Skip to content

Planning for US&R Teams

2 comments

mod-abt-recon-34I was sharing some information with a colleague tonight and I realized that perhaps some of you reading might like access to this research as well.  This is my paper on Developing a Strategic Plan for the South Carolina Urban Search and Rescue Program.

It is a pretty lengthy read (115 pages) but if you are looking into development of US&R (or other special teams), it might provide you a little direction given that our program (SC-TF1) seems like it has done pretty well.  I attribute that success to people like Ken Bell, Tom Webb, and Don Headrick, as well as a host of others (our first Director, Ray Wilkinson, and the chiefs of our Firefighter Mobilization Oversight Committee).  The foundation that was laid for the program came at a price for many of us; between the many trips back and forth to Columbia, spending countless hours away from our families, burning up our personal cell phone minutes (no unlimited long distance in those days), and our cashing every political chip we had (and then some).

 The Task Force and the state response program is these days in the very capable hands of Ken and our new Director, Dan McManus, as well as Tom, Jason Walters, Steve Drozd, and Travis Carricato, but it all requires a good plan and a little momentum.

So look it over (hey, it got me through my third year EFO) and let me know if it is useful and if you have something you’d like to share.  A wise man (Bob McKee, from TX-TF1) once told me that he was indebted to those who shared with him in his early days, and he was a great resource to me when we were devleoping our program as well.  I hope to pay that kindness forward as well.

Posted by on February 11, 2009 • Filed under: funding, government, leadership, National Fire Academy, planning, politics, SAR, US&R

2 Comments

Some HTML is OK

or, reply to this post via trackback.

Continuing the Discussion

  1. Fugate Nominated to Head FEMA | Firehouse Zen linked to this post

    [...] I’m always happy to see a fellow firefighter and paramedic do well for themselves, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that Florida Emergency Management Chief Craig Fugate was nominated to head up FEMA.  I don’t know him personally, but I think that among the preparedness aspects that he has championed for his state that keeps them ahead of the others, the US&R model he advocated (and with the help of his great team, implemented) is exactly along the lines of the South Carolina plan which I blogged about earlier. [...]

    on March 5, 2009 @ 8:53 am.
  2. Telling The Story | Firehouse Zen linked to this post

    [...] differences in simply sending a message and telling a story.  In doing the research for a paper I mentioned earlier on this blog, I found that some companies like 3M and Nordstrom used the art of telling a story to deliver their [...]

    on April 13, 2009 @ 6:42 am.