Greetings everyone, I hope this email finds you all well.  It’s been another long week so let’s get started on the highlights…

• New Engineers List today—Congratulations to all the newly promoted engineers today!  You have an enormous amount of responsibility with your new rank.  For paramedics in Rescue, that means you’ll be riding as an officer very soon.  All engineers, regardless of assignment, this is the next step of leadership in our department.  Please continue to grow your skill and craft, learn from someone you trust and continue to improve the firefighters under you.
  • For the record—HR did not get the revised scores from Seattle until late last night.  The holdup was not our HR’s fault.  I know the easy thing is to blame them….just so you know…

• Another huge transfer bulletin—will be out today.  Only 33 FF spots are authorized for Rescue.  We had to move people into Rescue in order to hire new firefighters into Suppression.  Unfortunately we have to balance the positions back out with the promotions.   Hopefully everyone landed where they wanted to be.
  • Firefighters in Rescue—If you were called yesterday by Chief McCormick and told you were coming out of Rescue and you are not on the bulletin, then you are staying in Rescue.  Please email me if you still want to come out of Rescue and we’ll move forward from there.  There is not enough time today to make all the calls before 1700 hrs.

• Sea of Blue—here’s the updated flyer for the Sea of Blue.  Please continue to put on your social media outlets to let friends and family know when to come watch you.  Also attached is the maps and instructions in case you missed it last time. SEA OF BLUE OVERVIEW
     

• New RMS Changes—went into effect last night.  You should be able to see leave availability, reassignment requests, cap increased to 21, and leave limited to 10 requests.  Hope this helps!

• Budget—is this Tuesday night.  Please take the time to watch.  If you miss it, I will get out the details when it’s done.

Let’s see some of the runs we’ve gone on this week…yes… I went on one.

• FD 27/ W3 COMMERCIAL STRUCTURE FIRE/ FRONT OFFICE BLDG OF RIVER CITY LANDING APT/ 2681 UNIVERSITY BLVD N/TG B1/END
• 250 gallon gas cylinder leak/FD21/6426 Wood Valley Rd./Hazmat Team 21 on scene/F9 cancelled by E21/TGA1/End
• FD14 W3 STRUCTURE FIRE SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE 4663 AMHERST ST... TGB1..END
• FD21 BROKEN CUT GAS LINE UNKNOWN SIZE 5959 CHESTER AVE..TGB1
• Single Story Residential Structure Fire/W3/FD44/7579 Sugar Bay Ln/TGB1
• Structure Fire/Single Family/Single Story Residential Structure/W3/FD19/8536 Hare Ave./TGB1/End
• FD25 TRAFFIC ACCIDENT AUTO VS 2 PEDIATRICS 1 TRAUMA ALERT SEABOARD AVE/PENNY
• Meth Lab/4693 Salisbury Rd./FD28/Hazmat Team 21 on scene/TGB9/End
• And a few thousand other runs!

Time to give some thanks…

Now time for the Quote of the WIR:

• "Leadership, like coaching, is fighting for the hearts and souls of the men and women and getting them to believe in you".—Coach Eddie Robinson (the 2^nd most winningest coach in NCAA history, Grambling State University.)
  • For all our newly promoted engineers and officers, now is the time to begin building your leadership style.  We could all learn a thing or two from Coach Robinson.
• "The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."—Jeremy Pazman
  • Which leads me to my next story…

So last week when my wife was having coffee in bed, must be nice, she called to let me know a critter was crawling around in the attic over our bedroom.  So I turn to my trusted friend and confidant, Lt. Scott Kornegay for advice.  Simple he says…throw an "exsanguinating" agent (rat poisoning) up in the attic, the mouse will eat it and go look for water….don’t worry…he won’t come back.  Sounds great I say,  wanna guess where his final resting place is?  Lodged somewhere in my bathroom wall, near the tub, stinking the place to high-heaven!  I’ve already cut a hole in the wall by the shower looking for the bloated corpse but to no avail.  Now I have sheetrock-repair Saturday coming up tomorrow before game time.   So I Googled "how long will a dead mouse in the wall smell" and it returned over 40,000 sites….wow.  Wanna know the answer?…two weeks…in the meantime, its spiced apple scented candle with dead mouse for my bathroom.

Well that’s it for this WIR.  I hope everyone has a great weekend and I hope you get to spend it with family and friends.  Please continue to keep you thoughts and prayers with our folks as some are truly having a tough time.  As for my football prediction: Alabama doesn’t stand a chance against our 24^th ranked offense but that’s ok…Driskel is entering his 6^th year as QB and we’re bound to win one before he gets his master’s degree…lol

As always, we thank you for what you do, why you do it, and for always showing why you are truly the Best Fire Rescue Department in the Country!

Very respectfully,

Kurtis R. Wilson

Chief of Operations

Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department