SENTIALS OF FIRE FIGHTING® AND RESCUE CTURAL FIRE FIGHTING: INITIAL RESPONSE STRATEGY AND TACTICS
PUMPING AND AERIAL APPARATUS DRIVER/OPERATOR HANDBOOK
CHIEF OFFICER OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, HEALTH, AND WELLNESS FIRE INSPECTION AND CODE ENFORCEMENT
VE FIRE INSTRUCTOR
Appendix I
Early IFSTA Leaders Many people have built IFSTA into the organization it is today, but few have had the lasting impact of Ray Pence, Fred Heisler, Raymond J. Douglas, Emmett Cox, Everett Hudiburg, and Harold Mace.
Ray Pence John Raymond Pence was a self-sufficient, unsmiling man, appearing to some to be brash, arrogant and addicted to the limelight (Figure 32). Others, however, remember his dedication to fire fighting and his act of undemonstrative kindness. Above all, they remember that he was a mover and a pusher — a man that got things started and a man of vision. Born in Globe, Arizona, on December 2, 1893, John Raymond Pence lived a colorful and adventurous life. At the age of 12, he traveled to Alaska and supported himself for several months doing odd jobs. Four (4) years later he became a cross-country automobile racer, as Glenn Boughton recalled, anyone who ever rode with Pence would realize. Though he had little formal education, he was a skilled mechanic, which earned him a job with a gold-mining firm in Chile.
Figure 32
By 1919, he was a mechanic for the Sinclair Oil Co. and followed the oil boom to Healdton, Oklahoma, where he married Margaret Forte in 1925. In Healdton, he operated a machine shop, but circumstances soon led him to his final career as a firefighter. After watching a newly opened hotel burn to the ground for lack of firefighters or equipment, Pence persuaded the oil companies operating in Healdton to buy a fire truck and house it in his machine shop. In return, he promised to train volunteer firefighters to operate it. He also got the oil companies to send him to firefighter training in Los Angeles, California. As the oil companies have suffered enough losses to appreciate the idea, they fell in love with his plans. Pence remained in Healdton as fire chief until 1931, when he moved to Stillwater to replace their retiring chief. During all this time, Pence was active in state, regional and national firefighters’ organizations and held offices in several. He also participated in firefighter education programs as a trainee and an instructor, and he was a member of the board of supervisors of the Oklahoma Fire School for nearly 20 years. As chief of the Stillwater Fire Department, Pence emphasized discipline and training for volunteers, paid firefighters, and the “sleepers.” The “sleepers” were Oklahoma A&M College students (like Glenn Boughton, Ray Davidson, and Everett Hudiburg among them) who helped finance their educations by taking night duty at the fire station. In those hard times of the Great Depression, Pence urged the city to acquire modern fire fighting equipment, sometimes building it himself. A fire truck salesman reportedly once told Pence, “Bring your own refreshments to the convention. You build your own fire trucks.” But equipment manufacturers, recognizing Pence’s skills as a mechanic and an inventor (he developed an improved fog nozzle in the early 1940s), often sent new equipment to Stillwater for testing. Pence’s efforts improved the city’s insurance ratings, and the grateful City Commission backed his recommendation to build a second fire station on the Oklahoma A&M campus, a unique joint city/college project. Pence and his firefighters helped build the building, and when it became the home of the first academic firemanship program in the nation, Pence supervised the practical training of the student firefighters. Pence loved public attention. He worked to make Stillwater’s fire department one of the best in the nation and made sure everyone knew it. His activities and articles regularly found their way into the NFPA’s
52 IFSTA /FPP: THE FIRST 90 YEARS
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