Darley held a Home Day with our Congressman Peter Roskam
on August 23, 2008.
Illinois Fire Service Home Day Committee Chairs Paul Darley, Janet Wilmoth and Chief Tom Deegan are shown with CFSI Executive Director Bill Webb and Jay Reardon, president of MABAS.
70 fire service stakeholders attended the Illinois Fire Service Home Day on
June 4, 2008.
7 Congressional staffers representing 6 Senators Dick Durbin and Barrack Obama and Representatives Jerry Weller, Melissa Bean, Judy Biggert and Peter Roskam were in attendance.
Illinois Fire Chief Executive Director Bob Buhs (Shown above) gave a status report on recent legislative issues affecting the fire service in Illinois. MABAS president Jay Reardon gave an overview and future of the program.
Art of Negotiation By Janet Wilmoth at 9:36 am, 06/06/2008
If your son or daughter asked for money, you’d probably ask how much, why and what for.
When my daughters were young, they learned if they wanted something, they had to sell it to their dad before he would buy in. The girls eventually learned that before they could negotiate with their dad, they first had to prepare.
Being an engineer, my husband would always ask a series of logical questions about the need or value of their request, whether it was a new bike or their first computer. Was it a need or a want? Why? What were the benefits and other options? What they would contribute to the investment? The process frustrated the girls, but it saved time, tears and tantrums, and they learned to be successful negotiators and educated consumers.
I thought of the art of negotiation during the third annual Illinois Home Day, held yesterday in Addison, Ill. Home Day brings together Illinois members of the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association, Fire and Emergency Manufacturers and Services Association, Illinois Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association, including the Illinois Professional Firefighters Association, and congressional representatives. Staffers from the offices of Sens. Dick Durbin and Barrack Obama and Reps. Jerry Weller, Melissa Bean, Judy Biggert and Peter Roskam were in attendance.
Now before your eyes glaze over at the reference to politics, think back to the negotiation process I spelled out above. If one of your employees asked for money, you’d probably ask the same questions. The purpose of Home Day is the preparation — educate and update — before the negotiation for funds, something fire departments across the nation are facing these days.
Spearheaded by Paul Darley, FAMA representative and president of W.S. Darley & Co., and the Home Day steering committee offered a tightly run 90-minute program.
Illinois Fire Chief Executive Director Bob Buhs gave a status report on recent legislative issues affecting the fire service in Illinois. Updates included the Fire Safety Act outlawing both false sprinkler heads and smoke detectors. Buhs explained that some companies use cameras inside the smoke detectors.
MABAS president and retired Fire Chief Jay Reardon gave an overview and future of the program. “MABAS is activated 800 times a year,” said Reardon. Illinois currently has 1,300 member agencies; 38,000 of the 40,000 firefighters in Illinois are affiliated with MABAS.
Reardon specifically pointed out to the congressional representatives in attendance a list of 33 readiness capabilities supported by DHS grants and stresses the importance of future funding, particularly for fire departments that support metropolitan areas. “One mission, one team, one fight,” Reardon said. “If we lose funding, we will lose our capability to respond.”
Keynote speaker Bill Webb, executive director of the Congressional Fire Services Institute in Washington, D.C., pointed out that the fire caucus is the largest caucus on Capitol Hill. In describing the CFSI’s efforts Webb said, “What CFSI does is to educate Congress,” he said. “CFSI is the ‘United Nations’ of the fire service and rallies and educates the fire service organizations in the political arena.”
Webb pointed out to all the attendees the significant cut facing the FIRE Act funding, from $560 million in 2008 to $300 million in 2009; SAFER Grant from $190 million to zero dollars.
Asking for more money is never easy, but successful negotiating requires some preparation. Home Day is an excellent way to unite for a common cause: protecting communities through better emergency response.
