Over my career, I have been involved with the development of a body of knowledge (BOK) for a wide variety subjects. The concept of BOK is based upon core teachings, skills and the development of research. It often involves rigorous use of information in support of curriculum content.

I have been writing columns, articles, textbooks and producing video training programs for over 40 years and as a result have built up a large inventory of subject matter content that has been utilized by the fire service. As a result, I have had a lot of interaction with readers and received numerous requests to reproduce this material in the form of newsletters and classroom handouts.

Our target audience consists of those individuals who are interested in self-improvement, who are self-motivated and seek out solutions to expand their own body of knowledge. The following legacy documents are aimed at those dedicated individuals.

These documents are copyright protected. However, they are being made available to you with the following proviso:

You may duplicate them and use them in curriculum support within an educational or training institution provided proper copyright recognition is given. For personal or commercial use, please send a written request to [email protected].

Hopefully these topics will assist you as a subject matter expert and useful in relating concepts to future students and those interested in learning more about the fire service.

ADOPTING ORDINANCES
The Final Sale

AMERICA BURNING REVIEW
Silhouette on the Sheet

BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
Chasm Communications
Three Little Pigs
You Cant See the Forest Through the Trees

CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Battlefield Commissions
Roadmap to Success
CEO, CQI – CEU’s
Everything is Fake But the Fire Protection Faint of Heart
Home Grown or Hybrid
Passing the Baton
Rites of Passage
Roadmap to Success
Selection
So You Got the Job
Sunrise, Sunset
The 64 Dollar Question
The Dying Breed
The King is Dead; Long Live the King
Updating Your Bar Code
What is Your Be-ability?

CHANGE
Actions Speak Louder than Words
Antique Technology – Don’t Bet Your Life On It.
Birds of a Feather
Breaking From The Past
Car 54 Where Are You?
Cookin Bull Frogs
Culture; The Double Edged Sword
Darwin in the Service
Deja View
Dinosaurs or Dragons
Get the Biggest Bang for Your Buck
Happy Birthday to You
I-robot
Inspector Gadget
Is Your Plate Too Full
Keeping Up or Slowing Down
Looking Back in Order to Look Forward
Macgyveress
New Kid on the Block
Next Generation
Once Upon A Time: A Fire Service Fairy Tale that is True!
One Hundred Day War
Orwellian Technology
Out With the Old, in With the New
Picture of Dorian Gray
Previews of Coming Attractions
Rising to the Occasion
Santayana Syndrome
The Bull of the Woods
The Future of the Past
What If?
What is Coming?

CODES
Building a Box
Country Road or Four Leaf Clovers
Damrell Was Right
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Exception To The Rule
Fire Code Fairy Tale
Fire Protection and Building Construction
Keeping Up With the Joneses
Look Up, Drill Down
Mommy May I?
Never Say Never
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Fire Code Rewrites
The Double Edged Sword; Code Requirements and Utilization by Suppression
When Did That Happen?
When is a Rose Really an Orchid?
Why Was that Code Requirement Created in the First Place?

COMMUNICATIONS
Acronyms and Quotes
Common Courtesy
Disney, Dilbert or Dyno-O-Mite
Does Practice Make Perfect?
Giving Out Is Not Getting Through
Insanity of Profanity
Killer Phrases
The Media is the Message
Where Do Columns Come From?
Who You Gonna Call?
With Pen in Hand
You’re Not Listening

COMMUNITY RELATIONS
America Used to Love Its Firefighters
Animals Against Fire
Dear John Letter
Dog Bites Man; News?
Have Gun- Will Travel
Low Tech High Touch Community Relations
Not-So Secret Society
QSL-QSL
Statues in the Park
The Fire Friendly Neighborhood
What is a Stakeholder?
Where Are Your Ucalegon’s?
Who Gives a Hoot?
Your Noble Neighbor

COMPLAINTS
What is your Problem Buddy?

CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Dealing with Conflict
Don’t Be Dissed
Don’t Ever Blink in a Gunfight
End Runs, Shortcuts and Personal Betrayal
Go to a Neutral Corner
How to Swim with Sharks and Survival

CRITIQUE
In the Looking Glass

CULTURE
Code of Honor – Code of Practice
Explosions in the Firehouse
Remember When?
Reviewing our Legacy

CUSTOMER SERVICE
Carrying Contact Card on Incidents
Counters and Customer Service

DECISION MAKING
Analysis-Paralysis
Knowing How to Hold Them – Knowing When to Fold Them
The Checklist Manifesto
The Unintended Consequences of Well Intended Acts

DELEGATION
Delegation or Dumping
Don’t Trash That Gem – Pass it on to Your Men

DEPARTMENT JUSTIFICATION
Worth Your Salt
You Don’t Get What You Deserve You Get What You Can Justify

DEPARTMENT STRUCTURE
Are You Tall Enough to Ride?

DEPLOYMENT
I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Nexus Between Flashover and Response Time
Thousands of Points of Light

DISABILITIES
Fire An Alarming Situation

DISASTER OPERATIONS
Designed for Disaster: Southern California’s Fire Problem

ENVIRONMENTAL
Going Green

ETHICS
A Conflict of Interest
When in Doubt, Don’t

EVACUATION
Evacuate; This is not a Drill
Evacuation Event or Process
Evacuation Planning Around a Nuclear Power Plant

EVALUATION
Batter Up
Evaluation of Your Communication Center
Good Enough for Government Work
You Can’t Tell the Players Without a Score Card
Your Annual Checkup: The State of the Department

FINANCE
Bang for your Buck
Bargain or Bankruptcy
Being Double Crossed
Dollars & Sense
Economy Of Scale
Of Costs and Competencies (Updated 2014)
Old Mother Hubbard
On the Other Hand
Sink or Swim
This Too Shall Pass
Why the Bloodbath?

FIRE BEHAVIOR
Fire Behavior Basics
Fire Behavior for Fire Prevention
What is Fire Science?

FIRE CHIEFS
Careful
Squeeze Play
Straw that Broke the Camels Back
Substitute Teachers and Babysitters
Truth and Consequences

FIRE FLOW
Focused Fire Flow

FIRE PREVENTION
Adding the Fourth Leg
Boot Camp for Fire Inspectors
What Has Happened to Company Inspections?
What If No One Showed Up?

FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERING
The Ancient Mariner’s Song

FIRE SAFETY ACT
Has the Lesson Been Learned

FIRE STATION CLOSURES
Black, Brown or Shades of Grey

FIREFIGHTER SAFETY
Closing the Gap

FORCE MULTIPLIER
Top Guns Have to Practice Too

FUNDING
Head on Collision
How Much For The Doggie In The Window

GAP ANALYSIS
Bridging the Gap of Technology

GIS
State of the Art

GOAL SETTING
The Four Minute Mile

GOVERNANCE
Giving Them a Peace of Your Mind
Who Do You Think You Are?

GROUP DYNAMICS
Bus Ticket to Abilene
By the Grace of God
Can I Count on You?
Converts Make the Best Allies
Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
Great Expectations and Other Disappointments
Greetings and Salutations
Group Dynamics in the Fire Service
Macgyveress

HABITS
How Big is Your Cage

HAZMAT
Burn n’ Bubble
Decontamination Keeping Personnel Safe
Enemy on the Streets

HEALTH & SAFETY
Acts and Omissions
Code of Honor
Condemned If You Do
Culture of Safety
Died with Their Boots On
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
Kamikaze Captains and Banzai Firefighters
The Great Waldo Pepper
The King Has a New Set of Clothes
The Mantra
The Military Metaphor
They Died with Their Boots On
Thinking in the Box
Your-Annual-Checkup: Insurance for Longevity

HISTORY
Bed Time Stories
CSFA-FSTI Volunteer Fire Service Overview (With Michael S. Williams)
Firefighters in Peace; Soldiers in War
Good Old Days
Heritage of Your Fire Department
Our Top Ten
The Badge
Why Study Fire Service History?

HUMAN RESOURCES
Horatio Alger

INCIDENT COMMAND
I C Said the Blind Man

INFLUENCE
Ask Not (With Michael S. Williams)
Elephant or Mouse Bullets
Entropy, Apathy, or Advocacy
Give Away to Get Back
Power of Public Opinion

INSPECTIONS
Give Me a Break

INTERNATIONAL
Interschutz

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
You Can Count on Me

LEADERSHIP
A Symbol is a Promise
All the Worlds a Stage so Rehearse Your Role
All Things to All People
Alphabet Soup
Chiefing Up
Game is Called Because of Rain
Honor, Hubris and Humiliation
Is He Talking About You?
Leadership in the Lower Case
Leadership is a Matter of Performance
Leadership on the Line
Lightning Rods, Garden Rakes or Doormats
Luddites or Leaders
Modern Myths About Leadership
Ordo Ab Chao
Organizational Carcinogens
Organizational CPR
Principles of Stewardship
Second Lieutenant Who?
The Gathering of Eagles
The Honeymoon is Over
The One Thing
What Color is your Sacred Cow?
What’s Your Leadership Style?
Who Moved the Finish Line?
You Really Have To Wonder Why
You Win Some and You Lose Some; if You’re Going to Play the Game

LEGAL
Here Comes the Judge

LOYALTY
Ides of March

MANAGEMENT
Reality of Management

MANDATES
Ten Commandments
Their Coming to Getcha

MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS
A Common Social Disease

MEETING MANAGEMENT
Keeping Minutes and Wasting Hours

NETWORKING
Good Old Boy Network

OFFICER DEVELOPMENT
Officer Development

ORGANIZING SKILLS
Come to Order

ORGANIZATIONAL
Does One Size Fit All?
Does the Authority Have the Jurisdiction
Getting Your C Legs
Ghost Towns and Buried Cities
Thinking Outside the Box

PLANNING
Any Road
Combat Intelligence
Earthquake Act II
Emergency Planning Revisited
Emergency Management Resuscitating the Community
Organizational Hypocrisy
Rommel
Water, Water Everywhere
Why Didn’t You Say So?

POEM
Engine House

POLITICAL PROCESS
Some Enchanted Evening

PRE-PLANNING
Boy Scout Motto
Diagnosis Disaster
From Bridesmaid to Bride: Tying the Knot
Staff Rides

PRESIDENT REAGAN QUOTES
Simon Says

PREVENTION
Fire Protection is Good Business
Forrest Gump in the Bureau
Future of Fire Prevention
Getting Permission
I Wonder What Ben Would Say?
Know Fire Prevention
Know Your Occupancies
Lightning Strikes Twice
Predictive Prevention
Preventative Maintenance
Putting Fire Back Into Fire Prevention
Technology and Fire Prevention
What is Your Sign?

PRIORITIZATION
Luck Favors the Mind Prepared

PROBLEM SOLVING
Double Jeopardy
Same Old Same Old

PROFESSIONALISM
A Chief’s Five Trumpets as Symbols of Professionalism
Its Not Going to Happen to Me
Just a Job
Playing in the Big Leagues

PROGRAM JUSTIFICATION
Dead Baby Speech

PUBLIC EDUCATION
Another Dimension of Public Education
Are We There Yet?
Can You Hear Me Now?
Carrying Contact Card on Incidents
Contract with America
New Fire Triangle

RELATIONSHIPS
Continuum of Relationships
Plays Well With Others

RESIDENTIAL FIRES
Bread and Butter

REWARDS
Double Dog Dare
My Little Corner of the World

RISK ASSESSMENT
Aging in Place
Happening in the Hood
Insufficient Evidence
Rabbit in the Hat
Social Vulnerability
Urban Sprawl
What is There to Burn?
Where is your Passport?

RISK MANAGEMENT
Four Letter Words
Public Policy and Risk Management
Too Little or Too Much

SMOKE DETECTORS
Change Your Calendar; Change Your Detector
Ouch! That Hurt

SOLAR ENERGY
Energy Conservation

SPRINKLERS
A Fire Occurred Here
A Half a Loaf
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
And the Oscar Goes To
Crying Wolf
Double Edged Sword 2
Exterior Sprinkler Protection Provides Defenses Against Watershed Fires
Floyd Layman, Meet Richard Parmalee
Footprints in the Sands of Time
Getting a Bad Rap
Getting Engaged
If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It
Indoor Plumbing
Is It Gonna Work or Not? Let’s Hope So
It Takes Years and Years to Be An Overnight Success
It’s Off the Charts
Living in Glass Houses
Looking Up To Live
Losing Battles, Winning Wars
No Laughing Matter
No Time Like Now
Parallel Universe
Patience, Progress and a Paradigm Shift
Pilgrimage
Poker Face
Politics As Usual
Ready or Not, Here I Come
Rember the Small Print
Room and Contents
Saved by the Bell
Side by Side
So Stipulated
Space Odyssey – 2010
Sprinklers the Next Generation
Su Casa Me Casa
Water, Water Everywhere Su Casa Me Casa
The Battle is Ours to Lose
The Biggest Little Books
The Bleeding Edge
The Bondi Story
The Courage of His Conviction
The Difficult We Do Right Away, The Impossible Takes A Little Longer
The Economics of Residential Fire Sprinkler Systems
The Have and Have Not’s
The Little Red Schoolhouse
The Lunatic Fringe
The Tide Has Turned
The Truth, The Whole Truth, Nothing but the Truth!
Truth Management
Turning Over in the Grave
Water, Water Everywhere
Well, Duh
Who’s Your Daddy?
Win, Lose or Draw
You Talkin’ To Me?

STAFFING
How Many People on a Fire Truck

STATISTICS
Keeping Score; Winners and Losers

STRESS
Stress and the Fire Chief

TACTICS
Fiddler on the Roof
Stand By to Stand By
Take the Oops Out of Roof Ops
The Diamond “T”
The Key To Faster Fire Control
The Need to Know Basis
There Is No Time Out in Tactics
Thermos Bottle Building
Tongue Twister
Up on the Roof

TEAM BUILDING
Choosing Up Sides
Gutenberg Invented Type

TECHNOLOGY
Gadgets, Gizmos and Goodies
The Handiest Gadget
Toys or Technology

TIME MANAGEMENT
Do One-Minute Managers Have Enough Time
Got Too Much on Your Plate
Maxed Out
The Tyranny of the Immediate

TRADITION
Do You Remember Sam
Ruffles and Flourishes
Who Wore that Badge?
Why Do We Do That?

TRAINING
Experience Gap
High Speed Collision on the Learning Curve
Lazy Boy Learning
Long Distance Learning
No One’s Ghost Should Ever Say
The Doctrine of SCBA
Training on the Desktop

VISIONING
Crystal Ball
Getting a Handle on the Future
I Have A Dream
Scanning the Horizon

VOLUNTEERS
Route 66
Rubber Hits the Road

VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE
Votes of No Confidence

WILDLAND INTERFACE
In Honor of Prophets

WRITING SKILLS
Completed Staff Work

YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS
Youth Looks at the Fire Service (First article © December 1967)
Get Ready – Get Set – Go
GI – GO
Gulliver’s Travels
Hatfield’s and McCoy’s
Honeymoon is Over
Houston We’ve Got a Problem
Memories We Haven’t Made Yet
Rubic’s Cube
Saint Patrick’s Fire Brigade

PAPERS and REPORTS

CSFA-FSTI Volunteer Fire Service Overview (With Michael S. Williams)
Ask Not (With Michael S. Williams)