PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Greetings, Esteemed Members,

First of all, I would like to thank all of you who supported me in becoming the 39th president in the 117th year of our esteemed organization. It is my goal to build on all the work that outgoing President Bill Smith accomplished in his two years as president. And he did it during a pandemic! I am engaged and committed to leading us forward to overcome our challenges and continue to be a highly respected statewide fire service organization.

"Engage & Commit" is my mantra for the next two years. First, engage and participate in our esteemed organization. Two, commit to making an effort to make it better. While I understand some of you have done your time and wish not to be involved in day-to-day activities, you can assist by asking your current officer to get involved, to join the association. We are asking for the rest of you to engage and commit with the time and energy you feel you can contribute. We have roles for all of you to fill. You all have heard it many times, "An organization is only as good

as the effort its members give." It is repeated over and over again as it is true. Coming out of the pandemic, we look for all of your to have a refreshed and renewed commitment to our

prominent organization.

We updated our Constitution and By-Laws at our convention meeting this past September. The first two sentences of our updated mission give a good perspective of what we would like to accomplish over the next two years: "To provide visionary leadership for chief fire officers and fire departments in New Jersey. To provide support and resources to chief officers through education, exchange of ideas, and knowledge." We ask you to go to our website and read the updated version to provide you with a better focus on the direction we are headed. We ask that you help us make this new vision a reality ( https://bit.ly/3pmAdUJ )

Through the following values of being; Relevant, Useful Visionary, Adaptable, and Unified, the vision and goals I presented to the executive board for the next two years are as follows:

● Create a Strategic Vision of our future purpose and direction and how we are going to get there

● To actively promote leadership philosophy and practices. This is an area I continually hear officers and firefighters are often lacking.

● To promote and grow our Mentoring Initiative - This program will be a key approach to developing the leaders of the future. (See Second Vice President Bob Morris' article on this initiative.)

● To continue and build our partnership with the other four state fire chiefs organizations through the Fire & EMS Institute.

● Actively recruit new chiefs and officers into our organization. The best way is by person-to-person conversations. All of you are key to this process. Even if you're not active in your fire department, stop by the firehouse, have a conversation with your chiefs and officers, and hand them an application.

May you and your families all have a great holiday season. Please pay attention to your emails and our social media for updates of our activities. If I can be of any service, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Tony Correia