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Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
Speaker 1 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in KU NBC Studios on public radio K, u and v 91.5.
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You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves life coaching services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Speaker 2 0:41
You can see what's going on what's going on? What's going on? Good morning, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your hosts got a couple of in studio guests. After I've made a few announcements I will introduce them. Look. I would like to just acknowledge my father who was deceased. His birthday is this month and another dear friend, retired Assistant Chief Herschel Clady out of LA County. He died just a few months ago. Just wanted to acknowledge those two. And I want to talk a little bit about my Las Vegas on the T golf group. Jim le casi. His team members look Lamar bill and Rick Gonzalez. They hold an annual what they call match play event. Jim came in first Lamar came in second, I came in third. And my uncle came in fourth and then Kenny Jones and Rick Gonzalez with tied for fifth and sixth. But anyway, we do that annually. And I was I'm pleased that a 22 handicap to to be COVID Third place yesterday. Also, I'd like to announce that our Commander Jeff Jones, of American Legion Post teen, he encouraged veterans to research. There's something going on and I will get more information and share it next month. But there's something going on with Medicare that you can get some additional phones and I don't have all the information but he did take something out this morning. So I wanted to to just kind of acknowledge that future shows we're going to have the president of UNLV Dr. Whitfield, I'm working to get him on next month. Also United States senator Cortes masters as well as United States Senate. Rosen and I ran into those two over it up program that Mike Flores who was a guest last week. He does show up well, not a show but a welcoming if you guys understand welcome those students when they started back, oh yeah, they give him backpacks and all sorts of things and have people from all over the community come and meet them. You can see that some of the tools are exciting. Some of like, Give me a break. Anyway, you hear the chuck who I have to in studio guests, I have captain told him his wonderful wife. And that total and I got a couple questions for these folks and start with you camp. You are a veteran of what
Speaker 3 3:21
serves a Marine Corps Marine Corps served the Marine Corps from 2001 to 2007. Okay, went through, oh, I f one and three, and served in Al Assad for a couple of years.
Speaker 2 3:31
So what was your your main job primarily as a CH 46 Helicopter mechanic.
Speaker 3 3:36
So the frogs and love people seemed like the fight and frogs worked on those for a while. And then when I got out, I was moved into banking and then the fire service.
Speaker 2 3:46
So with respect to the fire service, what department I worked for, and how long
Speaker 3 3:51
shore I worked for the city of Richmond in Virginia, the state of Virginia, been there since 2010. So 13 and 13 and a half years.
Unknown Speaker 4:00
And your current rank is captain. Yes, sir.
Unknown Speaker 4:03
Yes, sir. What's
Unknown Speaker 4:03
your duty assignment?
Speaker 3 4:05
Right now? I was captain at station six getting ready to we're going to open up a couple stations. So I'll probably go into one of those. So
Speaker 2 4:10
you out there in operations? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, before I get to your wife, and I'm really excited to have her on the show as well. And these two folks are are visiting and I nabbed him because he wanted to visit with me and I'm like, Man, I gotta show. And my wife is oh man, I want to get her on the show as well. So we don't have a lot of time because we also have chief, Fernando Gray, who was the fire chief for the city of Las Vegas, he will be our second Yes. On this afternoon, or this morning, I should say what am I saying? Well, everybody knows that the show was taped. So but I try to keep it relevant in terms of time. Gotcha, etc. So tell us about your experience with EDI if you will. Sure. And then I'm on row to your wife and we'll just bounce back and forth between the two of you. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 4:59
So I just completed my second year in EDI, what we call module two, it has been the absolute joy of my career so far. So I like an EDI to the HBCU. On Fire Service Officer development, the community that's created, the connections that are created have far surpass any other training that I've done since I've been in service my 13 years not to train in 234 times a year all across the country, the relationships me and my mod mates, we continue to do we talk every day. As a matter of fact, like you've mentioned earlier, when I came out here, I was able to meet with you or yesterday and then Chief gray earlier today. And it was just by the relationships created an EDI. And that happens all the time. So we tend to think that in our in our departments and our areas, you know, it's pretty much the entirety of the fire service until you start to reach out. And you realize that the community as a whole supports you uplift you, and then guide you to where you want to be, whether it be in your career, or your professional career or personal life. So I've thoroughly enjoyed my experience at I'm looking forward to the next two, three years for that to complete. Well,
Speaker 2 6:08
as I mentioned to EDI show for the cartoons executive development institute, you guys have heard me speak about it on a number of occasions on this program. But as the cap mentioned, it's a program. It's a leadership and management level type program, we don't do the Didac because we pull it no holes when you're raising our ladders, we're going into those other things that will help you to become great leaders within your respective agency. So pleased that you feel you're getting a lot out of it. Now, as I met to talk with you, you gave me something that was very interesting. That's you was in town with your wife, who was doing some very special work. So Miss Antoinette, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Unknown Speaker 6:50
Well, I am a certified HR professional. I have been a certified HR professional for over 20 years, I'll say 25. But what I do know is that veterans and public safety officers are very good mathematicians. And once I started calculating and talking about years of service, people want to calculate my age. So I will say that I have over 25 years of experience in HR. The past 20 years, I have dedicated my support to HR and public safety. So we were in town, because I was speaking at the twelth recruitment and retention summit for police officers here in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2 7:28
So who put that that particular organization or conference can be to put that together. It's
Unknown Speaker 7:35
powered by the Financial Research Associates, they are a for profit, or for profit organization. But they continuously support police and fire in some instances, as well as healthcare, a lot of human service organizations. And so they provide conferences and summits so that we can all horse network, but also gain knowledge of public safety is in its transformative state. And so what we find is, the more we meet and to discuss, and bring our brains together to actually discover new ways of handling public safety concerns, they have put this conference on I think this will be the second one. And there's two more planned.
Speaker 2 8:21
So these are practitioners, yes, of this particular industry. So do any folks from the police agencies, fire agencies come
Unknown Speaker 8:30
to absolutely they the majority of the audience, for the audience, the majority of the audience, as well as our presenters are also police personnel. I am the former HR CI for the Richmond Virginia Police Department. And so I started speaking at conferences back in 2012. And I established my business in 2017 and just expanded on my public speaking engagements. So
Speaker 2 9:00
people I assume reach out to you to get you to come to various conferences, conventions to speak Yes, in this particular way.
Unknown Speaker 9:11
Yes. What we have seen over the course of the last past at least five years, is that human resources in the public safety industry is now of course moving to the forefront. Before even when I started in policing in 2003, I was pretty much a second line, you know, individual law chief or whomever would make a decision about how they would recruit or how we would feel classes. And I actually just had to follow the orders. We started changing and recognizing that human resources and how we treat people internally actually determines how we treat the community. And so around 2007 I was asked to To become the HR chief for the Richmond Police Department, and I was introduced to community policing. And I fell in love with the industry. And I've been doing it ever since.
Speaker 2 10:11
And I know that, as you mentioned, Miss Tov, when you treat yourself internally bad, you're going to put the same approach to the people in the field. And that's what I told people. And when we talk about dispatch, and I know, Chief, gray is over communications over communications. And I had her laugh. And when I told her I said, when I took over, I told those officers do not call dispatch and be going off on them. I say you must remember. Because to me, dispatchers and medics, paramedics, they're the two most stressful jobs in the fire service. And that's just my own personal opinion. And I guys used to call him and you know, just go off thing, you know, they're nothing. First of all, they are your resource attachment. Yeah, absolutely. If you want some more resource, you need them. That's where you're going to be talking, you want to talk crazy to them, not on my watch. So y'all can't do not while I'm in charge, it is
Speaker 3 11:14
absolutely imperative that we take care of our people from top to bottom from the most, my new position that we might think is most my new to the top community risk reduction as a whole, like in policing, they call the community policing on our side, we call it community risk reduction. And I think that is probably the most pertinent piece that we have in the fire service that we don't take advantage of, because it allows us to really get to the point, it allows us to take advantage of that inherent trust that the citizens have with us. And there's no other business, no other servers, no other opportunity that exists, that where you can go in anyone's house, at any given point in time. Walk out with a dead body, and they're still gonna thank you for being there. That's inherent trust, we have to capture that and hold on to that and make sure that we nurture that and help our firefighters understand that we are Type A personalities. Oh, yeah. Because in order to do what we do, you have to have a little bit of crazy. And I love that about us. But you also have to understand that every time we step into somebody's home, we're there to make sure that they have a better experience than before we got there. And then understanding who they are connecting to the human side of who they are, helps us to maintain our abilities to be able to use that truss when we need it not just not just for response models or for responses, but for also when we have to go to city council when we have to go to the schools and we have to go to whoever to gain more resources to continue to be able to do what we do. Absolutely we are we are an expensive resource. And
Speaker 2 12:39
people say why I said Well, we're just like the military, we prepare for what if something's going to happen? We do a lot of training. And people Why are you doing all this training? Because we got to be ready. We have to stay in already and some people don't understand it. And as far as people in general to me, if we don't learn to care about each other in that firehouse, what do you think we're gonna do out in the field? Absolutely. The experience all sorts of stuff dealing with please. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 13:06
yes. One of my because I'm also a workshop facilitator. So not only do I speak at conferences, but I actually work with jurisdictions and agencies to help their personnel understand what psychological safety means. In our cultures. It's already tough working in public safety, it's already tough. Being a firefighter, it's already tough being a police officer. So we must create environments in which everyone feels psychologically safe. And that means do I feel included? Do I see myself here? Can I learn here? You know, if I asked a question, am I going to be real ridiculed? If I asked that question, can I make a mistake without being you know, embarrassed? The other part of that is can I contribute? Do my ideas provide value in my treated as if they are valuable? And then last part, of course, is can I challenge which is very difficult in that traditional environment and public safety. If you challenge the status quo, you may be reassigned somewhere very quickly, you know, and so being psychologically safe in the culture, of course supports how you operate out in the field. When you're going into homes.
Speaker 2 14:18
Look, as we prepare to close time goes quick, but I'd like to get some closing remarks from from each of you
Speaker 3 14:23
closing thoughts at all times, be your best self relationships are everything and I'm grateful for every one that I have. In this life, there is no point where we are, we will find success on our own. And we have to make sure that we take care of everyone along the way because as we grow as as the same ABI all amo, everyone as we grow, we lift as we climb. And I think taking care of your people you'll always be well taken care of. Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 14:49
Thank you Please tell my quotes. But I will always say like, my favorite quote is whether you think you can or you think you cannot, you will always be right. And so if you are in a leadership role. If you are in a service role, and you are of people and you decide that you want to be there for people and support them in whatever way you choose, you have to make a decision that you're going to be intentional. And you're going to be a positive force for their for whatever service you choose. And so he took my quote, but that's, that's what I have. I consistently believe that what do we think we can do it? I believe I can change public safety from where I am when one agency at a time and I'm willing to do it
Speaker 2 15:30
most believe yes, well, the tools I'm pleased to have had you guys on the show, and I get you guys back on again, because I think you got a lot to offer to our community. So to the veterans out there it is, different avenues be a police fire just in general areas of making it public human contact. If we all trust our humanity, we will have a better society. And I want to again, thank you guys for coming in. I'll be in touch with you. Please give us your contact information one more time.
Unknown Speaker 16:00
Sure it's Antoinette tell to you ll and the name of my company is hurdle, LLC, and you can check me out@www.hu RTLELLC de.com
Speaker 2 16:14
All right, catch you guys on the other side with Chief Fernando gray.
Speaker 2 16:27
Good morning, once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. Very excited to introduce the next guests. That is fire chief Fernando gray. Chief art you know, I've been trying to get you for a while and and was able to through your secretary Amy to get you own today after a meeting that you just attended. So thank you so much for your time and effort. How's everything going for you?
Unknown Speaker 16:55
I'm blessed. I don't have any complaints. Thank you again for having me.
Unknown Speaker 16:59
Absolutely. Chief, where were you born and raised there.
Unknown Speaker 17:02
So believe it or not chief? I grew up in the city of Dallas. But I was actually born in a community just east of Dallas called Marshall, Texas.
Unknown Speaker 17:13
Oh, Marshall. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 17:15
so if you're familiar with Shreveport, Louisiana, absolutely. Just a few miles west of Shreveport. So that's where I was born. That's where my family originated from. Yeah, Bert
Speaker 2 17:27
Washington. His father's from Marshall, Texas. And in fact, I got a fam. Down near her she and her husband live in Scotts. I think it's called Scottsville. Only about 30 population of about 30 people, but it's crazy. They're out in the sticks, as they call it. So one and raised. Born in Texas, actually in raised in the big city of Dallas. Cool. So are you married with children? Yes, sir. So
Unknown Speaker 17:56
believe it or not, I've been married for 25 years. We have three beautiful children who the oldest is actually 24 years old and our youngest just turned 19.
Speaker 2 18:09
Okay. All right. So when and where did you start your, your fire service career.
Unknown Speaker 18:16
So I will say for me, I've always wanted to be a firefighter chief. I'll say that the firefighters in the city of Dallas, were always engaged with the community. And for whatever reason, that was something that left a lasting impression on me. So pretty much as soon as I graduated from college, I got it on the fire department in Dallas, I was blessed enough to work for that organization for roughly about 22 years. While I was there, I actually served as a firefighter, paramedic, and engineer, Lieutenant Captain BC deputy chief, and then also Assistant Chief and when I retired from Dallas in 2017, I retired as the Executive Assistant Fire Chief with responsibility over operations. So it was just a really, really good opportunity for me. The department is really really, that was a really large department. So we roughly had about 60 fire stations at to have about 452 people on duty every day. And again, I just really enjoyed my time there. I know you might ask, Well, you know, why don't you come here? Again, that's also an interesting story. And if you'd like for me to talk about it. Yeah, I'd love to share those details.
Speaker 2 19:36
Well, absolutely. I mean, because I know you left for Dallas and went over to Aurora, California, California, Colorado for for a number of years and then here. So yeah,
Unknown Speaker 19:48
so I went to Aurora just immediately after retiring from Dallas and became the fire chief there and I really enjoyed working in that come UT, again, if you've ever been to the Denver area, again, one of the things that's great about Aurora is the fact that it is just on the eastern border of Denver. So there's always a lot going on. The other piece about Aurora that was really great and exciting for me is the amount of growth that that community was experiencing. So when I first got there, believe it or not, we had 15 fire stations, I had the opportunity to serve there for right at five years, little bit over five years. And by the time I left there, we actually had increased our daily staffing, roughly about 25%. So just a lot of growth there, a lot of opportunities. And again, I just thought that was amazing. Now the thing that was different, though about Aurora, than Dallas is just again, Aurora was more of a bedroom community, not as much going on. And that was something that really attracted me to Las Vegas was just the opportunity to be more involved with community events more involved with again, just the the hustle and bustle of, you know, the things that happened in a major and large city. Yeah,
Speaker 2 21:16
a friend of mine used to, in fact, a childhood friend, he lived in a Roy worked for the railroad he passed away about eight years ago. So Paul Wimberly still missed her brother, you know, it is some sometimes sheep when you have a friend, that, for example, in our case, we play tennis, I could never, ever beat that mean, he'd run my he'd run me all over the court, man. But we had a lot of fun together before he passed away. And I visited Denver and Aurora, because that's where he actually lived. He lived in Denver for a short period, he moved to a roar, where he was living when he passed away. But that's, that's, that's really something for folks to, to understand and appreciate. It was more of a bedroom community and you come here, it's a little bit more lively, but but tremendous growth there. We had a tremendous growth period here, during my tenure, in fact, Jean Campbell, he remind me of the number of officers that are promoted, because in speaking of that, you have some openings that you're feeling at this point in time. Yes, sir.
Unknown Speaker 22:22
So first of all, let me just say, again, my condolences to you about the friend that you lost again, as both of us know, again, for whatever reason, some people make an impact in our lives. And it's really hard to let go of that. So again, I do appreciate, and I just want to express my condolences for the loss of your friend. But yeah, again, we have had some opportunities to promote. I'll be quite honest with you a lot of people here recently, and I don't know if you knew this chief, but I just actually hit a benchmark on my tenure here. So I just reached the one year benchmark, this fourth close, a one year benchmark
Unknown Speaker 23:07
here, so it's been great. Thank
Unknown Speaker 23:08
you. Thank you. So more to go hot. So absolutely.
Speaker 2 23:12
I hope that you do and I hope that the the honeymoon will continue, because I, you know, I will say this. And I have said openly when even when I was serving sometimes and I'm not asking you to, to engage in this portion of the conversation. But unions, man, sometimes they can they can be the blues and always just tell you, you present Look, man, I want to get along. I do not want to fight. Because it's not going to do anybody any good. You or your members or myself. And I believe that there's always a way to work through any issues that you have. There's a way to get it done. But you got to be willing to come to the table and get it done. And I can tell you when I was when I was when I took over. We had a $1.5 million overtime. But when I left, it was $10 million. But I knew me and me and Roy Lawson, who was my budget officer. We could count things down cheap deal to a NANOG. We knew how to fix it. But they would let us and I'm talking about and you know, I've said this very candidly to the elected officials, who was over my bosses, of course, the city management that we can fix this but the union when he left me and everybody starts scrambling, but the bottom line is you're there to serve this community, as well as the men and women. I know you're going to be doing it to the best of your ability. But again, congrats on that. That one year anniversary. Keep it moving.
Unknown Speaker 24:44
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, with that being said, again, one of the things that you know we did when we first arrived is we actually put together a plan, looking at the first 100 days kind of what we're going to be doing from a short term standpoint. weigh in. And to be quite honest with you, what I did is I just made a commitment to go to each and every last one of the fire station in did that within the first 100 days and not just go down to talk, I actually did ride alongs at all the stations within that first period. And again, I will say that, from my perspective, I learned a lot about the organization a lot about, you know, potential opportunities for improvement. Then after being here for about 100 days, one of the things that we started to do as a team, and when I say a team, I mean, our leadership team, right? And we actually started looking at, well, how do we take some of these, these gaps, some of these issues concerns that we have, and turn them into opportunities for future success. True. So with that being said, one of the things we did is we did a restructure, we looked at restructuring the organization. With that organization, we were able to identify some additional opportunities for positions, right. So when I first got here, we basically had one senior deputy chief, a deputy chief position that basically was dedicated towards EMS. And then also, we actually had a deputy chief position. That was for operations. So we did some moving, shaking, so to speak, we were able to increase our executive staff capacity. Because again, you know, although we had two deputy chiefs, we only had three assistant chiefs. So now we have five assistant chiefs, and we started filling those positions. You sure what I learned during that process, though, chief is the fact that there were a lot of of opportunities that to be frank that a lot of our members were kind of, I'll just say this kind of leery of, you know, they thought that if they came to an admin role, they hadn't really prepared themselves, that they wouldn't be able to be successful. So that's been a big part of what we're trying to do right now is the people that are in these positions, we're actually trying to give them the necessary support so that they can be successful, not just for a short period of time, but you know, for the duration of the rest of their career, so
Speaker 2 27:18
to speak. Absolutely. In fact, you know, the black firefighters, we took on the city back in the early 80s, one of the things that we wanted was an up and officers Candidate School, which is for everybody. And then when I took over, I know you fill me with executive coaching, I hired executive coaches, not only for myself, but I started with my deputies. And before I could get down to my sister's, Jeanne Campbell hired his own, he say, I ain't waiting. But the bottom line is we have to develop personnel and and I like the idea of going inside as well as outside, if you don't have the talent, then you go outside. But from all I'm here, you're doing a great job, brother. And I encourage you to continue doing what you're doing hand in the business. And we trust that you will be around here for a number of years. So any closing remarks, particularly to any veterans that we may have out there? We may have another minute or so to go? Yes, sir. So
Unknown Speaker 28:15
a couple things I want to say is thank you to all the veterans for their service. Thank you, Chief Washington for, you know, for your service, not just to the armed forces, but you know, to the city, to this community as not only the fire chief, but as a firefighter here for many, many years. Again, people still talk about you. I don't know, again, if you thought that was something that was I don't know if you thought it was something that was great I did is that at the event that we were at yesterday, that I didn't have to tell people who you were those firefighters, they knew exactly who you were. And I think that's critical to to the kind of person that you are. And again, it shows that again, you made a lasting impression on our men and women. So I just want to thank you.
Speaker 2 29:01
All right, appreciate it, Chief. And we'll get you back home because I want to know about some of the other plans and goals you have. And I hope that one of them is to send some of your staff to the car homes executive development institute, and as black or white male or female, it's not to one particular group. But thank you for your time and again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5. She has a more we had the great chief he's going to do good things in our community. Fernando gray fire chief city of Las Vegas, take your CI
Unknown Speaker 29:32
Thank you, Chief
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