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Good/Great Wildland Fire Leaders I Have Known
Qualities of their Leadership
beginning of this thread is from theysaid 1/25/08
- During the course of my career and in my AD travels I have worked
for and with many fine fire folks. Regional Fire Leaders I respected
and stick out in my mind are Tom Harbour and George Weldon.
Some reasons in no particular order: Fire fighter safety is at the
top of their agendas, I think these two are honest and up front and
you can trust what they tell you. They are very concerned with and
care deeply about fire management, they are committed to the total
fire program including suppression and fire use. They have strong
fire backgrounds in spite of the fact they have done things other
than fire, which in my opinion has made them stronger leaders and
advocates for fire. the cynic 1/25/08
- In the 90's, Region 6 had three Type 1 teams. Doug Porter was
the IC of one of them and, for my money, ran the best team of those
three by a long ways. His team was always well organized, efficient,
put on-the-ground firefighters first and foremost, was professional
and used uncommon good sense in dealing with the myriad changing of
rules and regs we face every year. His team was always humble,
professional and service oriented towards the firefighters. I
understand he was an engineer in his day job and rose through the
ranks on the logistics side. There was no doubt in my mind however
that he was a LEADER, and his influence was very evident in how well
his team performed at every level and staff area. A LEADER IS A
LEADER IS A LEADER; the leadership qualities that people choose for
their behaviors are not the special domain of the fire units. It is
important that we find, recognize, train and promote good leaders
wherever we can find them. Grumpy old hotshot supt. 1/28/08
- Next...
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