Bio

I am Sean Brooks, and I want to serve you on Local 36's Executive Board.

Many of you may know me, or at least my thoughts, from my postings on "The Watchdesk", under the clever assumed name of "Brooks".

I've been a member of L36 since I was hired, in January of 2000.  I've served on the Negotiating Committee for the last two contracts.  My class (RC-232) was the first class of the Tippet plan to take over the Ambulances.  I was assigned to T16, and detailed to ride A32 on a regular basis.  Since then, I've served as a firefighter at E15, the HMU, and RS2.  After promotion to Sergeant, I served a year of daywork in the Office of Homeland Security & Special Operations at Park Rd, NW, before returning to the field as a floating Sergeant in the Special Operations Battalion, assigned to the HMU#4.

For about a year, near the beginning of my DCFD career, I worked for TriData as a fire service consultant.  I know and understand the "bean-counter's" point of view, and, to our advantage, can find common ground with them and us.

Prior to hire, I worked as an Industrial Health & Safety consultant for several consulting firms in Bethesda.  I understand better than most, the threats we face to our Health & Safety.

In 1997, I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Industrial & Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech.  There, I learned the arts & sciences of industrial organization, economics, and planning.  These skills will serve you well in our campaign for better pay and working conditions.

Means

We will improve our jobs by strengthening our Local.

Our Local will be a force to be reckoned with in local politics.  Politicians will ask for our help during elections, and will vie for our endorsements.

Our Local will cease to be a closed operation, run by a few people; we will tap the diverse strengths of our membership to achieve our goals.

Our Local processes - elections, decisions, etc - will be open and above board.

Our Local goals will more accurately reflect the goals of our members.

Goals

Everybody goes home at the end of a tour.

No LODDs - we will reduce accidents, improve health & fitness, ensure adequate fireground staffing & response times, improve fireground performance, improve PPE & Uniforms

Everybody walks off this job healthy.

We will reduce Occupational Exposures to stressors (for the 99% of the time we're not going into harm's way fighting a fire): heat, noise, unplanned details

Everybody makes a GOOD living.

The DC Metro area is one of the most expensive in the nation. We're not even keeping up with inflation. The department has historically staffed the department on our gas budgets - we need to explore all options for increasing the take home pay of our members.

Everybody enjoys due process for job activities.

We will protect & improve the disciplinary & promotional processes. We will quantify the transfer process. We will bring the Squad Selection process inline with the Technician Selection Process.