336. Have Tools, Will Travel - Colin Ward

Colin Ward, a 17 year firefighter in Utah will travel to find the training grounds. Racking up miles on his car, he drives across the state and further teaching the craft and sharing his knowledge and experience. Admittedly, he has a northeast bug in him, the old school traditional values and way of the job, he shares this love with students who are seeking more. His career has included a few different departments, all for different reasons. Chasing fires, life balance and location, each job he worked added to his rounded out approach and experience. Like many other places across the country, departments are competing for the talent pool, looking for lateral transfers rather new recruits. This creates a unique landscape where departments need to figure out how to keep their people and create an environment that firefighters wouldn’t want to leave. Promotional opportunities and departmental growth opens the door to transferred experience which brings a lot to the equation. Colin has some great points about this and so much more in this episode.