President’s Newsletter – April 2019

April President’s Newsletter

As I am writing this newsletter, the sun is shining and partly cloudy sky, however the temperature is not really spring-like.   I am reminded of many new hazards we may face during the spring time—

Soft, weak roadway shoulders,

Soft ground,

Dry vegetation which can easily ignite,

Kids out and about due to longer hours for sunshine,

And warm temperatures which can cause over heating in our turnout gear.

When one of our own goes down, the responding crews focus is going to switch to our down firefighter instead of the objective we were called to do.  We, as responders, need to monitor ourselves and our fellow members at all times so “we can all go home.”

As your president, I was impressed and very grateful for the very difficult task our Advance RIT training team took on and accomplished with flying colors.  The team was led by Slinger’s Assistant Chief Brad Schaefer and included the following: Brad Schaefer, Pete Manning, Tim Holzhauer, Brian Messig, Steve Hersch, John Breuer, Jeremy Pfeifer, Nate Groth, Brad Karnitz, Bill Weber, Andy Messig, Jason Weis, Tony Burgard, Troy Risse, Mathias Schaefer, Rob Schmid, and Alex Aisbet.  Forty-six people took part in the instructional portion of the day from as far away as Ripon; many of member departments took part.   As an association we are pleased to see others stepped forward to help make the day special, considering the mud and terrible roadway conditions leading to the house.  Thank you to those that supported us, which were the Wisconsin DNR, Ralph’s Towing, Schaefer’s Service, Terry Kohl and Paul Chavez.  You will find attached some pictures of the day’s activities.  We are grateful to the support we got from Sheboygan County Training Officers Association with manpower and props used during the day.

I had the honor to recognize two individuals that have served their fire departments for 50 years, Adrian Krebs of the St. Lawrence Fire Company and David Hamann of the Cedarburg Fire Department.  Sandy Stockhausen visited the Waubeka Fire Department annual banquet to honor Harry Michels.  It is truly a privilege and honor to present our association plaque and be part of recognizing what these people have given to their community.  We encourage you to submit your names for 50 years of service and 25 years service that you are recognizing at your banquets.  We will have some other recognition to present at our Annual Awards Banquet and hope they can be present.

Reminder that we hope you will take the opportunity to nominate those of your department that have been recognized as firefighter and/or ems person of the year.  These nominees can be for those that have exhibit above and beyond normal activity for the year in prevention, training, supporting or responding to calls or it may be for accumulation of years that this person was one the department “depended on to be there.”

As part of the Memorial Service this year we would like to have a photo and short biography of those that have passed away in the past year.  PLEASE get these to President Ron Naab, preferably electronically, very soon so we can make this a fitting presentation of honor.