Making a difference in the community while developing our youth with FF Chip Eurillo

Stephen J: (00:11)
Welcome to behind the 10, a podcast that introduces you to the ROIC men and women who are the tin while protecting our community and hearing about the extraordinary things they're doing when they badges in their locker. Steven, Jay, the good Lieutenant here with Justin, the civilian producer,

Justin: (00:25)
It is a fine day to be here today.

Stephen J: (00:27)
It is a fine day. Once again, we're not doing a podcast day. This is more of a, you know, catch up day from the live podcast that we did on nine 11 at Duche stadium. Yeah, it

Justin: (00:37)
W it was a great time. If you had missed the live, uh, the live broadcast, this is the, uh, uh, one of three episodes that have come out of that, uh, live

Stephen J: (00:46)
Podcast. It was great. It was so much fun in case you didn't see the photos or hear about, hear about it. We were set up in suite number five, we called it studio five for the five, and we had a small, uh, audience. Yeah. We had guys and girls from guns and hoses up there, hanging out with us in the, and we were able to, to do three interviews, uh, and make 'em into these three episodes. So it was kind of cool. Who

Justin: (01:07)
Do we have on this

Stephen J: (01:08)
Part? Uh, today we got chip Burillo chip Burillo. Oh, he's a guy that's out there very much. Uh, he's a guy that's behind the scenes in a lot of organizations. Um, and we're gonna talk about, you know, his experiences and, and the influence that he's had over, over the youth. Once again, I think, uh, we go back to talking about how important it is to, to really get our youth involved young. Yeah. Yep. The, the younger, the better before we get into that, let's talk about our today's cocktail conversation sponsor and it's Christian, Justin, all the way from the country of Venezuela. We have a

Justin: (01:39)
Sponsor from Venezuela,

Stephen J: (01:40)
Christian from Venezuela reached out, out, uh, on social media. He heard about our podcast. He's been listening, loves hearing about it. Wow. And I said, Christian, we're gonna throw you a shout out. We're gonna make you a cocktail over conversation sponsor. So we're going worldwide. It's pretty interesting, Justin, when we look at the map of all the downloads that we're getting, it's not only nationwide, but it's, Worldwide's pretty, pretty spectacular. That's amazing. Uh, the other sponsors that we got today is marketing and service.com podcast. If you go to marketing and service.com, you'll hear just in the civilian producer. I love that podcast. It's

Justin: (02:11)
Great. That's a great one. It's one, my

Stephen J: (02:12)
Favorites, not this one, but it's great. Uh, those guys print.com. Those guys for all your custom apparel and promotion product needs visit those guys, print.com. So let's get into listening to our interview with chip. I was kind of surprised about how much stuff he's involved in. Cause like I said, he's just a low key guy. So without further ado, let's, uh, let's hear from chip Chip, man. You've been listening to the podcast. You've been in our live audience here all night, hearing about different stories of, of what people are doing, uh, in the community. Why don't you introduce yourself? Just a tad to who you are and, and what brought you here, man?

Chip: (02:51)
Uh, my name is chip Burillo and I, I came into the community back in 2005 and my wife, Jules got, was involved with new Hackensack. And you guys at guns and hoses yep. Brought us right on in. Yep. And, uh, I've been a part of you, part of guns and hoses ever since then. And she was your secretary. Yeah,

Stephen J: (03:13)
I, Jules was the, we talked about her with will Moore. Uh, just the spit five. I knew her when she joined new Hackensack and I was there and, uh, a girl that just, you wanted her energy, you wanted her involvement and you knew things were gonna get done when and when she was there. And uh, when, when you guys became part of it together, cuz you were, you were a package deal. Um, it was, it was enlightening to have someone that would also help and didn't need to be told twice and you didn't need to ask, uh, questions. It was just get it done. What can I do? And, and, and I'd, I appreciated your help when, when I was running guns and hoses. Uh, and I know that will had, had mentioned you a bunch of times and he appreciates what you're doing and you know, there's not a lot of chips out there. You know, the guy that's just willing to get his hands dirty and not worry about who's in charge or who's doing this just wants to help man. So I think

Chip: (04:00)
It's great. Yeah. Well, you know, it was, it's part of the whole scouting thing. I went up through scouting here, back in the eighties and became an Eagle scout. And that was just the, how I was brought up. Everybody in the troop, their dads were, you know, from the military or been in scouting and they just gave the community. They gave to everyone of us, I came from a divorce family. I had a dad just sucked us in and said, Hey, you know, I'm gonna take care of you, you know, and taught me a trade. And I'm still in that trade to this day, I'm, you know, forever his debt, you know.

Stephen J: (04:31)
Do, do you think it was his involvement in your life that led you to being so involved in the community? Like his leadership to

Chip: (04:37)
You? I think it was, it was him, my scout master, who is in the area. His name is I'll give him Tim Dean. Yeah. He's uh, you come on in

Stephen J: (04:48)
Live audience members being added, come on in, on, in you're good.

Chip: (04:52)
But, uh, between his selflessness and uh, knowing that we couldn't get there, cause my mom was always working and my dad, you know, being divorced, he would pick us up, take us to Scouts, make sure that we got to every meeting and everything and uh, his, his just openness to help me grow. And then my friend's father who helped me grow, you know, was tremendous. So I just want to do the same for everybody in the community. And I try to give back to every kid. I see. I think

Stephen J: (05:18)
It's great. I mean, you, your let's it's the Explorer program.

Chip: (05:22)
It was, yeah, I was, uh, COVID kind of stopped it. Yep. They're trying to start it back up right now. We brought in a new, uh, scout troop to, uh, uh, Houston bill and uh, those young adults now are getting ready to join the firehouse and how they're looking at restarting the Explorer program.

Stephen J: (05:39)
What that's great.

Justin: (05:39)
Yeah. We've yeah. We've talked about this, uh, over and over again on this podcast, how important it is for, for these kids to get that exposure and come in at a young age and get that jump start on, on what potentially can be a career in,

Chip: (05:52)
In fire, right? Yeah, it is. And a lot of the, a lot of the young adults that we had in the first group, we still all keep in contact with me on Facebook and stuff. Let me know where they're at. Some went into the military, some went into the fire service, uh, as a full-time career, some went to, uh, fire college and they're all, you know, they all keep in touch with each other and it's amazing. They all stay together. Just, I mean the same thing that, uh, that's how I knew Jules. I have no, I knew my wife since we were 12 years old, we got involved in scouting. We got involved in explorers. And even when I left and went to Florida, we still stayed in kind of contact through all of our friends. And then I wound up coming back and we got back together and got married. Wow.

Stephen J: (06:31)
I just think that the repetition that we keep hearing of getting the young people involved early and then really keeping them part of the community is just something we can't stop talking about.

Justin: (06:41)
Right. Right. It's just so important. And it, it seems to, uh, just be the way that to get people involved. And we've, we've talked about it today and earlier about bringing people together and having that unity, uh, and, and being able to have that shared bond with these people who can come in young, they get that exposure. They say, Hey, this is something I might want to do. And then, you know, you guys are able to provide that guidance and that experience for them to, to make serious life choices and, and become heroes.

Stephen J: (07:08)
I, I think it's the direction that you're able to, to help them. You know, they're already there cause they want to be there. Right? Nobody forces them to join these organizations, especially at their age. But if they're joining in and they're participating and they have mentors like you and the others that we've had here, I think that really helps grow a community. And I, I don't think we talk about it enough outside of the podcast. Cause we, we are harping on it, but I think it needs to be what happens when a community doesn't have that chip. Is there, um, an area that you're only allowed to join if you're doing the explore program in a firehouse, is it anywhere because not every community has this program. So

Chip: (07:42)
What any, any group can start an Explorer post, whether they are full-time Scouts, not scouting. The Explorer program is kind of independent. It is for, uh, young men and young women. So it, anybody can join and you can get to get other as a group. And, um, it's fun. You know, it's basically ran through the boy Scouts of America, but it's kind of an independent group and you know, you're set up with a parameter, but the parameters are easy. It's based on what you do. I mean, there's aviation groups, there's groups for firefighting police, you name it. There's usually Explorer posts for anything available.

Stephen J: (08:20)
I didn't know that mm-hmm, see, we're learning something

Justin: (08:22)
Again. So if there's a organization, a fire organization or law enforcement organization, they want to start, uh, and bring in a program like this, the best place for them to go is probably to check with their, their local Scouts.

Chip: (08:34)
Uh, yes. Or even you guys that can contact you, you know how to get ahold of me and I'll help them, him get something set up, you know, I'll give 'em a hand and just tell 'em the right direction to go. It's that, it's very

Stephen J: (08:44)
Simple. Awesome. What's the area though that you guys cover, because that's where I'm, I'm wondering if a kid from Sullivan county, they don't have the program. Can he join your program?

Chip: (08:54)
Any child can join the program. It's a matter of drive and time sure. For the parent. And that's kind of makes it hard. Of course. So if you can get at least five people and the fire, uh, department that they're gonna run it from, say for fire, uh, can get one male and one female advisor, they can set the whole program up. You need five children for young adults and, and that discipline and that's, whatever that discipline is, that's all you need.

Stephen J: (09:19)
I just think it's so important that we, we keep these kids focused and active in something that really is gonna help them in their future. And this Explorer program has really done it. I don't know what your retention rate is, or if anybody's looking at, you know, if they're staying in that service or they're staying in community service.

Chip: (09:35)
So everybody that joined the Explorer post so far at Houston, bill has went through either the entire program or left and went to a firehouse. Wow. We lost, no, we lost no young adults

Stephen J: (09:46)
From the program. And how many, many kids have you had go through the program?

Chip: (09:48)
Now we had 21 before we stopped.

Stephen J: (09:51)
So you had 21 success stories already. Mm-hmm , that's incredible. I mean, that's that there's firehouses that I know that don't have 21 active members. Right.

Justin: (09:59)
And you you've discussed recently, uh, how the challenges of recruitment for law enforcement and fire, right? It's it's not, you know, you, I know you've said that there used to be classes with, you know, hundreds of people now you're, you're begging people to join because such a difficult landscape out there in such a tough environment to, to be in those careers today. So I'm sure that again, that program helps to give that exposure and, and bring those people, new people into those careers.

Stephen J: (10:25)
I think it's great. Cuz it's, again, it's a volunteer thing. It's not a court order program, you know? So you're dealing with kids that want to be there. They want be successful. They want to follow that path to where, you know, they firefighters or police officers are.

Chip: (10:38)
Right. Right. And you have to make it fun. Of course. So you, but you look at the whole, all the age group that you have. And like I took stuff and some of it was cartoons. Some of it was made where it looked like a cartoon showed how things had progressed in a fire. We took 'em to a burn building. We gave them the, our own ropes. We did not classes. We did all kinds of stuff to labor out, tying all the firefighters in the firehouse. And most of everybody that graduated from here was top of their class in the academy. And they could out tie everybody. They were teaching the class cuz they could do the knots and everything better than most other people that were there. That's

Justin: (11:15)
Great. Was that head start again? Right. Talk about just that little bit of that head SAR can have such a tremendous impact, uh, in the long term for, for someone's experience. It's amazing. And

Chip: (11:23)
Our firehouse was very involved. They all accepted everybody. They brought 'em out. We were able to ride on trucks a couple times. So they could actually go to a live car accident. You know, we kept them all safe. We follow the guidelines, but they were able to come out and see what on. And then they were able to do the stuff in training. We got them involved in the training so they could actually see what really goes on and they got to play and see some of the tools and it's all age based. So depending on your age, you got to do different things, but they got to feel it. They got to live it and they got to see it. So it was more and more fun. They got to do rig checks, they got to do this. And as they got older, then they could do this. And then as they got older, they could do this and they kept progressing and made it more and more fun.

Stephen J: (12:03)
You said it's five kids in that discipline wherever they may be. They wanna be interested in. Then there's obviously a mentor. What do they call a leader?

Chip: (12:11)
It's an advisor. You have a, a and a female advisor because it's a co-ed setup. Okay. So you

Stephen J: (12:15)
Have to have both and they, are they from obviously the discipline or is it just a parent? Is it just a coordinator?

Chip: (12:20)
It can be anybody. Okay. It just has to be somebody that's willing to give their time and be involved to make it happen. It helps that they're in the discipline. So they know like what they're teaching. Like I called and I got the current books. So I had the books of what they would learn when they became firefighter one. And we made sure they covered everything

Stephen J: (12:37)
In firefighter. One used to be called firefighting essentials.

Chip: (12:40)
Yeah. Way back in the day. So I got my book book. It was displayed too.

Stephen J: (12:44)
firefighting

Chip: (12:45)
Essentials. It was what? 80 pages now it's like, boom, a book. Here's the

Stephen J: (12:49)
Fire. Here's the hose. But the fire Tetra Heian. Right. See I'm I'm I'm still there somewhere. Yeah.

Chip: (12:56)
You just gotta remember put the wet stuff on the red stuff. You're

Stephen J: (12:58)
Good. Well, not, not really. Cause now we've talked to, we got JJ, the, uh, firefighter Johnson and he was talking about these electric cars, which is now a other thing in the education component he bringing and you know, and, and you love the cars. I love it. Yeah. Tesla's we were talking about Teslas talking about that and there's a guy that could, and, and I'm sure do a class for the explorers and they would come in with knowledge greater than what maybe some firefighters even at yeah. You know, this learning at, at a young age, I think is so important. We have there's other countries that start you in your discipline in high school or even younger. Right? Yeah. And I, I think we're missing those opportunities now and any discipline to say, Hey, uh, a lot of kids don't like school, a lot of kids don't want to be forced to take classes.

Stephen J: (13:36)
They have no interest in, but if we can drive their attention and fit in all those other subjects, mm-hmm, along the way. But drive their attention to something they like, I think it drives us a more successful society. Right. And especially keeping the kids we've talked about a hundred times, keeping the kids in the community where they're from. Right. I mean we're in New York. There is a huge loss of young people. Yeah. When, when they go to college or when they're looking for work, cuz it's not here or it's so expensive to stay here. Correct. But when they get into the community and listen, what we just say in the last episode and a hundred episodes before that network is your net worth. You're you're learning and, and meeting so many people in the fire service cuz especially the volunteer services, it's lawyers, the actors, uh, teachers, construction workers, you have that mixing, uh, you know that bowl of mixing people together for a common cause, but they leave that fire and they're going back to the real job. And when they see talent in a young person, which you guys are, are doing, you know, especially volunteer, they're gonna have to get a job someday. Mm-hmm and now they've met their community leaders. They met and it's like a job interview before the interview's even, you know, announced. Right. So I don't know if you've seen success like that, where guys are literal, like handpicked and saying, Hey, come with me, you're impressing us. We, we want you. Is that, is that something you've seen to a degree?

Chip: (14:50)
Uh, I've seen the firehouses. Yes, exactly. Make sure that those, their young youth come back to them. Cuz we were open all the way to spa. I mean we had kids from spa all the way through, down, uh, Wappingers, fish go beacon. So we were open

Stephen J: (15:03)
To everybody and they made sure that once they saw what was going on, they made sure that they got their young, young adults back. That's great because they didn't want 'em to go, just stay. Hey, over at Houston bill, they wanted him to come back to where they were. You mentioned your dad was kind of an influence and, and your parents being divorced, but he was really driving force. My friend's dad, your friend's dad of really making that happen. Um, what, what do you say to somebody else that's in that situation now? You know what words of encouragement that you could give them to say, Hey, you could do it.

Chip: (15:35)
You can do anything. You put your mind to mm-hmm . I mean, when I was 20 years old here in New York, I got hit by a 16 year old kid and they told me I'd never walk again. And I am 51. Now they said I'd be in a wheelchair and I'm still walking and you know me, I'll do whatever I can. Yeah. You walked up the

Stephen J: (15:50)
Stairs here to get up the studio. Number five. Just fine. No, but I mean, I would never

Chip: (15:54)
Know that, but I'll run around with the young adults at the Explorer post all day long, you know, and, and keep up with them. But you can do anything. You put your mind to, you don't ever let anybody tell you, you can't do it as of, you know, like, right. Like you said, I've been a firefighter from Florida and I'm only social up here. Um, but I did 16 years in Florida and we've done stuff. I mean, I've had to die for dead bodies. I've had to launch Zodiacs off of an interstate, into a city to go get people out in a hurricane. I mean, there's a, it what you do and what you can do is amazing and you are nothing, but what you put your mind to it, period. Did you have that

Stephen J: (16:32)
Same mindset at 20? Or do you feel that's something you've grown into over

Chip: (16:36)
Time? No. I always had that mindset and I don't care. You're never gonna tell me I can't do something. cuz I will learn it and I will do it better than what you think. You can do it. There you go. And that's what you just gotta keep going on. But that was from everybody that brought me up. Right. You know, even my grandfather told me, look, you learned everything you can cuz can ever take it away from you. So I have a master's in electrical. I have a master's in mechanical. I have a UL license for photo VO X and a teaching degree. And I had all that before I was 30. Wow. Nobody taking away

Stephen J: (17:09)
Is important. You gotta give that to you. And I think there's, you know, we're in the, the society of everybody gets a trouble right now and you got, you gotta fail. Sometimes you gotta learn from failure. Cause you never wanna feel that again. Right. You know, that's a feeling you don't want and unless you've ever had it, you don't know you don't want it. Cause if you're just giving that trophy so that like, oh I'm never gonna walk again.

Chip: (17:27)
Yeah. You know how many times I fell in my face in four years or fall outta bed or fell flat down in front of somebody because I had a hard time. I had to go through rehab to learn how to move my whole right side of my body. I know how to put me down. Do you know what my first job was? I took, when I got to Florida, I was a door to door salesman, selling air conditioning, uh, uh, maintenances, basically maintenances. Wow. Because they said the more I walk, the better I become. So I walked every single job day after day until I could just walk without falling on my face.

Justin: (17:57)
Wow. That's incredible. That's really incredible

Stephen J: (17:59)
Chip. We ask every guest here. Uh, how do you define a hero?

Chip: (18:04)
A hero is somebody that puts not themselves first, but goes into help somebody else. And no matter what that person you grow, that's a hero.

Stephen J: (18:15)
What's crazy is you probably never were asked that in this kind of setting before you probably never sat there and thought about it. You've probably never talked about yourself and what you've done with anybody else, knowing you, cuz you are a, a guy likes to stay behind the scenes, but you just defined yourself perfectly, man. I'm proud you. I'm proud to be your friend. Uh, you are a hero. You, you continue to be a hero by mentoring these young people and helping them become heroes also. So cheers to you,

Justin: (18:38)
My friend. And you're a hero to the community in so many other ways. I mean, Steven and I know with, with, with all the support you give to a lot of the non-profit organizations around, I, I mean you you've been, uh, you've just been a measure. Well, the help you've given this, this community. Thank

Stephen J: (18:52)
You. So thank you. Well, after recording that with chip and having him as a, uh, a guest, Justin, I gotta tell you once again, I love that we have this platform to be able to accentuate and show off to a degree what these men and women are, are doing without any accolades or expectation of accolades.

Justin: (19:14)
Yeah. And the one thing, you know, you have always mentioned that a lot of these stories don't get told because people keep 'em to themselves. And you know, I know chip I'm friends with chip and uh, it learned so much about him in this, uh, in this interview. It was cool to have him on the show.

Stephen J: (19:24)
Me too. I've known him a long time and you still get, when we sit down with somebody, we put him microphone in front of him. Yeah. It's so funny how much they open up, but you'd almost think it's the opposite. But every guest that we've had on here, every time we've done this, somebody sits down and astonishes us abso every

Justin: (19:40)
Time, every time.

Stephen J: (19:41)
And I love it. So I, I thank chip. I thank all our guests, always for coming on, on the podcast with us here at behind the tin and telling their story and really sharing their experiences so people can and appreciate what our heroes are doing with the badge on and off. Make sure you like follow, share, subscribe, uh, to

Justin: (19:57)
Buy the ten.com. Yeah. And check out behind the ten.com. Yeah. Check it out.

Stephen J: (20:00)
We're try to update it and make it nicer. If you have ideas, please share 'em with us. You know, we're open to that. If you have an idea for a guest or you yourself should be a guest behind the

Justin: (20:10)
Gmail.com

Stephen J: (20:11)
You Justin, once again, thanks so much. Check out our Facebook, like share, follow, subscribe. And until next time look out for one another and stay safe.