TO MARKET, TO MARKET
BY BILL MANNING
“Our trouble is we don`t know how to mar-ket ourselves.” So goes the common lament. The fire service`s political torpor is its undoing in a decidedly political world. But there are isolated pockets of marketing success stories that bear emulation and study.
Take recent events in Atlanta. In that city, the relationship between the mayor and the local firefighters union was less than ideal. For six years, the mayor refused face-to-face communications with union leadership on critical fire department issues.
This past April, the Atlanta Fire Department responded to a fire in a mill building under reconstruction. Numerous factors, including heavy winds, low humidity, and oil-saturated structural members, hastened fire spread, resulting in a huge fire with the potential for a true conflagration.
The fire trapped a tower crane operator some 200 feet above the fire. Flames impinged on the base of the crane. Radiant heat ignited the operator cab. Perched on concrete counterweights at the farthest end of the crane, the operator`s feet burned through his shoes.
The only path of rescue was from above. The incident commander marshaled a helicopter suitable for the task. Firefighter Matt Moseley, Atlanta Fire Department Squad 4, was directed to make the pick.
The rest, as they say, is history. Countless television viewers nationwide witnessed an expert and courageous rescue performed by Moseley and the helicopter crew.
Back in quarters, Moseley was the center of local and national media attention. The mayor arrived for a photo opportunity. Moseley posed with the mayor but delivered a pointed message that he was uncomfortable being seen with a mayor who had ignored his firefighters. This did not go unnoticed.
“Matt is a double hero,” said Lieutenant David Rhodes, president of the Atlanta Professional Fire Fighters Local 134. “This was more than just a rescue. It would have been easy for him to just sit back and enjoy his 10 minutes of fame, but he took the initiative to talk man-to-man with the mayor.”
Meanwhile, the public reacted to the successful response. “Within 15 minutes of the rescue, people were calling radio talk shows and taking up our cause,” said Rhodes. “They were asking, Will the firefighters get their raise now? Will they get new gear? Will they get their breathing apparatus?”
During the year-and-a-half of Rhodes` tenure as president, the union had heavily marketed its causes through the media. But there were no tangible results from that effort–until “the rescue.”
“After this rescue, we didn`t have to do anything–the public did it for us. It`s like the movie actor who becomes an `overnight success` even though he`s been preparing for 20 years,” said Rhodes. “We prepped the public. As soon as we had this media exposure, we found the public had been listening all along. They knew our issues, but it took a high-profile event to get them to rally behind us.”
“Even though it seems like you`re not gaining ground, you have to get your message out there continually, so when the big event happens, the public is prepped. We turned the incident into a powerful tool to move the fire service ahead. To me, that`s a bigger accomplishment than the rescue itself.”
Thanks to aggressive marketing and a firefighter`s postincident gumption, within hours the mayor sat down with the firefighters to discuss issues. Some have already been addressed, and some are still in the process. There is forward motion. Lest we forget, the road to political progress is paved with incremental victories.
“Public opinion equals political action,” said Rhodes. “If you don`t invest [in marketing your department], then you have to take what you`re given.”
For too long, the fire service has taken what it`s been given. For too long, it has failed to successfully champion its own cause. For too many who count themselves among the “leadership,” aggressive marketing comes at too great a personal risk. Too many leaders look in the mirror, slide up the Windsor knot, and admire the “public safety executive” staring back, as far removed from the “doing” side of the fire business as they can get, incapable of marketing the true needs of their people on the front lines. As Tom Brennan said so well, “If you can market your tactics, you can market your people. You have to know [firefighting] to market.”
For too many fire departments, the only gains come in knee-jerk reaction to a horrible tragedy. They showed in Atlanta it doesn`t have to be that way.
Special Alert: Currently the FIRE Act is in the Subcommittee on Basic Research within the House Committee on Science. It will sit there until the subcommittee decides to hold hearings on the bill–the next step in the legislative process. As of this writing, Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has ignored requests to hold hearings. Many key Republican leaders are not keen on this bill. If hearings are not held, the bill cannot make it out of subcommittee, and it will die this legislative session.
It is time to market. Contact members of the Subcommittee on Basic Research by phone or mail, post haste, and express your support for the FIRE Act. Action from constituents of the subcommittee members is especially critical. Make your voice heard now, and help determine your own future. n
