Be a Partner, Not a Customer: Fire Service Funding and Industry Relationships

We had Michaela Campbell, she is the Executive Director of the CFSI, Congressional Fire Services Institute, and she, uh, was providing a Washington update during, during the industry update.

And, uh, one of the things that, um, I found very interesting that she talked about was just the potential, and, and we all know this because we all watch the news, but there is a potential, uh, turnover, uh, during the midterms.

But not only is there a turnover in Congress, there will be upwards of 100 new members of Congress potentially, you know, uh, in, uh, uh, after the election in just a few weeks here.

And what does that mean for us? Um, you know, obviously, um, Michaela was addressing a number of industry suppliers.

The industry suppliers, FEMSA and FAMA, Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association, have a government affairs committee, and they do a lot of work leading up to the CFSI, uh, annual symposium and dinner, uh, with, uh, with how they organize Hill Day.

Hill Day is their op- their opportunity to get out there and lobby Congress to keep the SAFER Grant, the AFG, uh, in service and fully funded.

Fully funded is, uh, is the key there.

There have been some fluctuations in recent years, uh, about the, uh, about, about, about, uh, with, with, with how much those programs have been funded.

100 new members of Congress who are totally green and have no idea, uh, what, what has been going on with the AFG and the SAFER Grants, et cetera.

Gonna be critically important, uh, to mobilize.

A couple years ago I said we really need to get mobilized to make sure that this is renewed and that these programs are renewed and fully funded.

Now we have to get out there to make sure we educate our, our congressional leaders on what those programs are, what they mean for the fire service, how they can benefit the fire service.

And in, in, in, in all honesty, the members of FAMA and FEMSA really do, uh, get out there and, and do that, not for themselves necessarily, but for us, for the fire service, to make sure that we get the funding we need to improve our response capabilities with, with the newest equipment, with the newest apparatus.

It's, uh, it's not an easy thing, but they really do a nice job of setting everything up, giving, giving us the talking points to go visit various congressional leaders.

So definitely something that you want to, uh, be checking out and keeping in the back of your mind.

We've talked about some of the Home Day things.

I've attended, uh, two or three Home Days up in New York.

Been lucky enough to, uh, to, uh, to be asked to, to say a few words at those events.

Um, they are critical at, at also the local level.

Often a, a, uh, federal, uh, uh, congressman or congresswoman from, uh, uh, from the House of Representatives does make their way up, but it's also critically important for the state and the local representatives, uh, to know, to know what these companies do, how these companies benefit, uh, their, their local communities, how they fit into the economy of those local communities, and how each of those companies is playing a critical role in providing the equipment that we need to do our jobs every day as we get out there, uh, on, on the rigs and go out there to mitigate any number of different situations.

We all know that we're all hazard response these days.

So that was an interesting thing.

Keep that in the back of your mind.

There's some work to do, uh, for, uh, for the, for the next session of Congress.

Um, there could be upwards of 100 new members.