Leadership Under Fire

In this episode of the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast, host Patti Murphy is joined by Philadelphia Firefighter Seankelly McCauley. Sean comes from a family of FDNY firefighters, and it was always assumed that he'd follow in his father and great grandfather’s footsteps by achieving his lifelong dream of joining the FDNY.   In 2007, Sean proudly took the Department's entrance exam and began preparing for his FDNY career. Despite his enthusiasm to learn the job, physical abilities and willingness to serve the City of New York, Sean’s dreams were derailed in 2010 when a federal judge ruled that the FDNY entrance exam 6019 had a “disparate impact” on minority candidates and was not a true measure of the abilities required for entry-level firefighters. So began years of ligation, and waiting and worrying to see if he’d ever get the chance to serve the FDNY as a Firefighter.  Eventually, in 2016, Sean made the hard decision to leave New York City and joined the Philadelphia Fire Department where he serves today. In 2022, he was given the opportunity to attend Leadership Under Fire’s Optimizing Human Performance Under Pressure Program with the Cherry Hill NJ Fire Department. Sean remains a student of the job and hopeful about the future of the American fire service. 

The original broadcast date for this episode was June 4, 2020, but the interview you will hear with our guest in this episode was recorded in early 2019 at a Leadership Under Fire Optimizing Human Performance Summit, which took place in Annapolis, Maryland. Jim Roussell, a retired US Marine and Chicago police officer, was one of several summit guests who shared their perspective on navigating adversity and loss in lethal settings. The episode begins with LUF founder Jason Brezler and host Patti Murphy discussing their reflections shortly after the 2019 Summit.    The LUF team will be hosting another Leadership and Human Performance Summit in Annapolis on April 21, 2023. This will be LUF’s first national summit since the arrival of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, the emergence of civil unrest during the summer of 2020, and following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Jim Roussell will again be a featured guest at the 2023 Summit, and we anticipate that he will discuss the ways in which the world has changed in recent years for leaders in high-risk industries. We thought that the insight and encouragement that Jim offered in 2019 might serve as a fitting prequel for those who will be attending the 2023 Summit, and will benefit those who will be hearing conversations from the 2023 Summit in the coming months on the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast.     If you're interested in attending an LUF event, visit leadershipunderfire.com for a list of upcoming events and to join our mailing list.

During the summer of 2022, members of the Leadership Under Fire team formed a working group that endeavored to examine NIOSH reports which detail structural firefighting operations that resulted in the line of duty deaths (LODDs) of firefighters and fire officers. The LUF team submitted its findings to NIOSH via the CDC that summer in the form of a paper which succinctly highlights human factors deficiencies in LODD analysis and reporting.     In this episode, host Jim McNamara is joined by two members of the LUF team who were instrumental in leading and organizing the effort – Jason Brezler, LUF’s founder, and Jerry Smith, a member of the Baltimore City Fire Department and LUF plank owner. We hope this conversation will not only provide important insight into the methodology used to generate the team’s findings, but additionally, that the conversation might also illuminate the path ahead for LUF and the greater American fire service with regard to improving the processes that the fire service relies upon to make sense of performance at fires which result in catastrophic death and injury to firefighters and fire officers in the United States.

Jeremy Starr, former Marine Corps member with combat experience in Fallujah, Iraq, talks about his transition from the Marine Corps to the fire service. He discusses his experiences enlisting in the U.S. Marines, the value of experience and understanding in leadership, the challenges of replicating fight or flight response in training, and the importance of creating a positive culture for leadership development.

Our accomplished expert in this episode is former US speed skier, mountaineer, and climber, Craig Calonica. Craig is a world-renowned adventurer who has great insight on risk and leadership. He has four decades of experience navigating daring and dangerous assents and descents in some of the most extreme alpine locations in the world—creating and breaking records in the process. He currently runs a cutting-edge helicopter skiing operation in the Himalayas and is originally from Lake Tahoe, California.  In the summer of 2021, Calonica regaled podcast host Patti Murphy with stories of some of his incredible high-altitude experiences. We hope to have him back on the podcast in the future to unpack his philosophies on navigating risk and building resilience, but for now we’re honored to share his powerful accounts of adventuring in complex outdoor environments that showcase extraordinary aspects of human endurance and the human spirit. 

Our guest in this episode, FDNY Lieutenant Jack Meara, comes from a long line of FDNY firefighters and proudly joined the Department in 1982. He was first assigned to Engine Co. 67 in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, which was one of the most active companies coming out of the FDNY’s War Years. In 1995, after working with some of the most seasoned and experienced members on the job, he promoted to Lieutenant and within a relatively short period of time was assigned to Engine Co. 46 in the Bronx where he continues to serve today. As you’ll hear in this conversation, that continuity of leadership has made a great and lasting impact on those around him. 

The interview you’ll hear in this episode of the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast is a bit of a departure from the conversations we typically share, but is an extraordinary story steeped in adversity and resilience. Our guest, and his family, are currently navigating an international battle with their son, a U.S. Navy Lieutenant, locked in the center of it.  Ridge Alkonis is a thirty-four-year old surface warfare officer who has been serving time in a Japanese prison for what Japanese courts deemed to be the negligent driving deaths of two Japanese citizens, which occurred with Ridge’s wife Brittany and children in the car at the time. Ridge’s father, retired Los Angeles County Fire Chief Derek Alkonis, has been pleading with the Biden administration to help bring his son home claiming that Ridge did not receive a full medical examination after the accident, or a fair trial in Japanese court. Additionally, the Alkonis’ assert that the Status of Forces Agreement (or SOFA) between the Japanese and American governments has been breached/violated.  Listeners of this podcast may already be familiar with Derek Alkonis… He currently serves as a Research Program Manager for UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute (or FSRI). Prior to joining FSRI, Alkonis served 31years with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, most recently as Assistant Fire Chief in charge of the Air and Wildland Fire Division. He’s been a passionate and active member of the American fire service throughout his career as well as a proud American patriot.  During our recorded discussion we were also joined by Ridge’s naval academy classmate, Andrew Eubanks, one of Ridge’s closest friends and advocate during this ordeal.   #BringRidgeHome https://www.facebook.com/bringridgehome/ https://www.instagram.com/bringridgehome/?hl=en https://twitter.com/BringRidgeHome https://bringridgehome.blogspot.com/

In this episode, listeners will hear a brief, but poignant presentation given by Marine Corps Major Andrew Terrell. This recording took place in Pennsylvania in October 2012 at the first Leadership Under Fire Making Yourself Hard to Kill Conference, which paved the way for future Leadership Under Fire conferences and events. The Survivor Panel which Terrell contributed to showcases, in a human-centric fashion, the personal and professional growth LUF endeavors to facilitate.  In the recording, listeners will also hear the voice of former Fire Engineering Editor in Chief Bobby Halton introducing Terrell. Sadly, Halton passed away in December 2022, but his legacy is that of a passionate fire service leader, mentor and advocate.  For an update on Terrell's bio, please visit the episode web page. If you’re interested in attending an upcoming Leadership Under Fire event, please visit leadershipunderfire.com for more information.

This is a continuation of our annual year in review conversation on the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast. In this episode, host Patti Murphy is joined by LUF Founder Jason Brezler and LUF’s Human Performance Advisor Jim McNamara. Please listen to our previous episode recapping 2022, as this one picks up from where we left off. We hope you enjoy this discussion and follow along the rest of the year as the LUF team expands our mission.

Please enjoy our annual year in review conversation on the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast. In this episode, host Patti Murphy is joined by LUF Founder Jason Brezler and LUF’s Human Performance Advisor Jim McNamara.  As 2022 comes to a close, we have much to reflect on. It was a tumultuous year as war returned to Europe and major fluctuations in the economy were felt across the nation. Work trends continued to shift even as 2022 seemed to mark the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. And sadly, we lost loved ones this past year, including those close to the LUF network. We continue to honor their memory and remain optimistic about the future; ready to face 2023 to include the good, the bad and the unknown…