President Elect Report – Chief Bernard Molloy

The Voice of the California Fire Service: An Opening Letter from the President

I want to start by saying what an honor it is to be able to serve in the capacity of the president of the California Fire Chiefs Association for the next year.  I first joined CalChiefs almost a decade ago. As an incoming Chief Officer overseeing Emergency Medical Services for my agency, I had critical questions that no one in my immediate circle could answer. When I started researching where to find solutions, it became immediately clear that the CalChiefs EMS Section was the resource I had been missing. Soon after joining, I found comfort in realizing this organization was dedicated to bringing together those who wanted to evolve our industry. I knew then I had found the organization I was meant to be in.

As my career evolved, so did my engagement with CalChiefs. I found the same deeply engaged people, the leaders of the California Fire Service, in every Section and at every stop along my journey. Look around the conference this week, and you will see those leaders. I am deeply honored to be a small part of this organization’s history and to share this moment with all of you.

Over the past several years, we have worked diligently to modernize our association to better serve our membership. For the past five years, we have transitioned all of our sections under unified bylaws, creating better means to communicate and work collaboratively on projects that span the entire fire industry. We have also updated our dues structure to maximize value and streamline administrative processes. Agencies can now renew all CalChiefs and Section memberships on a single invoice, eliminating the need for multiple transactions. Furthermore, we now automatically include non-voting memberships for all command staff and leaders within an agency at no additional cost. This restructuring has been supported by bringing on a professional management agency, which has helped ensure our membership remains engaged through increased communications, including our weekly newsletter and the launch of our new website in the near future. We appreciate all of you who have worked through the inevitable bumps in this transition, helping us build a more robust, streamlined, and unified organization.

We undertook this modernization because the fire service is experiencing significant changes. As public expectations and the external view of our industry evolve, we must change to remain the effective "Voice of the California Fire Service." To achieve this, we must remember the core of our mission: to improve the fire service and better serve the public. While we represent fire chiefs and departments from across the state, let’s not lose sight of the fact that our true stakeholders are the citizens who rely on us for their safety and protection. We must build the systems that serve them in their time of greatest peril. If the necessary systems are not in place, let’s work to ensure the proper legislation, relationships, agreements, and, sometimes, even litigation occur to build the service model our communities need.

As an industry, we have been so successful in sharing our operational accomplishments with the public that they now hold us to an increasingly high standard. It is clear that the yardstick by which we are measured continues to grow, yet we are often expected to meet these new challenges with the same fire service we have maintained for decades.

To meet these ever-increasing demands, we must look to our sections to work collaboratively in building the fire service of the future. The CalChiefs Sections are designed to cover every specialized aspect of the fire service, and they only flourish with your direct involvement. We are continually seeking new members to expand these sections, and I invite you to find your place and help guide our fire service into the future. CalChiefs is only as strong as the Sections we are comprised of, and I want to highlight the great work they are doing:

Administrative Fire Services
The foundation for our department's support staff focuses on emerging administrative aspects of our industry, including the evolution of artificial intelligence in government.

Communications, Technology & Connectivity
Our revitalized C&T Section is working to integrate the communication systems that underpin our industry, ensuring they are seamlessly integrated into our operations. As our communications centers evolve into more than just dispatch centers, this group is here to shape what we need next.

Emergency Medical Services
The EMS Section continues to fight tirelessly to ensure our statutory right to deliver pre-hospital emergency medical services is protected from those who seek to profit from this essential public service.

Emergency Management
Our Emergency Managers meet the ever-changing world of large- and small-scale disaster management head-on, providing pathways for the fire service to integrate effectively with regional and local government emergency management standards.

Fire Marshals
Our Fire Marshals Section, comprised of high-level community risk reduction experts, is working to shape the future of fire code and prevention. Their focus extends to engaging industry partners, specifically the building and insurance sectors, to model better standards and ensure the long-term insurability of our communities.

Fire Mechanics
The Fire Mechanics continue to evolve alongside our apparatus, balancing the challenge of keeping vehicles on the road longer due to skyrocketing prices and delays for new apparatus, while also learning new systems as platforms modernize and become electrified. This Section provides the critical training necessary to modernize the skills of our fire service mechanics.

Operations
The Operations Section continues its mission to enhance California fire service operations, integrating new technologies while building an industry that surges seamlessly to meet the ever-changing demands. They are committed to upholding the highest standards of safety, readiness, and service to our communities.

Training Officers
The Training Officers Section ensures that our most valuable resource, our fire service personnel, have the recognition-based knowledge, skills, and abilities to address whatever our public asks us to help them with, regardless of the size or complexity of the issue.

Legislative Task Force
Though not a specific section, our collaborative legislative task force spans all sections to address all the needs of the fire service. Despite the expectation of a "quiet year," our joint Legislative Task Force reviewed hundreds of bills in response to early-year fire activity, ensuring the California Fire Service had a unified voice and presence throughout the legislative process.

As we have now completed the organizational transitions we embarked on five years ago, I will challenge all sections at our upcoming annual planning meeting to update their mission statements. This is to ensure they have a guiding principle for the next five years. We must never lose sight of the fact that we are always aiming for the future in this organization.

Moving to the future is not always an easy task in an industry as deeply rooted in tradition as ours, but we must find ways to honor the past while still moving forward. We cannot do this alone. As we continue to evolve our fire service, we recognize that partnerships will be essential to moving this needle forward. We believe this is so critical that it forms the foundation of our mission statement: “To strengthen and advocate for the California Fire Service through leadership, unity, and collaboration.”

CalChiefs has worked tirelessly to maintain relationships with partners such as the California Professional Firefighters (CPF) and the members of the California Fire Service Leadership Alliance. This Alliance has been critical, bringing together the Fire Districts Association of California (FDAC), our Tribal Fire Chiefs Branch, Contract Counties, Volunteer and Combination Fire Chiefs Branch, Metro Fire Chiefs Branch, and the Cal Cities Fire Chiefs Department Section. I would like to sincerely thank all these organizations for their daily efforts to provide the best fire service in the nation to California's citizens.

I want all of you to know that we are here, as members of CalChiefs, for one simple reason: this is the place where our voices can be heard as one. Our collective voice drives the fire service of tomorrow, and that starts in this conference today.

Enjoy the conference, and remember, we are the Voice of the California Fire Service.

Sincerely, 

Chief Bernard Molloy
President Elect, California Fire Chiefs Association