Bridging the Firefighter-to-Officer Gap: The Acting Company Officer Program

By Travis Glatki

The next wave of future fire officers is coming whether you think they are prepared or not. Take inventory of your department and of your crew and ask yourself how many senior firefighters, drivers, and engineers could handle the daily duties of an acting company officer (ACO) for just one shift? How would they fare? How would they do as initial incident commander (IC) at a structure fire? How proficient are they with the position’s administrative duties? What would they do if a coworker approached them to discuss the coworker’s suicidal thoughts? It’s not easy to look deep inside and acknowledge that our firefighters may not be as prepared as we thought.

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As part of my Capstone Project for the National Fire Academy’s Managing Fire Officer Program, I led in reinventing the Myrtle Beach (SC) Fire Department’s (MBFD) ACO course. I was not alone in this endeavor; all the resources I used to make this program a success I found within the department and among our own personnel. The development and implementation of the course is outlined below. The MBFD ACO course is now entering its third year of successfully bridging the gap from firefighter to fire officer.

Step 1. Identify Your Target Audience and Set Ground Rules

Your target audience is those members who may occasionally serve as the acting officer for a shift or may be in charge of an apparatus such as an ambulance. Seek out the senior firefighters, driver/operators, engineers, and paramedics. These students benefit the most because many will promote in the future to officer, while others may not have had the experience to feel comfortable being in charge of a crew or an apparatus. The course helps to encourage this professional growth.

Before any students signs up for the course, each has has to agree to the ground rules. First, for the MBFD, students are expected to attend all the classes of the 40-hour, weeklong course, although emergencies will happen.

Second, we encourage participation between the instructor and the students. This course isn’t meant to embarrass or scare the students; we want them to succeed! An open dialogue is necessary.

Third, it’s all about respect between the student and the instructor. In this course, students should feel comfortable to take a chance and make mistakes. Respect the questions asked and the different philosophies instructors and students may have.

Step 2. Set Your ACO Goals and Expectations

Speak with your administration and your coworkers concerning what the ACO course’s end result should be. The MBFD does things the MBFD way. That’s not bragging and that’s not being arrogant. If the MBFD is putting on an officer course to prepare MBFD personnel to be MBFD officers, then we as a department want things done the MBFD way. You should be saying the same thing about your department. If you work for ABC Fire, why would you want to know how officers do things at the XYZ Fire Department? Every department has its own standard operating procedures (SOPs), and each has administrative duties that differ from every other department in the country. Teach your students the way your department works.

Step 3. Identify the Essential ACO Classes

In a 40-hour course, you can’t fit in everything. Your administration and your fellow officers should identify which specific classes are essential to the ACO course and filter out the unnecessary ones. I will discuss this more later.

Step 4. Identify and Encourage Potential Instructors

This part is tough; you are going to hurt some feelings. You know that officer who is really good at scene size-ups but his report writing is horrendous? Don’t assign him to teach report writing; that individual might be better suited to teaching about strategy and tactics. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Find those officers who are strong with a certain subject and encourage them to help during this week. They have a wealth of knowledge; once they retire, all that information is gone forever.

You will hurt some feelings. Some officers just aren’t good instructors; maybe they get too nervous or are too disorganized. Whatever the case, some officers are better than others when it comes to teaching. You may be forced to have that heart-to-heart conversation; certain officers, although talented in other respects, may not be suitable for instruction.

Step 5. You Need a Course Coordinator

As I said, I assisted in developing and implementing the ACO course. That’s not all I did for it; for the past two years, I was also the course coordinator and present for all 40 hours of classes. The course coordinator is needed as the timekeeper and to ensure every instructor keeps to the schedule. Some instructors go deep into their course subject and lose track of time. Others may think they have enough material to fill their allotted time but ultimately run short. The course coordinator is there to help; a simple nod to the watch when no one is looking except the instructor should tell him to wrap it up. The course coordinator can also ask questions or share real-life experiences to help with those moments of silence. The course coordinator should always be keeping the flow moving to avoid distractions or boredom.

The course coordinator is also the point of contact for students and instructors before, during, and after the course. The course coordinator should be well-versed on every subject to be taught. Remember, you are the one who filtered out the classes in the first place. Also, if an instructor calls out sick or is running late, the course coordinator can step in and teach the class.

Finally, the course coordinator is there most importantly for the students as a point of contact in case of emergency. Things pop up. Life happens. As the course coordinator, you need to be there for the students as their support system. This can be a stressful week; you don’t want students getting to the point where they lose interest or stop caring.

Step 6. Design a Course Evaluation

This might hurt. You just spent weeks if not months preparing this course and identifying your students and instructors. Now you need to accept the criticism. No matter how well you thought the course went, it can always be better. Encourage students to evaluate the course anonymously so they can be as honest as possible without fear of retribution. Remember, you want the next generation of officers to be better than the previous, so read the evaluations and see where you can improve the course.

Furthermore, have the students evaluate the instructors too. The instructors may be so passionate or educated on a certain subject but have difficulties relaying that to the students. Let instructors know in advance that the students will evaluate them. This might intimidate some instructors, but just be honest and convey that these evaluations are only about their growth and not to criticize.

If possible, the course coordinator should be the only one who reads the instructor-specific evaluations since the course coordinator was actually there for the class. The course coordinator can act as that sounding board with the instructor and see where he succeeded and failed with the students. This should be looked at as not only a time for the students to grow professionally but also a time for the instructors to grow with them.

Those are the six steps to successfully set up an ACO course. However, what about the ACO course content? Going back to Step 3, where you are identifying the classes that should be included, remember that this entire week should be about preparing future company officers. We aren’t trying to teach them how to be a chief. Look for classes that frontline officers should be concerned about. Below is a list of classes that I set up for the overall course.

You will see that every morning, except for the first day, there is a guest speaker. No, we aren’t bringing in a celebrity. Look around your department and find those people who are well respected and are willing to talk about their experiences as officers with the class—for example, a newly promoted lieutenant or a longtime battalion chief. They could talk about their successes and failures and how they learned, not a specific teaching but more of an interactive discussion between the students and guest speaker. It might be the perfect spot for those officers who aren’t good at teaching but are well respected among coworkers.

Each class will have a short description and a recommended time frame. Every department is different; this just is the way the MBFD does it. Don’t forget lunch!

Day 1. Set the Tone

The first day is all about getting that buy-in from the students. Get them excited for the week and also let them know what to expect.

Orientation and Schedule

The course coordinator should open the morning by explaining the week’s schedule and the ground rules. Give out your e-mail and phone number so students can reach you (30 minutes).

The Company Officer: What’s Expected

A high-ranking officer should teach this segment. In our case, our fire chief took the time to clearly state the standards by which an acting company officer acts and treats others. Maybe you come from a small department where everyone knows the fire chief on a first-name basis, or you come from such a large department that you never see the fire chief. Either way, the fire chief and other high-ranking officers should buy into this course as much as the students (90 minutes).

Leadership and Management Styles

With so many different styles of leadership and management, bookstores have entire sections dedicated to the subject. Talk about them and show examples. At the end of the class, students should be able to distinguish the different styles and determine when an officer is to use leadership and when he should use management. Management focuses on achieving organizational goals through daily tasks such as budgeting and staffing. Leadership focuses on a vision for the future that includes change and risk. Both serve a purpose. The best thing I did this previous year was to have two instructors with completely different personalities teach the class. It was great seeing them bounce off each other with different examples and scenarios (60 minutes).

Coaching, Mentoring, and Counseling

Again, no one size fits all when it comes to being an officer. An officer will need to use coaching, mentoring, or counseling, depending on the situation and the personnel involved. Coaching focuses on skills and knowledge acquisition where an individual is supervised to improve capabilities and competencies. Mentoring focuses on achieving goals, solving problems, and building relationships where the mentor’s behaviors and actions will be modeled to achieve similar results. Counseling is more emotion oriented, focusing on the growth and wellness of the human. Use two instructors to teach this class to provide a wide range of philosophies (60 minutes).

Health/Stress Management and the Employee Assistance Program

Firefighters deal with personal and professional issues in a variety of ways—some positive, some negative. Learning how to deal with these issues is part of the officer’s job. Identifying problems before they start can significantly impact a person’s career and personal life.

Finally, review the process for the employee assistance program (EAP). Every department should have some form of an EAP. If the officer doesn’t have an answer to a problem, it is critical for him to find someone who can help (120 minutes).

Behavioral Issues and Discipline

Up to this point, the students should be getting the idea that a major part of an officer’s duties is dealing with personnel. Sometimes issues related to behavior may require discipline. You need to determine the level of discipline an acting company officer can handle with your department. Role playing might be a good idea for this so that these future ACOs can get a feel for handling confrontation (60 minutes).

Crew Resource Management

Future officers will need to use interpersonal communication, leadership, and decision-making skills when dealing with crew members both inside the firehouse and at the incident scene. A great case study to end the day is the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” (US Airways Flight 1549) with Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (60 minutes).

Day 2. Administration

It’s not all glory for ACOs; you need to do paperwork needs and record data.

Guest Speaker 1: The New Officer

In an ideal world, the first guest speaker would be a newly promoted officer. For the next 30 minutes, this officer can talk about how nervous he was on that first day being in charge of a crew or how he responded when put in command at a structure fire for the first time. Remember, this is an opportunity for students to ask questions—“What’s asked in Vegas stays in Vegas” (30 minutes).

Time Management

There is never enough time in the shift to get things done. You plan for the shift in the morning and think everything is in place until a monkey wrench gets thrown in. Navigating through these tough times requires thinking on your feet. Prioritize your day by getting the important tasks that have a deadline done early. Get into a routine the best you can. Training is also important, so always have a backup plan if your original training plan fell through. Oh, by the way, don’t forget to run calls (60 minutes).

The Why of Training

This class is designed to tell you more about the why of training, not the how or when—why we do certain training and what to expect throughout the year. If you use a computerized training system, this is the time go over the ins and outs of your system, including how to enter training reports (60 minutes).

Injuries/Exposures/Loss Reports

An acting officer will need to know what to do if one of his crew gets injured on duty. However, the procedure is different depending on whether a member is injured at an emergency scene vs. at the fire station while engaged in routine duties such as cleaning.

Exposure incidents in which personal protective equipment failed to protect the individual from bodily fluids may have lifelong effects on the firefighter. Exposure reporting requires careful attention to detail. Review the process of handling an exposure, including who to contact and all of the paperwork involved.

Finally, go over the loss reports for when equipment is lost, stolen, or broken; this includes damaging the apparatus while responding to a call! An apparatus that is involved in an accident may require a police report, which is especially important when dealing with insurance and any possible courtroom litigation issues that may arise (90 minutes).

Community Risk Reduction and Public Education

Sometimes it feels like one fire department is broken up into four. You have Operations, where all the heroes work. You have Administration, where all the decisions are made. You have Training, where mistakes are made and corrected. Finally, you have Community Risk Reduction and Public Education (CRR and Pub Ed). CRR and Pub Ed have grown so much over the past couple of decades that it’s important everyone realizes just how much work they do every day. From inspections to smoke detector installation to presenting to and speaking with elementary schoolchildren, it really is amazing how big this division has become. Allow them to discuss their current and future plans and how it affects Operations (4 hours).

Day 3. Operations

Guest Speaker 2: Veteran Officer

Another morning starts with a guest speaker talking about his experiences. This speaker/student interaction should make the class more alert for the day ahead. As the course coordinator, interject when needed but try to allow for things to flow (30 minutes).

Cancer Presentation

Cancer is a frightening disease that firefighters face throughout their careers and even after they have retired. Who knows what hazards firefighters have been exposed to? This presentation should go into how an ACO can help prevent cancer by implementing and encouraging decontamination, washing gear, and remaining on SCBA until air monitoring is complete. A couple of our own firefighters were diagnosed with cancer and shared their stories. This one can hit close to home, so emphasize the need for it (60 minutes).

Data/Coding NFIRS

After every call, a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) should be generated. Explain to your personnel why and how calls are coded. Go over common reporting mistakes and go in-depth as to why coding calls correctly is so important. To encourage competition, if your department keeps track of the call volume, be sure to point out the busiest and slowest stations/apparatus (60 minutes).

After-Action Reviews

Learn how after-action reviews (AARs) and hot washes can help an officer grow with his crew. This isn’t a time to place blame but rather to learn from our mistakes. If you can find videos or written AARs from past incidents, this would be a great time to go over the process (90 minutes).

Building Construction and Preplans

This isn’t another building construction class reviewing five different types. Go more in-depth, tailoring it to your department. If you deal with solar panels often, include all the associated hazards. If your response area does not include Type 4 construction, don’t include anything related to heavy timber. Go in depth with any hazards that your department deals with every day or is susceptible to. Also, go over your preplan process, and really emphasize how important it is for crews to get out of the fire station and explore your district (120 minutes).

Engine Company Operations

This will vary from department to department. Most of the MBFD’s acting officers ride the seat of an engine; we have more engines than any other apparatus. Our heavy rescues and ladder trucks are considered specialty pieces, so they are staffed with officers, not ACOs. Teach this class from the perspective of an officer, not a firefighter. Get into the flow of having ACOs do 360° walk-rounds and go over different hose deployment methods. Have them start giving scene size-ups. Give more of a broad overview of an officer’s duties when arriving on scene; we get more specific later in the week (120 minutes).

Day 4. Getting More Comfortable Riding the Seat

Guest Speaker 3: Chief Officer

Hopefully you have another well-respected speaker. This would be a great time to get someone who may be higher up such as a captain or a battalion chief. Hear them talk about their experiences, and don’t be afraid to ask questions (30 minutes).

Decision Making Under Stress

Emphasize classical decision making (i.e., rational choices) in this class. Students will learn how to deal with distractions when under stress, prioritize, avoid task saturation, and avoid making emotional decisions (90 minutes).

Reading Smoke

Discuss the process of smoke recognition. Compare the volume, velocity, density, and color of smoke using multiple examples. Include examples such as “turbulent black smoke” resulting in imminent flashover. Show how “fast brown smoke” can give warning of unfinished wood getting ready to ignite. Review ventilation efforts and discuss risk vs. reward. What’s more terrifying, a single-story residential structure with smoke coming out of all four sides or a big warehouse with only a little smoke coming from the eaves? The answer may surprise you (120 minutes).

Modern Fire Behavior and Attack

Fires today are much different than the fires 50 years ago; go in depth and discuss why that is. Cover topics such as combustion, backdraft, flashover, flow paths, and so forth. Teach this from the officer’s perspective. Although your students should know your department’s SOPs, this is a good time to refresh their memories (120 minutes).

A Day in the Life of an Officer

This class can be fun with the right instructors. I recommend two instructors for this. What exactly goes into an officer’s daily shift? This class explains it but in a relaxed environment; there should be a lot of communication back and forth between instructors and students. Topics include accountability, building relationships, company training, evaluations, social media impact, and more. Make this class specific to your department. Hopefully, the students at this point will have had good communication with the guest speakers and be able to interject along the way (180 minutes).

Day 5. Last Day, So Let’s Put the Pressure On!

Guest Speaker 5: Retiring Officer

Is someone retiring soon? If so, get him to come speak on the last day so that not only can the students pick his brain, but the speaker gets an opportunity to leave his mark on these future officers (30 minutes).

Incident Command Structure and Scene Size-Up

Hopefully, at this point in their careers, the students are knowledgeable about the incident command system (ICS). However, we are working toward something later in the day, so do an overview discussing divisions, groups, supervisors, and so forth. Furthermore, continue with scene size-ups but get a little more advanced. We aren’t at initial operations yet. We want them to get comfortable with speaking as if they were talking on the radio. Remember, a lot of them probably haven’t talked on the radio very often, so have some patience (90 minutes).

Strategies and Tactics

At this point, the hope is that the students have their flows going concerning size-ups and ICS. Now start with initial operations. Give them a variety of incidents in which they will have to consider things such as “Should this an offensive or a defensive operation?” and “If the roof is self-venting, do I still need to send a crew to the roof?” Mistakes will be made and sometimes the students will make it much more difficult than it actually is. Patience and understanding will be key (120 minutes).

Scenarios

Depending on the number of students, I prefer dedicating an entire afternoon to scenarios. For the past two ACO courses, the evaluations note that this is the most enlightening yet frustrating class of all. That’s okay; it’s supposed to be. In this class, we put the students in a pressure situation similar to when they ride in the officer’s seat of the initial-arriving apparatus. I put a podium in the front of the class and have a student stand and look at the TV/projector screen.

Using fire simulation software gives the student a 3-D view of an incident. It can be any type of incident, including hazmat or mass casualty. Students must go through the entire process using everything they’ve learned throughout the week. We are not asking them to be in command during a four-alarm hotel fire. We are asking them to operate as if they were the initial-arriving unit and to give a clear and concise scene size-up.

Using the correct terminology, they must tell “dispatch” in what mode of command they are operating. They then describe their initial actions, telling us the type of hoseline to deploy, the ventilation technique to use, how to establish the water supply, and so forth—whatever they feel is correct for the incident.

Once a student has gone through the entire process, the instructors will stop the student and review it. The entire class will go through this process numerous times, so hopefully the students become more proficient. Ultimately, we hope they make the right decisions. If they make the wrong decisions, we can review them and ask them why they did what they did. The worst thing they can do is make no decision at all (3 to 4 hours).

Hot Wash

In the last few minutes, go over the evaluation process. It’s also a time for you as the course coordinator to express your appreciation to the instructors and the students. It has been a long and stressful week for them.

This ACO course can be whatever your department wants to make it. Hopefully, the students and instructors will have a better appreciation of the roles and responsibilities of each other. More importantly, the next wave of soon-to-be promoted fire officers will be better prepared than you were when you were promoted.

Travis Glatki is the emergency manager for the Myrtle Beach (SC) Fire Department (MBFD). As a lieutenant, he developed the Acting Company Officer (ACO) course as part of his Capstone Project for the National Fire Academy’s Managing Fire Officer program. He has been the lead MBFD ACO instructor for the past two years; more than 40 students have graduated from the course.