Photo and graphic courtesy of Botetourt Co.
By Matt de Simone
Botetourt County Fire & EMS shared a 2024-2029 Strategic Plan presentation to the Board of Supervisors last Tuesday in Daleville. The plan was conducted last fall with facilitation from Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE), a not-for-profit 501c3 corporation that helps high-performing fire departments and emergency services professionals in their efforts to continuously improve.
During the department’s planning process, a public stakeholders meeting and a multi-day fire and EMS stakeholders’ sessions were held while preparing a document for guiding the priorities of the overall fire and EMS system through the next several years.
“We hit the ground trying to find community stakeholders that would be willing to give and hour half of their day to come (to Daleville) and listen to the two facilitators talk about what fire and EMS services were, the general types of services we provide, and then go through a couple of exercises ranking them based off of their fundamentals and priorities as to what matters most from their viewpoints,” Botetourt Fire & EMS Chief Jason Ferguson explained to the board during his presentation.
A total of 32 community stakeholders attended an hour-long event to provide input. Community stakeholders consisted of business leaders, school officials, law enforcement, and others participating in the planning event. Ferguson shared that the CPSE staff was “excited” to see the number of stakeholders that attended the event. Those individuals joined “a broad swath” of 23 agency stakeholders representing volunteer and career fire and rescue staff to participate in the event.
The three-day process worked through the framework of the feedback from the community input and priorities. The group worked together to affirm the department’s mission statement: “The combined agencies of Botetourt County Fire & EMS will deliver prompt and professional services to the community to ensure the protection of life, property, and the environment.”
The plan also highlights to the vision of the department as “a combination system comprised of highly skilled career and volunteer responders, we aspire to meet the evolving demands of our community through innovation, compassionate engagement, and rapid delivery of premier services.”
The group also ironed out the department’s organization values consisting of integrity, dedication, innovation, unity, and accountability. Ferguson shared with the board the department’s goals to improve service delivery, department communications, optimizing all available funding to meet service demands, enhancing their training program, and reducing community risk through strategies designed to lessen the impact.
CPSE also produced a management implementation guide that takes the group’s priorities and defines the various objectives and tasks as well as a performance measurement so they can measure the outcomes with anything the group implements.
Ferguson explained to the board that some of those implementations are “Fire & EMS operationally-centric” and some are policy decisions that would be presented to the board as the process continues.
“Ultimately, I think it was a well-established process,” Chief Ferguson noted. “There was citizen engagement. There was Fire & EMS stakeholder engagement. We all left, at the end of those three days together, feeling as though there were fingerprints all over the future of the system. Folks were happy, decompressed. We had some really good debates and discussions. I think it was a renewing of some energy that were able to get some concerns off their chest but also learn from others and create a better understanding from all facets of our department and the service delivery we provide.”
Board members commended Ferguson’s presentation and the group of individuals who participated in the strategic planning event.
Buchanan District Supervisor Amy White asked Ferguson about the dissemination plans for the ongoing strategic plan. Ferguson said that he plans to communicate the document to the board, the Fire & EMS chiefs, and stakeholders before it becomes openly public.
The community and agency stakeholders included Recruitment & Retention Specialist Taylor Lunsford, Administration Captain Travis Collins, Emergency Manager Daniel Murray, Deputy Chief Rob Johnson, Training Captain Ryan Hartberger, Volunteer Chief Zach Beckner, Volunteer Chief Adam Dickerson, FF/EMT Jacob Bonds, Assistant to the Chief Sarah Pugh, LT FF/Paramedic Seth Mowles, FF/EMT Michael Brown, FF/Paramedic Thomas Holdren, LT FF/EMT Gary Fisher, and volunteers Michael Rock, Skip Simmons, Billy Chrimes, Aaron Whitney, Beth Leffel, and Kirk Taylor.
To learn more about Botetourt County Fire & EMS services, visit botetourtfireems.org.
