B Shifter
Fire command and leadership conversations for B Shifters and beyond (all shifts welcome)!
B Shifter
Integrating Blue Card on All Three Levels When Training
This episode features Steve Lester, Grant Light and John Vance.
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This episode was recorded on July 31, 2024 in Charlottesville, VA
This episode is your gateway to understanding the critical importance of Blue Card training across all levels—from task-level to strategic-level operations. We dissect the challenges and offer actionable strategies for embedding this training right from the academy, ensuring that battalion chiefs and other higher-level officers stay engaged and cohesive in ongoing training. The focus is on creating a unified approach to training that bridges potential gaps, especially in smaller departments.
Oh yeah, man, I spent $28 on that thing.
Speaker 3:On everything or just the little tripod Just the little tripod, the XLR connectors.
Speaker 2:That was another $40. What hey welcome everybody to the V-Shifter Podcast. Grant's going to derail me because I went to Best Buy and bought some supplies for today. I want to welcome you today, john Vance. Along with Steve Lester and Grant Light, we are in Charlottesville, virginia. We're here doing a blue card train the trainer. We've been here all week and recording some podcasts and it's oh, it's been an awesome week with you guys. I've really enjoyed it. Um, how are you guys doing today?
Speaker 3:very good. Yeah great, it was a good day at class today.
Speaker 2:It was really good day yeah, I felt it was, too a really great group here. You know, this is an old city. Uh, as we said in the last time, it's where dave matthews is from, so we got to check out the bar that he started playing in. He wasn't there, of course. Yeah, we asked the question when's Dave Matthews playing? She said every Monday. They happen to be closed every Monday, so I don't think we're going to see Dave Matthews while we're here. Hey, we want to remind everybody once again, as we always have, about the Hazard Zone Conference. It kicks off on the pre-conference on September 30th and then we have October 3rd and 4th the General Conference. It's in Sharonville, ohio, at the Sharonville Convention Center. We have spots today.
Speaker 1:As of now.
Speaker 2:I think we're going to have around 120 spots left and they're going quick, so get registered. Go to HazardZoneBCcom. Both these guys are going to have classes there, and then we're also doing a B-Shifter Live, so we'll have a B-Shifter podcast. That's our general session. Hopefully you guys will be involved in that, be able to be up on stage with us. We'll ask questions and get answers.
Speaker 2:So it's going to be a lot of fun, so join us in Cincinnati Ohio this fall HazardzoneBCcom. So today's topic we want to talk about training on all three levels. And when we start talking about training on all three levels, we're we're, we're talking about tasks tactical and strategic and, uh, we're always telling folks you need to integrate blue card into every level of training within your department. And if that's the case, I wanted to get some perspectives from YouTube, because Steve, as a division chief of training, and then grant, who led a company of I'm gonna call them hot shots, don't because they like you.
Speaker 2:They'd be glad to hear that they were, they were the, they were. You know, when you're on a rescue company in a city like Cincinnati, you you are an elite firefighter, so you know how you do that. And then some of the training you also go out and provide at the task level and some of the tactical level training that you're giving as well. So you know, to start off with, how do you, as a division chief of training, try to weave blue card into your training on a regular basis?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, we start that out at the academy level. Out at the academy level, when folks come in right off the street into the fire academy, we start indoctrinating that into our training. When we do hose advancement or ventilation type training or anything like that, we always try to incorporate with our young recruits. You know, hey, make sure that you receive, you know the order from your officer to do that and your officer is going to be receiving that from command and that'll be in the form of a task location objective or TLO, as we like to teach. So we incorporate that on a regular basis in all of our classroom instruction as well as out on the training ground when we do simulations like forceful entry doors or a ventilation simulator or anything like that.
Speaker 2:How do you incorporate the other chiefs into that? Because that's one of the missing pieces that we see at a lot of departments where the crews will train and we also get some company officer training, but how do we get the chief training, even on the recruit level?
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's a good question. Well, I think if you're going to get battalion chiefs from the field to come in and participate in recruit training, you're going to have to require it, which is unfortunate, but that is something we have to do. I know we typically don't do that in my organization, but it would be nice if we did. I think that would really really help things out. It would give the recruit a good perspective of the leadership of our department.
Speaker 2:What about just ongoing training? How do you incorporate the strategic level In continuing?
Speaker 1:education. We incorporate the battalion chiefs or our incident commanders basically in our company drills or our multi-company drills that we do Prior to the past 12 months at my agency we used to do a spring drill and a fall drill where we would have companies come down, we would give them a scenario and then the on-duty battalion chief was involved in that scenario and would run command and would run a hot wash or whatever needed to be done after that. Of course, the drill would be preloaded. They would kind of know what to expect. Then they would perform the drill and then they would do a critique afterwards.
Speaker 2:You guys, are both from larger systems way bigger systems than I'm from and I think what I'm seeing at my level a lot of times is chiefs that never train with the tactical and task level, but yet then they show up to big incidents or even regular incidents, try to take command and they are out of the loop. They are completely on a different page than everybody else. The captains are doing a great job, but if it's a system without battalion chiefs, like some small two, three station departments that haven't begun to staff battalion chief positions and there's a lot of those departments out there guys, those staff chiefs don't participate in training and I know there's only so many hours in the day and I'm not trying to shame them into training because although I kind of am, um.
Speaker 3:But because, because they have a lot of other important things to do.
Speaker 2:I mean you're, you're, you're providing for, uh, getting the funding for your organization and providing all the administrative support, but and and because a lot of times, out of necessity, they are the ones responding to the calls and I and I, you know, the one of the reasons I bring it up is because in my region, which out of, uh, however many cities, there are 740 or whatever um, there were only like six or seven cities at one time with battalion chiefs, and now that's flipping. Now people are adding battalion chiefs because those staff level officers number one don't have the time to do it. They also see that there's a strategic advantage by getting a chief there faster and we identify that with blue card. We want that in the first six to seven minutes after the first arrival, and so now that that is happening and it might be one of those things to further justify having that battalion chief position. So that's kind of the perspective I was asking that.
Speaker 3:I find it interesting when you say I mean, I totally understand what you're talking about, that they're trying. They have another level that they have to worry about, that a person on the line doesn't have to worry about, and that's funding and all that stuff. But if in the end, or even in I don't want to say the end but if they're, their real job is that they are going to respond and run a fire and they're not up on that, that's the most dangerous thing we do, right, that's the IDLH Intermediately Dangerous to Life and Health. So, yes, they need to be good at getting the money and dealing with the council members and all that, but if they're not good at the one thing that they really need to be good at, which is keeping their people safe, that's kind of a sad state of affairs.
Speaker 1:And I think that speaks to the credibility of the Blue Card IC certification program. I mean, if a department requires its VCs or just its incident commanders, whatever rank that is, to be Blue Card certified, then they're required to do continuing education in order to maintain that certification. So while that may not be optimal as far as training, you know, because we want them to do more training than what's just required to be recertified at least there's something there in order to maintain that certification they have to do, whether it's computer CEs and interact with the online modules or going to do some CE credit, you know, whether it's a blue card workshop or or, uh, just doing some CEs at their seat local command training center, you know. But even if so, I guess what I'm saying is a sort of that that shows how good certification can be for a department.
Speaker 2:Right Cause cause at least. Then there's some criteria to keep things up and you could tell the difference. There's departments where they are truly keeping up on those CEs and the ICs show up and they know what's going on because they've obviously also trained with their troops. There's a flip side of that, where those captains are getting things going, incidents going great, the chief shows up and it's the old chaos. You know, chief has arrived on scene and it goes to crap because that chief does not train with the troops. And it's painfully obvious Right when they show up. And I've even said to a couple of chiefs before, maybe you'd be better if you didn't go and just let a neighboring department with a battalion chief or chiefs that do train take the incident. I mean as hard as that is, you know, for egos to hear if you don't have time to keep your skills up on that operational level because your administration stuff is so busy, maybe you shouldn't be going on calls. But I know that that's easier said than done.
Speaker 1:You know and I give some props to the Charlottesville Fire Department I mean here this week, I mean these guys have been on it. It is very obvious that they train for incident command on a regular basis.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in class we have departments in this class that have just started Blue Card right, and they're taking the same instructor class as the charlottesville people and and nothing against them. But you can see the big difference, absolutely you can see, and they'll get there because they just started doing it, but they'll get there.
Speaker 2:But but you can see the charlottesville guys are on on point and it's really it's nice to see well, and I've been a complete fire buff since I walked into this place Because it's a station with two engines a ladder, a medic, a tiller ladder oh yeah, and he has been buffed. Oh yeah, I've been buffed. Every time they get a call I'm running down to the bay trying to take video of them pulling out. But the other thing is is what's impressive is you walk into a department like this and I know this is a little off topic, but they are so respectful of their retirees There've been two different retirees plus a retirement party since we've been here and and these guys that the other day a retiree came in, the crew dropped what they were doing, they brought them upstairs.
Speaker 2:Upstairs, they had coffee with them, sat around the table you know, listen to the old stories and then, uh, the other day they had, they had a send-off for one of their guys and, uh, they told me about it. Then I saw what they did on social media and it was fantastic, so awesome well, so the bunting?
Speaker 3:oh yeah, I've never seen that they. They had a retiree pass away and they had bunting up on the firehouse.
Speaker 2:And usually most organizations are so out of touch with the retirees they don't do any of that. So you know there's a lot of departments that say, and they had an acronym and I think family's in the acronym somewhere FIRE. You know they had a FIRE acronym and family was first. And there's a lot of departments that say that but it's just a word on the fire engine or a word on, and it seems like this place they do it, because then you watch, you know, get back to topic, how they're training yeah.