From the Editor…

I could look through the records, but the dates aren't that important, except me starting The Fire Services Journal in 1997. I'm guessing sometime in early 1998, having already by then heard about this amazing Fire Chief, I had a chance to go see him at The Redmond Symposium in Toronto, ON. I wanted to remember the experience, so I took my portable cassette player, and I taped his speech – every word. That's how we did it then. No smartphones, just dumb cassettes. Now Brunacini was hilarious, when you went to one of his presentations, and I went to a number of them, what you heard most was laughter, but don't be mistaken, he was making you laugh because he was making you listen.

I took those cassette tapes, and I tried something – I transcribed them, verbatim, and I edited them into an article. Now, of course, I couldn't just print that article – I needed permission. This was 1998 – long distance rates for a person just getting over writing cheques against his line of credit to start a magazine were prohibitive, and I didn't think Al would take a call from a 'buck' from Canada. People didn't use or share email addresses like they do now, and I'm not even sure Phoenix Fire had a web page back then. I went another route – I found a number for the City of Phoenix in a book, and I faxed them the article with a request to forward it to Al along with a request to print it. No way did I expect a response.

I remember this vividly. I was lying on the bed, tired after a long day trying to sell advertising, and listening to Much Music, specifically Sheryl Crow singing If It Makes You Happy, when my wife called up and said there was someone on the phone, someone named Al Brunacini. What the …?

I picked up the phone and, like a complete schoolchild, I said, "Chief Brunacini, you are my hero," to which he replied, without skipping a beat, "You need to get some new heroes." And so the conversation began, and finished, and I was encouraged, and the article appeared in the next issue.

I met Bruno at pretty much every FDIC conference after that until I sold The Journal in 2007. In fact, I sat on an advisory board to a major fire service training company with Bruno. I remember our first meeting. He and I talked for a while (he told me he thought the magazine the great) until the meeting convened. His first formal words? The company placed bottles of water on the table for each of us. They were very fancy – remember this was 1998. It was VOSS water, and the bottles were tall and cylindrical and actually made of glass with fancy caps. He was asked a question by the Chair, but hadn't replied. Instead, he was handling and staring at the bottle. The Chair asked if he had any thoughts, and without moving his glance from the bottle, he said…"This looks like a bottle of water that's been to college." So much for the meeting! (Actually, we got a lot done)

Whenever I walked into the then Director of Training office at the Toronto Fire Academy, I always looked at the poster on the wall. It was an Al Brunacini quote. It read, "Because people don't call the fire department when they do something smart."

I have (and cherish) a signed copy of Bruno's Incident Command textbook. I have more memories of Bruno. He was just…great.

I think the article by Sue Wells would honour his thoughts. Lead, and be nice while you're doing it.

Kind words from a kind man.