Weekly Scrap #285 - Pj Norwood, Give thanks, give life

Corley: Corley Moore coming at you. Wanted to talk very briefly before the scrap starts tonight. And if if you know me, you know that I love the vigilantes. I love the like-minded souls, and I'm always looking for ways that we can have more interaction One of the things that every vigilante says when they join is they're looking to connect with those like-minded souls. They're looking to connect with other vigilantes and people who feel the way they feel. And so I'm constantly looking for ways to make that happen. So far, I love Patreon. I love Patreon for bringing us together, but it hasn't created that the the ability to share information and things the way I wanted. But one thing we did discover was that Discord is integrated into Patreon. So we've been working for the last couple weeks to launch a Discord server where the vigilantes can get together and hang out. Now I'll be the first person to say I am not a tech guru. I'm much better at forcing doors and and hooking ceiling. I'm better at destroying stuff than I am at using technology. But that being said, Discord has so many options that look like they could be phenomenal for the vigilantes and and for our growth and for the fellowship and the camaraderie that we want to share. It's got chat rooms that you can post in. Separated by category where we can have great discussions. It's got voice channels you can jump in and have voice discussions with people at the drop of a hat without any without needing to start a Zoom call or anything. You just drop in and drop out. You can share screens We have plans, people have plans to share classes that they've built so they can get feedback before they go and teach those classes. I mean, there's so much that could be used for this Discord server, and we're just scratching the surface So get in, come be a part of it, man. It looks to be an incredible platform. And if you want to be a part of it, head over to patreon. com slash the vigilantes. Become a part, man. If you're not a vigilante, why not? five bucks a month. You can't even afford a fancy coffee nowadays for five bucks. So five bucks a month, you're you're a member of the like-minded souls.

Corley: So come be a part. Looking forward to seeing and talking to you in the Discord. Stay safe Corley Moore, Firehouse Vigilance. It is weekly scrap number 285 My guest tonight is PJ Norwood. He is the Director of Training for Connecticut Fire Academy, a retired deputy chief from the East Haven, Connecticut Fire Department. He has served four years with the Connecticut Army National Guard. He is an FDIC instructor, fire engineering board member, fire engineering book, and video author, including the Evolving Fireground, researched base tactics. which we are going to be talking about tonight. Not just the book, but research-based tactics. PJ also serves on a FSRI technical panel and the training advisory committee member. All I can say is, man, this has been a long time in the works, and I'm glad we made it happen. Welcome to the show, my brother. You are officially the guest of number 285. PJ Norwood: 285 sounds like a great number, man. It's it has been a long wait, but I know it's worth the way. So you know I'm I'm honored to be here and thanks for this great opportunity tonight Corley: No, absolutely. And honestly, you should have been on a long time ago. It's just the life and and and schedules and working. Is there anything in the intro I missed? Anything you want to add to the intro?

PJ Norwood: No, you know, that's the worst part about all of it, you know, just I don't like hearing about myself or even talking about myself. I'd rather let let the actions and everything else tell the story Corley: I love it. Audience, get chimed in. Get your questions primed and ready. If you want to talk about research-based tactics, specifically training, fire behavior, man, this is the one to absolutely get them in there's already been a ton of chatter in the in the chat yeah without a doubt people checking in from south carolina minnesota i'm reading through all the places where they're checking in from in fact Everybody send where you're checking in from and I'll keep scrolling through. There's some text. Absolutely. With all that being said, let's get to the sponsors so we can get to the scrap. And I can get to this reason for this big, beautiful double header we're having tonight So let's start it off with when it comes to performance under pressure, you need equipment that won't let you down. Firefighter Safety and Accountability starts with being able to quickly find and identify individual firefighters operating on the fire ground. Identifier Safety combines the best in photoluminescent materials for durable firefighter identification solutions that can glow for up to 20 hours. No switches, no batteries, which means being able to rapidly identify firefighters by name, unit, or assignment, even under hot fire conditions. All specifically designed and tested for the rigors of the job. Becene on scene identifier safety. com And tonight, a brand new sponsor special coming at you from Anthony Castros. If you are looking to promote to company or chief officer Mastering the Fire Service Assessment Center is coming up March 25th through the 28th in Nolansville, Tennessee. It's just outside of Nashville. It's an intense four-day workshop. It's based upon the book by Chief Anthony Castros. It's full of hands-on exercises and puts you in the hot seat. It includes the fire engineering ebook and the 24 online self-paced class with over 100 simulation exercises. Join the thousands of firefighters from around America who have come out on the top of their promotional list and become great officers using this curriculum. It's not just about the test, it's about the job. And there you go, some beautiful sponsors, and we are ready to scrap. Before we get going, I want to discuss why the double header occurred.

Corley: And if you know me and you watch the scrap, you know I I I say this all the time. Everything happens for a reason. Everything happens for a reason. Last week, one of my biggest mentors was on the show, Frank Viscuso. I believe he made his third appearance on the scrap And we had a great conversation. And like I do at the end of the scrap, I asked him, is there anybody that you think should be on the scrap that hasn't been on the scrap or someone should come back? And he said PJ Norwood. He he mentioned him on the show. And I was like, ooh, that that is a good, great point. You know, and that was it. That that occurred. And so that we moved forward. And then Frank called me. A few days later and said, hey, Corley, everything happens for a reason, right? And I was like, yeah. Now you gotta understand, I'm a big believer in relationships. Frank has done so much. It's hard to explain the impact Frank's had on me and my family's life. And I I just I'll just put it this way. I'll run through a brick wall for the man. So if he calls me and and asks me to do something, it's a no-brainer to me. I will do whatever he asks. And but he said that there is a mentor of his, Steve Pegram Which many people know. He's been a mentor to many people. He's had a huge impact on the fire service. In fact, he did the FDIC keynote speech in 2016, and you can check that out and see just what he's about. But he's had a huge impact on a lot of people, including Frank and his wife. needs a kidney and he posted about that and Frank saw that and then on that same day and this is where everything happens for a reason PJ Called Frank on the phone and said, Hey, someone told me that you mentioned me on the scrap and I wanted to reach out and say thank you. And they started talking. And the and and where it all comes full full circle is is PJ Norwood is a living donor who has actually given his kidney and I'll I'll let him tell the story, but I want to explain why it all happened because Frank asked me to please share this story.

Corley: So Sam will put the link in the YouTube For if if they they Molly, which is Steve Pegram's wife, needs a living donor, needs a kidney. And if I get any details of the story wrong, PJ, please feel free to interrupt and And and correct me. They're still after a kidney. So if you think you might be a match, if you think you might want to be checked to see if you could match up, if you were especially in the Ohio area. Just click on the link, check it out. PJ can explain more because I'm going to talk to him right now about his kidney donation journey. And that's what that's kind of the lead-in to this first topic, the kidney donation journey. PJ Norwood: Yeah, it's been one hell of a journey. And you know, thanks. Because you know, as you mentioned, Steve, he's a great guy, and I and I encourage anybody to listen to his 2016. keynote, you know, where he outlined the four F's, Faith, Family, Friends, and Fire Department, and related to his wife's story of pulmonary fibrosis leading to her needing a lung transplant. And that was in 2014. Great, successful transplant has been living healthy, living living a normal life since 2014. But now because of all the anti-rejection meds, it's created kidney failure. So she needs a kidney. And as a living donor, I wasn't interested in donating a kidney. I was probably like just about everybody else out there saying no way you know I'm not giving up something that's working good. I'm not going under the knife and giving an organ away You know, and then we had a c a close friend of ours, actually my daughter played travel softball all the way up from eight through through college. And at eight years old, she started playing with this this girl named Mia as her pitcher, and they followed each other all the way through to through to college. So of course, you know, me and the father become friends. long time diabetic had some you know kidney disease problems as as normal of his age and he went into kidney failure and we got the call we're sitting on the kitchen table having dinner my wife my daughter and you know So my wife, well, we're on the phone with his wife, his wife said, hey, well, what do we need to do?

PJ Norwood: We need to go on the list. So got the information. My wife hung up. Says, well, I'm gonna call. I'm like, there ain't no way they're gonna take your kidney because my wife has had some challenges in the past My daughter sitting my right, 21 years old, she goes, well, I'm gonna call. I gotta go on the list. I'm like, yeah, more power to you. You know, I'm not saying that out loud, but thinking up here There ain't no way. Man, I started the fire service at 14 years old. I have a lower expectancy of living a long, healthy life as the most people, like everybody watching. Last thing I want to do is give up an organ, you know, not definitely not not on my bingo card, you know. And a coup week went by and my wife made the call. My daughter, you know, started the process and my wife goes, hey Did you call yet? I'm like, I'll get to it. You know, I'll I'll get to it. Week goes by later, she goes, hey, you know, what are you waiting for? You know, my wife was really on me for Like, well, you know, I'm not I'm gonna I'm gonna give a call. And then she she throws out this line on how she felt and she goes, Well, I had a call, because if anything ever happens to Joe I would never be able to look his wife and his daughters in the eye again if I didn't do everything possible. I'm like, oh, right there. Right. So that's when I really started looking into it, doing my research, and I couldn't find a reason not to. Right? You know, it was so much unknowns and so much information and knowledge that I just didn't have that I realized that there was absolutely no reason not to donate. But then I went into well, yeah, what are the chances, right? What are the chances I'm actually gonna be a match? Oh sure no, man. Every test just started clicking away, clicking away like Oh shit, man, I it it might work out that way. You know, and that was the summer of 22, and by November 22nd, they took my right kidney and gave it to Joe. And I'm probably healthier now than I was before. He's living a great life.

PJ Norwood: He has no issues. You know, they As a transplant patient, they're always gonna have some some struggles with anti-rejection badges. Sure. But man, he he's living a great life. His his you know his wife, his daughter You know, so it was just that journey for me that man I never, ever would have signed up for, right? That just was not in my wheelhouse whatsoever. So when I like when I talk about this, I like to say, listen, man, you know, you're probably the same place that I was, right? But if you have any questions, you know, chat with me. Let's talk about it because it's not as scary as you think Granted, I was scared going into surgery that day and that night before, I'll I'll be the first one to tell you. I was very, very nervous. But as far as I think I would have felt the same way any type of surgery, right? But there I found that there was absolutely no reason for me not to donate. And things have just worked out really, really good. So, you know, you having me on the show tonight to kind of tell that story a little bit. Maybe somebody, one of your watchers. will hear about this. You know, they can there's there's options to give direct donation directly to Molly if they're a match, but there's other opportunities also. There's a swap program, there's indirect program. So maybe one of your listeners tonight isn't a match with Molly. Well they can enter a swap program where they donate to somebody else who has somebody in their family or their network that has a kidney that they're willing to donate, but that's not a match, and they can give that to Molly, you know There's a lot of other other opportunities out there. And I would encourage your listeners, if they have any questions, ask away. You know, maybe they don't want to ask on you know here. I'll give you my cell phone number. Call me. Let's talk. Because if we can help save Molly Or even somebody else out there.

Corley: Yes. PJ Norwood: Giving up a kidney is really not a big deal like I thought it was. Corley: No, that's amazing. and like you say, because you're I'm probably a lot like you where it's like, there's no way I'm giving up organ. You know, I just not like you said, not on my bingo card. but to hear you talk about it and kind of assuage the like the the unknown. This fear of the unknown is what it comes down to, honestly PJ Norwood: Yeah, exactly. And you know, through good, you know, good through the National Kidney Foundation, you know, getting a mentor, talking to other live donors, talking to some other, you know, people who receive kidneys, kind of put the whole story together Man, it was really n not a big deal, right? You know, and it sounds like you're giving an organ away, but you got two. Corley: You don't need a and and you may downplay it's not a big deal. You did save a life. I mean let's let's let's be real. I mean, this is a chance to make a grab. I mean you made a grab. PJ Norwood: I gave him quality of life. I don't like this. He would have he you know you can live on dialysis and somebody else would have came through on it, but I gave him the quality that I wanted. You know? His daughter's 21, same age as my daughter, 22 now And man, I I look forward to the day that he walks you down the aisle, you know, because he'll be there for that.

Corley: That's awesome, brother. No, and and and listeners, man. Do me a solid, do Molly a solid, do PJ a solid, and take that link and share it on your social media. Spread the word. I mean, the best thing you can do is be a match and donate a kidney. But the next best thing you can do is spread the word. Spread the word to everybody. So there we go. That is the reason for the doubleheader. It's timely. PJ, Frank, everything happens for a reason. Yeah, absolutely. I would give it max points. I agree with you, McGinn. Max points. Okay, so let's get to fire dynamics and research. one of my favorite topics actually. Yeah, now that no pressure at all. You've been at this a while, my brother. You've been you've been on the on the tip of the spear, the cutting edge of research based tactics Stop believing, stop, start, no. I mean, the evolving fire ground. What as a fire service do you think we're getting right? And what direction are you glad to see us heading in? PJ Norwood: So I think we're getting right. Corley: I try to start on a positive. I want to start on a positive before I go to the obvious.

PJ Norwood: You know, I think that's a great question that nobody's ever framed me before. I think what we're getting right is we're we're listening We're paying attention and we're vetting the information in the firehouse but also out in the fire ground. You know, when We Sean Gray and myself we really started talking about this, that pendulum swing. You know, there was times it was it was over here, you know, and probably a little bit too extreme. But it's kind of settled in now. You know, we we've debated around the firehouse kitchen table. We've tried it on the fire ground. We figured out what has worked, what hasn't worked. We've married that with the research and it's really coming to fruition now. You know, when we first started talking about this, man, there was a lot of haters. You know, as you know, there was a Sean and I and many others, we took a lot of beatings, right? but now it's kind of understandable that, listen, we're not, you know. Trying to change the world. We're not saying to throw out all of your tactics, everything that you that you do, or everything that you've done, or everything that you've experienced, everything that you learned. It's like, listen, here's another set of information that's based off of science Let's figure out where it applies for your community, for your department, right, to make the biggest impact on firefighter safety, but also the safety of those in your community.

Corley: No, I love it. And and you said that like like hey, here's the science. Let's figure out how we can implement this. What do you think like especially a fired up firefighter who goes to a class, catches a class. webinar or reads a book it's like man this is amazing and they go back what do they how why why is it so ill received at times especially from the I don't want to just put it all on the older older guard or whatever but Generally speaking, it usually is someone stuck in their ways or whatever and say, oh yeah. PJ Norwood: What why? The why is the why is the big question, right? Why I think in this personal opinion, not based on really anything, is that people think or some of those firefighters think that we're telling them that they've been doing something wrong. You know, when you come into the fire service, you're told one thing. You you're told one thing, you read it in the textbooks, you go through your training, you utilize those skills, those tactics in the fire ground, you see the positive impact of it. And then somebody else is telling you that there might be a different way. Well, don't tell me there's a different way. This works. I've read it, I've studied it, I passed a promotional exam, and I've been crawling down that hallway and I've seen the impact. So don't tell me it doesn't work or there's a better way. And I think that's where it really comes to, you know, because we see things one-dimensional. When you're pushing down the hallway, you just see what's what's kind of in front of you and you hear everything else going around you. But you don't see that whole picture, that whole 360. You see right what's in front of you You know, so you ex- we experience certain things in the fire ground, but that is and might not be exactly what's happening all the way around you. Those are the things that we can't see or can't feel. We just feel that that immediate Right. So then he has somebody like, you know, you know, a science guy with a propeller around his head wearing a white coat. He's a scientist, you know, telling you that you should be doing something different. People get a little standoffish and I get it

Corley: So we think do you think it's well obviously I like Rob Fisher said ego, pride Cody Brooks said pride gets in the way. Alan Glugofsky says administrative insecurity and there all those things play into it, I think. also our delivery I don't know. I don't want to say, yeah, because everything they're saying is true. I don't want to say it's all on how you deliver it and and all those other things don't matter, but I definitely think it all plays into it. Absolutely. So we're getting some stuff right. And and and this the other part I I'll throw at you is is because you've kind of been on the forefront of the social media impact on the fire service. I mean, social media is not that old in the grand scheme of things. it is very new and the fire service is still figuring out how it all plays together. Because what when I hired on A, it was a whole bunch of The old guard was leaving out. It was all Gen Xers that were coming up. And you just said, yes, sir, whatever you say, sir. And that was it. There was no asking why or anything like that. You just did as you were told. And it was 30 degree power cone. You you watched out for the steam inversion and that that thermal imbalance and and all these things that now but that's the way it was. If you just said that's not the way it is, or you know Yeah, it's just yeah, that's it. That was it. But now there's social media. That's I try to bring it back to my original point before I lost it. The social media, and it's out there, and there's so it's just so much information coming at us.

PJ Norwood: There is, and that's good and bad, right? You know, because a lot you the the problem that I see is just because you have a social media platform and people are listening to you does not mean you're you're giving the right information. You know, that's where some of Stop Believing, Start Knowing came from. That actually came from Steve a conversation Steve Kerber and Sean Gray were having. And Sean said to Steve, you know, what do you really want out of this? Like what's the goal here? What do you try to figure out? And Steve said, I just want everybody to stop believing. X, Y, and Z and start knowing. And Sean was like, well, that that that's brilliant. That's what we want, right? The fire service. We have all this stuff that we believe But now because of the research, we can actually know. We could know the truth based by science. And then we could figure out how do we apply that to the fire grounds, right? Corley: Hmm. No, without a doubt. and we just get the damn ego out of the way. PJ Norwood: That's hard. That's hard for all of us. Corley: No doubt about it. No doubt about it. Even when you think, and that's the thing, and that's the worst part, is if it's in the way, rarely are you aware that it's in the way. but so we talked about getting right stuff right. What are we getting wrong still? And what do we need to do better?

PJ Norwood: What are we getting wrong? I should have been prepped for that one. I think where we're getting wrong. And I know it's a broad, broad question, but very broad brush, but so I'm gonna I'm gonna go where I I've gone with UL and the training advisory committee. You FSRI has done a great job at getting the information out. But all the information that they put out, all the research, all of the training modules, has always been directed to the same group of people. The fire service. It's never been broken down. What information does the firefighter need? What information does the first line company officer need? Corley: Okay. PJ Norwood: What information does the chief officer need What information do the fire instructors need? Right? So we've just thrown all of this information out, but we haven't really segregated it by who needs what. Right? And if you look at the FSI training modules of three, four years ago, it was just all one. Well now what they're starting to do through a group that I'm involved in with the North American Fire Training Directors. we're actually doing some instructor development because one of the number one problems I've had at the Connecticut Fire Academy is I had all this ability, knowledge, information of fire dynamics. But I didn't have the instructors that were well versed enough to teach that information. I have a great staff. I have great instructors that they're all in. They want to learn. They want to do the best that they can But if it's new to them, now we're teaching it to them. I can't expect them to get in the front of the classroom and now teach it, right? Just because you've been through a class doesn't mean you're good enough to sit in the front of the room and talk about it, right? So we haven't done a great job at educating the fire service leaders and the fire service instructors to give them the ability to teach the information properly. Right. So that's where we're really working on now. So if you were to say, what are we doing wrong? I would say that's what we were doing wrong. But FSRI is really right of the ship on that and they're starting to get it right and make a difference.

Corley: Oh, that's beautiful. So is that so the he said the North American fire training directors? PJ Norwood: Yep, so every state has a director of training. There's only one per state, and actually not even every state has one. So there's less than 50 of us. And we meet in person twice a year. We meet virtually once a month to learn what each state is doing, to network and to work with each other. It's a great group of training directors from across the country and there's some provinces in Canada where we're really trying to get this information out to the state training academies so then we can have that trickle-down effect to all of our instructors across the country Corley: No, I love that. And and so FSRI's new training modules are gonna come out specifically with with is it gonna be like summaries for the firefighter, summaries for the the company officer, or is it is it Describe to me what the vision is if it's not already implemented. PJ Norwood: Yep. So what they started doing is re is redoing all of their training modules and breaking them up in micro lessons. So before you had to go in and you start and you, you know, 45 minute, hour, hour and 20 minute lesson. And you ought to be all in for that whole time. But now they're breaking them out in mini modules. So you can just go in and you can take what you're interested in. You could take what you have a question on. You could say, hey, we just had this incident and we did X. All right, let me figure out where that is in the training module and hit just that. So then if you're a training officer, you're a training division, you can then start assigning modules based on the roles. And this instructor development piece, we're running it for the first time. the very first cohort, we're in unit three now, and it's a one-year program of one module per month. And once we get through the first year of that and we work out the kinks, it will be something that, you know, FSRI will be looking to roll out how we handle that, how they we get that done we they still don't know. Right. But it's in the process of you know we're within the fur we're in module three now so we're in the in the fourth month of this instructor development program through FSRI that's focused right on the instructors

Corley: That's beautiful, man. I love you know seeing well, especially having a vision to chase and see it come to fruition. and I'm excited to see how that plays out. we talked about stop believing, stop, start knowing. that journey. What's the biggest thing? Do you still have something that you want to say, please stop believing this? Like, is there a is there a biggest one, a biggest pet peeve of yours personally or anything, or not really? PJ Norwood: Yeah, you know, not just stop believing the the online BS. You know what I mean? You know, make sure who you're listening to is vetted Make sure that what they have is quality information and then go do your research, right? Just because you know I'm standing up in front of the classroom, I'm not the expert, right? I have a good knowledge base, but I'm not the expert. Go back to the research, go back to the books, validate what I'm saying. If somebody online says something, even if you think they're good, you know that they're good. Well, you may think they're good because they have a great social media platform. It doesn't mean what they're talking about is right. Go back to the books and validate it, right? In that whole, you know, quick scroll, you know, 30-second clip. Doesn't mean those people are right Right? Long are the days of you know like the John Normans and the Vincent Dunn's and you know the these big people where you had to go, you paid big money, you sat in the class or you read their books. And you knew you're all in. Now it's easy to be an expert by just having a good social media platform. So stop believing the bullshit. Well, if I could say that, I'm sorry. No, you're good. This is crap.

Corley: You're good. Right? PJ Norwood: I'm good. Stop believing the bullshit, right? And learn, man. Know your job. Right? Know your job for you. Know your job for your family. And know your job for your community. And be the best that you could by validating the information, not just taking somebody's word for it. Corley: Love it. I absolutely love that research it yourself is basically your biggest one stop believing start knowing don't just believe the guy because he's in front of you start knowing and this this is just another this is a side note because of my brain People self-censor on the scrap. I didn't I didn't realize this for a long time. Like there's no reason I'm not encouraging cursing or or or or foul mouths or anything like that, but it's just they pe they self-censor. And I'm like I'd never realized it, but someone pointed it out. But no, absolutely. It's the internet. We're good to go. To your level of comfort. I don't, just because I know my grandpa watches everyone. in a while. That's the only reason I don't. PJ Norwood: Sorry, grandpa. Corley: That's the only reason I try not to. I'll put it that way. Sometimes I like sometimes the guest gets me fired up or the or the chat. No, absolutely. Where are we at? Seven years since Evolving Fire Ground. Man, that little book. I love that little book when it came out. It was one of the first, like, well, hey, it was very firefighter friendly. the size wasn't intimidating for for you know knuckle draggers etc and but seven years is there any thought to the future of the evolving fire ground and evolving it

PJ Norwood: Yeah, so you know Sean and I struggled with that. You know, Fire Engineering Books and Videos was you know kind of knocking at our door, you know, you know, before Bobby Haunt passed away, he would you know he started asking us about it And once he passed away, kind of everything went, you know, silent for a little bit and that that transition. And real quick, you know, Diane and David started docking say, hey, you know, what do you want to do? And Sean and I knew that whenever we pull the trigger and say, yeah, let's go, right, we're going to leave so much off the table because by the time you write and you publish and you produce. Research continues, so we're not going to be able to get it all there, right? So where's that balance, right? we probably dragged our feet for about a year, maybe a year and a half with with fire engineering saying we're just not ready yet. One time commitment, it's a it's a big time commitment. You know, for us it's not just You know, writing our experiences or writing our thoughts or writing our opinions. When we write this information, we then have to dive into each piece of research to validate it, to make sure it's accurate, right? Make sure it's in line with research. So there's a lot of background work that goes on with it. But yes, we did pull the trigger, probably signed the new contract with Fire Engineering maybe about four or five months ago. So we are working on the the second edition we will have it's not gonna be 100% new content, right? Because a lot of the content in the book is still pertinent and appropriate, but we're probably gonna have sixty percent new content with the goal of not making it too much bigger, right? Because I agree that that size It's good. You know, the size of the book, the format of the book is good and really working to keep it firefighter-friendly and to give you the readers. what they need to know. You know, and one pro one thing that we've seen and the reason we did the book was FSRI was putting out great information, but to research it's it's hundreds of pages thick. You know, I don't know too many firefighters that are actually going to read that and actually digest it.

PJ Norwood: So what do they do? They go to the executive summary. Oh, then they're just then they're just cherry picking. You know what I mean? That's not given the story of what they need. So Sean and I were trying to find the executive summary, but with the details. Right? Not the whole research, but the executive summary with the details that an officer, a firefighter, a chief can bring it to the table, read the book, get some good information that they can go and it and apply right away on their fire ground or their training ground to figure out what's going to work for them. Corley: Well I think as a target for what you were trying to do, I think you you hit it really, really well. And I'm I'm excited about the next evolution of it Especially if you can manage to add 60% content without without making it just bigger and bigger and bigger. So that again, a great vision to chase. PJ Norwood: Yeah, we're we're working hard and We'll we'll get there. Hopefully by FDIC 27 it will be out hopefully before that. it won't be out by 20 26. It will be it should be on the shelves by 26, hopefully sooner than that. That's that's the ultimate end target day, you know.

Corley: Nice, nice, beautiful. Kyle Pivot coming at you with the first question from the audience. What are some solid ways to truly vet the info you are getting? PJ Norwood: Vet the person. You know, what's their pedigree? Where are they from? What have they done? What are they talking about? you know I like you know being so close being in Connecticut being so close to FDNY you know I have some some friends that have retired I have friends and chief officers I have some current friends that are that are on the job And they use the word pedigree. You know, what's their pedigree? What company did they start with? What company did they go to? What part of the city, you know, the what borough do they work in? Because not every borough is equal and not every company is is the same, right? So look at their pedigree, right? And look at what they've done. Now, but there's also the caveat, right? I come from a small department. I don't come from a big city department. Right, but I've put the work in. I put the time, the energy, and the effort in to make sure that when I'm speaking about something, one, I can relate to it and I'm staying in my lane. You'll never hear me talk about high-rise fires. I have one high-rise in my district and I've never fought a fire in it, right? So you want to vet the person, see where they're from, what they're doing, their pedigree, and make sure that they're staying in their lane. And really talking about something that they've done and that they've experienced.

Corley: I love that. I absolutely love that. Relationships, I talked about it earlier. Relationships are so powerful, Kyle. Man, and and making those relationships so that you can one of the best ways to vet somebody is to find out if people that you respect respect them or have heard of them or can vet can speak for them. And that is a powerful power Easy way to do it if there is a connection. If there's not a connection, of course, you got to do the legwork. And that that that there's no sometimes you just got to do the work. Tellboard Misfits is coming at you. What is the biggest misinformation you see that may be contradictory to what the research is saying? And he said, yes, this is a broad question. PJ Norwood: Very broad. I would think it's not so much misunderstood now with the whole n pushing fire debate. Right? That was that was a big one because when you you know you can go to YouTube, you can find some videos and you could see videos that make it appear that you're pushing fire because Yeah, you could move products of combustion. You could move smoke. You could move heat and fuel. You know, so pushing fire, the actual combustion, no, you can't do. But when you understand the physics piece, you realize that you're not gonna push fire. And I think that's the piece that still confuses some people and and it's difficult, right? Well some of this stuff is, you know, I wasn't a a college scholar, you know, in physics and And so to learn some of this stuff and then being able to apply it could be challenging. But push and fire is is what comes to mind for me. Hopefully I answered it good enough for him.

Corley: No, no, absolutely. I mean it was a very broad question, so you get to go wherever direction you want. yeah, he says EHFD might be small, but damn, can they work? That came from Gary R52001. And so love it. Keep the questions coming in, scrappers, as you keep throwing them in there the us versus them mentality. I want to hear. PJ Norwood: Alright, so you know we have a you know Part of the fire service that it's about them, it's not about us, right? And you can't disagree with that. That's why we're here. We're here whether you're a career firefighter or a volunteer firefighter, we are here to save those in our community, right? To do whatever we need to do to to make that rescue, to make that grab, to put that fire out so we can our brothers and sisters can make that grab. But the piece that some miss, in my opinion, is if you don't take care of yourself, you can't get to them. If you don't take care of yourself physically, emotionally, If you don't take care of yourself to making sure that you're trained and you're ready, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you want to do or what you think you're capable of doing. If you're not taking care of yourself, Right as a whole, you can't take care of that. Right? Same thing when you look at you know take it away from the fire ground, right? You know, pure pure support and you know the the mental impacts of the job. We have a lot of great firefighters across the country that are taking care of others in their firehouse. And in time They can't take care of those people because now they're they're filled up, right? And they have to take care of them so that they can go take care of their brothers or sisters So that us versus them, it's just one of those things I always like to remind somebody is yeah, we have to put them first, but before that, you have to take care of you. You have to take care of you, you have to take care of your family so you can be prepared to go get them.

Corley: I like it. And it is one of those hot hot button topics. It's the easy to to compartmentalize box and say, no, you're wrong, and I'm right. And this is why. You know. And there is some nuance to what you're saying. I absolutely love what you're saying. A lot of people said timestamp for sure. Timestamp, timestamp. I got another question coming at you from the audience, and we'll get back to but What is sorry, Luke Stevenson coming at you from down under? What was an example of a belief you had which you investigated slash tested and proved yourself wrong about? PJ Norwood: Yeah, so the first thing that comes to mind is during the Attic Fire technical panel. Right? So we go out to Northbrook, Illinois to do all the the tests. And it put up the chart on how we think the best ways to extinguish the attic fire is. Right? Eve attack Lowest one on my list, dead last, right? Because I've never done it. Why would we put water into it to an Eve, right? You know, we're gonna go inside, we're gonna hook the whole ceiling, we're gonna pull it all down, we're gonna put water up there man, everything that I thought about ag fires because everything that I actually did were the last things. You know, so I'm like, well, soft it. Sof it's gonna work. We've done SOFIT, right? That did work You know what I mean? That was low on the scale. And that was that really awakening moment for me during the technical panel to realize that listen, just because I've done something so many ways and so many times over and over my career that there's obviously could be better ways out there. That was like that that big light bulb moment for me with with research on that technical panel that man I couldn't be so more wrong. on the ways that I was performing on the fire ground. Now our fires went out, right? Don't get me wrong. We put the fires out there. You had success. Yeah, you had success. We had success. But man, when you look at what how we equal success sometimes isn't always the best way because man, now we look at it and how we're fighting attic fires is so much more efficient and so much better for those in our community

Corley: Love it. Love it. Man, questions flying in here. I'm trying to catch up. Belez, hit me back with a better wording on the how can we validate the experience? I don't understand the question. It might be on me Alan Glogowski wants to know, PJ, how can someone who has invested in the profession convince the in a quotation mark powers to be or powers that be in buying into change and believe that I'm trying to make the department better? Very easy question right here. PJ Norwood: Yeah. So don't don't put don't push too hard. Don't push too hard because some of those individuals, when you push too hard, their defense mechanism automatically goes right up. Something Sean and I like to do is when we go to departments and we're going to give training, you know, who's who attends the training? The firefighters, the company officers. Who doesn't attend the training? In some places, not all Is the Chiefs. Corley: Yeah. PJ Norwood: Well, the Chiefs are the ones that have to adjust the policies and procedures so the firefighters can do it. So what we try to do is try to get a chief officer class or chief officer seminar short To the point, right? What are we going to be discussing with your firefighters and what are they going to be bringing to you and looking for change Oh no, we just did that in the in the city of Hartford, the Kn the city of Hartford, Connecticut, brought the Connecticut Fire Academy in and do some fire dynamics. We did a classroom, did the alcohol prop. But before that, we went in, we went with all their chief staff, all their deputies, their battalion chiefs, their chief of the department, they all just them in the room. And we went through an abbreviated program of everything that we're going to teach the teaching their line their line companies. and answered their questions and made sure that they were comfortable and understanding what we're doing. You know, so if you're having struggles in your department, Maybe get them in front of somebody else, not you. Because like they Mike Galiano taught me a long time ago, you can't be a prophet in your own land. Right. So get somebody else from the outside in that can maybe communicate with that that chief officer on what you're trying to do but just don't push too hard because when you push too hard sometimes they're gonna shut right down on you.

Corley: Right on brother I love that. Now how long have you been doing the the talking to the chiefs part of the class? Is that a new thing? Is that a PJ Norwood: No, so I'm I'm gonna go back probably maybe eight, ten years. We the first time Sean and I did that was in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We were going out there to their Fire Academy and they were bringing in departments from all over the Cape So on day one, we did that chief officer seminar. Right. And that's when we realized and I don't I don't think that was our idea. It could have been. I don't remember. It was quite a while ago. Right. But it was ever idea it was, it worked out good. Corley: No, it's brilliant. It's it's beautiful because you know, one of the things I always say, if you want to make a change in your department, promote because get to the point where you can start writing policy. That's the number one way you can be effective in changing your department. But That is I love that, especially from the instructor side of things, because you actually are pre-prepping. Hey, this is what your guys are gonna be coming back from this class telling you to do. So here's a little heads up. and actually sets them up for success. I mean, that's I love that. tailboard Misfits. There's a lot of stuff around this whole implementing change in your department. I hope you don't mind, PJ. Tell Telboard Misfits, John Velez has come out. He says, how can we explain the importance of data and research to our old heads? Without seeming like we are telling them they've been doing it wrong for their entire career. Never heard this question before, I'm sure.

PJ Norwood: Yeah. Don't tell them they're doing it wrong. Don't as soon as you tell them they're doing it wrong, game over. demonstrate, show, have discussions, right? Open up the dialogue in a non-threatening manner Because you have to understand that, you know, let's take, give you an example, let's talk about vertical ventilation, right? We're all taught that when you when you perform vertical ventilation, cut a hole in the roof, you get that lift and everything gets better Right? We've been told that. We've read it in the books. It's on promotional exams. And then we get in that hallway, and what do we feel? Relief. So vertical ventilation has to work. Vertical ventilation has to equal cooling because that's what we've read, that's what we've learned, and that's what we've experienced. But the piece that's missing is ventilation doesn't equal cooling. Water equals cooling. Right? But what happens is when we open up that roof, we get that lift We get that flow path, that inflow of fresh, cool air. So now we have the perception that everything's getting cool around us. What's actually not? It's feeding that fire and temperatures are actually rising. Water is what makes it better, right? Water is what cools down the environment. And when you can put it in a way that you can explain what's happening, that listen, you haven't been we haven't been doing anything wrong. There's just a different way. We can have a different result. Right? Not always better, not always worse, but let's look at this. Let's try this in training. You know, my ideas could be really wrong, but hey, brother, let's try this in training and just see how it works out

Corley: Boom, there you go. let me delete. There we go. Coming at you from I like this question. This is from Luke Swigert. He says, from the position of a young fireman. What would you say is the best way to start building a pedigree for your future? PJ Norwood: Study. Read Get some good mentors, you know. Figure out who in the fire service you can relate to from a department that's similar, right? Now we can learn from everybody out there. Right, but try to find mentors that have the ability or have worked in departments similar to your size of your department in your response agency And hook up with them, man, right? There's nobody in the fire service. All the national speakers out there, they'll all have a conversation with you. They'll all get on the phone and have a conversation because they're no different than you are. Right? You know, my very first FDIC, I go to the author's dinner, and I get sit, the only seat left was next to John Sawka and Rich Lask Chief Lasky. Right. I'm like, I don't belong here. I'm out of here. Right. And I remember Solka grabbed me and goes, hey brother, sit down. You're no different than all of us. You put your pants on the same way. You know, and here's this legend that I grew up in the fire service, especially being so close to to New York City, reading about, watching, you know, buffing, you know, his career. Now I'm sitting next to him realize It's the same answering questions, having a conversation just like we are, right? So find some good mentors, find some good people that you can attach yourself with. and learn you know hook up with some instructors you know depending on where you are how far your state fire training academy is try to get in there and man just just take your time don't rush it You know, don't rush it. Sit sit back, get some good mentors, and learn as much as you can, and it will come.

Corley: Brother, yeah. Sean's Sean's question, getting ready to get Sean's question. But great question. Luke, I was trying to figure out who you asked it. I'm like, Luke. Great question, Luke. And PJ. PJ is spot on, man. Relationships and and Network. Man, just powerful. Powerful. This one, Sean's question. Lots of people want this one answered. Sam told me that in the notes. Lots of people want this one answered. And someone even said, I hope the tone stays silent until he answers your question, Sean. So yeah, absolutely. It's a popular question. how do you keep yourself in check when days get tough and negativity takes over? So taking a turn for another direction. PJ Norwood: Yeah, so so I'm gonna just gonna get a little deep, right? I wasn't always like that. Right? It's I'm no you know I wear I'm very passionate, always wear my emotions on my sleeve pretty well. So always didn't have those good results in the firehouse come coming up. but five years ago, my wife said she had some challenges, right? So my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. She's great now, she's healthy, she's upstairs. Probably listen actually, so she's probably gonna kill kill me when I come up to talking about this, right? Okay. But experiencing that has given me a completely different perspective on life. Like the worst thing that's ever happened to us as a family today is one of the gifts to me because it's completely changed my mentality. Right, nobody on this scrap tonight, or nobody in the fire service, can say something that's gonna get me that pissed off because listen, it doesn't impact me Right? It doesn't matter, right? Because what what matters, right, is upstairs. Right? What matters is your family and your friends and the relationships of people that you're close with, right? So just because you're trying to deliver a message and deliver a point and somebody disagrees with you, you know, when we were first starting to talk about Dahouses and And we can get into that, those controversies and you know, exterior water. Yeah, man, before before I went through those challenges, I didn't always answer it the right way. You know, that pendulum was swinging. Sometimes I was pushing it too far the other way as well, right But going through and experiencing what we experienced as a family has completely changed me for the better as a person.

PJ Norwood: So it's easy for me to sit back here and man, I wish I had the perspective that I have now. 10-15 years ago, man, or even longer, man. It would have been a so much of a better ride. My blood pressure would be so much lower, and I would have so many less enemies because I wouldn't have pissed so many people off. It's just not right. It's just not worth it, man. It just be who you are. And you know what? You're never going to make everybody happy. Everybody's not going to agree with you. And that's okay, right? Because what's what's important are the people that you're close with in your life Corley: Brother, I love that. Yeah, I love again, I'm sitting here saying I love that. And that's really unusual for me on the scrap, I'm sure. Great. I love that perspective, man. And how do you even argue with it? There's not much else you can say with it. PJ Norwood: I just wish I had it a long time. I just wish I had it a long time ago, man, because it would have saved so much anxiety problem. Corley: You know, you'd never wish that experience on anybody to gain them the perspective. So just learn from PJ's words here and and and try to file that away and and what's the right word? vicariously learn the lesson?

PJ Norwood: Yeah. Yeah. I pissed off enough people for you, so don't do it. Corley: I like this question from Luke Stevenson. He's coming at you from different Luke than the last Luke. This is Luke Stevenson from Australia. Related question. What was your biggest victory? What was something which you got massive resistance to, but won over the haters on? What made that victory happen? So there's lots of parts to that question, but. PJ Norwood: Yeah, there's a lot of parts. I have to say the Dollhouse. You know, there was just so much hate on the Da House when we started. You know, and I'm sure there's still some out there. You know, the story with that is you know Ed Hartin, who's the chief of W South Wibley Island in in Washington. Sean and I were really starting to dive into the fire behavior. And Ed Hart reached out to Sean and goes, hey, listen, you know Got these plans for this box out of Sweden. I goes I I think you and PJ can could use this. So of course Sean's like yeah send it to me. So Sean built the first dollhouse. Square box, no peaked roof on it, and went down to MAFC. We started Burnham. And like, well, this is pretty cool, right? It kind of takes the lesson and makes it turn makes it live. Right. So I started doing a little here in Connecticut and I had this guy he's a Italian chief in Stanford, Connecticut now. He was a training chief in the volunteer department locally. So I want you to come do that class and Will you burn that box? Like, yeah, but you know, you got to build it because I ain't no carpenter. So if you build it, we'll burn it. A couple days later he goes, oh, what if we put a peaked roof on it and make an attic space? What do you think? Well let let's give it a shot, right? Well we're gonna burn it, we're gonna have some fun and we'll see what happens. And that's how the Da House took off. That's why we call it the Palmer's Box, because that's Battalion Chief Matt Palmer out of Stanford, Connecticut. And it's it's taken off from there. You know, and in the beginning, you know, and I got the the t-shirt to prove it. We could talk about that later, right?

PJ Norwood: There was hate, right? We burnt how we burnt fire, you know was it real real houses real houses not da houses you know pj norwood and sean gray they only had to fight fires in dah houses you know Listen, now if you look that up on YouTube or Google, man, there are pages and pages of doc. We love it, right? Because we share it every day. We'll share with us. Matt Palmer improved it with changing up the plans, adding the peaked roof to it. And we just put it back out there, man. And we don't need to burn Dowhouses. Everybody watching this show tonight Whether it's live or on the record, you could do it yourself. Build them and burn them. You don't need PJ Norwood, you don't need Sean Gray, right? But you can learn so much from that Dahouse. I'm a much better incident commander now than ever before from the Dowhouses. Corley: Oh, I can tell you we built three Palmers, one for each shift. Insight fire training came and Andy and John Lightly both have been on the scrap, but both of them came and and I'm telling you it's What you can learn about fire behavior, it's it's a great tool. It's for understanding flow path and and everything.

PJ Norwood: that's what it is. Corley: It's a it's a tool to learn understanding the the the concepts. It's not Yeah, okay. We can do no more 1403 burning. PJ Norwood: We're only gonna be able to burn in Dawhouses. We heard it all, you know, so there's a lot of hate on us for that for a while. Corley: I love it. I yeah. Great question, Luke. Great questions tonight. And and Josh even said it. where I I saw it just a minute ago. These questions are extra freaking awesome tonight. Yeah, you guys are killing it. We got Sean's. Okay, we talked about drill houses, not doll houses. You have the t-shirt to prove it. The love and the hate of the of the social media. The personal journey. You touched on your wife and her battle with cancer, and she's upstairs. after 25 years of service, you retired and you talk about medical benefits. And you said what's it this topic? I want to give you a voice to talk about this for a minute. PJ Norwood: Yeah, so listen, I'm just, you know, I'm just 50 now, right? So I I'm young, you know, maybe not not as young as some of the listeners tonight. Right, but 25 years in the job, I started as an explorer, then volunteer, spent seven years in the volunteer ranks, then in the career department for 25 years. I was nowhere near ready to retire You know, the last thing I wanted to do was walk out of that place. It was, you know, 14 years old, living in a house with six women. My house was painted pink. So when I strolled into the firehouse at 14 years old, I was introduced to a world I had no idea existed. And I was hooked, right? There was I was hooked. There was nothing else. That's the department that I got hired for too and worked my career. You know, achieved the deputy chief rank, deputy chief for training and safety. Went for the chief's job, got beat out by Matt Mark Rally from the city of New Haven, who's doing a great job. And was year and a half, two years under his command, and things were going good. You know, it was going really good. but our collective bargaining agreement was changing. Our medical benefits were changing. I wasn't going to be there long enough to take advantage of the new benefit package to really make it beneficial for me.

PJ Norwood: After going through what we went through with my wife and man, I got those benefits where you hate to say it, but you can't get those benefits anymore from you know the late 80s and early 90s And it was just the right thing to do, right? So retired and that gave me, and sometimes I'm even ashamed to say it, right? But but I earned it. I locked in, right? So what I pay for my medical benefits today I'll pay for me, my wife, my daughter until she's 26 until I go on Medicare, then it pays my Medicare supplement. It was like a no-brainer. Two different financial guys looking at it and they both came back to it. you don't stay. Don't risk losing the medical benefits. You know, and my whole career before that, you know, the old school guys, you know, contract negotiations. you know we want the raise give me the raise i want the raise and some of those old school guys don't worry about the raise protect the benefits protect the benefits but i never used the benefits so it didn't matter to me But when I needed them, they were there and I didn't want to risk losing those for me, my wife, my daughter. And honestly, that was the hardest thing I do I did was leaving that department. But man, when one door closes another opens and it's it's been great since you know it's very very good so it was well worth it for me for my career And man, they got a the department has changed so much. They're doing such great things, man. It's such a young department. And they're really doing really, really good. Like I said kind of earlier in a roundabout way, once you leave, somebody else is going to step right in there and it's going to be PJ Who, you know, and they they do great they do good work.

Corley: No, that's the yeah, no doubt about it. I love and and that's and and a big a theme almost is the perspective, the perspective you have. You only get one ride on this merry-go-round and and brother, you have a great perspective on on yeah keeping things in perspective I guess is the way to say it. PJ Norwood: Yeah. Corley: Yep. Andrew, you gotta be more concise because I can't even read enough of that. I can I can read it. But it's too long for me to figure out what the point of the question is. That's the nicest that's saying be more concise. The what in your experience has been a realistic time for these bigger sweeping Yeah, you gotta make it concise Great piece of advice, and Gary Arb said it. Timestamp that piece of advice. Cancer reduction in firefighting. Speaker 4: Hmm. Corley: Man, this is also something that's very near and dear, obviously. But talk to me. PJ Norwood: Yeah, so you know, obviously it's near and dear to my heart after what went through with my wife, but you know, she wasn't in the fire service. But we very close friend of mine, Chris Pepler, Assistant Chief of Torrington Fire Department, longtime FDIC instructor. You know, we lost him to cancer, starting his mouth. wasn't a smoker, didn't chew, really didn't drink except for you know the the yearly trip to FDIC and we ended up losing him and his wife Laurie and his son Nate or you know you know left by themselves man and it's Listen, it it's gonna impact all of us one one way or another. You know, our job, we can't get away from it, right? It's in our environment, our job is unsafe. But what we need to do is figure out ways to reduce that risk. All right. Reduce that risk a little at a time. I mean that's going to add up over five years, ten years, twenty years, twenty-five years. So could we eliminate the cancer risk? No, man. It's kind of what we signed up for. But you know what? Our families didn't sign up for that. So we owe it to them at least to reduce our risk. And where I'm going with that is our turnout gear. You know, I started the fire service, the dirtier the gear it was, the the better it was. Oh yeah, it's multiple.

PJ Norwood: I see some pictures of myself from young and young in my career, man, and I'm almost embarrassed now, man. I just wish I had the the knowledge back then, right? But now we have that knowledge. So you know the clean is the the new dirty, clean your gear, clean the inside of your helmet. And just don't just you know reduce your risk and You know, the other piece that I've been on this last couple years now is your structural firefinding gear. I got hooked up very early in the PFAS debate with Diane Cotter out of Massachusetts. And we have been taught to wear our structural firefighting gear every time you go on a run. You're going to get the meal, you're going to get fuel, you're going to public service. you wear your structural firefighting gear because that's all that most of us ever had. We didn't have any other options. But we've been taught always to wear our gear. You know, when I would go to bed At the firehouse, the turnout gear would be next to us in the bunk room. You know, we changed that over in the in the late 90s. We've we've progressed. But if you think about your structural firefighting gear is built for structural fires. It's PFAS lated. So it's low to PFAS and you're going to absorb those through your skin every single time that you wear it. So are there times that you don't have to wear it? Wrote an article, fire engineering, this past summer, so August 2024, and rethinking the culture of when you wear your structural firefighting gear Do you need to wear that gear when you go to a public service call? Do you need to wear structural firefighting gear for an EMS call? Do you need to wear structural firefighting gear for a motor vehicle accident? Or is there other options? Right? And now we have the single layer gear option that's out there from a bunch of different manufacturers. That's PFAS-free. And then you get the argument, oh, I've got two two two sets of gear and I got a change. And that sure that sure beats chemo. That sure beats radiation. Right? Again, us first them, taking care of yourself. So you can take care of them. All right. So there are options out there. There are things that we should be looking at to reduce our risk.

PJ Norwood: We can't get away from it. We're not going to eliminate it. Keeping yourself physically fit, eating right, getting away from the tobacco. Exercise and truly thinking about what type of gear you wear and when. Now I know a lot of the listeners they don't get to make those decisions. Right. So getting back to a couple questions ago. Provide the information. Maybe take the article I wrote and hand it to the chief. Hey, give the chief my cell phone numbers. Hey Chief, listen. I'm not too sure, you know, where this is going. Maybe you can call PJ and have a chat with him and you know let me talk to your chief for you. Let me help you out. But there are options out there, and there's even a budget benefit to chiefs for going single layer gear. That's what they want to hear too, right? Corley: Yeah, that's what they want to hear. but no, absolutely, man. Great. go read the article and and and make your decision. Like you said, vet everything. Vet everything. And if you don't like if you don't If you don't agree with what PJ's saying, go read the article and make the decision for yourself. And he has a perspective to say he's not gonna he's not gonna lose sleep over it.

PJ Norwood: And if you still don't agree, no worries, man. Have a great day. Corley: I do love that part. No, absolutely. I got a couple more. I got more questions. Hey, I saw Shane. I saw Shane Feruda. I believe that's Shane Ferruda. But congrats, my brother. I I saw your name fly by on YouTube. So I wanted to say a shout out and congrats to you. I bent to text you the other day when I saw it on Facebook. And since I saw your name, it reminded me Because my scatter brain. So congrats on a long career and yeah, just congrats. So I'll say that right there. Kyle Pivot. Go ahead. Shane. PJ Norwood: Shane get a promotion or did he retire? Corley: He retired is what I what I saw on so now it might have been like a but as far as I know he retired PJ Norwood: I'll have to look that up Rajal because he's a Shane is a good dude. Corley: Oh yeah, solid, solid human being. So I hope I didn't I'd hope I I saw it on Facebook And I was like, ooh, I need to text him and say congrats. So I saw it must be legit.

PJ Norwood: Must be true for that. Corley: Yeah, it has to be true. I didn't vet it, so I just ran with it. So he may be blowing my phone up saying I'm still on the job, but we'll see. Okay, here comes Andrew Johnson's question. How long does it take to implement positive change in a department? Just look at your crystal ball. But We know it's hard to change anything, but for example, making the swing back from automatic nozzles to a low pressure package, how long does it take? PJ Norwood: As long as it takes to those that won't change the retire. Corley: No, it's a great yeah. PJ Norwood: You know, there's there's some changes that you're just not gonna convince people are right. Right. there's just You just can't change everybody. Sometimes it takes retirements. Sometimes it takes you to promote, right? Like or like you mentioned, right? Promote up and make the make those changes. You know, I think it also depends on the size of your department. You know, if you're a small 20-man department or a large 200-man department, right? That's going to be very, very different time frame. it's also gonna come down to your your company officers or your chief officers on and their age or their generation and how long they've been on the job. You know, a lot of departments are young now. A lot of departments are primed for change, right? Because they're real young They don't have those guys that were on 25 years ago still kind of holding on up top that don't want to make those changes. So I think that it really comes down to the dynamics of your specific department. You know, and that goes with just about everything, right? Even if you look at, you know, tactics. You know, one of the first slides in almost every class that I take is a big silver bullet. I say that I'm coming to you from Connecticut. And I can't tell you how to operate because I don't know the first thing from your department. But I'm going to give you information and let you figure out how to apply in your department at 3 o'clock in the morning, right? Same thing. I wish there was a silver bullet with this, but it really comes down to your department and the dynamics there.

Corley: No, that's powerful. No, and you're spot on. Absolutely. And that's that's a that's a great I I love it. The the topics and the questions and everything. I'm gonna move it to books because I love talking about books. It's my favorite question that I ask personally is what book and I I'm excited because you wrote one of my favorite books, but what book or books Do you think firefighters should be reading? Doesn't have to be fire service related, but go for it. PJ Norwood: Well, I'm glad they're not be fire service related because the lat the three that I'm in the middle of. I I really normally I read something front to back and I'm I dive all in, but these three are taking me a little bit of time. This first one Interesting, right? The anxious generation. Ooh, yeah. Right? We start talking about the current generation, and there's so many firefighters and officers that this generation sucks, right? And every generation has probably said the same about the previous generation. And coming from the the Fire Academy perspective there you go, right? Corley: I haven't started it yet. It's in the it's in it's in the pile that someone in the pile, right?

PJ Norwood: You know, coming from from the perspective of running a fire academy with recruits, I want to understand, right? I want to make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing to make sure that we educate the generation properly. So understanding this generation and the author author John Jonathan 8 is a very good perspective on resiliency and why the resiliency of this generation is different than previous generations. So it'd kind of dove into that to try to understand that a little bit better. New book I just picked up this week. working across the aisle. Okay. Right. A little bipartisanship on trying to learn on how to bridge some of those gaps, right? Going back to some of the questions, you know, sort of the perspective trying to imp impact change, right? On people that disagree. So far, it's okay. I can't give it a raving review just yet. But there are some good things in the book. And the last one, very different, sports-minded, Deion Sanders. Deion Sanders. Corley: Is that a new one? PJ Norwood: Elevate and dominate. Yep. Elevate and dominate. Okay. Great, great perspective on him coming up, you know, baseball, NFL, MLB, and now to, you know, coaching in Colorado. is a very good mindset and you know leadership book but from a coaching perspective so those are the three that I have kind of in process right now

Corley: I love it. I love it. And it was very diverse selection there. So never disappointment. Never I love asking firefighters what they're reading, especially readers. which takes us to the five questions for firefighters. Now, there are no wrong answers to this, it's only your opinions And the points are arbitrary. They're passed out by me with the help of the audience. So, and this is the fourth version of the five questions. So are you ready for the five questions for firefighters version 4. 0? PJ Norwood: Yeah, I'm probably gonna let you down a little bit. I'm not gonna score as many max points as Frank did, but give my best. Corley: Well you said I don't know if I like the the the expectation yet, but we'll see. Number one You're the proby once more, and you have to cook the meal at the firehouse. What is your go-to meal? PJ Norwood: Oh man, I wasn't much of a cook. I growing up in my family, my house, all those women. You know, when I got from you know started the firehouse, I didn't know how to cook a single thing. But my battalion chief was a good chef, taught me the basics so that the two go-to meals at the beginning of my career was a good steak or a good penny ala vodka sauce. Those are the two things I learned early and I kind of perfected them and I stuck with them because I was able to produce that pretty consistently

Corley: Hey, that's it, man. What could you produce consistently? I love it. And steak, you're never gonna- I don't I think that might be one you just as long as you don't ruin them Turn them into shoe leather, you know what I'm saying? But I can give max points for you I can get behind stake and a and a vodka sauce. All right. Alright, I get the max points. Number two. So we set the bar. There we go. There's no wrong answers. Well, I mean unless you said tuna fish sandwiches or something, but number two. It's job town, it's time. You have to think of the scene from backdraft. You know, he's slapping that cassette tape into that cassette deck. What song are you playing in route? PJ Norwood: Yeah, this one, man, I struggled with this one, right? Listening to your previous shows. I really struggled with this one. You know, primarily because I'm that guy always likes to be different. And I wasn't going to go back to every show, but I wanted to come up with something different. I'm probably not, but I'm going to go with Crazy Train from Ozzy. Corley: Nice, nice Ozzie will always get max points. And Crazy Tane, Iight taught me how to pronounce Derek Ait's last name correctly. So absolutely max points for Crazy Train, which Just so you last night's show, Crazy Train, was the song Back to Back Crazy Train. There you go. But there's no harm, no foul. It is going to be on the Spotify playlist. Yeah, and Sam said it, Crazy Train always gets max points. Number three, whose boots, past, present, or future, would you like to spend 24 hours in?

PJ Norwood: This is personal for me, and my FDNY friends will kind of understand. Name was Joe Higgins, retired deputy director of communications for FDNY. I was hired in 1965 as a dispatcher and previous to that he was in the fire patrol. In 98, he became the commissioner's liaison for Commissioner Cazano, president of the FAR FDNY Bell Club, responded to September 11th on his arrival. Gancy sent him back to you know to take over communications. He retired from FDNY in 06 and moved to Connecticut and was driving by one of my firehouses on September 11th, just stopped in, needed to, you know, be around firefighters for the day And was my shift. One of the guys called me up and says, you need to call this guy Joe Higgins. Like, yeah, okay, I'm not an FDNY buff. So like, yeah, I'll get to him. We did the three-on, three off thing. He called me on nights. Hey, did you call him yet? I says, no. He goes, I told him you were gonna call him. So you gotta call him. All right. So I called him. He came down to the firehouse and we hit off a relationship and he became like a grandfather to me

Corley: Oh wow. PJ Norwood: lost him in June June of twenty twenty. But why I like to walk in his his step, his shoes for a day is because man, his stories He brought me to FDNY, actually drove him down for the Michael Riley dedication ceremony in the Bronx at 7533, which is where he was from. And up to that point Listen, he's a fireman, right? Grew up in the firehouse. Plus some of his stories to me were kind of, well, maybe he's a little full of shit, you know, maybe it's a little bit much. And we're in the firehouse that day and Rudy Giuliani walked up to him, grabbed him by the ears, gave him one kiss, one cheek, kissing the other cheek, and everybody in that place knew him. Oh wow. We walked outside, he goes, What what would you learn today? Go, Joe I learned you weren't full of shit. Let's go have a meal. Right? So I I miss him and and the stories that he had of you know, from from the sixties and the seventies and the eighties and FDNY and in the Bronx 75 and 33 are just incredible. I'd love to go back and walk in his shoes a little bit

Corley: That's amazing. That's an amazing max points answer. And we keep getting amazing ones. That's the crazy part. It's like I don't I don't think you can match like last night's answer. And it's like, holy smokes, you know, and Frank's answer. It's just it's great, man. Yeah, absolutely phenomenal. Number four, you retired. You're sitting on the beach enjoying your cocktail of choice. What do you want to hear through the grapevine? That the people you used to work with, how do they describe you to the new hires? PJ Norwood: That I was opinionated, wasn't afraid to stand up for what was right, even if it involved pissing somebody off, but it's always because I cared for those in the community. Corley: I love it. And it kind of goes with the whole s the whole the whole theme of the night. The whole theme of the night. PJ Norwood: That was no purpose either Corley: No, hey, it were some things are just because consist consistency, yeah, consistency comes from authenticity. absolutely max points, brother. and so there's no pressure on number five But you have four for four max points. And it's not me. I'm not alone in this. You're getting max points. Max points for stake. Max points. Great crazy train always gets max points. max points, love the story and connection. Max points, winner, max points, maximum points, standing up for what is right. That's firefighter max points. So it's not just me giving out easy max points. The audience gives out, yeah. So The audience is there. All right, number five. That two matters. Heavy fire and searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on the VES?

PJ Norwood: I'm going in the window. Corley: Going in the window. I thought that was going to be the answer. I wasn't sure. PJ Norwood: Yep, going in going in the window. Yeah, in in my apartment, we often, you know. Obviously this isn't live, it's not being recorded, so it's okay to say this, but we would often operate by ourselves. You know, small the small departments, so operate by myself Man, if I have to hump an inch and three quarter by myself or I'm going in VES, I'm going in the window. Corley: In the window. I love it, brother. VES max points from Lowell Austin. Of course, the window always gets max points. for me but i just there are no wrong answers i just love hearing the stories and the reasons why and that's why i love the the the five questions for firefighters and with that Five for five max points. That officially brings scrap 285, puts it in the books. PJ Norwood, thank you for sharing your evening with all of us. and your knowledge, but what's the best way to get a hold of you, reach out to you, make contact, book a class, do whatever. PJ Norwood: Yep. Cell phone number 475 227-5111, 475-227-5111. Call, text, anytime. Email address, PJ Norwood. ATT. net. So PJ Norwood at ATT. net. You know, you experience something, you see something, you want to ask a question. You just want to call and just you know just chat give a call give a text send an email and we'll we'll hook up busters chop you call them buster's chops about dollhouses absolutely

Corley: There's a brand new thing we're doing on the scrap, and it's the scrap challenge. And we've only done it for this year, so you're your scrap challenge number six, I believe. Scrap challenge number six. What is the challenge you want to throw at the scrappers? They try to get it done before the next scrap. PJ Norwood: So this is an easy one. Okay. The reason I'm here because of a phone call that I made to Frank Pick up the phone and call somebody you haven't talked to in a while and just have a conversation. Just say hello. Check in with a brother or sister firefighter that you might not might have Not have talked to in a while, family member, friend, anybody. Just pick up the phone and just say hello to somebody that haven't talked to in a while Corley: Love it, brother. There you go. And he said, easy one. It's an easy one if you do it. And he won't regret it. I promise you. It goes back to those relationships and those connections. Awesome, man. I love that. And the final thing I'll bother you with is a guest suggestion. Also a reason you're here, but guest suggestion. Who do you who needs to be on the scrap? Who have I been needing to have on the scrap that I haven't had on, first of all, but also just your opinion. I love I love building my network.

PJ Norwood: Yeah, so there's two that haven't been on yet that I and then I'm aware of, and I'm sure there's more. Sean Gray, yes, who I know you've spoken to, yes, and Frank and Frank Richie. Yes Yeah, and I was I was with Frank Ritchie today. We actually did our our farm engineering stuff today and and he was quite excited to hear that was going on your show and he said I've talked to him a couple times and So that there there too. And with Frank's book, Command Presence, man, you really gotta try to get him on. He has a great, great perspective. And especially now, not to bring politics into the conversation. but you know he's his lawsuit that he brought all the way up to the Supreme Court on merit. Merit Matters in the fire service. And that's a pretty Big conversation, especially with the political environment, regardless of what you think or what you believe or where you sit. that's a conversation that's going on at pretty high levels now and it's going to impact our departments even more now than what it was, you know, two weeks ago. And hearing Frank's perspective on that just really cool man.

Corley: No, hands down, j those two names are two that I need to have on and I need to make happen. I I should have already had on. But yes, yeah. again, thank you for spending your evening. So let's get to it. Housekeeping as we wrap up. Go to patreon. com slash the vigilantes. the discord is up and running. I'm telling you, there's stuff going on in the Discord today. someone's posting a question about you know just dealing with you you see somebody that you just ran on their you know had a ran on their tragedy and you see them at the grocery store how do you interact with that and it was it was a it was a good it was a good conversation I said hey post it the vigilantes get more perspectives on it they're like-minded souls. That's the whole reason you do it. Go become a part of it at the Patreon. one of the coolest parts is you get to affect the scrap You get to say, hey, this guest should be on. You get to work on the five questions for firefighters. The they vigilante's actually helped us pick out the five that we're doing right now. if you want to be a part of it, go be a part of it. If you're not, why not? and you got the vigilante after party where we get to roast We get to roast PJ live in a few minutes. We get to we get to do all those things. Doll houses, stop believing, start knowing, all of it. So anyway, go be a part. Sam will be posting the link to the after party as we speak. Next week, Jimmy Davis is coming on the scrap, followed by none other than Mark Davidson. I'm so excited. 2025 has kicked off in spectacular fashion, and it is underway and continuing in style. Enough for me. Let's get to the after party. Thank you, audience, for tuning in. As always, you make the scrap magical. Your questions tonight, man, your questions were on point. Like They were darts like coming at him like hard and fast. And PJ absolutely crushed him. Thank you for tuning in, spending your evening with us. There's lots of things you could be doing. And I can't say enough how much I'm grateful for you guys making the scrap so great.

Speaker 4: I love you all. Remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tones stay silent unless it is burning. Everybody, stay safe out there