Shining a light on Pinos Altos Volunteer Fire and Rescue

It all started with an email. In May of 2020, Pinos Altos Volunteer Fire and Rescue Chief Ed Downard asked me to proof a quote he'd planned on sending to the media. 

I'd been volunteering with the department, which has a station a mile from my house, since 2016. The quote was related to a neighborhood clean up day that the department participated in to support Dos Griegos in the efforts to become and remain a FireWise Community. I revised his quote and provided some general feedback and a couple rules of thumb to follow when communicating with the public. His response said: Thanks. Yours sounds much better. Interested in being PIO?"

That is when the title and social media credentials were handed over. Chief started directing media inquiries my way. And I've become the volunteer who other members text images and videos to after training exercises, community events, and routine station and vehicle checks. They know if they think to take a photo, then I'll do the work of getting it out into the world. 

When the time came to complete the Pinos Altos Volunteer Fire and Rescue website redesign (if you can call building a website from the ground up a "redesign"), I worked to communicate the department's needs to a developer. While this team effort ended up being something the developer did mostly on her own and a couple of the key components I had identified via committee were incorporated, I cannot take credit for the site. It's something the developer handled on her own with very little input or content from me. 

While I have so much more work to do to elevate our department's public and media relations program, I have--especially over the past year--brought consistency to the social media presence and served as a reliable contact for members of the media. I'm working to educate local media on the network of local volunteer fire and rescue departments and the interdependence of volunteer and paid departments county-wide.

At the end of 2023, I accepted the opportunity to take a course specific to PIOs in the realm of first responders, and what I learned reinforced what I instinctively knew and augmented my wishlist (effectively, my to-do list) for Pinos Altos Volunteer Fire and Rescue as a department that does good while doing a good job of recognizing its members, touting the benefits of volunteering, and legitimizing the work that unpaid first responders do everywhere everyday.

This is the Facebook page I manage on behalf of Pinos Altos Volunteer Fire and Rescue. 

P.S. I'm sharing the above insights with a growth mindset. Transparency and authenticity are two values I hold closely. I've seen other contractors promise the world and claim 100% of their clients' successes are attributed to the marketing and communications campaigns. Not one of those people, I give my clients--whether I'm charging them or working pro bono--true data and realistic goals.