Building an Educational Foundation To a Fire Service Career

Case Study: Washington State

Currently serving as the fire chief of Lacey, WA, Chief James M. Broman's 43-year fire service career includes more than 30 years as a chief fire officer, an MPA degree from the University of Denver and designation as a Chief Fire Officer. He is active in the State of Washington as a past president of the Washington Fire Chiefs, a member of the State Fire Protection Policy Board and co-chair of the State Interoperability Executive Committee. He is immediate past chair of the Professional Development Committee for the International Association of Fire Chiefs, serves on the Commission for Professional Credentialing and is active at the National Fire Academy in the Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education (FESHE) program. In a recent interview with Firehouse® Magazine, Chief Broman, a proponent of higher education, provided insight into the issue in his state.

FIREHOUSE: You have voiced some frustration with your state and its adoption of higher education. What is needed to overcome these obstacles?

BROMAN: Our efforts here - and too often elsewhere - meet with ambivalence and dispassion. Community and agency leaders may acknowledge the importance of higher education, but necessary efforts to inculcate higher education into the culture too easily get displaced by crisis response or competing priorities; once distracted, we fail to return to pick up the cause.

We seem to lack an enduring passion for needed global learning. In the "society" of the fire service, higher education has not yet reached a "tipping point" where the benefits obviously outweigh the inconvenience. I believe we are close, but not there yet. In his best-selling book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell describes this phenomenon as the point where "the momentum for change becomes unstoppable." Gladwell uses tipping point as a sociological term: "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point." According to Gladwell, economists call this the "80/20 Principle," which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80% of the "work" will be done by 20% of the participants."

FIREHOUSE: What do you foresee as the future of higher education in the fire service? Are we on the right track or will inertia and dwindling budgets stall any progress we have made?

BROMAN: Higher education is an essential component of competent and resilient leadership throughout our society; fire and emergency services are no exception. It will have a brighter future when we fire service leaders recognize and accept - from an educational perspective - the fire service's higher education needs are not unique. We must not expect or allow institutions or interest groups to bend or tailor its content to fire service biases and perspectives. The immeasurable value of higher education is the extent to which the experience forces us outside our intellectual, social, and moral frameworks to critically examine our world from the larger context.

We can use dwindling budgets as an excuse to set aside higher education, but that rationale has not stopped centuries of committed leaders from pursuing it. In fact, higher education will better equip leaders to deal with dwindling budgets and the numerous challenges that accompany economic swings.

We must convince those in power that higher education is essential to preparing future leaders with critical thinking skills. Some of these decision makers feel threatened by the prospect of an educated work force, preferring an agency head who will readily comply with short-sighted policy even when it goes against best practices and recognized standards.

FIREHOUSE: What is the value of higher education in the fire service?

BROMAN: Higher education incorporates an appreciation of history - where we have been - but is substantially focused on the future. A successful higher education experience challenges the individual about what to be rather than what to do (training-centric). Higher education builds life skills; it offers theories but leaves the individual with the ability to think and synthesize. Higher education equips an individual - a leader - to deal with the unknown.

We continue to witness exponential change in our world where increasingly the next challenge for fire service leaders is one no one grappled with previously. To apply only historic methodologies or strategies in these new circumstances risks catastrophe. We need leaders equipped to step back, assess from a broader perspective, collaborate (outside their paradigm) and make a decision. I recently encountered the term, "strategic agility" in reference to leadership competency and success - a term that I feel nails the issue.

When the fire service insists on "customized" higher education unique to our industry, we can only reinforce old patterns such as "this is how we do it in the fire service."

FIREHOUSE: How important is higher education achievement to promotion? In your department?

BROMAN: I see your question both as how important is higher education in the process of achieving a promotion; and, how important is higher education to the individual's success subsequent to promotion.

While civil service systems challenge patronage systems, they too become obstacles through arbitrary, negotiated rules that consider a very limited aspect of each candidate's potential for success as an officer or leader. From a similar but different perspective, some promotional systems heavily weigh higher education, but fail to examine for competency. In our fire department, we do not currently weigh higher education, although I think that is coming soon. In our process the value of higher education materializes in the interview processes - demonstrated in the form of communication skills, cognitive skills, and perspectives.

For me, the greater value of higher education is the thinking, vision, cognitive skills and values developed within the individual. These characteristics are more likely to lead to success on the job after promotion. Neither test scores nor ranking on a promotional list determines your success as an officer or leader; your competency is the determinant. I must add that higher education is not the only means to acquire these competencies; there are examples throughout our industry where individuals demonstrate these skills, having acquired them in other ways. But higher education provides a condensed, systematic means to cultivate requisite knowledge and skills.

FIREHOUSE: Who needs to take a leadership role in this?

BROMAN: We all do. I refer back to Gladwell's Tipping Point and the 80/20 Principle. My sense is that we have 10%-15% of the requisite 20% necessary to get the work done. The remaining force can be found among decision makers such as city managers, mayors, city councils and fire commissioners. Therein lays a significant challenge in the pursuit of a higher education tipping point.

-Paul Snodgrass