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Ep. 81: Mark Niemeyer, Fire Chief - Succession Planning & Culture - Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Ep. 81: Mark Niemeyer, Fire Chief - Succession Planning & Culture

Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table

Thu Oct 02 2025

Summary

Podcast Summary: Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table

Ep. 81: Mark Niemeyer, Fire Chief – Succession Planning & Culture
Host: Berlin Maza
Guest: Chief Mark Niemeyer, Boise Fire Department
Release Date: October 2, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode delves deep into the intertwined themes of succession planning and culture within fire service organizations. Chief Mark Niemeyer, with over three decades of experience and nearly 15 years as a fire chief, shares candid stories and actionable wisdom drawn from his unique, non-traditional career path. The conversation offers practical insights for all organizational levels—from new recruits to chief officers—while emphasizing servant leadership, purposeful culture building, and the importance of ongoing professional development.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Chief Niemeyer’s Unconventional Career Path

Background:
- Niemeyer started in EMS, not fire suppression, and entered fire department leadership "through a weird pathway" ([02:28]).
- Initially wanted to be a police officer, discovered a passion for medicine via EMT training and paramedics ([02:28]-[04:00]).
- Became fire chief at 41 “by accident,” encouraged by peers and his wife. Boise Fire Chief job came unexpectedly ([04:00]-[05:35]).
- Memorable quote:
  
  “The mission calls you. It’s not always you calling the mission.” (Chief Niemeyer, [07:21])
Lesson:
- Non-traditional trajectories are valid. Passion is non-negotiable for success, regardless of the path ([06:27]-[08:19]).

2. The Centrality of Culture

Defining Culture:
- Culture must be defined and articulated “so men and women can rally around” it ([08:33]).
- For Boise Fire, the key pillars are servant leadership (“servant mind shift from the top to the bottom”) and being mission-centered ([09:20]-[11:07]).
Mission-Driven vs. Mission Statement:
- Niemeyer distinguishes between having a memorized “mission statement” and truly being “mission-driven,” which means living out those values daily ([11:48]).
Implementation Tactics:
- Vision starts at the top, cascades down through all ranks ([11:48]-[13:00]).
- Open, regular communication, emphasizing visibility and approachability via station visits and honest discussions—“your table, your time, your topics” ([15:35]-[16:45]).
- Measure organizational health with annual surveys and follow-through on suggestions ([13:00]-[15:00]).
Quote:

“If the men and women don’t believe I’m serving them, I have no followers. And leadership is only leadership if you have followers.” (Chief Niemeyer, [09:35])

3. Succession Planning at All Levels

Starts with Culture:
- “You have to create an environment where people want to go work in those roles” ([18:10]).
- Internal promotions are emphasized, contrasting with former reliance on external hires ([18:10]-[19:30]).
- Success shown by current succession: 3 out of 4 fire chief candidates are internal ([23:10]).
Actionable Wisdom:
- “Winning breeds winning. Breed winning.” (Niemeyer, [18:10])
- Retain and educate so people “could leave, but don't want to” ([18:10]).
Succession Beyond the Top Ranks:
- Succession should be discussed for all ranks: chief, battalion chief, company officer, engineer, and mentor/training positions ([17:27]-[18:10]).
- Strong development programs and ongoing knowledge sharing are a must.

4. Personal Leadership Development

Mentorship & Self-Awareness:
- Importance of strong mentors—credited Alan Brunacini and Jeff Johnson for shaping his thinking ([28:26]-[31:28]).
- Encourages leaders to be honest about internal talent: “If you don’t have internal talent to promote, that’s a you problem, Chief” ([23:59]).
- Quote:
  
  “Your job is the vision, to motivate, and to support... So when I hear, ‘We don’t have the talent inside,’ that’s a you problem.” ([23:59])
Qualifications & Passion:
- Niemeyer does not hold an advanced degree—a vision for the organization outweighed formal credentials ([28:26]-[31:28]).
- “Do you give a damn?” Passion matters more than titles or degrees ([31:31]).

5. Embedding Leadership into the Organization

Leadership as an Ongoing Practice:
- Leadership is a journey, not simply reading a book or taking a course ([31:55]-[32:05]).
- Best results: open, shared discussions (“sit in a room with a bunch of candidates... just open the door and say, let’s talk” ([33:25]-[34:28]).

6. Action Items & Advice for All Levels

For Firefighters (emerging leaders):
- “Smile more than you complain.”
- “Say thank you before you offer a solution.”
- Be humble and “practice that, even at the kitchen table” ([35:12]).
For Company Officers:
- Set the tone and own the development of those you lead ([35:12]-[36:30]).
- Pass on knowledge and create a supportive atmosphere.
For Battalion Chiefs:
- Be a conduit: Freely share information from command staff to the line and vice versa ([37:30]-[38:30]).
For Chief Officers:
- Develop internal successors—begin mentoring early and lay out a clear, inclusive vision ([23:59]-[24:30]).

7. Handling Cultural Resistance

Getting Everyone Bought In:
- Starts with leadership modeling, not carrot-and-stick ([40:38]).
- Harness competitive spirit: as more join in, others will follow.
- “Mission over me” mindset—humility and selflessness are contagious.

8. Book Recommendations

“It’s Your Ship” by Michael Abrashoff ([42:32])
- “Leaders eat last” philosophy—demonstrate by action that you serve those you lead.
Also mentioned: “Leaders Eat Last”
- Both endorse servant leadership; suggested for practical, relatable lessons ([42:32]-[44:19]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Career Paths:

“Non-traditional trajectories are valid... It's not always you calling the mission; the mission calls you.” (Chief Niemeyer, [07:21])
On Culture & Servant Leadership:

“If the men and women don’t believe I’m serving them, I have no followers.” (Chief Niemeyer, [09:35])
On Internal Talent:

“If you don’t have the talent inside to promote, that’s a you problem, Chief.” (Chief Niemeyer, [23:59])
Action Item for Firefighters:

“Smile more than you complain. Say thank you before you offer a solution.” (Chief Niemeyer, [35:12])
On Setting Cultural Non-Negotiables:

“If you knowingly and willingly lie, steal or cheat, bully, intimidate, harass—you won’t work in my fire department.” (Chief Niemeyer, [45:25])

Timestamps for Key Segments

Chief Niemeyer's career path: [02:28]–[05:35]
Untraditional journeys and finding your path: [06:27]–[08:19]
Defining and building culture: [08:33]–[11:45]
Distinction between mission statement and mission-driven: [11:48]
Station visits and open communication: [15:35]–[16:45]
Succession planning at all levels: [17:27]–[23:10]
Internal promotions and Chief’s leadership philosophy: [23:10]–[24:30]
Importance of mentorship and passion: [28:26]–[31:28]
Advice for new leaders: [35:12]
Book recommendations: [42:32]
Chief’s “six no-gos” and closing thoughts: [45:25]

Tone & Style Reflected

Chief Niemeyer’s style is approachable, humble, practical, and occasionally humorous. He’s candid about his non-traditional pathway, honest in discussing both mistakes and successes, and communicates in a way that is accessible to all levels of the fire service.

Final Takeaways

Culture is intentional and must be defined, modeled, and reinforced at every level.
Succession planning should not be reserved for top officers—develop talent at every layer.
Mentorship, open communication, and humility create lasting leadership impact.
Leadership is about vision, motivation, and support—not just management or credentials.
Practical behaviors—smiling, thanking, knowledge-sharing—matter as much as strategies or task books.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in creating a thriving, forward-looking organizational culture, whether in the fire service or beyond.

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Transcript

Chief Mark Niemeyer (0:01)

Recruitment and retention. Everybody's talking about that. Well, recruitment's a challenge. Retention is a challenge. I said, well, culture solves both of those, right? Because if you got a good culture, you're going to retain your people. And what I mean by that is treat your people well enough and educate your people well enough that they could leave, but don't want to, right? So it starts there and we retain them. But now you know how the fire service works. People talk, right? Buddies are talking with buddies and friends from other states. And when you hear, man, oh, that department's kicking ass, like, I want to be a part of that. Winning breeds winning, right? Losing breeds losing. Breed winning. The First Responder Liaison Network is proud to present to you the Kitchen Table podcast. Join us as we explore leadership from perspectives around the globe. From firefighters to fire Chiefs, civilians to CEOs, our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders.

Berlin (1:15)

Good afternoon and thank you for tuning in today to the Kitchen Table. On the show today, we welcome Fire Chief Mark Niemeyer. And the leadership topic of discussion today is succession planning and culture. Mark Niemeyer currently serves as the Fire Chief of the Boise Fire Department. As the largest fire department in Idaho and one of the fastest growing cities in the country, Chief Niemeyer leads a Progressive Group of 300 Men and Women who serve the city of Boise and surrounding community. Over their 31 year career, Chief Niemeyer served in several roles. In 2010, he was appointed as the Fire Chief for the Meridian Fire Department, where he spent the next 10 years. In 2020, Chief Niemeyer was appointed Fire Chief for the Boise Fire Department. Chief Niemeyer has lived in Idaho with his wife or currently lives in Idaho with his wife Cheryl since 1997. They have a son and a daughter, both serving the mission as a firefighter and emergency room nurse, who are now bringing the chief and his wife amazing grandkids. Good afternoon, Chief. Thanks for joining today.

Chief Mark Niemeyer (2:13)

How are you, Berlin? How are you doing? It's great to be on.

Berlin (2:16)

Thank you so much. Before we start, because I know we're going to talk about succession planning and culture, you and I chatted on the phone, so I'm so excited to go down this path. Would you mind just sharing a little bit about the chief before we just dive into leadership?

Chief Mark Niemeyer (2:28)

You know, kind of like we talked, Fire chief role was never on my bucket list. Right. As I was going through the ranks in the service, I had a weird pathway. Anyway, right. So I. I went to college since Washington University in your home state, Ellensburg. Thought I was Going to be a cop. And realized pretty, pretty quickly in that criminal justice system that people don't necessarily like cops. And I didn't want to be in a profession where, you know, I didn't get liked by the public. My whole family was in education. I'm like, I don't want to be a teacher. I don't want to be around rugrats all day long. That's not my jam. I by chance I took an EMT class. Kind of fell in love with it. Spent that summer in King County. I grew up in Bothell, so again, kind of your neck of the woods. Spent that, that summer kind of doing right alongs with King County Medic one fell in love with medicine, so that was cool. And then went through the paramedic program at Central Washington and then got my first job in Yakima, Washington, the Palm Springs of Washington, as you guys know, and just kind of loved it. I love the medicine part, you know, as a volunteer firefighter there in a local community. But really just my career pathway took me down the medicine road. So when my wife and I, who my wife retired as a medic two years ago, we came to Ada county, we both got hired by the county paramedics and I really stayed on that medicine pathway. I saw I was working a box for a lot of years. I wasn't out fighting fire. I'm not the fire subject matter expert. I never claim to be, I never say I am. But then got an opportunity to become the deputy chief of EMS in Meridian, Idaho right next door. So I got into the fireside that way, kind of a back backwards way, which was kind of funny because the non fire guys now in the fire department, right. But luckily the guys I knew, most of the guys, they embraced me. Our fire chief there in Meridian retired about three years later and that opened the door. I really wasn't going to apply. It wasn't in my, in my trajectory. But you know, I've told this story a few times between, you know, the guys on the line saying, hey chief, put your name in the hat. The mayor kind of pushed me to put my name in the hat. But really the turning moment for me was my wife who said, if you don't put your name in the hat, you don't get to complain about your new boss. Right. And spouses have that effect on us sometimes. So I got the job as the fire chief in radiant at about 41 years old. I had a 10 great year, great tenure run there. And then the Boise job, kind of a weird pathway as well. My whole career has been a weird pathway as we're going to get to. I didn't apply for the job I was going to. There was a residency thing. I decided not to apply. I was one of three fire chiefs that served on the panel for the final two candidates. Got done with the panel, submitted my recommendation, went off and had shoulder surgery. And then the mayor of Boise called me one day after my shoulder surgery and wanted to talk about why did I pick candidate A over B. I just told her and we ended that conversation. She called me the next day and she said, well, I'd like you to become my fire chief. Which is kind of a weird pathway. Right. I didn't apply. There's a process and all that. So you can imagine the union is a little, a little upset. The city council was a little upset, but it turned out great. Wow. You know, I've had a great five year run. I've enjoyed my time here at Boise. It's an awesome place. I know we're going to talk about culture, which I'm excited because I think culture drives everything you do in the fire service. Right. So we'll chat about that. But that's, that's the path.

Chief Mark Niemeyer (8:33)

Yeah. So let's talk about culture, because I think, you know, leadership now, and it has been for a while. It's. It's a Multimillion dollar industry. You can buy all kinds of books and watch all kinds of videos. And I'm not disparaging those. I've read a lot of really good books. I got about 40 of them on my shelf here. But I think when we talk about culture, what's important is you have to be able to define what your culture is. I've heard this a lot in the fire service, where our culture this, or our tradition this, or our history this. And yet you ask the guys, well, tell me about your culture, tell me about your traditions. And it's really hard for them to explain it. So I think when you talk about culture as an organization, you have to define what that is, what's going to make that special in your organization that the men and women can rally around, right? And so for me coming to Boise Fire, I've just got a very servant mindset. It's just the way I am. We all know this in the fire service. Everybody knows who wears the five bugles, everybody knows who wears the four bugles. We know them by name, et cetera, et cetera. But if the men and women don't believe I'm serving them, I have no followers, right? And leadership is only leadership if you have followers. So I think making sure that I wanted to define that for Boise Fire from the top, that this is our culture, this is a servant mind shift from the top to the bottom. And to watch that permeate throughout the organization. In my time here, where it started with myself and then my assistant chiefs and then my chief administrative officer, then go to the divisions and the battalions and the company officers and just continuing to spread that servant mindset mentality, number one, that was important for our culture. Number two, we were always going to be mission centered. So we've got a really nice robust planning process. We've got a 10 year outlook on where we're going and the things we need. But every single one of those things, whether it's firefighter health and wellness, service to the community, expansion of services, all of it has to be mission driven. If we can't define it back to our mission, we. We usually don't do it right, Because I can stop by a firehouse and you know this working in firehouse, right? I just stop by and talk about the things we're doing to go directly to our mission. And the guys and gals love it. I start talking chief speak, you know where I'm talking about these big high level projections and crap that they don't care about. I lose them and so I think being mission centered, you know, those two things, servant leadership, mission centered, mission driven, cultures, that's who we're about. That's how we define ourselves. And I think every fire department, to be successful, just needs to figure out what is our culture. How do we define our culture? Yeah. What does that look like?

Chief Mark Niemeyer (11:48)

Yeah, let me, let me clarify, too. You know, I. I don't want the listeners to confuse mission statements with mission driven. Right. Two very distinct, different things. Mission statements are things that we memorize. I mean, it's good for the public, right? We can communicate to them. This is our mission statement. Mission driven is something completely different that is culturalizing things and the way we do that. Initially, as the new chief, I had to set that vision right. So it does start at some points with the top setting the visions, kind of setting the expectations that you have of what our culture is going to be, getting the buy in from the entire command staff to make sure that they were permeated down through their divisions, getting the buy in from the battalion chiefs. And it wasn't, it wasn't easy at first because just like every organization, we had a few battalion chiefs that were near retirement. These are good guys. Like, I. I will never say anything negative about them as Boise firefighters, as battalion chiefs, but they're pretty old school, right? The mentality of kind of everybody serves them. And I was shifting that on them. I was moving their cheese, right? That's the cheese book. I was telling them, no, we serve them, right? As the fire Chief, I serve 300 men and women and the community. That's the way it works. And that, you know, for our militaristic folks, that took a little bit of getting over because they were used to a hierarchy of everybody serves up and here's this new guy saying everybody's going to push down. So it was getting that ingrained to start with. So I laid out that vision of the whole organization and then from there it's talking about it all the time. You know, I always, I always say if you really want to permeate something in the fire service, talk about it until the guys are literally looking at you saying, yeah, Chief, we know, we're on board, right? And even talk about it then afterwards. And I think as I've tried to study leadership and what makes great football teams, what makes great baseball teams, what makes great businesses. I think they're always repeating who they are. And then now with our recruits, we permeate that from day one. Part of that is showing them how do we care about you. You're not just here to do a job, right? So we're here to protect your health, your wellness, your well being. We talk a lot about that. We've got an entire peer support team. So we make sure that those new firefighters a, they understand our expectations. You still got to meet them or you're not going to work here. We can talk about that as far as culture and my six rules, but we, we bring them in. Day one, we, we preach it through the officers academy for our company officers and our battalion chiefs as they're going through the officer development program. And then, you know, you got to measure it, right? So how do we know if we're successful? I do that in a few ways. One, I do a station visit as often as I can. And it's funny, when I first got here and I mentioned the BC group, I'm going to do station business, they got a little leery, like, oh, wait a second, that's our world, those are our houses. And I'm like, chill. And I'm just going to go out and just put my feet up and hang with the guys, right? So whenever I visit a station, I have no agenda, I have no PowerPoints, I have none of that crap that the guys don't want to see. It's literally, I always say, it's your table, your time and your topics, right? I rang the doorbell, you let me in and we're just going to talk about whatever you want to talk about. And it's transparent, it's honest. I get hard questions, I get easy questions. Sometimes just talking, having a cup of coffee and talking about families. So I think being real and being personal. And then we also do an annual survey and that's kind of really our gut check. And I know when firefighters hear surveys, they're like, oh, my God, another survey. Right. The kicker with us is when we do a survey and we ask you, what can we do better? We put that into a planning process for the following year to show we're getting better. Right. So if we hear, hey, communications are lacking a little bit. Well, we're initiating station reader boards now. Digital reader boards. It's going to have all kinds of great information. We do battalion chief minutes every month. We do a lot of stuff to almost over communicate, but I think you got to check, you got to feel the pulse. You can't just be an absent leader. You're going to set expectations and you want everybody to meet them. You got to be out invisible. Wow.

Chief Mark Niemeyer (18:10)

Yeah, yeah. So I will start at the top because. And this kind of what you and I talked about on the phone that I think piqued the interest in the topic is when I took the job here in Boise, you know, I told the mayor I'd give her five years. That put me about two and a half years, three years past my, my retirement rule. And one of the things I said was it will be my job to build and help grow the next fire achieve and hopefully three or four of them. Right. That you will be able to pick from. Luckily we were able to do that. They just actually interviewed last week. So I'm retiring the end of November. Three out of four of the candidates, three of those were internal, which is great. I love it and I think. But I want to go back to culture because at every rank, you know, I'm going to take it obviously from the right, from the fire chief. Down to the ACS, down to the DC's first. But if we need to fill those roles, you got to create an environment where people want to go work in those roles, right? And when I got here, that wasn't the case. We had done a lot of external hires at the higher ranks. We hadn't been a culture where our battalion chiefs and our company officers are looking up, going, man, I want to be a part of that, right? So we had to start there. I'm really proud to say we have done that really well. We have promoted internally now, I think four division chief positions. We've got guys now stepping up, guys and gals stepping up to take the BC test and get involved in the BC group. I've got current bcs that are in my office before I leave saying, hey, man, just help me out here because I want to step up. I love what we're doing here. I want to be a part of it. So it all starts. I always go back to culture. It always starts there, that you have to create an environment that people say, men, I want to be a part of this, right? And I think that, you know, I hear a lot in the fire service right now as I go around present across the western states anyway, about recruitment and retention. Everybody's talking about that. Well, recruitment's a challenge. Retention is a challenge. Well, culture solves both of those, right? Because if you got a good culture, you're going to retain your people. And what I mean by that is, treat your people well enough and educate your people well enough that they could leave, but don't want to, right? So it starts there and we retain them. But now you know how the fire service works. People talk, right? Buddies are talking with buddies and friends from other states. And when you hear, man, oh, that department's kicking ass. Like, I want to be a part of that. Winning breeds winning, right? And losing breeds losing. Breed winning. So I think a lot of it starts there. As we talk about then the lower ranks, you know, the problem with the higher ranks is as you go from firefighter to engineer, senior firefighter, whatever you call them in our respective departments, to company officer, even a battalion chief, there's a task book. Typically, most departments have some form of a task book. It's like, hey, do these things and we'll get you signed off, and that kind of makes you eligible to test the higher ranks. There is no task. It's really hard to explain when I'm talking about battalion chief on what does it take to become a division chief? I said, well, you know, we have a saying in. In our department, the higher you go, the more you owe, right? So every rank you go up, you owe more going down. That's a mentality we have, so that's pretty easy. But then when you talk about, well, you got to understand budgeting and spreadsheets, all this other stuff that you haven't been exposed to at the lower ranks, there's not a lot of task stuff. So it's more about, at that point, higher education conferences, mentorship, Right? It's about coming together and meeting new people and bouncing ideas. But even at the lower ranks, you know, we have some pretty good development programs, we have some pretty good task programs. But even in our last survey, right, we always ask, hey, what. What can we do better at? And we asked people to kind of just break them out. We don't want their names. I. I don't. I don't have enough time in the day to figure out who said what. But what we asked for is, what's your current rank and how long have you been here? And guys are willing to share that with us. So as we look at the company officer and the battalion chief, the area that they would still love to see us continue to perfect is professional development, succession planning. So even in my own fire department, even though we're geeking out on this stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. But I think that's okay because, you know, I asked a college football coach, this, used to coach at Boise State, went and coached Auburn, Brian Harson. We were chatting a little bit, and I said, hey, coach, I gotta ask you a question. Is it harder to coach winning teams or losing teams from your perspective as a head coach? He kind of thought about it and he said, I don't know, Mark, what do you. What do you think? I said, honestly, for me, I think it's harder to coach a winning team because when you're losing, you got a lot of room for improvement, man. Like, there's so many steps to get to win. When you're winning, you know, how do you continue to refine the message so guys stay energized and excited about the mission, and they want to continue to develop themselves. They don't get stagnant. So, you know, the fact that we're not there yet completely arrived. I'm okay with that. Because it just means, hey, we got even room for improvement. We make those little improvements, what happens, man, the guys are excited, right? Like, oh, we made this slight improvement. That. That's awesome. It works better. Absolutely. So, you know, a lot of That I don't. I don't want to keep harking on it, but it's worth repeating. It does start with culture. If you have a culture where people want to get involved. Yeah. Want to be a part of it, they'll promote. Yeah. Yeah.

Chief Mark Niemeyer (23:59)

I think, you know, we talked about a little bit earlier. You got to have passion for what you do. Right. So part of it is, I don't know if you. You show this on YouTube, but if you do, the viewers are going to see. I've got gray hair, right. So I'm an older guy. I've been around the block a little bit. You know, I've been 15 years the fire chief now. So I think part of it was just learning scars. Right. As a new fire chief, I certainly didn't have this mentality day one. As a fire chief, I had, you know, year 10, right. Where I went through the scars of not knowing what I didn't know. So part of it's that, you know, I see a lot of new fire chiefs. They wouldn't be thinking about this necessarily yet. They're thinking about patches and shirt uniforms and colors and all that kind of stuff so much. But no. So I think it does take a while, but. But I also think as leaders, being honest with one another, I think you and I talked about this. You know, I've heard it said from several fire chiefs throughout my travels, and we just don't have the talent inside to promote. And I look them straight in the eye. Well, that's a you problem, Chief. Like, that's a direct. You Problem. Because as the fire chief, you have one pretty simple job. It's three components. Your job is division. So lay out the vision of where you want the organization to go. Your second job is to motivate people, because without a follower group, you're not going to get your vision met. So you've got to rally the troops to get behind the vision. And the last one is the fun one. And that's just a support. So you now get out of the way. You let the great people in the organization go execute the vision. When they get stuck, you give them what you need or what they need. It's really a simple job. So when I hear things like, we don't have the talent inside the walls, and that's a you problem, you're the leader. So your job, it should be in every job description for a leader. Your job is to develop the next generation. Right? That's our obligation. I think as an old guy, you really start to take on that perspective as you get towards the end of your career. Knowing it's my turn to give back. Right? And so I think that's where the passion comes from. And then it's just working with the folks. You know, I think I told you when the mayor hired me, I told her what, you know, after hearing what her priorities were, and I laid out mine and I said, this will also be my job is to develop, you know, the next generation of fire chief. And hopefully with three or four candidates, I started that work very early on. So we've been at it for over four years now, just working together as one on one. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How can I get you what you need to improve yourself and keep getting better in these certain areas? I involve my assistant chiefs, my command staff, and the decisions we make. So they're a part of it. They're a part of our strategic planning process in depth. So they're, they're ingrained and they're bought into the. To the organization, the work we're doing. So I think that's, you know, I'm rambling here because there's so many things that we could cover. But, yeah, I love it. We talk about Culture Lab. It is the leader. You've got to have passion for what you want to do. And if succession planning is something we need to focus on, we need to teach leaders and rally leaders to get passionate about, get ready to fill your spot. And that's a generational thing, too. I've watched this play out. You know that the guys that came before Me in the Boomer generation, not to disparage them, but they didn't like sharing their knowledge very much. They love to hold on to it, because back then, knowledge was power, and if you had power, you had control. You know, then there was my generation, the Generation X, where it's like, you know, f that we're going to challenge everything because we don't, we don't like authority. And, you know, the millennials just took it from there and so on and so forth. There's now a generation of people that are saying, I want to share, I want to give back, because I want you to be better than me. I told the three internal candidates, you know, I hope to God that you're way better than I was, because that would be an awesome compliment to the work we're doing.

Chief Mark Niemeyer (28:26)

Yeah. I think for me, the biggest thing that I did was found some really awesome mentors that I could call at any point in time. And I was super blessed. I had two that just were very big influences in my career as a Fire Chief. One was Alan Bernasini, the Phoenix Fire Chief. Alan was so generous with his time, but the thing about Alan was when you would ask him a question, you know, I was a young guy, so I just wanted answers. So I would ask Alan a question, and he'd spend 30 minutes with me, and he would never answer the question. He would just continually ask me questions non stop to where at the end of 30 minutes, I kind of had my own answer, but he helped me get there. So that was one pathway of A mentor. The other one was Jeff Johnson. He was the Tualet Valley fire Chief at the time. He was the president of the IFC and then became the CEO of the Western Fire Chiefs. And Jeff and I just made a great connection. He has been a big mentor of me. More on the. On the business entrepreneurial side of an organization and how you look at budgeting and financing. But he's also just been through it. And Jeff was the opposite of Alan. Like when I would ask Jeff a question, probably even before I finished my sentence, he was giving me the answer, but it was always the right one. So between those two, I learned so much. You know, I'm blessed. I know part of my retirement, going away talk is we don't get here by accident. We get hurt by people helping us, right? That is the way this works. So, you know, knowing that I got help along the way, it's my turn to help back. I didn't do talk about my non traditional pathway. The other thing I don't have as a fire chief, I do not have a degree, right. I did not go through the executive Fire officer class course. I didn't go through the company officer program, the managing Fire officer program through cpsc. I don't have any of that. I don't have any letters after my name, right? It's just two letter. Two. Two words, my name. And you know, early on people asked, how in the heck did you get a fire chief job without all of that stuff, right? And I think for me, I did ask my mayor, when I became a chief at 41, the mayor hired me. I remember sitting down with her and I asked her point blank, why did you pick me? Because there was two other candidates in the final pool that I ran the gauntlet with, and these were established fire chiefs. I actually knew who they were. One from Washington. And I remember asking the mayor, why did you pick me? She said, you are the only one that came in and laid out a vision for the organization, right? So I didn't have the stuff that I was supposed to have, you know, evidently to become a leader, an executive leader. But I got the job anyway. And even with Boise, you know, the mayor knew I didn't have that stuff. So I think that's probably a long winded answer. But I don't think there's one single course or class or even program that can get you ready to be a fire chief or a leader in any organization. I think it's a culmination of things. But I do think it has to start with who are you as a person? Right? We. We talk about who are the internal qualities of somebody. Do you. Do you give a. I mean, are you passionate? I don't know if I can say that on your podcast.

Chief Mark Niemeyer (35:12)

So here's the advice I give my guys and I give it to my son and my son in law especially. You know, we can talk about recruits and probies, but then we're talking about the guys are like three to five years, right? And about that five year Mark, we all do it. We all think we're the smartest guy in the room, we've arrived, all that crap. Right. What I tell those guys is smile more than you complain. Right. Practice that. Smile more than you complain. Say thank you before you offer a solution. Right. Because here's the deal. You know, I think back on my career and I was usually, even as a, as a EMS battalion chief and all that, I was probably the loudest guy in the room, even on our command staff meetings. And I usually got my way. And I look back and I think I probably got my way because they just wanted to shut me up. Right. If I would have taken a different approach, would I got my way and built sustainability and what I wanted to get done. Right. And the answer would have been yes. So, you know, I try to grain that firefighters that when you hit that point that, you know, maybe you're a little frustrated, maybe you think you know a lot, you still got a lot to learn, but you don't know it. Smile more than you complain. And that even means at the kitchen table. Right. Those kitchen tables can be places of magic and they can be places of toxicity. And, you know, I think we've got a pretty good culture here. I have no doubt there's probably some interesting conversations at our kitchen tables, but I also know I've been to a bunch of other them and the conversations are awesome. So smile more than you complain. Say thank you before you offer a solution. Be humble. And I think if you can maintain that as a firefighter, you're going to permeate that into your leadership as you go through the ranks. Right. So you're going to maintain that kind of humble mentality at an engineer level, at a company officer level, you're going to be a better leader for it. Absolutely. I certainly kind of looking back, I wish I would have done that a little bit more. Yeah. At the company officer level, the biggest thing that I think company officers can do, and this is part of that succession planning and serving leadership, is now it's your job to give back a little bit. Yeah. You're the company officer. Right. Everybody knows who wears those insignias on their collar. But when we're not on a fire, you're not doing command and control. What are you doing in the firehouse? You set the tone and quite honestly, you're going to set the development of the men and women underneath you. Right. So if we're doing it there, we're, we're looking at incorporating the 360 feedback mechanism that's pretty cool. It's not an employee evaluation. It's a way for all of us to get better and get feedback. And I think this generation especially, they want that feedback. Right. They want to hear, where can I do better? Yeah. Wow. And that's. That's different than some of the generations I grew up with. So that's cool to see. Yeah. You know. So how are you leading your firehouse? We talk about that a lot. You know, if I often challenge guys when I'm going out and teaching at academies and all that, you know, I ask them what works great on a fire ground, and they rattle off all the qualities. Good command and control, good strategies, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sort what works good in a firehouse. Right. And can we apply those same things that works great on a fire ground into the firehouse? Right. Good strategy for developing your people, making sure you're out drilling with them. I've seen a lot of company officers over my career that they got to a certain level. They love to just hang out in front of a computer, write the reports, you know, do whatever they were doing. And meanwhile, they're young guys that are hungry, want to go out and drill, and they're just sitting there. Right. Well, that's. That's not what we want. We've. We've got a really good vibe here in Boise, where our company officers are super engaged with our crews helping them to get better. So that. That's been going on, But I think we can do that better. The battalion chief, no different. It's giving down with the battalion chiefs. What we have found, really, to make them successful is freely share information that we share with you. Right. That's why we're sharing it with you. You're the conduit between the line and the Golden Palace. Right. Whatever nickname you all have for, you know, the administrative building. But they really are. And they're the ones that can. That can make the most change the quickest because they're hearing from the line on a regular basis on what's working, what's not, what needs to be done. If there's good conduit up and down, man, we can make some good things happen pretty quick. So those bcs, making sure that they have a mindset of sharing information, which also, you know, every step along the way, say thank you more than you complain. You're the company officer. Own and invest in the people that are working with you. Right. Own that. That part of their development. Be their mentor on the B.C. side. Make sure that you're communicating up and down freely. Now you get up to the command staff level. If you've learned all those lessons along the way, man, we're in a pretty good spot because now all that's going to build even further and permeate down. Yeah.

Chief Mark Niemeyer (40:38)

I think it starts, you know, this is where leadership does matter, and I think the fire chief role is important in this. It starts at the top, setting that expectation, right? And I'm not talking about the carrot and stick crap. I'm talking about the fire chief getting out and about sharing his vision or her vision and what the expectation is. And if this is one of them, it should be going out and sharing it and why it matters. Right. And tying it back to the mission and the work we do and why this is so important that we do this? Then you get people excited, and then. Then to your point, you know how the fire service works, right? We're all competitive, even the guys that sit in the corner and you really don't hear much from. There's a competitive nature to them, too. So when they see everybody start doing this, and all of a sudden, man, there's buzz and there's energy. What do we. We want to be a part of that. And so we've seen that here at Boise Fire, you know, company officers that, when I got here were pretty quiet, pretty reserved, just kind of showing up, doing their work. All of a sudden, we find them a lot more involved, and they're watching our rock stars. And every department has rock stars. They're watching those folks succeed but not succeed for their own glory, but succeed for the mission. Right? And they're rallying behind that. And I think that's, you know, that's part of this, too, is we talk a lot about mission over me and the over mission, making sure that it's always mission over me. We all have our individual needs, and we try and get those needs met. But at the end of the day, what matters most is our collective mission. And I think people respect leaders who are. Are unselfish, right? You. You've seen the guys that have gone through their career. They get the trophies and the. And the awards, and they brag about them. And then you see the guys that are so humble, when they get an award, they really don't want to get it. They usually end up recognizing everybody else instead of themselves. Those are the folks people want to follow, right? And I think if you have a bunch of those folks, it permeates, right? It'll. It'll organically grow, Right, right.

Chief Mark Niemeyer (45:25)

Yeah, you know, I think we talked just high level. We talked about my six no goes. And I think that's really important because we talk about culture and what do we want our organizations to be? You know, we talked throughout this Podcast about servant leadership and what that means to me. It means I serve down as a leader. We're talking about me and mission centered. So everything we do has got to tie back to the mission. And that mission is the community and the service we provide them. You know, the three no gos I have, you know, I've heard this my whole career. Oh, my gosh, don't do that, you're going to get fired. Don't do that, you're going to get fired. And I always chuckle when I hear that because very few times am I, am I going to go fire somebody, you know, I'm going to correct things. But the six no go's that I have that I think are important for the health and safety and culture of our fire departments. If you knowingly and willingly. So I'm going to pause there. Knowingly means you've been told not to do something and you willingly means you're willing to go do it anyway. You don't care. So if you knowingly and willingly lie, steal or cheat, bully, intimidate, harass, you won't work in my fire department. And we made that really clear day one. We had to go through a little bit of that, you know, with a couple of guys that aren't, unfortunately, aren't working here anymore. But I think that really set the stage in the organization too, to know, you know, when we say we have values and morals and ethics in the fire service, we all raise our right hand and at some point we say those words, we can't make them hollow. We got to make them real. And by real, I mean we're going to hold people accountable that go and do those things that just compromise our values. And I think by doing that, you also stay pretty mission centered. Right? You don't let the noise and the crap and the garbage getting in your way. You just stay centered on what we're here to do and have fun doing it. So that'd be my last thing as a leader. Set your clear expectations, but then hold to them, right? If you're gonna lay out expectations, the first time you violate your own expectation, you've lost. So hold true to them. There you go.