IC's Message to the Team

First I want to say that I am both humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve on such a distinguished and professional Incident Command Team.

Customer Service, Integrity, Competency, and Cooperation are the core values of Team 6 and its members. We utilize these values as guiding principles before, during, and after our deployments to incidents.

Team 6 will continue its tradition of excellence and success for many reasons, however the primary reason is the culture of honest, respectful interaction and the individual communications skills of all team members. Positive and proactive communication can prevent many issues and solve most problemns. We owe it to each other to communicate our needs, challenges, and expectations up and down the chain of command.  Success as a team is our ability to communicate with each other so that we can help each other.

Team 6 maintains a reputation known throughout the State of California. We are sought after by agencies due to our ability to quickly transition with the existing command structure and mitigate the incident cooperatively. How we conduct ourselves during the initial stages of the incident to which we are assigned is one of the most important moments of the deployment. During this time our attitude, motivation, and character will be judged in the first few minutes of meeting our counterparts. It is normal human nature for the host agency to be somewhat defensive. We can and will defuse any tension by conveying our desire to simply provide help and support.

The Team 6 philosophy has always been to be professional, humble, compassionate, and understanding while at the same time knowing full well your are the definitive expert in your field. You are respected and looked up to as a member of a CAL FIRE Incident Command Team.

Team 6 will be aggressive in incident mitigation strategies and tactics. This seems counter intuitive to being humble, but it is not. Team 6 has always set a rapid pace for safe incident operations and by being aggressive and proactive, we reduce the threat to both public and responder safety.  Contingencies will be discussed, evaluated and incorporated into the overall incident plan. We will be aware of and be prepared for the incident's pace while considering to our ability to engage resources (reflex time).

We are living in a very politically charged atmosphere. Government is being closely scrutinized, as it should be. We need to be cognizant of the fact that everything we do will be viewed by another person’s perspective. We will conduct ourselves in such a manner that reflects the highest of professional standards of the California Fire Service. We will be respectful of others that may not have our perspective.

We have many external customers to consider, including the public and agencies we are working for. We should always remember that they are our customers. Our internal customers are our team mates and they should always be highly valued.

The State of California currently has a very large budget deficit to overcome.  The Governor and the people we all serve expect good incident fiscal management. Our philosophy must to be that we are stewards of the tax payer dollar. We will be thrifty in our expenditures; however we will not compromise safety or hinder incident operations.

Incident Command Team 6 represents the best the fire service has to offer. There are many ICTs and IMTs in the United States. Team 6 has quality personnel who are specialists in solving the most complex of challenges that overwhelm others. We do this by recruiting the best the California Fire Service has to offer: you! By being an active and engaged member of Team 6 you represent the best in your field of expertise and you take on a huge responsibility to yourself, you family, the agency you represent, the State of California, and the public we all serve.