By Shannon Pieper
Managing Editor, FireRescue Magazine and Wildland Firefighter

The audience in Gordon Graham’s “Quality Control at Company Level” laughed nearly nonstop Friday, as Graham entertained attendees with his unforgettable style and anecdotes from his career with the California Highway Patrol. But Graham’s class featured an important lesson as well. Using Admiral Hyman Rickover’s “seven rules for success” as a backdrop, Graham stressed the importance of the company officer in reducing risk and continually improving the department.

“Status quo, ladies and gentlemen, doesn’t work,” Graham said. “Anything we can quantify, anything we can measure [we can improve]. If response times are 5 minutes, maybe they can be less than that.” He recommends annual testing for personnel on all basic skills, stressing that “quality standards in place at the company officer level cannot be 70 percent. They must be 100 percent.”

Graham, who has spent years studying the consequences of fire service and law enforcement incidents, also talked at length about risk management. “Only rarely is the cause of a bad incident the event that immediately preceded it,” he said. “There are no new ways to get in trouble, but there are always better ways to stay out of trouble. It’s all predictable and it’s all preventable.”

Although Graham entertained his audience with tales of historical figures, Dallas SWAT and the dangers of potato salad, his message was clear: Company officers must eliminate arrogance, ignorance and complacency, while training regularly, annually testing personnel and thinking and acting like a supervisor.