S4 Ep3 Leading When It's Hard - Chief Brian Fennessy

Chief Brian Fennessy of the Orange County Fire Authority joins us
to talk about leading and innovating in the face of history,
tradition and bureaucracy.
Brian began his career in 1978 with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of
Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, working as a hotshot
crewmember, hotshot/helishot/helitack captain and, ultimately, crew
superintendent. In 1990, Fennessy joined the San Diego Fire-Rescue
Department (SDFD) and, ultimately, became chief of the department
in 2015. While he was with the SDFD, he developed and established a
fire/rescue/EMS helicopter program. He became fire chief of the
Orange County, CA, Fire Authority in 2018. Under his visionary
guidance, OCFA’s Quick Reaction Force (QRF) — a groundbreaking
public-private partnership with Southern California Edison — has
revolutionized wildfire response. The QRF fleet, including CH-47
helitankers and intelligence helicopters, made over 2,200 drops,
preventing new wildfires from exceeding 10 acres, 95 percent of the
time. As fire chief Fennessy oversees 78 stations serving
nearly 2 million residents in 23 municipalities and unincorporated
area. The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) awarded
Chief Fennessy the 2023 IAFC Fire Chief of the Year, noting
that “Chief Fennessy’s remarkable contributions to the fire service
have earned him the IAFC Chief of the Year recognition, a testament
to his enduring commitment and dedication to making a lasting
impact on the fire service community.”