doing X, Y and Z correctly. You should probably Try this. And this is why should we have.
- [41:28]
Host
To.
- [41:30]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Teach people the ABCs? Probably not. But if they're here, they're a part of our family is the way that I look at it. And it's especially as a leader in the organization, it's my job to take care of people. And sometimes taking care of people means, you know, telling them the issues they got going on and giving them the assistance they need to fix. So, you know, I can think of a few stories in the past that I've heard where people, people didn't know they were messing up. They thought they were doing everything right. Sometimes it's as simple as just communicate.
- [42:13]
Host
Sometimes we don't know, you know, because we didn't sit on the panels to hire them. This person probably held some qualities, some characteristics that we had no idea we're there, you know, floating into the station one day and this person was struggling and all we know is a struggling individual. But they're there for a reason, right? Because the person brought someone to the table that, you know, say 95% of the department values, we'll say. But our job is not to judge them on why they couldn't do X. Our job is there to, to train them to get to where the standard is and not just judge based on something and say, well, why are they even here? I had to teach them the ABCs. What did you meant, did you forgot to mention that they struggle on ABCs but they crushed the, you know, CDE, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, MP right. So it's like we always struggle with. Sometimes we always pick up the bad in something or someone and we forget to mention the 100 goods, you know, and so obviously there's, there's a lot in the middle there. Like do you have to be able to do ABC sometimes before you get to everything else?
- [43:12]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Sure, absolutely.
- [43:13]
Host
Of course. But sometimes it's not as black and white as we make it out to be. Sometimes is my point.
- [43:19]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
And a lot of times, at least in my experience in the fire service, the new guys are always messed up, right, because of whatever they, they don't get this, they don't get that. They don't know how to do this, they don't know how to do that and all. All. Tell you one example from myself, I never started a saw in my life before I got on the Phoenix Fire Department in the training academy and, and when I got hired, I was looked at a little weird because. And throw on top of that, my dad just retired after 34 years. So you Know, should I have known how to start us all? Does that make me not a real firefighter or, you know, some people might say a man or whatever else? I don't know. I never needed to be around saws in Phoenix, Arizona, growing up. But what I learned was it was the Phoenix Fire Department's job to teach me how to start a saw, because that was going to be something, a tool that I needed to know how to use. Hopefully, after almost 18 years here, I've been a worthy hire, despite my inability to start a saw when I was 22 years old. At 23, I got it down.
- [44:45]
Host
I was the same way. I was the same way. City of Bellevue. That's not going to mean anything to you, but yeah, there's no need to have a chainsaw in the city of Bellevue growing up, not in downtown Bellevue. By that, and the listeners will probably know what I'm talking about. But I was the same way, right? I mean, we learn to grab those abilities, right? And that's what makes talk about ability, adversity, resilience. Right, right. You teach me something, I'll learn it. Right. My previous history might. We'll show up and make sure that I know nothing what you're talking about, but I'll learn it. I'll learn it. So. All right, let's. Let's jump here. As we know, leadership, there's lots of good traits, characteristics that make a leader a great leader, right? But we could sit all day and pick 100 of them. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna. Let's take it to one, the chief. What's one leadership trait that a strong fire lead, fire service leader must possess and why?
- [45:33]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Ownership.
- [45:34]
Host
Ownership.
- [45:35]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Run with that ownership and why. So I think everything that we've discussed in this moment and, and I'm going to build on it here, it's about ownership. So for me, when I was a captain, I took total ownership of my crew's performance as a reflection of me 100%. And that's just how I viewed it. And when you think about the performance of your folks and mentoring your folks and challenging your folks and creating an environment where they want to do great and almost all of them always want to do great, it's that total ownership. There's a quote from one of our mentor kind of leaders in the organization, and he's the father of. Of a couple of our chiefs, three of our chiefs, actually. Gonzalez. He said, you know, take ownership, not membership. That's a quote that exists in this department a lot. And I love that quote, and I love that message because if we do that, then we're going to be making pretty darn good decisions out there. Like for me as a, as a captain, you know, the safety of my crew, their ability to go home, I, you know, I'd have the hardest time getting any sleep, if we even ever got any sleep. But if it was Thanksgiving or Christmas and we're working at the station, you know, the families come by and all that stuff is great. I appreciate that. I encourage that like that. But then, you know, that ownership, feeling the weight of the responsibility, it's like holy can only, you know, Joel and, and Jason and Ray and Chris and Adam, all these people, like if I make a mistake out there, I make a call that I should make, I take us into a building that I shouldn't, I push somebody forward when I should have pulled them back, etc. Etc. Etc. I don't have the courage to tell somebody to slow down when I need to. Whatever it is, right? Whatever it is, you know, those folks could lose their lives if I make a bad decision. So that ownership is heavy, but I think we got to take it. As a battalion chief, the, you know, the captains that I had were amazing and I spent a lot of time in those stations with those guys and doing a lot of training and listening to them, having them build training exercises and pre planning and how are we going to handle this situation that. But to me, their performance was directly a reflection of me and the best leaders in the world. If you can get this done, is you want your folks to, to be in a place where and, and you ought to be there is like, like if I'm not here next shift, everything's going to go exactly the same, right? I don't need to be here. That's how good these folks are, right? That's how good they are. But I think that leadership trait of ownership really helps to prevent us from getting into a mindset of complacency or indifference. And we may talk about that a little bit more later.
- [48:37]
Host
What I like about ownership, and I use the word extreme ownership because we.
- [48:41]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Obviously we don't know the book.
- [48:42]
Host
I have a mentor one time I'd mentioned extreme ownership. He says to me, well, why extreme? Why can't it just be ownership? And so he really stuck in me. He's like, if you got to be extreme about it, it just means you're not taking ownership and just keep it ownership. So I like how you said that, but I think extreme ownership or ownership in itself, and I Wanted your thoughts on this chief or cap as well, is I think it only works truly to the best or to the max of its ability. If that's a. If that's a possibility. If it is both ways. What I mean by that is what really gets me is like, when you see. And I'll. We'll just use struggling firefighter again for that. That example is like, well, you know, we trained a lot and, you know, they're struggling and it's like, well, their struggle is your struggle. Right. We mentioned earlier, we don't always get the, you know, the firefighter that you show them once and now they got it. Now they're the great set. Some people need to learn 10 times, five times, whatever it is, but you're in the grind with them, and so their failure is your failure. So ownership is when there's a failure, it's. It's both parties faults, not just the firefighter. It's the captain, it's the mentor, it's all the above. And so when you have that mindset of the, you know, a firefighter fails, they attach or just struggle. Like they got to take it upon themselves to do whatever they got to do to become better. But then that captain will say, has to do everything that they can do to train them more, teach them more, maybe teach them in a different way. For them to grasp it, the mentor has to find different ways to, you know, really be there to support them, to help them become better. So it only truly works, I think, if all parties really take that ownership. And it's not just, you know, it's all on you. Well, it is all on them, but also it's all on me. It's 100% ownership on every person involved. So would you agree with that?
- [50:23]
Chief Tim Kreiss
I would not tell you. A way to look at it is as a captain, as a battalion chief, as a deputy chief in my division, as an assistant chief or whatever, if my folks do great, if they do an amazing job, I give them all the credit 100 of the time. Like when we. And we use that example of all the chiefs, you know, raising their hand and riding, you know, battalion wagons and stuff during COVID we needed it, they all stepped up and did it. It was wonderful. But all the credit went to those chiefs who did it and the members who stepped up and all those sorts of things. So I think a good way to look at it is if we do great, you pass all that credit along where it belongs. Don't take any of it for yourself. I think if. If we do okay, then you. It is what it is. We did okay. Right. And if the group fails, it's on me. You know what I mean? And that. That has been how I have looked at it. And. And. And. And it's been a good. A good way to do it. I think one of the things that can really kill you as a leader and we just cannot allow this to ever happen is I said that our people are a reflection of us. Right. As leaders. And what comes with that is you can't ever talk negatively about one of your people behind their back, ever. Ever. I'll tell you, I was a lead facilitator at the Command training Center for seven years, and what that means was I would put the drills together and be there when we're running the drills and do all that stuff. And. And it was a. I was still in a fire truck. It wasn't a. It was like an overtime thing. But anyways, I. You know, I'd be at the command Training Center. I'm talking to the captains. They'd be like, telling me, how's this guy doing? And, oh, that guy's. You know, they're. They're saying all this negative stuff about that guy, and I'm just like, you know, it's like. It's kind of like, makes it almost got like, that disgusted. But I probably had that disgusted look on my face because I'm thinking, tell that person that. Why are you talking all that person's a reflection of you. That's how I looked at him. That's 100%. I just thought, wow, this guy, he has no idea what he's doing as a boss. Here he is in front of all these captains, talking all this negative stuff about somebody who literally works for him, who's a reflection of him.
- [52:36]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah, right.
- [52:37]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Like, go. Go work on that person. Tell them how you feel. Drill them, encourage them, motivate them, whatever you got to do. But, yes. Anyways, that's kind of how I feel about that one.
- [52:46]
Host
Yeah, you said. You said something, and it clicked. Simon Sinek said that I had to actually look it up to make sure I got the quote right, but he said a good leader can take the credit when things go well, as long as they take all the responsibility when they don't go well. And so you can't have it. You got to have it both ways. Otherwise, you can't take credit for anything if you're not. Everything's a reflection on the leader, right. When things go well and when things go poorly.
- [53:11]
Chief Tim Kreiss
My first boss told Me about how important it was to pass the credit when folks succeed. And he said, give it all away because you'll get it back times 10. And I, in my whole career, he's been 100% right. 100, right.
- [53:27]
Host
Give all the credit away. Just give it right.
- [53:29]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Put it where it belongs. Right. Like I, as a captain, I felt like I was a coach. As a chief, I really feel like I'm a coach. And if we do a good job on a fire, we do a good job for the community. We do a good job now. And on the executive staff, getting council approval on something, funding for building fire stations and stuff, pass it, put that credit right where it belongs with the folks who do the work.
- [53:50]
Host
And it comes back, like you said. Yeah, yeah. Comes back a cap. Accountability, I think ownership, accountability. Go together, I believe. Right hand, for sure. And when we talked about one leadership trait, yours was accountability. Talk about that.
- [54:07]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah. You guys both play or play basketball. So I think a good example comes from basketball. Like, mistakes happen in life. Obviously they happen on the basketball court, and nobody likes to play with the guy or girl that every time somebody else makes a mistake, they're yelling at them or getting on them or, you know, they. It's always somebody else's fault.
- [54:40]
Host
Right.
- [54:42]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
People like to play with people that say, hey, my bad. I should have hit you when you cut. I should have been there and help. I should have done X, Y and Z. And. And as a first off to. To what you guys were talking about earlier, it has to start with the leader, because if the leader doesn't take ownership or isn't accountable, you will have. We hire leaders. Right? So even our firefighters are leaders. So you're going to have your average person maybe is gonna still be accountable, still take ownership. But those that are on the border or below, if. If my boss isn't, this isn't how I would handle things. But if my boss isn't taking ownership or being accountable, if he comes to talk to me about, I don't know, sick leave or the way that I took that plug or how I pulled the line, well, in my head I got this comment about them. Or maybe we say something is in another parenting deal. I'll tell my son, for example, hey, put up the dishes. I don't want to hear from that. Well, Emery, who's my daughter, didn't do X, Y and Z, or I didn't do X, Y and Z, just put up the dishes there. You know, Tim has heard my dad say this, and you know, my dad is a no excuses. Person like that's it was taught to him by his father and he taught it to me and I teach it to my kids. He did a lot of mentorship on the fire department and that would be the first thing he would write on the board. No excuses. So as a leader, you have to embrace that even more than your average firefighter. If you got a job to do, do it. If it doesn't get done, you didn't do your job. Now, we all got good reasons why things don't get done or, or, or whatever, but when you're taking ownership and when you're accountable, there is no excuse. You make it happen, you get the job done. And as a leader, you have to be the person that you wanted to work for, for. Right. We all work for good bosses, we work for bad bosses. Nobody on this planet likes working with a person that is always blaming things on other people. And as I said again, to me, athletics is the best teacher in this. There's nobody that likes working with the person. Now, no, I think we're all good with, with constructive criticism and things like that. But when you're just beating people up all the time and then the roles reverse and you're like, oh, I didn't do anything, yada, yada, yada, no, nobody likes those people. And that's not effective leadership. You're not gonna get, you're not gonna get the best out of yourself. You're not gonna get the best out of your people. And that's not taking care of your people. If you're always blaming things on them. That's, that's taking care of yourself. And as a leader, you got to put yourself last, in my view.
- [58:01]
Host
We talk about accountability and ownership, but as we talk about excuses and those things, but we're always talking about the subordinates being held accountable. Can subordinates hold their bosses accountable?
- [58:15]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah, I think that goes back to the beginning of this conversation when we were talking about the labor management relationship we have in Phoenix. You know, you need to let your boss know. Your boss should want you to know, want you to tell them the gaps that they don't see. Because sometimes we don't see things. As a leader, I think you need to be humble and, and willing to listen to the people around you. You should always be taking feedback. Now to Tim talked about this earlier. If we're, you know, if we're on, if we just pulled up to a house fire, I'm not gonna have a 10 minute conversation about, you know, the line, we're gonna Pull or the strategy we're gonna take. Obviously, I want input if. If they see something that I don't see. But obviously there's a time and a place too. But yeah, you have to be willing to get feedback. But that goes both ways. As a subordinate, this was another example. I was gonna say I was a newer Captain on Engine 960. That was my first spot. I don't know if your listeners or you know about our Tarver, Brett tarver's fire in 2001. Okay.
- [59:42]
Host
Yep.
- [59:43]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
So grocery store fires obviously are a big thing here. I turned the corner on Dunlap going to a structure fire at 19th Avenue in Dunlap, and I see fire that appear to be, at first glance, coming from the roof of the grocery store right there. Go on scene. And one of the commands I gave to the. The second and third due engines were. Was ambiguous, and it led to the incident not going as smoothly as it needed to. Nobody got hurt. We put the fire out. Everything went well. My battalion chief at the time was a guy named Dorian Jackson, who mentored me as well and has. Has been a tremendous asset for the Phoenix Fire Department and me personally in my career. And he. He got on me pretty good in front of. In front of. In front of everybody, which afterwards, I had a lot of captains come up to me and say, hey, that was bullshit. He shouldn't yacht. And I was like, it wasn't that big a deal. He told me I did something wrong, and I did something wrong. Matter of fact, I'm glad. Me personally, I'm glad he did it in front of everybody because now that booter on my truck, and I would have told them anyway, knows did was wrong. If you don't acknowledge problems on a fire where you got on this fire, we probably had 30 people on scene. Obviously, only five of those would have been captains. You got another 25 that may not have the experience to know that what I did was wrong. You got to acknowledge problems and me as the subordinate in that situation. I said, yes, sir. In the next incident, I had similar to that. I didn't make the same mistake, and I won't make the same mistake again. You can argue that maybe he saved a life down the line, you know, by. By. By handling it on an incident that wasn't as significant. If you let problems just not be acknowledged, not only for that individual, but everybody on scene because we don't have enough fires. Specifically, when we're talking about fires, you could be long gone and retired and a problem occurs because they didn't learn that lesson when you could have talked. I don't, I went off on a tangent.
- [62:23]
Host
That was good. And I think what you said at the very end there was so key because sometimes we can't quantify what didn't happen or could have happened, right? So that feedback that you got, you took, took it. And who knows what could have happened? Maybe, maybe nothing, right? Maybe you would ran 10 more of those fires, you never got the feedback and nothing happened. But what we do know is the fires and incidents that were similar to that one, that you've done better. So that's, I think at the end of the day, that's what matters, is as long as you're taking feedback and it's making you better, regardless if you can quantify what you, what you now prevented, at the end of the day, you're just becoming a better firefighter. So, yes, I think humility and ego is one thing that I thought of when you were talking about the feedback is you did you messed up and it, you needed to know and it only made you better. I mean, how do we get better without feedback? At the end of the day, how do we get better without feedback? That's one thing I've always mentioned too, is we don't get just better just because, like, and I'm working with a firefighter now, my engineer, and she's working on her company officer task book to kind of sit right seat and become a company officer one day or at least act in the role. But I tell her that just because you went to a call, whether it be an incident or car crash or fire, and it went well, or sorry, not just went well. Just because you completed the call doesn't mean it went perfectly. Doesn't mean it even went well. It could have went horrible. Right? And just because you completed the call and nobody got hurt doesn't mean you did it exactly the way it should have been done. And that's what I think is key, is there's always pieces that could get better, regardless if you think, think it went perfectly well. And maybe most calls do go well, but having the humility to always seek what could I have done a little bit better? Because maybe that didn't feel that smooth. Maybe there was just something. But seeking those ways to get better, but then accepting the feedback when someone gives it to you. Right. And you don't have to always agree with someone's feedback. Right. You know what? I actually don't agree with that. But you could take pieces of feedback right out of 10 things you could, you could pull one thing, if not all 10 or nine or eight. We just talked about picking one trait that every strong fire service leader needs. So now let's go in the opposite direction and say, starting with the chief, what is one non negotiable trait in a strong fighter other than obviously the cheating, the lying and stealing? Those are, you know, obvious. But if there's something that is non negotiable, something that one can't do or one that they must do to be a strong leader, what would that be?
- [64:48]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Well, that one's pretty easy for me and what I have observed and it exists in all of us and we have to manage it, is the two most compromising organizational behaviors that I've seen are indifference and entitlement and exists in all of us a little bit. But we have to tamp them down. We have to keep those two behaviors in checked and that kills our organization. Organization. It can kill our organizations, it can kill us individually and collectively. So indifference, I don't care about that, right? So let's think about that as a captain, right? Like if I'm a captain and, and I don't, I don't care about, you know, this person's attitude or what's going on in their lives that might be contributing or maybe they're having some really serious struggles, right? You could take that all the way through fireground safety and pre incident planning and you got a rover coming in and you know, I'm not going to train that person, whatever, right? You could take that anywhere. But indifference is terrible. The other thing that hurts us real, it can hurt us really, really bad if we don't. Management is entitlement. It's entitlement. So when I, you know, I'll tell you this, I, I keep these two on my mind. You could ask me this five years ago, you could ask me the 15 years from now. I think my answer is going to be the same. But when I did my interview for assistant chief, I sat with the assistant city manager, a guy named Milton Dahoney, who's a fantastic leader. And he said to me in the interview, he said, what if you don't get this job, Chief, what are you going to do? And I told him, Mr. Dhoni, I don't feel like I'm entitled to anything but getting paid for coming to work today. I am thrilled to have a job on the Phoenix Fire Department. Regardless of what that job is. I'm super proud to be here. And if you have better applicants and you want to pick one of Them, I'd be more than happy to work for them and just be proud to come to work every day that you'll have me. And that's what I said and that's 100% the truth. So it's those two that, that we have to manage. And I think for all of us as leaders in the fire service and folks thinking about this, you, if you're being honest, you can probably think of some instances where in your mind those things were creeping up and hopefully they didn't seep out in your behaviors and your decisions. But.
- [67:08]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Maybe this applies to other industries, but I know it applies to the fire service is you really have to care about your people. So I don't know if I would say lack of empathy or, or how I would word it, but you know, our, our job is not just, you know, work. We're not, it's not just a job. I don't know how to say it any other way than that. You, you have to choose, especially as a leader to get to know your people, develop real relationships, know who they are, know where they come from, know what they're about. And that's not to, it does lead to you getting, you know, the best out of them and them knowing you care about them and all that stuff, but it's, it's for them, right? Like this job oftentimes can be life or death, whether for us or our customers. We're seeing things that the average citizen is never going to see and never going to understand. If you don't develop those relationships and know what's going on with your people, you won't be able to help them when they need help and vice versa. We're not impervious as leaders, right? We're going to go through things and we need to have relationships in our organization so people know more about us. So when we need help, if we don't recognize it on our own, they can say, hey Tim, you're. Excuse my language, but you're up right now. You need to get your shit together. Like we got to be able to talk to each other like that sometimes. And you cannot do that if you don't have a relationship first. And I think this goes back to the beginning of the conversation. You know, I, As a, as a out of class roving, as a roving out of class captain, not saying I did it perfect, but I do think that I got, I got to work first every, everywhere I went, unless I was working overtime because I made it a point to have one on one conversations with Everybody that I was working with that day for me, I conversate better when it's one on one. So it made me comfortable and I was able to get to know the person people that I was working with if I didn't already know, if I already knew them. How's your kids? How's your wife? Hopefully by name if you know it. Our organization is pretty big, so especially as you, you're here longer, it gets hard to remember the names of the people, let alone their wife and kids. But I. People really have to know that you value them and they, they won't if you don't choose to by, by getting the know. So it's not just every third day we work at 2448. You got to make it a point to, to really be a part of your people's lives. Yeah.
- [70:29]
Host
And I think run with that even further is is that helps you as a leader and we'll just use as a company officer. Doesn't mean a couple jobs are your leader. Doesn't mean vice versa either. But will use a leader as a company officer. If you understand, you know, what someone's going through, you understand what motivates them, you're going to be better equipped to then set them up for success in training them and mentoring them and all that. If you, you know how it is that they best learn because, you know, kind of their ins and outs and their history and all that, it just puts you in a better position, in an easier position, we'll say to set them up for success versus just, you know, what worked with this last, you know, recruit that I had, you know, work. So this must work for the next one. Yeah, no, that's not how this works.
- [71:12]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Right.
- [71:12]
Host
People learn differently, people get inspired differently and people work differently. And that's just how that works. And so what worked one way is not may not work.
- [71:23]
Chief Tim Kreiss
So I was, I think I'm really pretty darn sure I was the youngest captain at the time when I got promoted to captain, maybe not the youngest ever, but the youngest at the time. I'm pretty sure I was the, I knew I was the youngest battalion chief, maybe not ever, and the youngest deputy chief and the youngest assistant chief. I think I might have been the youngest assistant chief ever. I don't know. Maybe not Right. But. But the reason I'm giving you that background is something that I did and I'm really glad I did it was I never took a subservient position with my folks from a leadership perspective. And let me describe what I'm talking about like I would never and never did tell my folks we're. I want to train tonight because Chief Higgins called me and said we're training tonight. Chief Higgins says we got to train tonight. Chief Higgins says we got to prepare for mcs. Chief Higgins says we gotta pre plan these buildings and stuff like this. I never took those positions. I always said we're training, I want to drill tonight and we're going to go meet up with some other Crews in Battalion 8. I never said we're gonna. My crews will never know what may have been orders to me or what things that I just did because I wanted to do them right. And the reason I say that is because a very weak position for leaders to take is if we've got to do something, we've got to say something. If we've got to take some action and we point to another leader in that space, you're giving up your power in that sense, you've given up your authority. And if you do it too much, all of a sudden they don't even want to talk to you anymore. All they want to do is talk to Higgins. Right. And, and that's the same thing all the way up the chain of command. Like the deputies and the assistant chiefs and stuff like this. They're not doing it, but if they were, it'd be terrible for the organization. If they're always pointing to me, christ says we got to do this. Christ says we got to do this. Christ says we got to do this. Then, you know, they don't, the position in the organization becomes irrelevant.
- [73:19]
Host
Yeah.
- [73:19]
Chief Tim Kreiss
When I was a battalion chief, my crews were, I mean, they were dialed in. We had large areas with no fire hydrants. We had huge industrial areas. We had significant wildland urban interface risks. We had all sorts of specific stuff that was, you know, just high, high frequency or low frequency, high risk sort of stuff going on in, in Battalion 5 and those captains we trained like crazy to be ready for all that stuff. But they will never know if it was because I, because somebody was telling me to do it. Because I never said that. I never said, you know, Mike Shamadan or Leif Anderson or Danny Seville says we got to do this. No, we're doing this because it's important to me. Right. And that is a much stronger. Especially if you have the relationships with the people.
- [74:06]
Host
Yeah, that's where I was going to go with that is the relationship they. And I'm sure you go out there and say they probably trusted you as well. Like they didn't.
- [74:12]
Chief Tim Kreiss
It Didn't.
- [74:12]
Host
It didn't matter to them because you owned it. It's like, okay, we're going to go drill night drills. Like, all right, we just trust the cat, we trust the chief. Let's go. It was, it's. It. You're in a good spot. When your crews don't have to question or don't want to question, it becomes trouble when they're like, well, why are we doing this again? Or this must be coming from someone else, right? That becomes like a unmotivated standpoint from the crew, not a, not a excitement. Because we want our crews to be excited to do whatever it is that we're doing. The mundane assignments. If your crews are excited to do mundane assignments, you're doing a good job, right? As a leader, right? Because anyone can get excited to go do a multi company, you know, you know, acquired structure, you know, where you're cutting holes and breaching walls, right? Anyone get excited for that? But it's getting your crews excited for the things that no one typically would get excited for is I think what you're doing a good job.
- [75:02]
Chief Tim Kreiss
And the easiest example I'll give in the fire service right now is we have done so many things to, especially in Phoenix and I know other places to protect our folks from carcinogens, right. But as a captain and a battalion chief, not breathing smoke is. It's great that the organization has those positions that I'm happy about it and all that stuff. But everybody who worked under my leadership knew that not breathing smoke was important to me. It wasn't right. Wearing seatbelts is important to me. Driving right is important to me. Treating our customers with respect is important to me.
- [75:40]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
There are a lot of younger, whether in age and on the job, leaders in the fire service, whether it be captains, chiefs, whatever. And I think something to remember when you are either young in age or on the job or in the position is the way you deliver messages is not always going to be the same to everybody. And I think one of the most valuable experiences I had as a out of class captain was I got rolled into Engine 52 for about four months on a temp. I had eight years on the job. I think I was either 28 or 29 years old. I was working with a guy named Tom Gibson as my engineer who had 30 plus years on the job. He was either in his late 50s or early 60s. Mike Simon in the backseat, who had about 25 years on the job, has known me since I was 8 years old. And I'm sure Chief Christ has worked with some people that knew him as a child and a guy named Scott Henry who had about 15 years on, but he was in his 50s. You know, contrast that to when I had a temp on engine 15 out of class and everybody on the truck was my classmate in the academy. And then I had a booter. Now that booter is pretty much gonna do anything that I tell him or her to do, right? If I'm working at Engine 52 with a guy who used to be golfing buddies with my dad who, who's known me since I was 8. And I don't think Mike treated me like this and I never felt any of this. But there are people out there who will. You got to gain their trust first. And that goes back to the relationship thing. First of all, they got to know you're competent, right? So you can't prove that right away. That's going to happen over time. Second of all, you do have to recognize seniority in my opinion. And I think you probably should do that first as a leader. Yes, they should respect your rank and understand that or whatever. But if we're not talking about textbooks and we're living in the real world, sometimes people aren't going to. So. And I'm not saying, and I don't know how other fire departments cultures are, but I. What I'll tell you, I did that first day and I was the captain again. I, I swept him off the base and I did the bathrooms and I never had to do them again. I don't know if they were waiting for me to do that because I was the junior guy or, or what. But, but that, that, those two acts right there, they instantly supported everything that I wanted to do. Now that wasn't a place where they did a lot of training before, but I said, hey, I'm a new out of class captain. I've never worked in this area. I need to get to know it. Can you take me around and teach me? And I'm gonna use subservient, but in a different way than the chief did. Sometimes as a leader, you should be subservient. That way when you need to be, when you need to be the boss, they'll let you be the boss. So when we were on a fire a month later, they let me do my thing. Because people do have to let you leave. You don't just, yeah, yes, you're wearing the red helmet and you're the one on the radio most of the time. But I'm sure we can all think of some Situations to where the captain wasn't leading. So, yeah, I just think that for the newer, younger leaders in the fire service out there that might be listening, that that might be something that can help you. Don't, don't, don't feel like just because you're the one wearing the red helmet that you don't have to do any work. You still need. Your people need to know that whatever you're asking to do, you're willing to do yourself.
- [80:14]
Host
Yeah, willing to do and also know how to do.
- [80:17]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah, for sure.
- [80:19]
Host
Chief, was there a defining moment that shaped your leadership philosophy? And if so, talk about it and why. Why, why that moment?
- [80:29]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah, good question. Easy question. I had a amazing first boss, a chief named Richard Trich. When I started. I started in fire prevention as a civilian. Back then there was more. Seemed like folks were trying to get into any job they could get into for the fire department. You know, working in prevention, working at resource management, the training academy, alarm room. Just kind of foot in the door sort of position. So I was fortunate enough to get one of those. And my boss was this Richard Church guy. And he was. Generations of separation between me. I think he. Well, I can tell you right now he's 80. He's 88 years old today. We still talk, but he worked on Ladder 1 with Alan Brunasini. He was the engineer for J.W. robinson, the first African American fire captain and a fantastic leader on the Phoenix Fire Department. This guy goes back like he'd been on for a long time. And he was a great leader. I mean, he taught me, you know, leadership by example. He taught me communication. He taught me setting quick expectations. He taught me the importance of passing the credit. He taught me to see problems as opportunities. And he was just absolutely inspirational. I still talk to him today. So he was. That was probably the best thing that happened to me was getting mentored by him. This guy was like in the Depression. He worked in a steel mill. He was in the Navy, all that before become on the fire department, stuff like this. He's just a really good, strong, solid leader. Very, very effective. And then, you know, I read some darn good books. The most recent really impactful book was Call Sign Chaos, which was a gift from Scott Crowley, who's another executive officer. The local gave it to me. Great book. I recommend it to anybody who's interested in reading that kind of stuff. And then the last piece was My Dad. My dad is a really special guy. In my late teens, early 20s, probably like most folks, I wasn't listening to him. A lot. But as I got a lot older and, and Trich has impacted. It impacted me. My dad is good.
- [82:34]
Host
He.
- [82:35]
Chief Tim Kreiss
He was, he was very, very influential in the American fire service. Did a lot of positive things and is a very, very good guy. And I'm happy to talk to him every time I get the opportunity. I call him pretty much every. Every other day. Yeah.
- [82:48]
Host
Wow. That's leadership right there. Yeah. What's, what's key? I'm going to ask this real quick. You mentioned when I first asked the question, you said this was your first boss.
- [82:57]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah.
- [82:58]
Host
I mean, talk about that like. Right. Like it was your first. As we talked, you know, today about leading by example, you know, it was your first boss that gave you that example and not your 12th boss of 11 crummy ones. We'll say. Yeah, like that's, I mean, that's, that's unicornish, I guess. Right. Like, talk about that being your first example, is it. It was a defining moment in you and shaping you and your leadership philosophy. That first example. I mean, talk about that.
- [83:28]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Well, I think what Richard really had was. I mean, he was a shift commander and a deputy chief with us, and he had been. He just had so much horsepower. He was so effective and he just had this amazing command presence. Like guys and gals like that, do you. I mean, at that point, I think he came on the fire department in like 1960 something. So he, I mean, he been, you know, he, he had that sort of seniority and presence and these sorts of things. But what Richard was really, really good at was understanding how to motivate people. So he was a leadership by example guy. He was a very clear expectations kind of guy. He was the kind of person who would figure out, like, how to thank you. And he taught me past the credit and all those sorts of things. So he would, he learned that I had some skills and he helped make those skills better. But he would give me assignments and he helped me with, you know, getting them on the right track and things like this. And then, you know, he would celebrate the six. If we did good, he'd celebrate it, you know, so that, that kind of got me like, like, really to help me understand self motivation, self management. It got me kind of addicted to accomplishment in a certain aspect, I think is maybe not the best way to say that, but it's honestly the truth. He taught me how to focus. And, you know, he just, the guy was just so solid, fundamentally solid, that. And he was, you know, he couldn't type, he couldn't do anything On a computer. But he was one of the most effective leaders we ever had on the fire department. He retired from US in like 2012 or something like this. I mean, the guy was just incredible. Wow. Yeah.
- [85:15]
Host
I mean, talk about just being fortunate. Not. Not everybody will say, and I wish everybody.
- [85:19]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yeah.
- [85:20]
Host
You know, got the experience at their first boss, Whether it be the fire service or. Or wherever. Whatever industry that. Their first experience. I was a supervisor as a boss was this phenomenal role model, kind of the way you're explaining.
- [85:32]
Chief Tim Kreiss
And I think for everybody, like, none of us are going to have that story. Like, I did not work in a steel mill. I was not in the Navy. Right. Like, none of that stuff is going to be my story. But I think what. When you boil it all down, what it really comes down to is Richard led by example. He genuinely, totally cared and he was absolutely clear in his expectations. He held you accountable and he absolutely just, just pushed you forward. Push you forward, Push you forward. He had a philosophy, and I remember it to this day, like, he's like, timmy, you know, keep your people moving. If they're not growing, they're dying.
- [86:06]
Host
Keep them moving.
- [86:07]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Don't let them stay stagnant. I was like, oh, that's.
- [86:09]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah, yeah.
- [86:10]
Host
No, I love that. If you're not getting better, getting worse. Right. Because everybody else around you is leveling up. And if you're not, you technically, by.
- [86:19]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
By. By.
- [86:20]
Host
By sheer numbers or you're getting worse in comparison. Keep moving.
- [86:25]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Yep.
- [86:25]
Host
Love that. Hey, Cap, how about you? Is there a defining moment that shaped your leadership philosophy today?
- [86:33]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
I won't say moment, but definitely people. Starts with my parents. I'll first talk about my mom. Unfortunately, lost her at the end of January, kind of tragically. But my. My mother was the most detail oriented person that I know, probably to an extreme. And I don't have. I'm not as detail oriented as her. I think it's something that I try to emulate. But the best example, I remember as a kid, and this is probably. They don't do this these days. But anyway, we. I remember she. She told me and my brother, who's two years younger, go clean your room. So we cleaned the room and there was. Or we thought we cleaned the room and there was. I. And maybe I'm misremembering it and she's not here to correct me, but there was one crayon that was out of place and. And my mom, she put everything back in the middle of the room and made us do again. And that's just Kind of how she was like, if she told you to do something it needed to be, she would call it half doing. Don't have do stuff. If you're gonna do it, do it fully second. And we've already talked about him a little bit is my dad. I don't know if this is normal. Maybe you guys can tell me. But we talked about leadership in my household. As soon as we were talking as kids, like we, we were always told that you need to be a leader and what does that look like? And you know, I, and I don't think it's been purposeful. But every in everything that I've ever done, I end up in a leadership position. Whether it was, you know, in my high school sports, I was team captain. I was in a fraternity in college, and I was vice president of that. I got hired on the fire department and I started helping out with J.W. robinson Society, became the mentorship coordinator, became the vice president, decided I wanted to get involved in the local. And I'm here now and obviously I'm a captain. But it wasn't intentional though. Like you, you just work around people, you do your thing and then for whatever reason, you end up leading stuff. But the, the values that were. Were taught by my father and my mother was that you were always supposed to be leader in regards to how you conduct yourself. That doesn't mean that title wise you will lead, but you know you're gonna be accountable, you're gonna be making things better, you're not gonna make excuses, things like that. And in. To this day, when my dad and I talk, it oftentimes we talk about being a leader. And then also like, like the chief said, my. My first captain on the fire department was a guy named Doug Graham. He retired as a battalion chief. And I never worked around or for anybody else that he just like, like the chief just said about. He sat me down my first day, gave me his expectations. And, and then every month we, back then we had to fill out, I think they still do it, reports on how you were doing as a booter. Most, most captains would fill it out and then they'd give it to you and you'd have. Have to give it to your PMO probationary management officer. But every month Chief Graham, Captain at the time, would sit down, talk to me and, and tell me what I was doing good. And tell me some things maybe I could improve. And he, and, and he led by example too. It was, you know, he was out there doing skills courses with me. He was out there treating Customers the way they should be treated. He, everything he did, he did the right way. I, I don't know how better to explain it, but the, the honor I had for that to be my first, well, I guess, second example, if you count my dad, of how you're supposed to be a captain and leader on the fire department was second to none. I, I, I still. Matter of fact, it's his birthday today. I'm gonna call him when we get off this call here, but I still keep in touch. And we're completely different people. We're not, you know, we're not similar at all, but he just set the standard on what I believe A, a firefighter, captain, leader, whatever rank you are in the fire service, how you should conduct yourself.
- [92:14]
Host
Well, it sounds like running into a first boss as a strong leader in the Phoenix Fire Department is a high likelihood. Sounds like. I want to lean on this real quick, and I want to see where you both go with this. This being a leadership podcast primarily geared toward emerging leaders or young leaders in the fire service, but really it's for everybody. So regarding an action item, we talked so much, in fact, what I hear a lot from you, Cap, is it's about people, about communicating, setting up yourself for people, relationships. Right? And we've talked about ownership, accountability, and a bunch of other things. But recommend from both standpoints how to build strong and better labor management relations.
- [92:57]
Chief Tim Kreiss
The first piece of it is the values got to be the same. And when I think about any thing that we're confronted with, and for both, both Tim's on this call, like, nothing easy ever comes into our offices. Like, when stuff gets to his level on the labor side and stuff gets to my level on the management side. It's never an easy thing. All the easy stuff gets handled at the other levels, right? It's always some really miserable night, you know, tough situation. Leaders first, you gotta make sure that your people feel like they can come to you. Like you, if you're, if you people are telling you the truth. That is a, you cannot allow that to happen. They got to feel like they can come and they can tell you the truth. From a labor management perspective, communication so important. And I always, you know, think about, like, these three questions about communication. Like, what do I know? Who needs to know? Have I told them? What do I know? Who needs to know? Have I told them? And in doing that, you know, I get illuminated to, like, he needs to know that Tim Gammage needs to know. This, this thing came up, right? I'm not always perfect in But I strive to be so I think that's a big thing. Labor, management. I think that going back to the value piece, like you heard him say it, I'm going to say it again, if I haven't said it yet already. When I think about the tough problems that come into my. Into our office, I'm always thinking about what's the right thing for our firefighters and safety and what's the right thing for customer service. Like, those are the values that I'm always looking at. Like, we need to make a decision on this. Well, is it right for firefighter safety and our people? Is it right for the community? If the answer is yes, then yes, we'll do it right. He said the same thing earlier in this discussion. So I love that. And then I think that one of the best things that kind of founds our labor management philosophy and ability to work together is the fact that we're committed to working together and communicating and those values. But also, I love this from our sort of legacy documents. It's in our procedure today. It's like, management's going to share authority, and labor is going to accept responsibility. And that is a beautiful thing, right? Like, management's going to be like, hey, we want. Let's work on this together. We're going to share management authority. And then labor is going to accept responsibility on the outcome. If organizations are doing that, they're doing the right thing.
- [95:16]
Host
Well said. The piece I love so much of all that, which is all. Which is all of it, is that the labor group, they'll take ownership in it. They're gonna run with it. Let's go. Right. Because it's a team effort, right, Cap?
- [95:29]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
First you gotta start with valuing the relationship on a personal level. Right? Like, I need to care about Tim to work with it goes back to really what I was kind of talking about earlier. Like, caring about the people that you work with is important. What I maybe don't know how to fix is if, like, say, it's already broken, you gotta hope that you don't hold as an individual, you can't hold grudges, and you gotta hope that the other side doesn't. And like I said, keep it. Keep the business part of things business, and then value the person on the other side of the table. And remember, in my opinion, in the fire service, we should both be working towards the same goals, which he kind of hit earlier. Taking care of each other and taking care of the customers. This is a great career. You're gonna meet some great people. You're gonna get to do some cool stuff. There are a lot of negatives that come with it, too. Chief talked about cancer earlier. I also talked about some of the traumatic things that you see. And again, that's why those relationships have to be strong in order to help people when they do have issues. Yeah. I think it's just valuing the person on the other side of the table and realizing that we have the same end goal.
- [97:02]
Host
Well said. Valuing the person on the other side and working toward a common goal. Well, we'll go to the leadership challenge. So we're obviously here today because Fire Chief Matthew Love out of the St. Cloud Fire Department in Minnesota challenged you, Chief, and then you obviously challenged the other Tim here to be a guest. So I just want to say thank you for that. But for us to continue what we call the leadership conversation in the fire service is to ask you both if there's someone else out there that you would like to challenge for us to reach out to see if they'd be a guest in a future episode.
- [97:38]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Captain Gammage, you got you. I agree with you on your picks here, so you go ahead.
- [97:43]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
Yeah, I've already talked about the two people a few minutes ago, but I think my dad would be an excellent guest, as I. He's been at least talking about leadership with me for 41 years, so I'm sure he could impart some wisdom to the group. And then Doug Graham as well. He's. He's extraordinary leader. Extraordinary person, takes care of business at a high level and. And cares about everybody on this planet, not just the people that he's working with, but all the. All the people in the community. He's an amazing person. And there's, in my opinion, you could probably. I could probably name you 18 or 64 people. That's. That's where I would start.
- [98:39]
Host
That's awesome. Well, I thank you very much for. For that challenge, and I'll reach out to see their willingness to be a guest on the show. And I believe it. I believe that there could be 1800. Is that what Phoenix is, 1864? Is that what the number is, 1864? I believe it. When you say you could reach out to 1800 and, yeah, you'd be a good leader on the other end of the call. So I believe that that's what's so amazing for listeners, resonated with the message today. How do we find either of you? Are there articles, books, training events? You know, there's a command training center, as we know, out there in Phoenix, but How do we find Tim Gammage or Tim Kreiss in the future?
- [99:14]
Chief Tim Kreiss
Well, I mean, certainly websites. So the local 493 has got a website. We've got a website so folks can reach out to me via the, the, you know, web machine sort of thing there. I do some stuff with Fire Engineering magazine, so there's some articles out there and other podcasts and these sorts of things. But if anybody ever wants, needs any help with anything or, or whatever, I'm totally into like collaborating with other folks in the fire department. I, I made a call to Portland Fire Department today and talked to one of their chiefs about a program I think Cap Gammon knows which I'm talking about. But we won't go in the podcast on that. So, yeah, we're available anytime.
- [99:54]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
You can reach out to me by email if you want. It's T gamma G a M M a G E at local493.org call the union office, 602-277-1500. And yeah, I'm available whenever your opponents.
- [100:14]
Host
Start blowing up here in a second for. I'm signing for a few more minutes.
- [100:17]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
That's why, that's why I gave the union.
- [100:20]
Host
There you go. There you go. So before we officially close, I like to throw it out there for each of you lasting leadership thoughts you'd like our listeners to walk away with. Before we close.
- [100:30]
Captain Tim Gammage Jr.
I think the most important thing that we get to do is, is take care of each other. So that's if you're, when, when you're making decisions, I think if you have what is right for your firefighters in mind, they're going to do what's right for what we say on the fire department is Mrs. Smith or the Phoenix Fire Department, Mrs. Smith. And that is going to be the right thing for the city. That's going to be the right thing for the fire Department, and that's going to make sure your, your organization or you as a leader, going the right way. Doing what's right doesn't always mean doing what your firefighters want, right? Sometimes, sometimes that means, hey, you can't do that. But usually when I'm telling somebody they can't do something, it's because it's not safe for them. Me as an individual, I don't get anything out of, besides keeping you safe. If I tell you the chief's point earlier, hey, keep your mask on until you decline or when we're, when we're overhauling, make sure you have your scba. I'm going to have mine on. And you'll have yours on. Because if. If I'm on the truck, that's what we do, right? The. The things that you have to tell people to do is usually for their safety. So it. You know, I think as newer leaders, sometimes we're hesitant to jump in on some things. But what I did to get rid of that, because there is some nervousness, right, when you're having to have some of those conversations. But if you're doing it for the right reason, that enables me to get rid of that nervousness and do what I got to do, because I'm. Hell, I'm doing it for the person on the other side of the table, not for me. This is to keep, you know, my firefighter safe, which, at the end of the day, what I think, and I didn't get this fully until I actually, you know, started acting as a captain and became a captain, is that, you know, I. And I always explain it as if it was my. My first truck that I was a captain on. I had Bobby Vio was my engineer. Monica Huff was my firefighter, and then we had a probationary spot. I'm not just keeping Monica safe, right? I'm keeping Monica, Emily, and. And the rest of her two daughters and her husband safe, right? They. They want their mother to come home. That's my job to make that happen. So if I have to say, keep your SCBA on, that's what I'm going to say. If I have to tell Bobby, make sure you drive under Code 3 driving rules, which I never had do, but that's what I would do. Because it's not just for them. It's the people at home that. That's. At the end of the day, we're all here because we want to take care of our families, too. Not just because we got a cool job or we get to hang out with. Hang out at the station and have a good time, do something cool every now and then. We're also providing for family members, and if we're not there to provide, they're gonna be lacking. So taking care of your people takes care of their families and gets everybody home. So.
- [104:20]
Host
Yeah, well said. Well said, Chief.
- [104:24]
Chief Tim Kreiss
You know, one thing that we didn't talk about, and I think it's good for folks to at least think about, is if you're ever confronted with the situation and you're not sure what the right thing to do is, it's almost always the hardest thing. Maybe always the hardest thing. And, you know, we can give some pretty pointed examples here, like, let's Say you are a captain in a fire station. Do you recognize you've got a member who's got some serious mental stuff going on? Hopefully you recognized it early. But are you going to have the courage to get them into the system? Right. It's not an easy thing to do. I bet Tim's done it. I know I've done. Let's talk about another really real and tough example, right? Like. Like substance abuse issues. Are you gonna have the courage to for cause test somebody who's you're concerned about? I hope the answer is yes. Right. Because when I think about those things, I think about, you know, parenting like Tim talked about. I think about really caring about your people. Somebody comes to work and through those conditions, that person to me is screaming for help. Right. And I'm not going to let them drown. Right. Those can be difficult things to do, but there's a lot of difficult things that we get confronted with. But I'll close with that. If you're ever unsure of what the right thing to do is, it's almost always the hardest thing. Wow.
- [105:44]
Host
Well said. Taking care of your people. Have courage. Amazing. Thank you, guys. Thank you for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope you found this time valuable. We hope we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Until next time, be safe, be intentional, stay curious.