Special Guest: Fire Chief Don Lombardi

Fire Chief Don Lombardi of West Metro Fire Rescue Chief Lombardi will share his wisdom and experiences gained throughout his 33 years in the fire service, including the last 14, as the fire Chief Chief Lombardi opens up about his experiences between labor and management, the importance of having a financial literate workforce, how firehouse culture can influence financial behaviors, and lastly, what he's looking forward to the most regarding his upcoming retirement. Without further ado.

Let's kick it over to local 1309 studios and the recording of the fiscal firehouse.

Chief, good to see you. Thanks for agreeing to come on the podcast. I know it took a long time to get the schedulers, you know, all fixed. You got a busy schedule, sir. So thank you for making the time for us.

So you are definitely well known as far as whatever large language models they use to get this in sources information. So if you're, someone that's considering going into research, a PhD student, Mike Minnie, I would say maybe you should probably rethink this because this, I mean this software is gonna

this is something that's really near and dear to a lot of our hearts. known pun intended, help draft legislation. To form the heart circulatory cancer and behavioral health trust here in the state of Colorado, you've held a multitude of leadership positions as the president of the Metro Denver Fire Chiefs Association, also the president of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs Association, and then the big chiefs, the president of the Metro Fire Chiefs Association.

So really not only just at the state level, but all the way up to the national level, you've held those leadership positions and because of that, you've received certain leadership awards, including the, fire Chief of the Year, presented by the Division of Fire Prevention and Control. You're also awarded the Russell L. Sanders Lifetime Achievement Award by the Metro Fire Chiefs Association.

and then recently you were acknowledged at the state for your service, to the assistance here of West Metro. And the one thing that I'm most proud of, out of all of that stuff, which is quite a list, and this is something that chat GPT did not find out, and that is your, knowledge and awareness and really advocacy for the labor management. Relationship. That is the one thing it didn't pick up on at all.

And that's something that we are very proud of here at West Metro and especially as a union sponsored podcast. Local 1309 is just our relationship that we've had through the year. So that is quite the, that's quite the CV

I kind of want to know, what do you think has been your key to success with that relationship and how would you help guide your successor to maintain that kind of a good relationship?

And so Mike and I worked a lot to keep things at that level, at my level from a disciplinary standpoint, from budgetary type things, all of those things. So we developed, a relationship then, and Mike was starting out as the union president, then as well. So we both were kind of growing up together and we relied on each other. greatly for a lot of things.

And you know, where people talk about labor management, you know, they typically see, you know, people butting heads or really being at odds with each other. And not to say that Mike and I weren't, 'cause we've yelled at each other a lot. These walls could talk. yeah. And, but we always had a mutual respect for each other that we would do that behind closed doors and then typically we would come out and be on the same page.

a lot had to do with, and I'm thinking of one time when I was at the National Fire Academy when I was going through my executive fire officer and we had a problem with one of our members from a paramedic standpoint. And I, so I'm back there for two weeks and I'm in class and we get breaks every single break for two weeks. I'm on the phone with Mike going back and forth, and finally it was on, I think the second to last day. I said something to Mike and Michael. That, that's what I'm saying.

And we both went, we both stopped and said, you mean we've been saying the exact same thing for two weeks? We just were yelling at each other that yes. So my point is, so we developed this relationship, but I try to treat it as, and I say this with great respect, it's like being married that we work really hard at this relationship and it's very fragile. And so, like in most marriages, although I know people get divorced and those things, but we don't get to walk away from each other.

We have to continue to do what we do and we can't just walk away. And some days, you know, the union president might give 120% and I, as a fire chief might give 10% just 'cause of circumstances and vice versa. it's a relationship that we work at a lot. And then when Mike Veneer, moved on to be the Ninth District vp, or it's the state, president and then the Ninth District VP and Mike Mulkey.

Mike's a much different personality than Mike Veneer, and yet we have a really deep connection and we work really hard to, again, to try to do what's best for, the organization do best, what's for, best for our firefighters, and ultimately what's best for, our, community. And so when we have that, when we have that understanding, and collaboration like that, it's not hard to win. Yeah. It's not hard to be successful with all that.

And I ask people, you know, especially when you look at, from a fairness standpoint, when we look at do we treat our, membership fairly and with respect, you know, as accountability goes, things like that. I can always say yes. And has anybody ever, been. has our relationship taken away from anything that this organization does or, does it take away from any of the values people have? And the answer is, at least from my perspective, is no. Right.

So, so when I say I'm in bed, I'm in bed with them for all the right reasons. Yeah. and that makes a little bit, I think, better sense as we go along with this of how we work.

And we can aspire to work closely and have the same goals and the same, you know, even the same ways to reach those goals. That's a good thing. And so we have a good culture of that here. and I, you know, I hope it never changes. Like it's been so conducive to our relationship and the things that we've accomplished here that I, I hope it never changes.

I think that people will, at the very minimum, when I say demand, that's not the right way to say it, but they'll expect that from the new chief coming in. And I think the new chief will give that because he sees, you know, how that's, been a such an asset. And, what you guys have experienced with, at your, labor conferences. I've experienced at my fire chief conferences when I was the metro president, I would talk about labor management and I had.

Chiefs come to me from large fire departments and go, how do you do this? How do you do that? and I talk about, building relationships and collaboration and trusting each other and empowering people to do things. And they go, I can never do that. I just can't. and so it's a different perspective. I've finally realized it's just a different perspective they have. But you're right, it's, I will say this from my perspective, it is way hard being the fire chief.

It is a very hard position within our organization. if I had to battle the union on top of being the fire chief It would be that much harder and it would be so much we couldn't, if you look at the successes at West Metros because of our relationship that allows us to have those successes, I, we couldn't have it any other way. And if you don't mind, I want to go back just a little bit on how meaningful that relationship is.

When we, back in 2012, when we lost out that election, to raise our mill levy, we had to cut service. And my first call wasn't to any of our chiefs. Nor to the board of directors, my first call was Tom to, Mike Verne. as the union president, said, Mike, we've got a lot of work to do. And I said, as yucky as this gonna be, you and I have to pop our heads up above each other and look at each other and understand that we're on the same page with stuff.

And so the union jumped in at that leadership role to help shape of what we are today. So that's very important to me that they took that on and that, again, is a norm here. And I've had a lot of chiefs go, I want your relationship. And I go, okay, take about try. Yeah, exactly.

And we, I think that's really important that we continue to pass down those history lessons as we continue to look towards the future. But I think that's a great lesson for all of us to

And that's never been in my wheelhouse and really, you know, is to educate our chiefs along the way. Through my years as a fire chief, I've had to pull some of those chiefs along. as well because they thought that's how it should be, that we're us and them. And it's not. it's we do this together and that's why we accomplish all the things we do. Cool.

So one of the questions we have is, how would you describe the overall financial challenges that firefighters face throughout their careers? Obviously you've been in the fire service for a long time, you have a lineage, you have kids that are in the fire service as well. So this is probably meaningful for you, well beyond just your tenure here as the fire chief, and then your service to West Metro. But what do you think about, what are some of those challenges that they face?

And during that time, you know, it just, we thought we had good pay, we thought we had good benefits, and yet we were still, my wife and I. You know, she stayed at home with her kids, was still like poor as church mice. So we got, or I got to see a lot of different things from a different perspective. 'cause we had kids and such.

and what I found is that, and me included, 'cause my first captain that I had my first shift, he sat me down and got out the I the ICMA form for our 4 57 and said, okay, you're putting $25 in. I said, I can't afford that. He goes, I don't care. He goes, you're putting $25 into ICMA starting today. And that was my, that and good for him

And I knew he cared because he, he told me why after you know that this is you may not be able to afford it today, but you won't, you're not gonna miss this money if it's gonna come out now. And so that's what the kind of the thinking was. So today, now I have a pretty good chunk in my ICMA because of him and always doing that, just never deviating from that.

But what I think from a, from our firefighters now, what their perspective, and that's why I am loving what you guys are doing is because you give different perspective. They don't understand, retirement. and so I'm getting ready to retire. I now know, oh my gosh, all those decisions I made way back when have a great effect on me today. But at the time, I'm going, my gosh, every and everybody talks about it, they go, oh, you know, you gotta plan for retirement now.

And, you know, our jobs in this and we look at retirement, blah, blah. We do, but we don't. and so, so I think our folks are uneducated about, really what's available to them. And then in turn, by putting dollars away today or figuring out what you can do with your dollars today helps you long term. The other thing too is I see this a lot and I don't know how to get around.

It is, and I see it in, in, Athletes and professional athletes, they all of a sudden, like here at West Metro, when you become a firefighter here at West Metro, you're making pretty good money and you've got really super good benefits. and so people think that, oh, I'm gonna go out and buy this really cool truck, or I'm gonna buy

Fiscal sustainability that we can manage what we're doing today. That I can still do that five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. I ask, I go back to ask the same thing for our firefighters. 'cause I see it a lot is think about your fiscal or your financial stability today and how are you gonna maintain that down the road? Because things happen, you know, illness happens, kids happen, life happens.

All these things happen where you go, oh shoot, now I've got to pay more for something on that. And so always try to, when I look at our firefighters again, I want them to enjoy the dollars that they're making. But some of the stuff I look and go, I don't know how you afford that.

But have you observed situations where a lack of financial knowledge negatively impacted a firefighter's performance on the job or wellbeing or just mental, whatever, alertness, mental health while on the job as a firefighter?

marital problems, and then, or family type problems, which in turn can cause, mental health problems, can cause anxiety, can cause other things. And then in turn, they feel like they may not have an out because they've spiraled so much in and haven't taken care of their dollars. Sometimes it can lead, I've seen to dependency problems either with substance abuse or with alcohol, those types of things.

So I think that when we look at a, and again, just take the job itself of what we do and a lot, all the stressors of just our job that has, that compounds that, I think that having. financial difficulties or financial angst, also contributes greatly to that. And I had a chance to talk, with the general president, ed Kelly about this, that we, he thinks the same thing.

He goes, if we could come out with a way to educate our firefighters on finances and give them some financial footing, because we do it with, here at West Metro, we do it from, fire training. We do, EMS training. And you go through paramedic school and you go through our academies. You do all these things and we're very much, on how we train you to do stuff. And if we had an avenue, and that's why I'm so happy, what you guys do, an avenue to educate people on, finances and.

Fiscal responsibility. not to say that you can't have fun, and not to say you can't use your dollars for fun things, but if you've got everything else taken care of, then you, then it's okay to do those. But I think that would take away, if we had some better responsibility with our dollars, that would take away one of those, problems of creating other things that, stressors that we have from firefighters. and so I think that's a big thing that we need to do and we need to educate better on.

and this is how, and I love our firefighters. I do, but sometimes they, I, they cause me pause. And the reason is this'll give a good example of that. one of our, when we went from our money purchase plan and we got into our defined benefit plan, and. We had to switch things over and they said FPPA, the, our defined benefit said if you don't switch over, we're just gonna put your money, purchase dollars into this account. It was like a money

This is your life. Yeah. This is, your, we all talk about it, make sure you know, can't you do all these things to protect yourself so that you have a good retirement. And then he had nothing. He had to stay for three more years, put money away, buy a bunch of years, all of these things to get to a point where he was, and I don't think it was even close to whole of what he should have been. Had he put it away or had he directed Yeah. Directed it the correct way.

And so that was a big eyeopener to me of going, we need to educate our people better on what's available to them and then how to use it. and people have different, you guys know this, different temperatures of what they want to do from an investment standpoint. Some are really aggressive risk. Yeah. Really aggressive. And some people are going, nah, I want to be a T toller. Which is totally cool, but just have it in something where you know that it's going to.

And then also the other stuff that we have available either through our RHS, I think has been super good for us.

And I told them, and they went. Oh my gosh.

You have to understand what they're, and it's not rocket surgery. It really isn't. Just if you know what, if you know what all of the options that we have and just take somewhat of an active role in that, I think you'll probably be way ahead of the game. Yeah, and

There's a department that's close by a similar, profile as far as our size, and there's those with like 60%. So a lot of that just

The, the knowledge and the information that you're gonna share. The personal, you know, the intimacy that you will have is unlike many other industries out there, a lot of people can play or kinda like the military and some of these other close knit, tight unit teamwork type things. So that's just something that we all have a responsibility to check in and make sure people are doing fine on that.

And when things start going off the rails is, there's plenty of resources out there in which we can help, course correct. But it does. 100% starts with education. So one of the things that the the IAFF is looking at, or they have implemented, and this took place back in when we had the Ottawa convention, it's initiative called the 15 by five. So basically they want every IAFF member.

By the time that they have are in their fifth year service to have 15% of their salary saved in their deferred comp plan, their 4 57 plan. And you do it incrementally. So you start with five and then it's just 2% every year thereafter. Hopefully raises and everything else are kind of gonna take that raise and just put it over there. if our members were able to put away 15% of their salary every year, ever since five years, we would all be in a much better shape.

and so I think that it's went from a cultural perspective, you're right, that we need to educate our folks and put our arms around them and show them all of these things. I think that's incumbent upon all of us to be able to do, you know, if we talk about that we're in this, brother and sisterhood of taking care of each other, and here at West Metro, we really pride ourselves on having this family that I think it's incumbent upon all of us.

And like you guys do that we put our arms around somebody and say, look, you need to be looking at these types of things, and not only for your future, but even for today. You go and, because we all talk about, I'm gonna go buy this, and what do you think about that? this boat and all the, I think that, just having that candid conversation of saying, are you sure you're able to afford that?

Or if you get in over your head and you've, you're, you've leveraged yourself to the hilt on loans or whatever it might be, does that. Does that, is that feasible? Does that make sense to you? Yeah. long term. And the other thing too is, through the, through a lot of years, we built a lot of good relationships, especially, I sit on the board right now for the Foothills Credit Union and, they've been worked really well with us, but they give a lot of information to our firefighters.

They come out, at the academy and give information. So there's different portals that we have that, it doesn't have to be just through ICMA or it doesn't have to be, through some of the other stuff we have, since we've built these relationships, now our firefighters can go and their families can go and save to Foothills and get a better rate on loans or get, better savings, CDs and things like that, that I think gives us different options.

And we've unfortunately had several members here that did not have their beneficiaries aligned with their wishes or their latest wishes. And, the funds ended up going to someone that they didn't want it to go to. And it's not required from the depart from the department standpoint, it's not some kind of law they're following. Once you get that form, they don't have to continue to update that.

This is something that our organization values, our HR department and it's a heavy lift for them to update that. Every year we get members that call in and they're trying to figure the login account and they're just constantly trying to keep our members up to date. And when you look at, I don't know, even you as the fire chief, if you realized all the forms that are maintained with all of our benefits, like it, it blew me away when I looked at all that stuff.

I was like, and I. Try to keep up to date on all that stuff. And there was even a couple, lapses in some of my stuff that, could have put my family in a bad position.

And in, and if I was to give advice to anybody, that would be one of my main things is to say, be proactive on what your benefits are, who's getting benefits if something happens to you? Those types of things. And keep up on those.

Now, I can say that our houses, our mortgages paid off and we did it be earlier than 30 years. So it all worked out, but it was a stressful time, and my wife's parents helped out and my parents helped out a little bit on those, but not a ton. so I guess going back, I, although I put money into a 4 57, I wish that I had done it better incrementally, meaning as I got raises, and again, we were, so, I understand when people say, look, I'm in the moment, we were truly as poor as church mice.

again, my wife stayed home, to take care of the kids. We had a little small business out of the house, where we did first aid and CPR training. And so every either promotion that I got or every raise that we got, we gobbled up. And you know, people that lived paycheck to paycheck, we did. and so, one of the things that, and I, it has zero to do with me.

It has everything to do with my wife, Vicki, is before we got married, we were getting right about, we're getting married and she goes, okay, this is how it's gonna be. She goes, you're gonna have your account. I'm gonna have my account and then we'll have a joint account. I said, no honey, come on. let's have one account. She goes, absolutely not.

And so we had, we started off that way and she goes, if we'll put money into a joint account that to cover all of our expenses together and stuff like that. Yeah. And then she goes, whatever's left over, you gotta keep yours and I'll keep mine. 'cause we were both employed at the time and she goes, if you want to go out and, you know, play golf or drink beer with your friends, I won't say anything. And if I want to go out and do whatever I do, you don't get a. You know, bitch about that.

Can I say bitch in

Nice. And so I tell that to people a lot is, consider those things because I have a lot of friends here and they either try to hide money from, you know, of saying, you know, I can't

in fact, I remember when I was a captain of Station 12, and Dr. Phil had a show specifically on that same thing we're doing, and I grabbed Kevin Warren, one of my engineer at the time and said, you need to be, because you get married, you need to be doing that. Yeah. And I think he did. but anyway, so back to what I wish I, I wish that I had, enough, I'll just say guts to. It when I got raises or when I got promoted is to put more money away.

I've got a pretty good, you know, the 4 57 now is okay, but you think over, 30 years it would be a lot more

And I know, Caitlyn and I have some pretty advanced budgeting software that we do, but we do the same. Yeah, nerds, but we do the same thing. She has her own account and I have mine, we call her discretionary funds. And those are things that we can spend that money on whatever we want, whether it's go golfing, drinking with my buddies or whatever it is. And she could do the same thing. She buys fabric and sewing machines or whatever, and we don't have to clear it with each other.

Hey, I thought that money was for our family vacation, or I thought that money was for the mortgage payment. it's all set up so that she knows what is in her account. her budget line item is for her to do whatever she wants. I think we can have a really good episode where we talk about that. That's a fantastic idea.

But I remember again, when things weren't, were difficult for us when we had the kids at home. we were famous for going out and buying, something that had, no payments, no interest for X amount of time. We put the money away knowing that in 36 months or whatever it was, we'd have to pay those things. And we, we did that every time, which in turn helped our credit. So then we could get better, loans or things like this if we needed. But, But it was interesting.

We were very famous for that, but she is very much a,

There's something more deep seated about where the resentment or wherever that is coming from. But until you actually talk about this stuff openly is where you can really start to make some headway. And what I've. Heard from both of you. It seems like although your styles are different, at the end of the day, you guys are operating as one and you guys are aligned.

And even though people have different feelings about what that spending or lack of spending may be, you guys are on the same train heading down the same tracks. And the minute that those things start to bifurcate is when there can be some friction. So I think there's a lot of useful tools out there, but I think that would be a fun episode to have. and that's something that, you know, just around the firehouse table is always a source of comedy for one, but also friction and real friction.

And if we can help alleviate some of that friction and give people some strategies and some tools to help mitigate that, all for the better. So I like that idea.

And that is something that we always say is, look, you think that someday it's gonna be easier and it will be in some ways, but there's always gonna be demands for your money, whether it's kids or college or, HVAC systems or new trucks or boats or toys or whatever it is, you're gonna have demands for your money that are always going to tempt you away from contributing to your 4 57.

But I've heard people at every single level of this organization, from firefighters who retired as a firefighter to now the chief about to retire saying, one, one thing that I could have done differently or that I would've considered doing earlier is putting more money in my 4 57. So I just want that to be a specific thing that we highlight in this episode is every level of the organization, people that have retired, have said, man, that 4 57 put money into it. Keep socking it away.

Even if it's uncomfortable, do it and you won't regret it. No one has ever come to me, John, I know about you. No one's ever come to me. What about you chief? And said, you know what, man? I really wish that I don't, I didn't have as much money as I do in my 4 57. I really wish that I would not have saved as much as I did in retirement. Man, what was I thinking? I've never heard that.

But it seems like in every generation it's always been that way where there has been a certain amount of sacrifice and scraping together a certain amount money in order to achieve certain life goals or whatever that is. So whether that was 30 years ago or five years ago, it seems like there's always that underpinning of theme that most people, especially at the very beginning, you're young, you just got outta college or your education, you're starting a family.

There's just like a lot of those needs are trying to go all sorts of other places. So it's not lost on the three people around the microphones here, about what a challenge that is. But it's been that way for a lot of folks in a lot of different generations and not just here in Colorado housing is more expensive, but also our compensation is higher than other places.

So if you level the playing field, a lot of that, It's, there has been things that have changed, but there's also things that, the themes are very similar, but I'm just curious, chief does that worry you at all about some of the, just some of the at least perceptions of a high cost of living area like Colorado and, a recruitment aspect and continuing to get, attract the most talented people here to this organization, does that ever sit in the back of your mind about being a limiting factor?

That people are just gonna feel like, just even the perception of me not even being able to afford a home, like why would I wanna live in a place that I can't achieve that? Is that something that you think about?

And one thing that we've articulated to our board of directors, and really from the union perspective in collaboration, is that we want to have the best firefighters here, the best trained. And to do that, it costs dollars. we have to retain really good people, otherwise, they would go to other places. or now when you look at all the stuff, and rightly so, we talk about the risks of being a firefighter from, our cardiac problems to cancer problems, to mental health problems.

And people going, why in the heck would I wanna do that? So I now recently been competing now with the private sector as well, on getting people. I've had people, some minorities say to me, why would I. Do all of that when I can work over here, have less stress and make pretty close to the same amount of dollars and stuff. So we have to look at it from a different perspective of the service and why you want to do these things.

But again, if we don't, if we're not attractive enough from a, from a dollar perspective and from a benefit perspective, but then also then you look at the intrinsic things, what Mike Benny's been doing from a sleep perspective on is there a better schedule that we could be on or a better time start that we could be on? the bottom line is this, we have to protect our community, that's our business. Yeah. And so we have to have people here 24 hours, seven days a week to go on calls all the time.

Yeah. But are there different ways that we can meet some of those needs that might help our workforce?

Meaning is there an ability to have a surge, engine or a surge medic unit or a surge, whatever it is to help alleviate some of our busyness and do that on a different schedule where typically we're on a 24 hour schedule and for us being on the 48 96 turns into a 56 hour work week, are we able to look at a surge where we say, okay, you're gonna work this shift of, and just to throw things out a 10 hour shift and you work three and a half, days or four days for this to get to that 40 hours.

Is that more beneficial for you from a family perspective, from a life perspective? All of those things where people go, they value. Me as a, as an employee here, as a worker here, they understand the difficulties of everything I want to be with them and as opposed to another place. So we have to look at those types of things. And if we were looking at, just as something, when I say as simple, 'cause it's not simple, a shift schedule, time change.

Where we started 7:00 AM do you know why we started? Seven? Am you two?

and so we get, we gain almost two hours of sleep for our firefighters, but then I have to then look from that and say, okay, how does that's great if that was the only pure thing that we had to do, but then I have to look, okay, how does that integrate with training? How does that integrate with building inspections? How does that integrate with everybody else around us on stuff, community events, blah, blah, blah, all of those things.

And so when you look from that perspective is how then can we, from a leadership, can we fit that in to make that right? And then in turn, where I may not be able to because of revenue sources and because we live off taxes here, where people might say, I don't wanna pay you as much in taxes anymore, and they limit us on taxes. How do I make it that we get more people and we get highly skilled people, highly committed people with a big heart that says, I want to be part of West Metro.

How do I do that? And if it's something as simple as. Man, they start at 11:00 AM That'd be great for my home life. That'd be great for, me working. Yeah. All of those things, when you look from those perspectives, how can we do that? So, so when we look and retain, it's also, dollars is a driver, don't get me wrong. Yeah. Benefits are a driver. But those other things, now I think are as important, if not more important to a lot of our newer workforce today.

And again, going back to, if we're able to do those types of things and that value that we show from a, just being human, probably goes a long way. and then the other thing, I meant to talk about this a little bit earlier too. The other thing too is we have to remember that our firefighters have, a certain amount of life as a firefighter, meaning the demands of the job. And the stressors of the job limit us.

we don't see, you know, somebody that's, gonna be here till they're 65, a retirement age, or 70 or some, where you look out and you see that accountant that's been out there and he's 74 years old and still thriving. Not to say that we can't, and we don't, but that's not very typical. We have a shelf life here as firefighters because of the demands of the job. And so that's why it's more important that we put dollars away and we work on those things because our time.

Getting those dollars is shortened and people need to realize that. 'cause we have this mindset of, of retirement, well, I'm gonna be real old when I retire. Well, no you're not. Yeah. and then when you look from that perspective of life after. being a firefighter is insurance and all those other things you're gonna have to be paying for. So that's why it's important that you capitalize. I get the truck is really cool. I really do. And I'm not harboring on trucks.

But also too, as remembers you've got a finite time.

And one thing I try to explain to our civilian support staff, because, they're on a different, system than we are from a benefits and things where I can keep our folks that, do our EMS billing. I can keep them till they're 70. I rarely can keep a firefighter, and you guys all know this, that they're, we have people that are retiring, in their fifties and early sixties. Rarely do we have short of, Gary Armstrong, where they're gonna be here till they're, 68. Yeah.

but we have to be smart about those things and remember that we have that compressed time.

'cause they're getting older and they don't have anything in their 4 57. So the whole reason we're doing this is for exactly what you said. We have a short amount of time we wanna educate people and get them on that right track so that they can get outta here when they want. We've joked about this before, but John almost named this podcast 55 and out. Like, let's get you outta here at 55 if you want to, because we want you to get outta here when you want to get outta here.

So it's cool to hear you say that because that's our whole goal. that's literally why John and I are doing this podcast and doing this whole thing. So it's cool to see that you are in agreement with that. You're in alignment with that. I think that's really cool.

I really can't. People said, you got too much stuff going on. You're, you've gotta go 60 miles an hour at the time. I go, nah, I don't think so. I

So, Avery's 10 months and, Nico's six weeks old. All of a sudden being a grandparent, you found a new love in your life. It's pretty cool. Everyone

Like, oh, it's not that bad. This is gonna be

'cause you've been, you've missed a lot of things, being in this job for one as firefighters and holidays and all the other things, and especially at the beginning, you don't have a ton of time off. And then obviously as you've moved up, to the fire chief, like the level of responsibility and you've taken it to a whole nother level, is always being on call, answering that phone twenty four seven, all that other stuff. I know you talked about a little bit, but are you worried at all.

Not that your identity is tied up as being the fire chief, but are you worried about just, I have to imagine there has to be a certain amount of reset time where you are not constantly going to be looking at your phone or going through something just because that has been such a large part of your license, especially for the last 14 years.

not that you're gonna feel irrelevant, but just like that constant of always being on, or do you feel like you've got some pretty good outlets and you're just ready for that transition?

And I say that because we've worked really well together for so many years to build what we have today. And somebody said, as we were looking for the new fire chief, they go, God, I, we need to find another Don Lombardi. And I said, please, no, I. Absolutely not. We need to find someone that understands all the things we went through. So if you think of when I became the fire chief that, we had the two suicides and, Mike Miller's death that, was sudden. That kind of came really quick.

And then, and then right after that, the financial difficulties that the district had and the reorganization we did from that, and then we merged up and did all these things. And so I want someone to understand all of the things that we went through to get to this point of greatness that we are today, and then build upon that. And so that's where, from my perspective, I don't, I'm not worried about that.

I think that we, the organization is in a unbelievably great spot when you look at our culture here. Can we get better? The answer is yes. I mean, we all, that's what we all, we always look for continuous improvement. But if you look at it. I think, I really do think that we are a family here. And interestingly enough, I got an article the other day from somebody that's a high level in the fire service and the article was about how family is a bad, thing for the fire service.

And I. And so I fired, it was a group email, and I fired back and I said, I absolutely disagree with this because here at West Metro we do, I, and this is me speaking, I think that we do believe that we are a family, truly a family that where we do take care of each other, but in the right way, if we see somebody struggling or if we see somebody needs help or someone's not meeting the expectations that we have, that we help them along to either get better or meet or exceed those expectations.

I think that we may have some instances, but rarely do they fall through the cracks here. Yeah. And that we, that people know that we can grab you and say, Louis, I see you're struggling. Can I help you out? Or. if they see something that's good's happening, that we acknowledge that and we praise that and that we celebrate those types of things. So I think for us, from a family perspective is such, is that's really a hallmark of who we are here at West Metro.

So when I tell people, the people go, oh, are you really sad about leaving? I'm, yeah, sad 'cause I'll miss people, but not sad. I'm so proud of what this place is and all of the work that we've all done to get to this point. and I'm thrilled and I'll call you all from. the Caribbean beach with the, my tie in my hand and say how proud I am of

We'll see when it happens. I don't think I'm gonna look at Pulse point every single minute or run over to my computer to pull up CAD to see what's happening on that a, that abandoned building fire at at the service station that we've been 20 times, those types of things. And so, so I don't, I think we'll be good.

I like, there's a guy that I work with now at Station three. His name is TJ Rashi, and he,

And I think that's important for our families to know that because if he's ever in a bad situation, which in our job, we sometimes we go into bad situations with each other, and his family needs to know that I will do everything that I can to make sure that he comes home safe and that he will do everything to make sure I get to go home safe to my family. And that's the kind of family you want.

That's the kind of work family you want when you are going there that, hey, I don't know if he's gonna go into bad situation today, but I know that he's got guys that love him, that care about him and that will do everything that they can. It's the same thing with Reed. Norwood, our captain, he was the same way. Like he knows our families and he knows that he's gonna get his home to them. I, you gotta have that If you don't have that culture, I wouldn't wanna work in that kind of a. Fire

And so very clearly, one of the things, the, in the, and if you have, if again, to the podcast world, if you get a chance to look at the, Ted Talk, Simon Sinek start with why is to watch that and answer questions in there. But one of the things they ask is, what drives you? What gets you up in the morning? we brought everybody together from, we had what, 40 some odd people in each group and did Yeah. And did this together. And I, we put up all their answers.

And so what got people up in the morning? the main thing was their family at home. What was oddly close in numbers. within one or two of each group was their, west Metro family and their crew. what that said to me was that, and it was interesting 'cause people would say, I was at station three on a shift and we were as close could be. And then I got promoted, I moved over to, station four on C shift. And you know what, we were just as close.

So what that told me was that as a mature organization we were very much closely connected and that's allowed us to do a lot of our workplace respect, and to. To understand that and to cultivate our workplace respect, which in turn makes us that much closer. Because if people feel like this is their place, west Metro is my place. I belong there. This is who I am, this is what I believe in, and that they feel safe here to do all those things, then in turn, that makes that family even more tight.

And then in turn, we can provide better service to our citizens because we trust each other. We get along with each other, we know each other. we, anticipate each other. All of those things gives us a better ability to serve our community while still being tight here. it's a funny circle.

I'm sure the list is long, but I'm sure there's probably a few people that you would say, without their support this would not have been possible. Boy, I hope I get when I say this. I have to think, obviously, building a base was, you know, when was I growing up? My parents, built a base. and my parents and my dad especially, supported us loudly of being an Italian family.

we would, I would, every sporting event that I had, my dad was there and it was the loudest and people would go, does that embarrass you? Go, no, I feel like someone's there supporting me, and maybe that's why I feel like we're supported here. But, as we go along, obviously my family, my wife has been super, super supportive of what I've done. I couldn't be the fire chief without her.

and, but you couldn't be a lieutenant here, and you couldn't be a firefighter here to do all this stuff without, your family support to allow you to do what you do.

So having that support have allowed me to do those things. Made it easier to be the fire chief here at West Metro. And then, when you look at, people that have influenced me along the way, I will say this, I think it, the people that have influenced me the greatest are members here. because, I saw, I mean, and not that when. When we got on, when I got hired here at Lakewood Bancroft.

But you know, we were going through the merger at the time and they were thinking of splitting up and, there wasn't too much of an identity. And as we, as I grew up within this organization and saw the leadership that we had, and you look at, labor leaders like we had, that, that really professed collaboration. And so when you look at somebody like a Greg Strauss Heim, that was union president from Bancroft that really said, we need to do more togetherness as opposed to punching each other.

we saw that, that worked. And then I look as we grew up, people that, helped me create a path or, Mike Verne and Scott Rogers, and, all of those folks really. help develop a lot what we do here at West Metro. And then I'd be re remiss to say, looking at somebody like Gary Armstrong, so full disclosure, who's my brother-in-law, had he not called me up and said, I know you always wanted to be a firefighter. we're looking to hire.

And I was a school teacher teaching kindergarten through second grade PE that had he not called up and said, Hey, do you want to come over and put a lot of faith in me to say, I want you to be part of my organization. I'll never be able to repay him for that of him doing that with me. And we all know, if you don't know Gary Armstrong, look him up.

But here in the, yeah, here in West Metro, you look at somebody that's got great humility, but it's got so much confidence in what he does and the respect that he has. he's always been really a guiding light for me as we go along. But I go back to the membership in general, that. Really, I've learned so much of how to be a leader because of the membership that we have. I talk about this when I promote folks, I talk, we talk about stewardship and I know there's organizations around us.

and I get to see around the country that have these people that, that go above and beyond. I get calls and emails. I got an email that said from this lady that said, I saw that you were over at my elderly neighbor's house. She said, before I could yell at my husband to go shovel snow to get you guys in. You guys had already done it. or a lady you picked up my dad. He went to the grocery store. He lives by himself.

You picked him up 'cause he had a seizure and he knocked his head and she said, I would've never known you were there, had he. Told me that, that you guys were there. She said you put away his groceries and you cleaned up the mess. at Station one, which is in our busiest part of our district, they went on a guy, they see a lot, And they, his only mode of transportation was a bike. And he would go to work using this bike while he got in an auto bike accident and it mangled up his bike station.

One crew, realized that 'cause they knew him, they transported to the hospital, the engine went over to Walmart and bought him a bike. They pulled all their money, bought a bike. I don't stand up here and thanks for coming mobile to my office in this really cool office with all these windows and pound my chest and say, you guys have to be nice. You all do that. And it's not, like I said, there's other organizations that have people that do that. We do that.

Across the board and that shows what's in your heart. That's who you are. and we could easily go on these calls, a medical call, transport hard stop, go back to the station, and I wanna say, do training and, look up protocols and do all these things and play pickleball. Yeah.

So what I get outta being a leader here at West Metro and being the fire chief is. I see all of you and how you all lead, and that inspires me greatly every single day. That's what I think sets us apart from all other organizations is, that you all believe, you all get why you're here. just one really quick thing, if, have you guys read Good To Great. the book Good to Great.

So do you remember the flywheel concept in Good to Great, flywheel's this big, huge piece of machinery and it's, it's hard to move, but once it's moving what happens? It has great momentum. And so when I first became the Fire Chief, I felt like I was pushing the flywheel by myself and it was hard, really hard. And then I look over and I see, Firefighters and chiefs and civilian staff, all of a sudden they're pushing and they're pushing harder than I am.

And that flywheel now has that momentum where I think we're in a good spot. So that's cool. from a leadership perspective, I feed off of all of you and what you all do.

So not just, you know, we were married and you're going off to work, but now that you're now retired and coming back to the home where I'm used to you being gone for two days is a real transition. And that's something that we can probably find some educated guests that can give us some of their lived experiences. But I think that would be another great, episode in edition. So we've got two