Happy 30th Birthday ARFFWG

By: Paul Looney

Greetings:

I was asked by Ted Costa to drop you all a line right after the Jacksonville Conference. I hope to educate you on some of the earlier days of our group but first a brief background on where I came from.

Life begins October 1st 1961.

My career started like a lot of you. For me it was Plattsburg AFB after basic at Lackland. From there I went to Andersen AFB on Guam shown below.

Remember Winchester the gun that won the west?

Well I lived right around the corner in New Haven, CT. and they had their own Fire Dept. I spent all of 1966 there.

I ended up on the New Haven Fire Dept and in 1981 I was sent down to Engine 16 which covered Tweed New Haven Airport.

Like many of you I was lost in the wilderness. The airport was not a big priority in our Department. I spent years trying to get information on how to better do my job. I even joined AAAE and wrote letters to the FAA trying to get a grip on things. I visited airports, attended AAAE conferences and visited the Oshkosh factory. Finally, someone told me about the ARFF Working Group. In late 1992 I called them (Barbara) up and got a sample newsletter. That’s when the fun began.

I can not think of anything that opened more doors for me and introduced me to such great friends than our wonderful group. In 1993, I went to Dallas for my first conference. I was already New England Regional Manager thanks to our founder and Chairman Mark Lawler who had given me the job over the phone some months earlier.

Mark Lawler, lets expand a minute. Our founder was the Assistant Chief at Hickam AFB in Hawaii. Like many of us he traveled to Chief’s conferences around the country looking for ARFF related seminars. He could find none so he hooked up with Industrial Fire Journal Magazine and the ARFF Working Group was founded in 1989. (This was a joint venture from 1989 to 1993, but that is all I know.) He teamed up with Paul Fox, a freelance TV Cameraman in Honolulu who was not really a firefighter but a Fire Buff gone wild.

I came on board in 1993 after telling Mark I had stayed awake nights for years trying to figure out how I could create the organization that he had already created.

What’s the point of all this? The point is that some of the problems and challenges that faced us 30 years ago are still there. Yes, we have learned a lot. Yes, we have had fun getting together every year around the country or the world for that matter. But I have never seen a TV. News story about what we do on ABC or CNN.

In 1993 I held a workshop at the Dallas conference on aircraft familiarization. Delta Airlines was there and picked up the ball and created the Air Fam Program as a result. Delta went gangbusters going around the country conducting on site classes using its pilots as teachers to various ARFF departments around the country. The cost to Delta was the pilots time and the cost to the Fire Departments was picking up the hotel tab (deeply discounted) for the pilot instructors. They flew for free.

The guy who gets all the credit for Delta’s support was Kevin Hiatt, a pilot who was assigned to Delta’s flight safety office. Delta has always been in our corner but eventually we all learn that the good guys sometimes finish last and there are no paychecks for pioneers.

Then one day a bean counter at Delta said “hey wait a minute. How much money do we make on this?” And that was the end of the aircraft fam program. Over and over I have seen a lack of respect for us and a real lack of interest. Who is not interested? We can start with our own Fire Chief downtown. Our airport managers, the FAA, AAAE, NTSB. NFPA has always loved us and there are others but for the most part we are still the forgotten step child of the airport industry and the fire industry.

This is understandable. The Fire Chief downtown has his hands full. The airport manager is pulling his hair out trying to keep the FAA from shutting him down. Some of this is our fault. Our fire trucks spend a lot of time sitting in the firehouse. One trick is to get out and spray water all over the place so that the guys in the control tower see us and spread the word that “Those firemen are always out training.” That helps a lot.

We need more formal education, a degree program. Our group needs a business manager who can testify before congress. During my year as Chairman I was reluctant to take on too much as I was the first Chairman to take over from our founder Mark Lawler. I made no major decisions without consulting him. I did not want to shake the tree too much and believe me I was bombarded with a lot of bright ideas. Well folks, we are well established now.

Anyway, here we are 30 years later. I have run out of steam and will let the youth of our group to figure it out. Our last 2 chairpersons have been an inspiration to me especially Beth Hendel who has made brilliant appointments and is a ball of fire. Best Wishes and Happy Birthday.

About the Author:  Paul Looney has held the following offices. Regional Manager New England, Regional Manager Coordinator, Secretary Treasurer Vice Chairman, Chairman, Coordinator Latin American Section and Associate Editor of ARFF News.  Paul has also been honored with an ARFFWG Legend Award.