During a recent conference, a discussion focused on the issue of regionalization. The instigator of the conversation was vexed as to how to engage the local organizations and memberships in a journey toward regionalization. His question was how to get everyone interested and involved in standardizing policies and procedures to improve interagency operations. He felt the troops were resistant to change, a change he felt was critical.
Some in the discussion asked, Why are you pushing regionalization? How will it look if you're successful? Others suggested starting points: Focus on communications, take baby steps, let the inmates run the asylum. The conversation was lively and fascinating; it reminded us of why we all love attending shows and conferences-for the networking.
After the discussion, several mentioned their observation that they had been involved in this discussion many times before. No one was complaining about it; they were simply aware of the repetition of themes that seemed to be the focus of our firefighting discussions. They were right, and that is a good thing. Someone mentioned that change in our beloved institution was slow and we should expect the regionalization to take around 10 years; I agree. The fire service is a wise and deliberate entity, and that is a good thing.
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