Personally I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. ~ Winston Churchill Our language is a fragile thang, er I mean thing. In the epitomous 21 Reasons Why the English Language is Hard to Learn we are reminded that it is a small miracle that we can ever convey […]
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A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. ~ Joseph Stalin Interesting quote from a man who was best known for his “purging” of all non-Russian’s back in the 1930’s. But like anybody, anywhere we can still learn something from them. In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the largest storms in recorded […]
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“I believe that rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.” ~John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (Service is #8 of his family’s 10 principles that he shared with the United […]
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All great leaders have a few things in common. One is that long before they were referred to as “great leaders”, they were referred to as “future leaders“. We all have to start somewhere, right? Despite the 140-character, sound-byte world we live in, leaders don’t just eat a bowl of magic cereal to become great. […]
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Drones (UAV – Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and drone programs are a thing these days. And despite some detractors, they are – and should be – here to stay. Through their human pilot operators … they’ve found impressive relevance in home inspections, disaster scene size-up and search and rescue for the lost and missing. But like most public technology, […]
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Have you heard this story about “Bill” and his successful project pre-plan? It goes like this … (and keep reading for a treat): Bill needs to clean his garage so his wife can park her new car inside before the summer heat arrives. Bill decides that before the end of Memorial Day weekend he’ll donate old items, […]
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New Orleans, LA (2005) – While searching for survivors and evacuees in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, my USAR (Urban Search & Rescue) team and I came upon a healthcare facility during our efforts. The staff members that remained were slouched over on the front steps, clearly downtrodden. The water had mostly receded where they were but […]
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“No man can command more than 5 distinct bodies in the same theater of war.” Napoleon I (1815) And so began our oft-repeated dictate on how many subordinates one supervisor can have. If you’ve taken a FEMA course on how to manage an emergency response, you’ve heard this chant ad nauseam about span of control: […]
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“Rescue 4 on scene and has command ….” An EF3 tornado has ripped through your community and has done wide-spread damage … but you don’t know how wide-spread or how much damage. What next? As alumni from my RECON1 classes know, appropriately answering How BIG and How BAD is job #1. [NOTE: To see if […]
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