Rest in Peace Chief Windsor Cote

  Tuesday, June 28th 2011

It is with sadness that I must write with notification of the passing of Charter Member and Chief Windsor Cote.

Chief Cote was the first Chief of the Greenfield Fire District and it is believe that Chief Cote was the last living Charter member of the GFD.

I had the distinct honor and privilege of speaking with Chief Cote during our 55th GFD Banquet. I wanted to talk about how he was feeling, and how he liked the retirement home, but he wanted to discuss nothing other than our fire district. Chief Cote told me that "he was very proud of the Greenfield Fire District" - a feeling that we all have in common. He said, "I would have never have imagined how big this thing (GFD) could have grown, I thought it (the idea) was never going to take off."

I remember listening intently to all the stuggles and stories that Chief Cote told me about getting the fire district established, and what it was like trying to get equipment and monies to buy tools and trucks. There was certainly no shortage of stories from the Chief, but I remember cherishing all of them.

As fellow firefighters of the GFD, we owe gratitude to our Charter members, the men and women - like Chief Cote, who helped create the organization that we too have all come to love and serve. As community members, we owe a much larger debt for it is they who created the organization that keeps our homes safe and our families protected. And that is a debt that we can never repay.

Chief Cote, may you rest in peace sir.

posted by spackmann in at 4:57 PM (214 day(s) old)  Permalink

Ladder Truck Reserve Vote Passes

  Wednesday, June 8th 2011

I wanted to extend a big "thank you" to all who supported the fire district's resolution to create a ladder truck reserve fund.

As per the referendum, the reserve account will be used to "finance the cost of the purchase of a ladder truck." This is a huge step forward and I hope a final solution to prevent financial oversights by the Board in the future regarding the replacement of the ladder.

The unofficial results are: YES: 53; NO: 10; VOID: 0

These results (and the official results) will be posted on the fire district's website in the near-future.

posted by spackmann in News at 12:11 PM (234 day(s) old)  Permalink

R.I.P. Bryan King

  Saturday, March 19th 2011

I received sad news today that brother Bryan King lost his long battle with cancer.

During his career, Bryan played a huge role in the Greenfield Fire District.

Bryan rose to the rank of Lieutenant in the Maple Avenue Fire Company. He was later elected to the Board of Fire Commissioners, where he also served as Chairman of the Board.

Bryan served as the district liaison during the construction of the Maple Avenue firehouse. There is no question that the success of that major project was due to the countless hours that he personally spent on site working with all the contractors day in and day out.

While I have a great many fond memories serving with Bryan, I like to share a particular one with you.

Shortly after moving into the new firehouse, some members and I were hanging new pictures and plagues in the meeting room. That afternoon a call came in for a motor vehicle accident - a car into a house. It just so happens that this accident, and the house the car hit, was Bryan's neighbor's house - in fact, the car drove across Bryan's front lawn.

The passenger compartment was actually filling up with heavy black smoke and there was a small engine compartment fire - and to make matters worse, the patient was trapped. I was ordered to grab a hose line and simultaneously extinguish the fire and ventilate the passenger compartment.

The extrication was hampered because the car was a third of the way into the house. That was one of the more intense calls I?ve responded to, and I remember thinking "please God, don?t let this man burn up." I remember hearing Bryan say "I can get my loader, and we can pull the car out of the house - then we can cut him out." I knew then, that everything was going to be okay. I have no doubt that our efforts that day saved a man's life.

And that was the type of man Bryan was, always there to lend a helping hand, whenever it was needed, and he served our great community with honor and distinction.

He was a community servant, a great father, a loving grandfather, a loyal friend and a brother firefighter.

Through this tragedy I take comfort in knowing that Bryan's servitude will live on through his son Nate (who himself is a past Deputy Chief) and his grandson Zack, who I have no doubt will join our brotherhood in good time.

May you rest in peace brother, you will be missed.

posted by spackmann in News at 7:42 PM (315 day(s) old)  Permalink

February Purchasing System Presentation

  Friday, February 11th 2011

I had to move the purchasing system presentation to the February Commissioners meeting - we have had a packed agenda every meeting since January 1st.

So this presentation was given at the February Commissioner's meeting at the Porter Corners.

The presentation itself was only about 10-15 minutes with questions, but the demonstration lasted probably another 15 minutes - so everyone who attended the meeting got a pretty good look at what the system can do.

1. Purchasing System Presentation (143kb - powerpoint)

All in all, there was alot of positive feedback regarding the system - and I hope that this system will greatly improve the business workflow of our fire district!

As always, contact me with any questions that you have.

posted by spackmann in Purchasing System at 2:41 PM (351 day(s) old)  Permalink

Proposed GFD Purchasing System Unveiling

  Sunday, January 2nd 2011

So it's been a long time coming, but I can finally start to reveal the GFD Purchasing System that I have been developing since March of last year (2010).

I started working on the system after identifying a variety of issues in how the GFD has historically purchased equipment.

1. Officers would run out of requisitions, and sometime it would be hard to meet up with the purchasing agent to get new paper forms.
2. Orders that were "back logged", or "out of stock" when processed by the purchasing agent were often perceived as left in "limbo" simply because this information wasn't relayed back to the people who requested the equipment.
3. Like above, there really wasn't any way of "tracking orders" after officers handed them off to the purchasing agent. For example, there was no way of knowing how long it took the purchasing agent to order the equipment, and then once delivered, how long it took for the officers to actually receive the equipment. Sometimes the equipment was in the office (for lengthy periods of time), but this information was miss-communicated.
4. Signing of purchase requests (for the most part) really only happens at Commissioner meetings - when Commissioners are present to sign the purchase orders. That's not a *horrible* practice, but its inefficient because that gives a 1 month overhead to getting orders processed, ordered and delivered - because that process can't begin until the request is approved.

There are, naturally, commercial grade purchasing software packages available for purchase. Unfortunately, these packages often have (1) high price tags and (2) a complexity of business features (aimed at corporations) that simply are not required by the GFD.

So I decided to create an entirely new system (that makes it free), customized to the needs of the GFD (that makes it useful) - and all of the downfalls listed above are addressed in this system. Features of the purchasing system:

1. Email notification to any one who submits a requisition. These emails notify users when (1) a requisition is approved by the Board, (2) when it is processed by the purchasing agent, (3) when it is ordered, and (4) when its delivered.
2. Commissioners can approve an requisition submitted online - so there's no waiting to approve requisitions at monthly Commissioner meetings. In fact, Commissioners get email notifications when a requisition has been submitted for approval.
3. The ability to track any changes to a requisition - so if a purchasing agent puts on a requisition "on back order", the person can see that on the requisition itself
4. The ability to search on all previous requisitions - to see what was ordered by a particular company/officer - and therefore determine if something is required to be ordered again (cuts down on duplication of orders).

And many more...

The GFD has grown to such a size and magnitude that it has become a bottleneck in processing paperwork. Granted, this is part of being a business, but in this day and age, technology gives us the methods to make pretty much any process easier (and also cheaper).

There's no reason since it is now 2011 not to use a system like this to streamline purchasing within the GFD.

And here are some screen shots.

I plan on giving a public presentation at the January workshop (end of this month) on this system. This idea of having an easier purchasing system has been talked about for the past two years - let alone this year, so I assume that this system will be readily accepted an integrated into operation sometime (early) this year.

Any questions in the meantime, just let me know.

posted by spackmann in Purchasing System at 11:12 AM (391 day(s) old)  Permalink

Rip and Run Update

  Friday, November 12th 2010

I have turned the text messaging operation back on and its fully working. For a long time the text messaging functionality was non-operating due to an authorization change with Twitter.

I took this opportunity to spend a vast amount of time upgrading a variety of aspects of the system - I basically spent the better part of two weeks really optimizing the Rip and Run system's speed and efficiency.

End users won't immediately notice any changes to the functionality, but what is special about the new changes is that the system can now handle a lot more calls at once. For one fire company, that's not an issue, but its particularly important if this system was ever used to handle a county sized load (i.e. all the calls at a given time across the county).

There's certainly no lack of work to still be done on the system, but the system in the current form is in a very strong and stable version.

Any questions, let me know.

posted by spackmann in Rip and Run Development at 9:28 PM (442 day(s) old)  Permalink