NFPA Journal - Spring 2022 - 32

Perspectives
years can be traced to the Metro Chiefs, steered in large
part by Sanders.
After more than two decades at Prince George's, Cade
led large fire departments in Virginia and gained a reputation
for taking firm and sometimes unpopular stances
to improve safety. In 2007, he was nominated by President
George W. Bush to become US Fire Administrator, where
he led the National Fire Academy and oversaw the US Fire
Administration's educational, research, and data programs,
which are promoted and shared with fire departments
around the world. Cade later served as assistant director of
national programs for the IAFF. At NFPA, he was director
of governmental affairs for more than a decade, lobbying
Congress and governmental agencies to improve public
safety and increase funding for fire departments. Most
recently, he was NFPA's director of field operations for the
mid-Atlantic region.
Before they sailed off into the sunset, NFPA Journal
caught up with Sanders and Cade for a conversation about
their careers and the evolution of the fire service, and for a
few nuggets of wisdom to pass along to the next generation
of fire service leaders.
Do you remember what made you decide to join the
fire service?
Greg Cade: I had just turned 18, and I had a couple of
friends who were a part of it. At the time it sounded interesting
and I thought it was a chance to learn some new
skills.
Russ Sanders: In 1967, I had just graduated from high
school, and I was a carpenter working on a highway project.
We had an incident at the work site and the fire
department showed up. It just so happened that one of the
guys I knew from my neighborhood was on the fire truck. I
didn't even know they paid firefighters in my town. So we
got to talking, and I went by the firehouse on the way home
from work that day and I signed up. I gotta be honest, what
really attracted to me to the job back then was the color TV
and air conditioning in the bedrooms at the fire station. I
grew up living in the attic; I'd never even seen a color TV
at that point, and we certainly didn't have air conditioning.
And it was miserably hot in Louisville.
You stuck with it for more than 50 years, so I assume
you eventually found a lot more to like than just the AC.
RS: I'll tell you, the most important thing that happened
my first day-and it had an effect on the rest of my
professional career without question-was the fact that
I was assigned to a company that was commanded by
Captain John Ridge. To this day, he was by far the greatest
leader and teacher I've ever known. You could just feel
this command presence when he was around. It changed
my life.
32 | NFPA JOURNAL * SPRING 2022
How so?
RS: This is the best example I can give. In 1969, I was
drafted into the US Army and went to Southeast Asia.
When I came back two years later, I walked to my fire
station and the first thing I saw was this person sleeping on
the sofa in the training room. He was this kind of grungy
looking guy. I figured it was a street person that just came
in, which wasn't unusual in that neighborhood. So I kicked
the couch to wake him up and I said, 'Where's the captain?'
He said, 'I am the captain.' He told me John Ridge was
now a major at the training bureau. I looked around at the
quad company and asked, 'Where's all the personnel?' He
said, 'They're in bed.' This is like one o'clock in the afternoon!
I walked out of the station feeling sick to my stomach
because I knew if I'd come in on the job at 18 years old and
that guy had been my company commander, I'd have been
hung-over and in bed, too. I would've been just like them.
My whole career would've been different. I'll never forget
that day. I'd learned a real lesson in leadership, and it's
shaped my entire professional life.
Greg, was there a moment or circumstance that was
crucial to your development in the fire service?
GC: I was very fortunate to start my career in a department
at Prince George's that prided itself on being on the cutting
edge of things. It helped that the University of Maryland
and its famous fire protection engineering school were right
down the road. We used to joke that you couldn't swing a
dead cat without hitting a fire engineer. They wanted to be
on the cutting edge, they wanted to make firefighters safe,
and I took that with me every stop in my career.
What was the safety ethos in the fire service during
the early parts of your careers?
GC: I'll be honest with you-I'm a cancer survivor and I've
lost give-or-take half of my hearing from doing things that
were just seen as normal parts of the job. When I started,
absolutely nobody talked about safety. It just wasn't part
of the conversation. We wore a breathing apparatus maybe
half the time and took it off as soon as we could. There
wasn't even proper gear. Most people were issued a set of
three-quarter length boots. It wasn't that bunker pants
didn't exist, but they cost like $50 more. It was an expense
thing.
RS: It was the Wild West, I'll tell you. Once, we had a gasoline
tanker overturn and spill thousands of gallons of raw
gasoline in this valley and the driver was trapped in the
vehicle. All we had were canvas coats and rubber boots,
but we waded through this gasoline to try to rescue this
truck guy. One spark and we would've all been cremated.
But that's the way it was. You did what you had to do at the
time. The same with water rescues or train derailments or
dealing with all kinds of exotic chemicals. We did what we
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