Leadership Under Fire Leadership Under Fire

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.       

Our guest in this episode of the Leadership Under Fire Humanizing the Narrative Podcast is Jeremy Starr. Jeremy enlisted in the Marine Corps in August 2004. Private First Class Starr received orders to 2nd BN 7th MARINES after graduating from recruit training and completing School of Infantry West. He served as gun team leader for 2/7’s Weapons Company 81's platoon for a combat deployment to Fallujah, Iraq in 2005 and 2006. During his tour in Fallujah, Jeremy was Combat Meritoriously promoted to the rank of Corporal. In 2008, Jeremy left active duty and started his fire service career when he joined a paid-on-call department in Sussex, Wisconsin. In November 2009, he was hired by the City of Milwaukee Fire Department. He was initially assigned to Engine Company 32 and transferred to Engine Company 24 and Rescue Company 2 a short time later. Jeremy was promoted to Lieutenant in 2016 and served as a relief officer, the lead cadet instructor for the department’s fire academy, and in field units. He was promoted to the rank of Captain in 2020 and presently serves as the company commander for Engine Company 30. As a Marine, 1st Sgt Starr presently serves with Engineer Services Company, CLB-25. He previously served with US Marine reserve units that include 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines; 3rd Civil Affairs Group in support of the Marine Special Operations Command and held several joint service and multi-national billets. LUF Founder Jason Brezler hosts.