Leadership Under Fire

Our guest in this episode of the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast is Aaron Miller. Miller is a Captain with the Fairfax County (VA) Fire and Rescue Department. During this episode, listeners will learn about how Miller's high-level baseball experience and competitive spirit influenced his leadership philosophy and perspective on fireground performance. LUF Founder Jason Brezler hosts.

The following interview was hosted by LUF's Human Performance Advisor and Senior Man's Performance Journal author, Jim McNamara. The conversation was recorded at our 2023 National Leadership and Performance Summit, which was held in Annapolis, Maryland. The interview features Jim Roussell who has served as one of the Leadership Under Fire team’s chief mentors and advisors since LUF's formal inception in 2012. We hope you enjoy this episode, and Roussell's insightful contributions to the Summit.  James Roussell retired from the USMC and the Chicago Police Department after serving several decades as a leader in both organizations. Most recently, Jim served as the Chief of Staff for the Chicago Police Department. Prior to serving as the Chief of Staff, Jim served as the Executive Officer of Area Central and spent a preponderance of his 36-year career in gang-tactical units. He commanded the Rogers Park 24th District and the department’s mobile strike force which targeted gang violence citywide. He has supervised all facets of emergency response and joint operations during his career. Jim is also a retired US Marine reserve Chief Warrant Officer 5. Jim served with the USMC for 39 years with the bulk of his service in infantry and intelligence assignments including three combat tours in Iraq. He has completed the Command and Staff College, Expeditionary Warfare School, and Marine Air Ground Task Force Intelligence Officer Course. Jim has a Doctor of Education from Olivet Nazarene University with emphasis on ethical leadership as well as a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degrees in Criminal Justice from Lewis University. 

The recording you'll hear in this episode took place at our National Leadership and Performance Summit in Annapolis, Maryland, in April 2023. It features FDNY Captain of Rescue Co. 2, Liam Flaherty. We hope you enjoy this conversation and its many takeaways, and encourage listeners to tune in to our previous episode--number 112--as it features the first talk of the Summit which we refer to during the episode. Captain Flaherty joined the FDNY in 1990. He currently serves as the company commander of Rescue Co. 2, which he’s been assigned to for the past decade. Liam was previously assigned to Rescue Co. 2 and Ladder Co. 157 as a Lieutenant and Rescue Co. 4 and Ladder Co. 44 as a firefighter. He is an adjunct instructor at the FDNY’s Technical Rescue School and was instrumental in the development of the course curriculum for the Advanced Firefighter Rescue and Removal Training for FDNY Special Operations Command firefighters and officers. As many listeners to this podcast know, fireground commanders rely on the experience and capabilities of rescue companies at complex fires and emergencies. More specifically, incident commanders rely on rescue companies to problem solve at fires where members are in distress or when conditions make members more susceptible to distress. Liam is one of FDNY’s most experienced and respected fireground leaders, and one of the Department’s most fervent advocates for mission-oriented service. Perhaps equally significant, Liam has led the FDNY’s Emerald Society band at several hundred line of duty funerals over the course of the past 25 plus years.

The conversation you will hear in this episode was recorded in April 2023 at our National Leadership and Performance Summit, which took place in Annapolis, Maryland. It features LUF Founder Jason Brezler interviewing Ty Daniels, a seasoned US Submarine Officer with extensive insight into leadership and ethical behavior. We hope you enjoy this conversation and others from the Summit, which we plan to share on this podcast. Lieutenant Commander Ty Daniels, USNR, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Ocean Engineering. Afloat, Ty completed his division officer tour aboard the Los Angeles Class submarine USS JEFFERSON CITY (SSN 759) as the Assistant Engineer and then aboard the ballistic missile submarine USS ALABAMA GOLD (SSB 731) as the Engineer Officer. During his sea tours he completed one Western Pacific deployment and three Strategic Deterrent Patrols. Ashore, Ty served as the Character Development Officer at the United States Naval Academy where he taught leadership and ethics as well as supported submarine engagement initiatives. Ty left active service with the US Navy in September 2022 and currently works for Amazon Web Services. He continues to serve with the US Navy Reserves and is assigned to Submarine Group 8.

In this episode of the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast, host Patti Murphy is joined by Philadelphia Firefighter Seankelly McCauley. Sean comes from a family of FDNY firefighters, and it was always assumed that he'd follow in his father and great grandfather’s footsteps by achieving his lifelong dream of joining the FDNY.   In 2007, Sean proudly took the Department's entrance exam and began preparing for his FDNY career. Despite his enthusiasm to learn the job, physical abilities and willingness to serve the City of New York, Sean’s dreams were derailed in 2010 when a federal judge ruled that the FDNY entrance exam 6019 had a “disparate impact” on minority candidates and was not a true measure of the abilities required for entry-level firefighters. So began years of ligation, and waiting and worrying to see if he’d ever get the chance to serve the FDNY as a Firefighter.  Eventually, in 2016, Sean made the hard decision to leave New York City and joined the Philadelphia Fire Department where he serves today. In 2022, he was given the opportunity to attend Leadership Under Fire’s Optimizing Human Performance Under Pressure Program with the Cherry Hill NJ Fire Department. Sean remains a student of the job and hopeful about the future of the American fire service. 

The original broadcast date for this episode was June 4, 2020, but the interview you will hear with our guest in this episode was recorded in early 2019 at a Leadership Under Fire Optimizing Human Performance Summit, which took place in Annapolis, Maryland. Jim Roussell, a retired US Marine and Chicago police officer, was one of several summit guests who shared their perspective on navigating adversity and loss in lethal settings. The episode begins with LUF founder Jason Brezler and host Patti Murphy discussing their reflections shortly after the 2019 Summit.    The LUF team will be hosting another Leadership and Human Performance Summit in Annapolis on April 21, 2023. This will be LUF’s first national summit since the arrival of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, the emergence of civil unrest during the summer of 2020, and following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Jim Roussell will again be a featured guest at the 2023 Summit, and we anticipate that he will discuss the ways in which the world has changed in recent years for leaders in high-risk industries. We thought that the insight and encouragement that Jim offered in 2019 might serve as a fitting prequel for those who will be attending the 2023 Summit, and will benefit those who will be hearing conversations from the 2023 Summit in the coming months on the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast.     If you're interested in attending an LUF event, visit leadershipunderfire.com for a list of upcoming events and to join our mailing list.

During the summer of 2022, members of the Leadership Under Fire team formed a working group that endeavored to examine NIOSH reports which detail structural firefighting operations that resulted in the line of duty deaths (LODDs) of firefighters and fire officers. The LUF team submitted its findings to NIOSH via the CDC that summer in the form of a paper which succinctly highlights human factors deficiencies in LODD analysis and reporting.     In this episode, host Jim McNamara is joined by two members of the LUF team who were instrumental in leading and organizing the effort – Jason Brezler, LUF’s founder, and Jerry Smith, a member of the Baltimore City Fire Department and LUF plank owner. We hope this conversation will not only provide important insight into the methodology used to generate the team’s findings, but additionally, that the conversation might also illuminate the path ahead for LUF and the greater American fire service with regard to improving the processes that the fire service relies upon to make sense of performance at fires which result in catastrophic death and injury to firefighters and fire officers in the United States.

Jeremy Starr, former Marine Corps member with combat experience in Fallujah, Iraq, talks about his transition from the Marine Corps to the fire service. He discusses his experiences enlisting in the U.S. Marines, the value of experience and understanding in leadership, the challenges of replicating fight or flight response in training, and the importance of creating a positive culture for leadership development.

Our accomplished expert in this episode is former US speed skier, mountaineer, and climber, Craig Calonica. Craig is a world-renowned adventurer who has great insight on risk and leadership. He has four decades of experience navigating daring and dangerous assents and descents in some of the most extreme alpine locations in the world—creating and breaking records in the process. He currently runs a cutting-edge helicopter skiing operation in the Himalayas and is originally from Lake Tahoe, California.  In the summer of 2021, Calonica regaled podcast host Patti Murphy with stories of some of his incredible high-altitude experiences. We hope to have him back on the podcast in the future to unpack his philosophies on navigating risk and building resilience, but for now we’re honored to share his powerful accounts of adventuring in complex outdoor environments that showcase extraordinary aspects of human endurance and the human spirit. 

Our guest in this episode, FDNY Lieutenant Jack Meara, comes from a long line of FDNY firefighters and proudly joined the Department in 1982. He was first assigned to Engine Co. 67 in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, which was one of the most active companies coming out of the FDNY’s War Years. In 1995, after working with some of the most seasoned and experienced members on the job, he promoted to Lieutenant and within a relatively short period of time was assigned to Engine Co. 46 in the Bronx where he continues to serve today. As you’ll hear in this conversation, that continuity of leadership has made a great and lasting impact on those around him.