About two months into his new job as Medford fire chief, John Freedman is still amazed at the extent of the work and what it entails.
True, he shadowed retiring chief Frank Giliberti Jr. for about a month before taking over the position. But the month of days of walking alongside the man who held the position for 23 years did not prepare him, exactly, for walking in his shoes.
“I’m shocked at all the work,” Freedman, 57, said; the work and the number of meetings he regularly attends. “The more I learn about the job, the more I realize how much Chief Giliberti did, and how good he was at the job.”
Freedman is still setting up the corner office at Fire Headquarters, moth-balling the fax machine and investing in a high-resolution camera and microphone for his desktop computer so he can attend the remote, online meetings. He juggles two smartphones.
“I had been here a month and I realized I wasn’t eating,” Freedman said, adding he started scheduling in mealtimes to make sure he wasn’t just relying on a candy bar or coffee to see him through the day.
And he’s learned that to work uninterrupted on a day off, it’s best he stays home with a department laptop (on order). If he goes into the office, he’s bound to be side-tracked.
At the top of his to-do list is completing some of the initiatives launched when he was a deputy chief:
- Building repairs in the city’s fire stations, roofs, kitchens, windows
- Work with architects to design a new headquarters building.
- Train crews and integrate new equipment into the department; two new ladder trucks; one of them a 58-foot tiller truck with a 100-foot ladder.
- Install new hardware and software for all department rigs.
And now that he’s chief, on his agenda:
- Changing the current culture and attitude toward training; initiate a regular training schedule, make training a priority.
- Keeping the firefighter ranks filled at the city’s budgeted level for the department: 122 in 2021.
- Creating a capital budget plan that anticipates the need to replace aging equipment; rotating out older rigs, using them as spares and replacing them with newer models before they are called out of service due to the need for repairs. (It takes 500 hours to build a new rig.)
- Delegating responsibility to captains and deputy chiefs; not because he can’t perform, but because the department has untapped talent. Delegating allows people to make errors, learn from them. It creates strong leaders for the future.
“I want to empower my people,” Freedman said, explaining it’s a matter of trust. “When a leader delegates, people become invested, take ownership and take pride in accomplishments.”
And Freedman wants to launch a program that recognizes the hard work, the above and beyond, the triumphs of his crews. Yes medals, yes written commendations, yes praise.
“I know that the former mindset was that the crews were ‘just doing their jobs,’” Freedman said, but in his opinion, people need to be recognized for a job well done. “It destroys morale if people aren’t recognized for good work.”
Freedman, who worked his way through college, graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1986. Firefighting was not his go-to career choice. At the time, engineers were considered contract employees and he went through cycles of employment and lay-offs.
“It seemed as if I was getting laid off every winter,” Freedman said.
He supplemented his income by delivering oil, driving trucks and repairing appliances.
One company he worked for made certain types of automotive switches. When a Japanese manufacturer started making the switches and selling them for substantially less (6-cents as opposed to 30) the American company shut down and laid off its employees.
As his college loans came due, Freedman looked to the military as a way of paying off what he owed. He joined the Army National Guard, training as a military police officer never thinking he would be deployed.
“I came back to Medford, worked in appliance repair,” Freedman said.
He didn’t anticipate the Gulf War.
“When I came back, I was looking for stability, a steady income,” Freedman said, explaining he then looked to the fire service for a career. He knew he would never make a million bucks, but what he wanted was a steady job and steady income. “No layoffs.”
“I love what I do,” Freedman admitted, asking rhetorically: What’s better than fighting fires and saving lives?
It’s one way he’s on the same page as Giliberti, both were always seeking the latest innovations that keep people safe, both firefighters and the public. And save lives.
Before he was promoted, he was the chief’s right-hand man when it came to seeking out and applying for grants that would pay for the latest in firefighting technology. The kind of technology that saves lives: heat-sensing cameras that can find hidden fire in seconds; new iPads mounted in all the rigs that show the exact location of a call, GPS programming, Bricks 911 App, for the devices. And he is aiming to make the daily “circle check” a safety procedure, computer driven.
“The police had them for years,” Freedman said of the iPads the department is right now installing into its rigs. With his years on the job, 26, he’s developed what he calls “tribal knowledge,” of the city’s streets. But it takes years of drills and practice to develop. “We can’t leave the station until we know where we’re going and there’s no time to grab a streets book. It’s so much easier with GPS.”
The city’s response time ranges between two and six minutes; that’s the time it takes for firefighters to arrive at a dispatched location once the first tones sound in the firehouse.
Assigned to Engine 1 as a captain; Freedman started looking at the deputy chief’s test and a promotion as a way to avoid job-related injuries. He found himself spending a lot of time in the Emergency Room, and a lot of time healing.
“It’s a young man’s job, and I discovered I was a mere mortal, not Superman,” Freedman said, explaining he realized a way to stay out of the emergency room was to move up in the department.
His trajectory from firefighter through captain, lieutenant and deputy chief to now chief was a little unorthodox. When he took the captain’s test, there were no retirements on the horizon, but he signed up for the exam anyway, intending use it as practice. When he aced the exam, he got a call from the captain in charge of training who offered him the slot, telling Freedman he was retiring “because he could.”
As captain in the training division, Freedman learned how the whole department functioned: from dispatch to deputy chief. And learned to fix everything, too.
“Everything goes through training,” Freedman said.
His goal: to keep learning and to function as an agent of change for the department. Already he has his crews training on the new tiller truck, one driven at both ends. And when the manufacturer’s representative leaves, he had the foresight to have the man train his officers so they can train the rest of the department.
When asked whether he’s a truck man or an engine man, Freedman, who has worked on both trucks (venting and rescue) and engines (hooking to a hydrant, regulating water pressure, stretching and working hose) said he likes one thing best.
“I love to drive the apparatus,” he said.