OFCA Episode 46. Paul Hasenmeier

Paul Hasenmeier (0:08)

I can give you multiple examples. I've had hospital CEOs tell me that they love the firefighters reducing work hours and going to a 24 72 And I'm like, why? Like, because they all apply to work in the ER.

Clayton O'Brien (0:25)

Welcome to the Triple P Podcast, premier, professional and proactive, brought to you by the Ohio Fire Chiefs Association. I'm your host, Clayton O'Brien, and I'm the fire chief for the city of Oregon.

Josh Eberly (0:37)

And I'm your co-host, Josh Eberly, with the City of Findlay Fire Department.

Clayton O'Brien (0:42)

All right, Paul, hey, welcome to the Triple P Podcast. We're super excited to have you on tonight as we get to dive into some some of the research that you've done for your dissertation. I want you to explain all about that. But before we get there, let me kind of like set the stage, give the audience a little bit of, you know, who you are. So I'm going to read your bio and then we'll get into it. So Paul Hasenmeier, he's the Public Safety Director and Fire Chief for Hernando County, Florida.

Hasenmeier possesses a Doctor of Organizational Leadership from Columbia Southern University and a Master in Public Administration from Compella University and a Bachelor of Fire Science from Columbia Southern University. He is a graduate of the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program. And additionally, Hasenmeier is trained as a firefighter, paramedic, instructor, fire inspector and in all of the NFPA 1670s technical rescue disciplines.

In addition to his current duties and responsibilities as a Public Safety Director and a Fire Chief in Hernando County, Hasenmeier is a lead faculty member at Columbia Southern University where he teaches online courses in their fire administration program. Hasenmeier is an adjunct instructor for Bowling Green State University and teaches at their annual state fire school. He has presented on fire service and leadership topics across the United States and in Canada. Wow, that is an excellent bio Paul. I'm very honored to have you on the show today and just to hear about what the latest things that you've been working on because you've had one heck of a career.

Josh Eberly (2:21)

And he's rocking the Buckeyes hat. He's rocking the Ohio State hat from Florida, so we appreciate that.

Paul Hasenmeier (2:26)

Yeah, I had to wear the Buckeyes hat for you guys up there in Ohio, which I probably know for you soon.

Clayton O'Brien (2:33)

I absolutely love that you have that Buckeyes hat on, by the way. All right, to get started here, Paul, to kind of dive right into it.

Why don't you start setting the stage about, you know, this conversation kind of came up because we're going to talk all about what you did as far as your dissertation for your doctorate degree. So why don't you kind of set the stage and give us, you know, how you did the research, how you came about it and all the things that go into it. Because I can tell you what, I don't have a doctorate degree. So I don't know what it all entails as far as, you know, getting that. And so why don't we tell the audience about all of it?

Paul Hasenmeier (3:10)

Yeah, thank you. First off, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Some of the stuff we're going to talk about is certainly a hot topic in the fire service for the last little while and probably into the future. But, you know, one thing I want to do too is start off thanking our military personnel, those that are deployed overseas, serving and protecting us along deployments and so forth. And now, yeah, let's talk about, you know, firemen being away from home for 24 hours and work hours and so forth. Because that's what I did my dissertation topic on, and reduce work hours in the fire service. It's one of those hot topics right now. And I did this research, well, I was working on my doctorate and I was doing a lot of the didactic classes, didn't really have a topic in mind, and then talked to multiple different people and saw a lot of the discussion about reduced work hours in the fire service. So one thing I wanted to do being a chief officer was try to help figure this thing out and see what's happening and the how, the why and so forth. But I wanted to give chief fire officers a scholarly voice in a debate that often focuses on primarily employee preferences and benefits. So those things are well documented, but there was a huge gap when I started looking into this. There's not a lot written, not a lot of research done on chief fire officer perception. So I picked that topic and ran with it.