Resignation of Gordon Vickery Leaves Record of Progress
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The Editor’s Opinion Page
The shift of the political winds last November has now been felt at the United States Fire Administration. The most important effect has been the resignation of Administrator Gordon Vickery on Feb. 5 at the request of the Reagan administration.
In two years, Vickery has made the USFA responsive to the current needs of the fire service and has explored the alternatives in the fire service’s future. If we were to cite the most important accomplishment of his administration, we would say that it is Vickery’s vigorous and dedicated effort that brought the National Fire Academy out of the shadow world of a traveling program of courses to the sunlight of a real campus we can be proud of that has students in residence throughout the year.
Vickery early in his administration arranged for meetings with the Metropolitan Committee of the IAFC, the IAFF, the National Volunteer Fire Council and state training directors. He also organized seminars to discuss the role of women in the fire service and the future of EMS provided by the fire service.
Out of these sessions came better understanding of not just the direction the USFA should take—but more praticularly the directions desired by those the USFA was established to serve.
For example, one of the complaints aired at the National Volunteer Fire Council’s second conference with the USFA, Stonebridge II, was that too few volunteer fire fighters were attending the National Fire Academy. The result was that the academy made specific efforts to get more volunteers by rearranging course schedules so that one week courses could be presented in three days that include a weekend . Two-week courses were scheduled to start and end on weekends so that volunteers would lose only five work days from their regular employment.
Vickery’s greatest gamble is Operation Dixieland—the all-out effort to reduce the life and property loss in Arkansas. In this public fire safety education push, the major grass roots effort is being made by the State of Arkansas. The USFA is pledging all its know-how to make this year-long effort succeed. Vickery told a congressional committee that the USFA is putting everything into this campaign because he believed it is the effective way to reduce fire losses.
We hope that Vickery’s successor will continue to support this campaign against fire on the Arkansas proving ground because we feel that the answer will benefit the nation’s fire service. It should answer a question of paramount importance. Either public fire safety education works or it doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.
We congratulate Gordon Vickery on his accomplishments benefiting the nation’s fire service and we wish him the best in his future plans.
His successor has not yet been named, but whoever he is, his task will be easier because Vickery has blazed the trail and has set both the U.S. Fire Administration and the National Fire Academy well on the way to being the national resource needed by the fire service. We hope his successor will press forward on that path.
