By William Howe
When people ask what prepared me most for a career in the fire service, they often assume the answer is the fire academy. Others think it was EMT school or the years spent riding busy rescue units and engines. Those experiences certainly shaped me. They taught me skills. They gave me confidence. They helped me become a firefighter and paramedic.
The truth, however, is that the foundation for my career was built long before I ever walked into a fire station. It started with my father.
Leading by example
My dad was a World War II veteran and a police officer who walked his beat for 27 years. Like many from that generation, he was not one for long conversations about life. He did not sit me down and explain leadership. He never handed me a list of values to memorize. Instead, he taught by example. He believed in hard work. He believed that your word meant something — that if you started a job, you finished it. He believed that service to others was honorable work and that a person’s reputation was built one decision at a time.
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As a young boy, I did not fully appreciate those lessons. Looking back now, I realize he was preparing me for a life in public service long before I knew where that journey would take me.
Like many young men, I eventually reached a point where I wanted to leave home and find my own path. I was searching for opportunities, adventure and direction. That search led me to the U.S. Navy. At the time, I could not have imagined how much those years would shape the rest of my life.
The value of a shared mission
The military has a way of stripping away excuses. It introduces young people to standards, expectations and accountability in ways that are difficult to explain unless you have lived it. The alarm clock goes off whether you feel ready or not. The mission continues whether conditions are comfortable or not. The work must get done, regardless of personal feelings.
For some young people, that adjustment is difficult. For me, many of those expectations felt familiar because of how I was raised. My father had already taught me responsibility — the Navy simply took those lessons and expanded them.
Life aboard a ship teaches you very quickly that nobody succeeds alone. Every person has a role and every role matters. The newest sailor may never stand on the bridge or command a division, but their contribution is still essential to the mission. A ship functions because hundreds of people perform their responsibilities and trust others to do the same. Years later, when I entered the fire service, I immediately recognized those same principles.
People often focus on the visible parts of the job — the firefighter stretching the hoseline into a burning building or the paramedic treating a critical patient. What they rarely see is the team that makes those actions possible. They don’t see the training. They don’t see the maintenance. They don’t see the preparation. They don’t see the countless hours spent making sure equipment works, apparatus are ready and crews preparing for whatever comes next.
Some of the best firefighters I worked with during my career were not necessarily the loudest people in the room. They were dependable. They were prepared. They understood their role and could be counted on when things became difficult. Looking back, I realize those were many of the same qualities I admired in the sailors I served alongside years earlier.
The Navy also taught me a lesson that would prove invaluable throughout my fire service career: Preparation creates confidence.
When you are assigned to a ship at sea, training is a constant part of life. We drilled repeatedly. Fire drills. Damage control drills. Emergency response drills. At times, the repetition felt excessive. There were days when it seemed like we were practicing the same things over and over again. Then a real emergency would occur. In those moments, nobody stopped to think about the drill schedule or complain about the training. Muscle memory took over. People relied on what they had practiced.
The same thing happens in the fire service. Nobody enjoys crawling through a smoke-filled training building in the middle of summer. Nobody looks forward to repeatedly practicing mayday scenarios. Nobody gets excited about checking equipment for the hundredth time. Yet when the tones drop, and people are having the worst day of their lives, those repetitions matter.
Leadership at sea and on scene
One of the greatest lessons I carried from the military into the firehouse was understanding that confidence is earned. It comes from preparation. It comes from repetition. It comes from knowing you have done the work before the emergency ever begins.
As I progressed through my career, I also began to appreciate how much the Navy had taught me about leadership. Many people assume leadership begins when you receive a promotion. My experience has taught me otherwise. Some of the most influential leaders I encountered in the military never held the highest rank. What made them effective was not the insignia on their collar. It was their example on the job. They showed up early. They worked hard. They treated people fairly. They remained calm under pressure. They earned trust.
Those lessons followed me into the fire service. As a young firefighter, I learned by watching experienced officers and senior firefighters. Later, when I found myself in leadership roles, I often reflected on the leaders I admired in the Navy. The best of them understood that leadership was never about power. It was about responsibility. It was about helping the team succeed. It was about setting a standard and living up to it every day.
Pride vs. ego
But perhaps no lesson transferred more directly than accountability. In both professions, accountability matters because lives depend on it.
- Did you inspect your equipment?
- Did you complete the training?
- Did you perform the maintenance?
- Did you follow through on your responsibilities?
Small failures have a way of becoming large problems.
The military taught me to own my mistakes and learn from them. The fire service reinforced that lesson throughout my career. Excuses rarely solve problems. Accountability does.
As the years passed, I also came to appreciate words that sometimes seem old-fashioned today: duty, honor and pride. Those concepts were woven into military service. They were present in the way sailors carried themselves. They were reflected in the standards we upheld and the expectations we placed upon one another. They were not just words on a wall. They were part of the culture.
The fire service shares many of those same traditions. There is pride in putting on the uniform. There is pride in belonging to something larger than yourself. There is pride in knowing that your community trusts you during their most difficult moments.
But there is also a difference between pride and ego. The best firefighters I knew never made the job about themselves. Much like the best sailors I served alongside, they understood that the mission came first. The team came first. Individual recognition was secondary.
That mindset shaped the way I approached my career. Whether I was responding to emergencies, teaching future EMTs and paramedics, mentoring younger firefighters or serving in leadership positions, I always found myself returning to the same principles I learned years earlier. Focus on the mission. Support your people. Do your job well. Take care of the team. The rest tends to work itself out.
When service becomes who you are
Today, when I look back across my nearly three decades in the fire service, I can clearly see how each chapter connected to the next. What began with a father teaching his son lessons by example continued with a military that refined those lessons through discipline, service, and accountability. The fire service then provided a place to apply them for the benefit of others.
I often tell younger firefighters that every experience in life teaches us something if we are paying attention. For me, the Navy was far more than a steppingstone between adolescence and adulthood. It was the place where I learned who I was. It taught me how to work as part of a team. It taught me how to lead. It taught me how to prepare. It taught me how to accept responsibility. Most importantly, it taught me that service is not simply something you do. It becomes part of who you are. My father gave me the foundation. The Navy built upon it. The fire service allowed me to carry those lessons forward for the last three decades.
Looking back now, I realize the first uniform I ever wore taught me how to wear every uniform that followed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William R. Howe is a public safety professional, educator, emergency manager and public health practitioner with nearly four decades of service. After serving in the U.S. Navy from 1986 to 2000, Howe spent more than 24 years with the Sarasota County (Florida) Fire Department as a firefighter-paramedic, building a 27-year career in the fire service. He also spent more than 15 years in education at Suncoast Technical College, formerly Sarasota Technical Institute, serving as lead EMT instructor and adjunct paramedic instructor. Howe currently serves as logistics chief for the Tampa Bay Health and Medical Preparedness Coalition, managing response logistics, preparedness initiatives and deployment operations in support of the Florida Department of Health and Florida Division of Emergency Management.
Howe earned a bachelor’s degree in public safety administration with concentrations in homeland security and emergency management from St. Petersburg College. And he holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of South Florida College of Public Health with a focus on global health and humanitarian assistance, and a minor in infectious control.
