Capturing History with Lt Rob Ridley of National Fire Radio

Stephen J: (00:11)
Welcome to behind the tin, a podcast that introduces you to the heroic men and women who wear the tin while protecting our community and hearing about the extraordinary things they're doing when badges of locker today's episode is sponsored by those guys. print.com. Those guys print for all your custom apparel need visit those guys. print.com. Stephen J the good Lieutenant here with Justin, the civilian producer, how's it going today? It's going great. And I'm so excited to have someone here that really is kind of, of an inspiration for us to a degree. Absolutely. A guy that has trailblazed a podcast, um, with a bunch of other guys, uh, about public service and public safety and really capturing the essence of history. Yeah.

Justin: (00:56)
It really, really cool stuff. And I actually, I've listened to a few episodes of the podcast just to become familiar with the, and it is absolutely fantastic.

Stephen J: (01:03)
I love that Rob and his partners here are capturing stories that if they don't get on, I would say film or recording, but now it's all digital. If they don't capture this and record this for history, they'd just be lost.

Justin: (01:17)
Yeah. These are stories that, uh, would just disappear forever and now hopefully we, and get these stories captured and, and archived and they'll be around forever now.

Stephen J: (01:26)
A and it's so cool with these podcasts, you know, I go back to the days where it's cassette tapes and you, you had to listen to it and you know, then all of a sudden, I think this thing called AMS and you know, better than me AMS came and you could skip a song. Oh yeah, yeah. That was like the coolest thing in the cassette world on tape. Yeah. Now we're in this digital world where, Hey man, I wanna listen to New York city stories or I wanna listen to LA stories and Rob and his guys are capturing it. So I'm so excited to hear a little bit about what they're doing. Yeah. And I

Justin: (01:52)
Need to dig through your mini disc collection.

Stephen J: (01:54)
right. I'm so excited to listen to this, listen to what Rob's doing and, and Hey, listen, Rob's on this episode, but we know Rob's a guy that is gonna be with us for the duration of behind the tin. So Absolut without further ado, let's get onto Rob Ridley. Right? The good Lieutenant, Stephen J here with Justin, the producer and our guest, Rob Ridley, Lieutenant Rob Ridley, Fairview fire department in New York. Welcome.

Rob: (02:17)
You pleasure to be

Stephen J: (02:18)
Here. We're happy to have you. And, and what you've been doing with national fire radio is just amazing. And I wanna get into that, but I wanna really first understand how Robert Lee became a Lieutenant in the fair firehouse. How did that come to be? What, what made you be a fireman? What made you wanna haul that hose?

Rob: (02:37)
Yeah, so, uh, I grew up in Sullivan county, uh, in a very rural area area, uh, in, in the, uh, Hamlet of Youngs. And, um, my dad was a, an electric engineer for New York state electric and gas. Um, and my mom, uh, you know, at the time when my parents were together, stay at home, mom worked some jobs, but she was also a volunteer with the local ambulance court. Okay. So there was always this, um, like I was so proud as a kid that my parents were helping the community, like when, like when something bad happened, you know, they would both go out the door and they were like, you know, the nose across the street would watch me. And you know, these

Stephen J: (03:13)
Are the days the fire siren going off really loud to let people know that something's going on

Rob: (03:16)
And, and a Tron they had

Stephen J: (03:17)
To on that big box on top of your fridge or,

Rob: (03:20)
Yeah, whatever, it was always in my parents' room. And you could hear like the relay kick and then this, you know, tone would come out, whatever else. But, uh, um, yeah, so like I thought that was the coolest thing. And I remember at one point learning that you could be a paid firefighter. And I told my dad, you know, could, as a kid, I don't understand anything. Um, and I'm like, dad, you can do this for a living. Like you could make your money doing this. Like you don't have to work for the electric company in that office. Like you could do fire trucks all the time and he was like, no, you know, and I'm like, and I just was like, I couldn't wrap my head around it. But, um, you know, that's, that's how I got in. And then, um, when I turned 16, I joined the volunteer fire department.

Rob: (04:02)
I joined the ambulance Corps. Uh, two separate organizations became a CFR at the age of 18 in high school, became an EMT while most kids were like getting jobs at a local, uh, grocery store where the Villa RO resort hotel. I ended very lucky. I worked for Monte ambulance and at the end of the school day, I would drive out to Ello and I would start riding shifts on the ambulance. And then I worked, uh, Saturdays and Sundays from six to six. So I had this whole, uh, junior and senior year of service. And that just really, and when I was hooked, like I loved it. I thought it was the best thing

Stephen J: (04:39)
In the world. I was very similar. So I grew up, uh, two separate houses growing up. You know, we moved from one house to another, as a kid, uh, went in my first house fire siren right down the block. It was a remote one cuz the firehouse was a, a while away. But that's how the community got notified. Hey, if you're fireman, you gotta, you know, listen to your Plone mm-hmm we moved to a house that's literally five houses away from a firehouse I'm six, seven years old. I'm like AWT struck every time that siren would go off, I'd run to the picture window and hope that those fire trucks went by my house. Right. And I was loving it. Mm-hmm then my local fire department, they would do a, a newsletter, a newspaper once a year for fire prevention week. I'll say right now that was better than Playboy until I was probably only 15.

Stephen J: (05:22)
getting that, getting that newspaper and reading about every fire truck and doing the coloring things and all reading about it. Oh, I loved it. You know, my grandfather was a, a fire chief. Um, so you know, I, I respected him and looked up to him and he, he would always talk about these things and he'd have a baseball cap of the fire truck on it. That was mine. I took that, you know, he never that again. But I think that when you're that young and you have that influence of someone in public service, it means a lot. Yeah. It really drives young people. And I hope that anybody that's listening to this, you know, if there's any young people listening, find these people, ask them the questions, you know, exactly. You can do this for a living, right. Like I'm from a town that they didn't have a paid fireman. Right. Firefighter, excuse me. That wasn't a thing. Yeah. All of a sudden to find that out, like, you know, holy

Rob: (06:11)
Cow. Well, and I think the one thing I really took away from this unless buy like, you know, my wife and I aren't gonna have kids, like it's a decision that we both made. Um, and, but like the one thing I've always said is if I ever did have kids like one slips past the goal or whatever, and it's like the, you know, the flyers defense last night or something like that. But, um, you know, we would go back to Sullivan county because it was, or I would, I would try to make that push because it was so community and the firehouse was this focal point because it wasn't just the fire calls. It was the pancake breakfast, the roast beef dinners, the Easter egg hunt were done for. And like, you just get this really ingrained sense of community because everybody's coming together for these events and then the community's coming out and it's like, oh the fire department's putting this on. So we had

Stephen J: (06:57)
The apartment, but right. Then you had the fire company, which is a social aspect. Yeah. Then you have the ladies auxiliary. Yeah. Right. And who did the bizarres and all these other things.

Rob: (07:06)
The phone calls when there was a big fire, like, you know, I remember the phone would ring and I would answer it. And it would be, you know, before my mom was involved with the ambulance, of course she was involved with a lady's auxiliary and we gotta go down and make sandwiches. Couldn't you get whatever cold cuts you have because there's no 24 hour supermarket there's no, you just, I mean, I don't wanna say there's nothing out in rural Sullivan county, but there, there is nothing open. So this group of wives would get together and start making sandwiches and deliver them to the, to the fire scene with fresh coffee and stuff like that. And go down to the firehouse, let themselves in prepare this stuff. And you, you know, that was like their, you know, the first rehab. Right, right. But it was just like I said, I was just so, so taken that, like this just sense of serving the community and seeing it on every level. I was like I said, I was hooked. So

Stephen J: (07:51)
Now you're, you're 18. You're getting outta high school. What's the next step to, to getting to where you are now. So everybody

Rob: (07:57)
Has, I think a New York state has to take, uh, they call it PE omics, but you know, participation in government and social economics. Yep. Uh, we had to do a ride along. So I did a ride along with the police department. Um, Mike Ward, uh, ex chief of the Liberty police department had me ride with one of his officers for the police side. And then I went to the city of Poughkeepsie and rode with the Poughkeepsie fire, uh, department. And it was really cool because I got to see this, what this job, which one

Stephen J: (08:23)
Put their vest on the city of Poughkeepsie fireman or the Liberty policeman, put it, put a Bulletproof vest on because it, the Liberty police. Okay. Yeah. Because the city Poughkeepsie fireman probably needed to

Rob: (08:33)
At the time, I think there was, uh, I think when I was riding along the Jamaican wars at, just ended from those gangs and boughs. And so, um, there were still shootings. I, I can't, you know, out of all the times that my old manager used to tell me the story of the Imperial lounge shooting, I don't remember the year that that happened, but it, I wanna say that that was, you know, just at the tail end of that. Um, but yeah, it was, uh, it's a crazy place. It was. And I was like, this is where I want to go. And I remember I talked to the guys there and I was like, so what college do I have to go to? Cause , I was getting beaten my head that if I didn't go to college, I would be a complete failure and , and uh, it just, I, and so they're like, you don't need to go to college kid.

Rob: (09:19)
And I'm like, well, what do I need to do? And they're like, there's some study books, like study them on how to take the test, learn how to read really well, and then learn how to do some basic math. But this job, ain't no college education. It's like real, like we put water on fire and we help people. So like learn how to do that. And I was like, oh, okay. And, and that's what I did. And I was probably really frustrating for my guidance counselors. Cause they were like trying to get me to do all this stuff. But I had a very clear path, like do really well on the civil service exam you have to do well, if you don't score high, you're not gonna get this interview.

Stephen J: (09:50)
And if I remember right, I mean, we're, we're close to the same age. I'm guessing I'm 39.

Rob: (09:54)
Okay. I'm a little older than you. You look younger than me, which is great. So, oh, thank you. Whatever you're doing. I don't know, take that picture now. I haven't have the gray hair. Like, you know, so

Stephen J: (10:03)
What I recall is I was back and forth fireman, cop fireman, cop, right. And my guidance counselor knew, knew where he could go for criminal justice, but had no idea where a fire science degree. And she said, Oklahoma state univers. I go, are you, I am not going to Oklahoma state university, no matter how much you pay me, how cheap the education is. so, so I went with criminal justice as my major, but under the same Aus of you, I, I have to go somewhere, you know, firemen though, you can be hired at 18 can't you as a full-time fireman. Yeah. You can. So police, you know, you gotta wait until you're 2020. So I had that, that waiting time. Um, but civil service, just the same. Yep. Taking that test stressing out three months later, you might have the results.

Rob: (10:46)
Right. And then in the meantime, I went to medical school cuz I knew that EMS was gonna be a, a portion. I was already in EMT anyway, um, medical school and I did not get along really well because the books were very difficult. I actually found out a couple years ago I have ADHD and it was a problem that always plague me through high school. And I was always like, Hey, like I think there's something wrong. I think like I need to go with the special Robbins or whatever they called the, the kids that went to special ed I'm like, I need that help. And they're like, no, you're just lazy. I'm like, I'm not lazy. I mean, there's lazy parts me, but yeah, exactly. And you know, it wasn't until a couple years ago I found this out, but uh, I had a, you know, a really hard time with the medic program. Um, the, the aspects of all the care, I could nail that down, but like the sciences and having to sit through, um, you know, the, uh, the, the biology and, and everything else of just, it was, it was too much. My brain couldn't handle it. So thankfully I got picked up by the fire department and I don't have to worry about it no more.

Stephen J: (11:44)
So who hired you? The city of Poughkeepsie city of P Kesey hires you? Yep. You're how old?

Rob: (11:49)
22. 22.

Stephen J: (11:51)
Yeah. So 22 years old, you're a fireman. Mm-hmm, you're right on the back of the firetruck holding onto that bar, going to the screaming lady with a fire and their cats up the tree. I mean, what are you

Rob: (12:01)
Doing? Auto lockouts EMS calls. Um, you know, it was, uh, my probationary year was really cool. Um, I got put on group one. Uh, my, uh, so, uh, Mike hour was my first captain. Um, Mark Johnson was my Lieutenant out of station two and I was on relief. And in Poughkeepsie at the time you started as a relief firefighter. So you covered overtime spots for the other senior people who were going on vacation. So I got to bounce around the city of Poughkeepsie and go to the different firehouses. And it was really, you know, like now back, like, I appreciate that so much because of all the, um, I don't wanna say the old timers, so they don't wanna call 'em old, but like Don STAs and Ted nicon or, uh, yeah, Ted, uh, Ned decon, um, Bob baker, um, even Chris harden who I think is still out on engine three, Roger Whitman.

Rob: (12:51)
Um, we called him Roger Dodger over now. Cause he was a radio operator in Vietnam. So like he, you know, would say Roger at the end of his transmission or out, you know, it was like, um, but yeah, it was like, it was great to work with these people and kind of pick their brains and, you know, like go to fires with 'em and go to medicals with 'em and I worked at Alamo. So, um, it was neat to see some of my old coworkers, but also, you know, like some, sometimes people were like, Hey, you need the cut back on the EMS stuff. But there were certain times where calls would be serious and the guys would just look at me and I'd jump right in. And like, do what I, you know, to me was second nature. Wasn't a big deal. But for some of the guys, if they hadn't seen some of these things, it was a little, but you're making a

Stephen J: (13:34)
Out for yourself, right? You're you're taking these EMS classes in high school. Mm-hmm CFR your EMT. You go for your, your paramedic while you're waiting to get hired as a firefighter. Yep. So people need to understand that, like you are setting yourself up for success in this field very much. So you transfer to Fairview eventually. Yep.

Rob: (13:49)
An opportunity arises. I take it to go to, to Fairview, go back on an ambulance again, start doing em care. And um, and, and in that, like there's this opportunity where one of our governors at the point, I think it was Spitzer, wanted to consolidate a lot of the local governments into like county agencies and stuff. And they were really like beaten the drum about this. And I wanted to understand what a county run system was. And I had some friends, so I made a contact. I went down to prince George's county, Maryland. Yep. And I started volunteering and I jokingly call it the national guard of firefighting, cuz it was like one weekend a month and two weeks a year. Uh, and I joined, uh, first at Beltsville fire company. And then I transferred to the Hyatsville volunteer fire company, which for anybody that's listening out there, who's a young, aspiring firefighter by all means look up, uh, it's H vfd.com or Hyatsville fire department.

Rob: (14:38)
Um, they're on Instagram. They have a great live-in program. And when, when you talked about that, where is this, uh, fire science, you know, protections programs, university of Maryland has one. And a lot of these firehouses have live-in programs. Whereas a college student you can live for free in a firehouse and you just gotta ride to fire trucks. So it's ambulance. Yeah. It's horrible. And, and you get experience and going down there, I was just so blown away. Cause I thought I was like, I was like, oh, I've got this many years in a job. I'm good. And these 18 year old kids were handing my to me. And it was the most humble and Crow that I've been forced to eat. And, but it like, it made me better experience

Stephen J: (15:16)
Driven education man.

Rob: (15:17)
Yeah. Right. And we were going to fires like that. I, I would tell people like, and it was, I was part of, it was luck, but you know, you'd get down there. And like there was a time where I went in 16 hours, I caught three like good working fires at, you know, at the end of it. Like, you're like, you know, uh, my one buddy from top floor tactics calls it a top floor fire where you're just doing that work and you come out of it and you're beat. And it happened three times. Like at the end of the 16 hours, I said, I don't know how they do it in Detroit. This is crazy. This is awesome. But it's, you know, it's nuts sounds

Stephen J: (15:49)
Tiring. Right. Crazy. So now you know why firefighters have pillows? Mm-hmm 16 hour days like that. Right. So your fair of you, you're doing this thing down in Maryland. Yep. Getting the experience, getting an education for yourself, they make you a Lieutenant mm-hmm cause you score well enough on another test. Right. And here you are, now you're a Lieutenant and you're like, you know what? I'm not doing enough for my community. I'm not doing enough. I wanna do even more. But I wanna do more for the fire community. You let's, let's talk about this national fire radio idea where it came from and really the idea of what it's all about. Cause it's, to me, I love it. You know, we talked a little bit off mic about, you know, where, where you are, uh, with this and my personal experiences of, of trying to capture history. So what, explain this to me a little bit more. So

Rob: (16:29)
It goes back to a day at the firehouse where a, uh, two alumni who are volunteers in Fairview show up and they knock on the door and Steve Wil is, uh, working as a Lieutenant and I'm not promoted yet. And this guy comes in and his name's Jeremy, Don, and he's got another guy with him wags and he goes, these guys are good. Jeremy's ACEs. And I go, where's he from? And he goes, Franklin lakes. And I, I was like, all right, I had heard about this guy, um, and, and good things. And so, and Steve said, he was like, he was allowed to sleep in the bunk room back in the day. And that was like the old gauge of how you were a good volunteer in Fairview is if you were allowed to sleep in the career bunk room, like if there's an open bed or, you know, and people wanted you, there sounds provocative.

Rob: (17:13)
Yeah. It, we can take it either way. Let's, let's keep it. PG was very scary. Jeremy comes in and I fresh pot of coffee, the senior men, you know, women, whatever the senior firefighters were retiring off the job everywhere. And a lot of times, especially in today's day and age, for whatever reason, they're leaving our job, both in the police department and the fire department. And they're extremely bitter. And when we lose them, we lose 20, 25, 28, 30 plus years of experience. And all those stories go out and those lessons go out the door with them and they never come back. So we started interviewing senior members of the department to capture their stories. And we knew that, you know, most likely people weren't just gonna listen to a podcast. So it had to be a social media channel to really drive content. And this is some stuff that we learned from Gary V.

Rob: (18:08)
So if nobody's out there is, is thinking about any of this, like Gary Vanderchuck, um, listened to his content. It's great. But uh, we started putting this down into like 62nd clips on Instagram to kind of draw people in and it just took off. And I was a little skeptical when I first started in, cause we were interviewing all sorts of different people. I kept an open mind and I was just blown away by the, you know, these moments we were capturing and these stories and, and, and the fact that like 20 and 30 year guys were trusting us with their stories. Like there's a huge responsibility in that mm-hmm and you know, we had a couple, uh, mantras that we live by and one of them's always add value, never take, never be negative, never take away value from anybody. We always wanna have a positive driven experience with national fire radio.

Rob: (18:55)
And, and that's really what we try to do. And, uh, you know, when we started the social media platform and then we started sharing the tips, tricks and hacks because we saw this need in the market to get good information out because as social media gained, we were, are flooded with bad information and I'm, I'm gonna screw it up. Cause I'm on the spot. But Elkhart brass has a, uh, a thing. We were, um, we were drowning for knowledge, but surrounded by information or something like that, you know? And it's like, and it's so true. And we wanted to start, not that we were gonna be the ones to vet who people were, but gonna start saying like, Hey vet, whatever you're looking at, you know, and that's, I guess that kind of, well,

Stephen J: (19:36)
The fire service, like the police service where you have somebody, they got, like you said, 28 years of knowledge, mm-hmm and we take your keys, we take your equipment, we take your access to the building away. And we say, good luck. And half the time, it's a last time we talked to these people, but guaranteed within the next month, two months, year, whatever something comes along, we were like, man, I wish that guy was still here. Yeah, man, because he knew all about this case or he knew all about this equipment or he knew these tricks mm-hmm and you miss 'em. And if you don't capture that, you don't capture that knowledge they have or the charisma, even some people have that keep people together. You miss it. Yeah. I love what you guys are doing. It reminds me of one of my favorite books.

Stephen J: (20:20)
And I don't know if you've ever read this book. It's one of the golden books. Remember those is a child had that golden binding. Yep. Very thin book was a cardboard front and back paper. It was called the bravest of all the, and the premise of this book is it's a firehouse and there's an old time fireman there. And he doesn't go out on the calls anymore. Cause he's the old guy, right. All the young bucks go out and there's this huge fire in the city. And the young bucks all go and they leave this guy behind with the old engine, the old engine one or whatever it was. And a little girl comes running in or a bell gets wrong or whatever. However, the alarm goes off, there's another fire. And he goes out and he handles it basically all by himself. And he C he comes back before the old men or before the young men rather come back.

Stephen J: (21:04)
And next thing you know, the little girl comes and says, Hey, you dropped this when you were putting out my fire. And the young guys are like, what, where were you? What were you doing? And he was so humble. Like most veterans are and just kept it quiet. But then that opened the conversation for these guys. So I'm gonna get you a copy of that book, cuz it's exactly what you guys are doing. And it was one of my favorites. So capturing these, these guys capturing their information, their knowledge, even their, their stories sometimes means so much. And I love

Rob: (21:33)
It. Well, that's great. And for us, the impact that we immediately felt from this, like, and, and it, it took off like a wildfire, no unintended, but um, the, like there a Jim Doty, uh, chief out of Maw, ex chief, you're always an ex chief in the fire service. If you're a past chief, that means you died. So I got school in that. Um, but he is a fire service instructor in Bergen county and he he's talking to us and he tells us his story about being a young fireman, hearing a, a fire in new Hackensack or in a Hackensack New Jersey and going to buffet. And he just I'll go take pictures, whatever else. It's like the 4th of July weekend, he gets down there and it's a Hackensack Ford dealership fire. And unfortunately Hackensack lost a couple firefighters and this Bo string trust. And it was one of the final, like the, the, they called it the trilogy of Bo string, uh, Bo string trust, collapses, but he tells us his story about being a bystander.

Rob: (22:31)
And then this like goes sideways. And another, uh, firefighter from Hackensack grabs him and they start breaching a wall, you know? And so they're breaching this block wall because his guys are trapped in a room and they get through the wall and it's just a fire flame, you know, Dante's Inferno. And then after the fact they find out, they were only so many feet from the actual room that these guys were tr and it drove him to be such like such a good instructor. And we put that out there and then the students were like, holy, we never realized, like that was his motivation. And there was this like great understanding now. And he's hundreds of firefighter, one students, um, we had Steve kaon was hired in the wake of that tragedy and he was able to kind of like, you know, and it just, we didn't, you know, plan that out.

Rob: (23:16)
It just happened that way. So now people kind of got to see the second half of that story. Um, there was a, a, a Joe bra, a fire chief down in Jersey. And I asked him this offset question, like at the end of the interview, just say, Hey, what's one thing you do. That's, it's not in the books. It's different. You know, and I, I always get emotional thinking about this, but he says, uh, well, I'm a chief. And sometimes I get the calls, especially car accidents first and the person's dying and you know, when they're dying and you know, that you're in that final moments to that person's life. And, uh, I reach in and I get ahold of 'em and I just let 'em know that they're not, they're not alone. And I'm sitting there, holy, this is deep. Like, I didn't think this was gonna go this way.

Rob: (23:54)
Um, you know, and we finished the podcast and then a couple weeks later, somebody reaches out in the middle of Iowa who responds to a car accident and, you know, they don't have any equipment with the rescue truck, whatever else is still 15 minutes out. And this person's dying. They don't know what to do. And they think of our podcast and it brings them such closure. And it's just like, and that's, that's the stuff that we capture. Yeah. And we get that feedback from, and it's like, you know, it's still a situation, but I can't imagine that situation. If that kid hadn't listened to our podcast that day. Right. So I'm like, to me, it's, like I said, it's a tremendous honor to be able to sit here and capture these stories and, and share them and put them out there. And like I said, we we're seeing positive influences everywhere with the work. So it's,

Stephen J: (24:35)
You know, we, we feel the same way the people we have and we're, we're able to talk to, and to hear what they're doing to spread their word, their message. It is a phenomenal responsibility. And I think it's a responsibility now, you know, I wanna know you guys are sitting these old timers down these veterans down. Are you surprised? Cause I am. Are you surprised at how much they're telling you and do you think you'd get the same kind of response if you're just in a truck driving around or because you have this venue now this venue of national fire radio, you've created that they're, they're a little more willing to talk and open up. Do you see that you think, uh,

Rob: (25:08)
I, I could see it both ways. Uh, typically I think people get very intimidated, like microphones cameras, and, you know, they don't know what to expect. And we just tell 'em, Hey, we're just talking. And, and the other thing that's very important when we talked about that value and bringing value to people, I adding value, uh, we tell our guests that they own their content. So if there's something that comes out wrong and I'm like, oh man, this guy was such a jerk and blah, blah, blah. I can't believe he did this with the buddy, whatever, you know? And you're like, oh, we don't want that. You know? And I come back and I'm like, oh man, I can't have that. Like, there's a, there's a lead time that we give him for corrections. Uh, so that's where the, the trust comes in. Um, and, but like once we get talking, it's very easy to like, firemen are easy to talk to when we're talking to other firemen, you know, firefighters, et cetera.

Rob: (25:56)
Like, uh, same thing with police officers. I think. So whether it would be in the truck or in the studio, like we, we all know how to talk to people. Like, yeah, some, some are gonna be harder to the crack than others, because if it's like, you know, depending who it, who it could be, but for the most part, it's real. I, I think it's easy. And I think that the more we go on with it, the more that people hear it. And they're like, okay, this is what to, there's no hidden punches. We're not trying to jam anybody up. You know, we're not gonna ask about kids in cages or anything like that, you know, and weird hot topic political with, she was like, oh, the virus is fake, but I don't know. Like, that's not what we're about. We're, we're here to capture the story and, and, and put it out there.

Stephen J: (26:35)
So, so Rob, Ridley's sitting here and he's staring at his 21 year old self. Who's already doing the right thing. 21 year old Rob Ridley is on the right path. I think to a degree maybe. Yeah. To a degree. Give me something you wanna tell him to say, Hey, this is, this is a, a road to success. What, what kind of advice you wanna give 21 year old? Robert Lee, if he's listening.

Rob: (26:53)
I think the advice that I would give to myself is it's gonna be okay and it's gonna get better because there were a lot of times where I was like, I don't know if this is gonna work out and there's from my past that like made me think certain things, like, I think it's funny. Cause I'll tell people like my self-esteem for a long time, wasn't the highest. And people are like, what? You know? And I'm like, no, like I really crappy. Self-esteem like, you know, all these things happened, but that it's gonna be okay. And just to hang in,

Stephen J: (27:23)
I think, uh, people who are motivated always want things today, right? Mm-hmm and civil service, especially when you wanna be a firefighter, you want to be a cop or anything really associated with civil service. If that's your goal, man, that hiring process will kill you. Yeah. That waiting game, that unknown that, oh right. We're gonna go do our agility today would 40 other guys. And you know, there's only two openings. It, it is. I don't wanna say demoralizing cuz it's not demoralizing, but it's, it's rough, psychologically. It's rough going through that

Rob: (27:54)
Process. I, I think of Simon Sinek when he talks about, uh, being in the game and the infinite game. And like, if you're trying to get on any of these jobs, um, you have to be in the infinite mindset and the infinite game, because like you said, there's the opportunity could be that there's two positions and X I, I, and to this day, I, I, I think that I had a lucky, uh, was it lucky Saturday or Sunday? When we take the test? Um, at the time when I was hired, I was 26 on the list in the county. And then I was number three, number three or four, um, for the city of Poughkeepsie and like the rules of three who came into my, my favor, one guy, he was obviously not living in the city of Poughkeepsie. Like he had like a, a crack den address. And then like, there was no way this white boy was living off of Winky, you know, like, and it's one shoot house. And then, um, another guy, he got arrested for child pornography. So like, and I, you know, I know this now, but like I go into the interview and I'm like, I got resumes and I'm like

Stephen J: (29:00)
Fresh

Rob: (29:01)
Press, shoot, press. I got my interview questions. And I don't even realize that by the rule three, they got no choice, but to hire myself and Andy, who was the other guy got hired with. Um, but like, you know, still like gave it my all. Cause I didn't even know that I would never, never entered into my mind. But like if that didn't work, I was gonna test out and I had tested other areas. So I was gonna be a fireman. Um, it just was a matter of where, well, I,

Stephen J: (29:26)
Everyone always ask me, listen, take every test that comes out every, I don't care if you gotta drive six hours, you know about the test, take it. Mm-hmm cause they're all basically the same. Yeah. You're gonna get familiar with the question. You're gonna understand it. You're gonna see it again. Take every single test and then make yourself the easiest choice. Go to your EMT, go get your CFR, go take your classes, go to your ride, alongs, meet your community leaders. Just don't give an, don't give an option when you sit in front of them. Yeah. You know, do everything the right way and keep yourself clean. Yep. Keep yourself clean and outta trouble. You know how to make good decision. We're all inherently smart enough to make a good decision. So make good decisions. And

Rob: (30:04)
If you make a bad decision own it, own it.

Stephen J: (30:06)
Absolutely. We talk about that all the time, but we've talked about it with others, own it like a man mm-hmm take the responsibility and do what you gotta do. Last question I have for you. It's my favorite question. Robert Lee, Lieutenant Robert Lee. You define what a hero is

Rob: (30:23)
To you. You know, we could look up in Websters, you know, a, a definition of what a hero is and it would hit all the check boxes. But to me, the, he like the true heroes are the ones who get the scared out of them and are able to handle a situation and take action. Even though they're like, they, they gotta like, they're practically gotta be in their pants. And when I think of a hero, like there's an image that I use. Um, cuz I, I had to do this EMS portion at the academy for my municipal fire instructor certification. And there's this very powerful image from Florida of a woman giving mouth to mouth, to, to an infant on the side of the road. And I don't know the whole story, but all I can imagine is that the civilian who had just some basic CPR training did something spectacular on the middle of an interstate and bought this child back to life.

Rob: (31:21)
Um, you know, like that, like how much courage that took or how much courage it takes somebody to stand up, you know, when there's something bad going on and charge at like the danger, like up in Canada, there was that there's unfortunately mass shooting that happened here a couple years ago and a guy charged a shooter and he ended up unfortunately losing his life. But like it provided an opportunity for others to get out and people that take action against that threat. Like that's the cause I there's been times where I've been scared outta my mind and uh, and I'm like, well, you know, and all of a sudden it's like, all right, well we'll worry about being scared later. And then afterwards, you know, it's like

Stephen J: (31:59)
Monster that scared energy and get to work, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. Well, Rob you're hero to me, you're hero a lot of other people, what you guys are doing with national fire radio is inspiring. So I wanna thank you. Thanks for coming on. We're gonna send everybody out to national fire radio if they're not there already, which I'm assuming a lot of people you brought here today are already listening to you, but some of our guys and girls out there listening, because those stories can't get them anymore.

Rob: (32:23)
Yeah. And we have, uh, there's other there's other podcasts that we like. We have some other, I don't wanna say the national fire radio umbrella. We have the size up with, uh, with PIP. He's a very like big fitness guy. So if there's anybody out there looking for fitness advice and stuff like that, he's worked with 5 55 fitness and he does both law enforcement and fire and EMS there's grants out there. Um, we have rush to the bus cause we wanted to start shining a light on EMS stuff and we have a fork and hose company. So if we're looking for, you know, healthy meals and stuff to cook up, you know, like we have AJ from fork and hose, it's working with us as well. So it's, you know, it's, I don't wanna say we're expanding, but we have these other avenues that are out there. So there's other Instagram channels that besides national fire radio that excuse me, we're behind. So

Stephen J: (33:06)
Rob, thanks so much, man. Fantastic. Appreciate you being here. Thanks.

Rob: (33:09)
Cheers.

Stephen J: (33:10)
Cheers. So excited to have Rob on this podcast, uh, have him at our fingertips and uh, you know, a phone call away for us as we go through this. And especially just the history that they're capturing to me is just phenomenal. Yeah. It's such a great resource and it was so awesome having Rob on the show today. I, I really love the, the capturing that history because long ago there wasn't that medium to be able to hear guy's stories, capture it and archive it forever. So to me, that's just, that's just something really cool. Um, and you know what we, we know we got Rob anytime we need him to come here and, and talk some more. So I'm pretty sure we'll hear from him again in the future. I'm looking forward to it. So everyone thank you for listening to behind the tin

and hearing about our heroes and what they're doing when the tin is off, uh, please make sure to like follow, share, subscribe to behind the tin

Stephen J: (33:58)
Yeah. You know, we're out there. Check out the website behind the ten.com. It's up there, the Facebook page. Uh, we appreciate all the support. Give us some reviews. We'd love to hear what you think. Yeah. Mean the world to us. And if you fit and you should be a guest, let us know, man. One of the coolest things is meeting people, having a beer with 'em talking about it, maybe, uh, you know, you could be sitting in a chair with Justin, the civilian producer and Stephen J the good Lieutenant. Absolutely. Hey, stay safe, take care of each other and we'll see you next time.