From Buddy to Boss, 2nd Ed: Effective Fire Service Leadership
About this ebook
A good friend once said about Chase Sargent that he’s “a very intelligent man, but he sure does tick people off sometimes.”
Sargent doesn’t disagree. He may have made some people mad, but he wishes he had done it more often to get this point across: “Leadership—in all aspects of life—is sorely lacking.”
The second edition of From Buddy to Boss: Effective Fire Service Leadership reinforces the fact that the fire service is screaming for leaders as men and women discover that leadership is important to their existence and success. Being a firefighter can be tiring and frustrating, but it can be rewarding. It’s not only about the job, “but also about raising kids, managing your life, and trying to be a good person, attached to God, country, family, and friends,” says the author. Many leaders today are surrounded by external politics, hidden agendas, fiscal constraints, and manipulative people. Consider these factors when navigating your career.
Sargent knows from decades of experience that simply reaching the top of the organizational ladder does not make you a good leader. Before he went into teaching this subject, “It became apparent very quickly that the leadership and human resources training being provided was as scarce as water in a desert and that the fire service was thirsty.”
This new second edition includes must-read topics on leadership lessons from the War in Iraq, knowing death in the fire service, and providing leadership in large-scale disasters.
This book will change your life.
About the author
Chase Sargent retired as a division chief/paramedic with the Virginia Beach Fire and Rescue Department in 2005 after 26½ years of service. During his tenure he served in a variety of operational and administrative capacities, including company officer, training captain, operational battalion chief, commanding officer of the Special Operations Division, Homeland Security coordinator, PIO, and citywide tour commander for B shift. Chase also served as a flight medic, neonatal pediatric paramedic, and paramedic instructor.
Chase helped found and develop the Tidewater Regional Technical Rescue Team and FEMA US&R Task Force—VATF-2, where he served as a task force leader and as a member of the FEMA White IST. He served as the night operation branch chief at the Oklahoma City Murrah Building attack, at the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, as well as the G-8, Olympics, and multiple natural disasters.
In 1995, Chase was recruited by the Norfolk FBI to develop and fill the position of the chief tactical medic for the FBI SWAT, Norfolk Division. Since that time Chase has served as the chief tactical medic in both training and deployment and has been involved in a wide range of tactical missions, executive protection, national security events, and counterterrorism operations. He returned to the team after a six-year hiatus as a tactical physician assistant in 2014.
Over the course of his career, Chase has published more than 60 articles in professional journals, provided expert witness services to cases such as the World Trade Center health issues, and published two books: the best-selling From Buddy to Boss: Effective Fire Service Leadership and Confined Space Rescue (Fire Engineering Books).
Chase was an adjunct instructor with Blackwater worldwide for seven years in the WPPS, Firearms and Tactics, Riverine, and Special Projects office. Chase was assigned to the training cadre standing up and training Riverine Squadrons I and II for deployment to Iraq.
After retiring Chase was recruited and went to work for the US Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security Services, as a special operations medic and instructor in the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, where he spent two and a half years as part of a ten-person explosive incident countermeasures team in South and Central Asia, Africa, Philippines, Afghanistan, and other locations. After that tenure he went to work for another government agency from 2008–2010 and served in Iraq on a high-threat protective detail based out of Baghdad and Diwanhia province for three years.
Chase returned in November of 2010 and attended Eastern Virginia Medical School where he received his master’s degree in physician assistant studies and then completed a one-year emergency medicine fellowship. Chase now works full-time as an emergency medical physician assistant for Emergency Physicians of Tidewater, serving eight major emergency rooms and two trauma centers.
