“It was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life — it’s been such a fulfilling thing to do.”
He spent eight years at Morrinsville, two in Tauranga with the central fire station’s composite brigade, then three years in Whitianga where he was the BNZ branch manager, before coming to Te Puke in 1997.
He recalls two fire chiefs who had a strong influence on him — Ray Hampton in Morrinsville and Merv George in Whitianga.
“They’ve got two totally different styles and I’ve always maintained that if you could take the two best attributes out of those guys, you’d have the perfect chief, so I’ve always modelled how I’d like to see things done on that. But then I’m also myself, so I’m not like anybody else, I just do what I do.”
Although he has 39 years as a firefighter under his belt, 17 as deputy, Dale says becoming chief fire officer was never a stated ambition.
“Once I became deputy it was probably a loose goal in the background, but I think it’s the sort of thing, if you want it that bad, you are doing it for the wrong reasons. It’s the sort of thing you morph into if the opportunity comes up and you’ve got the skills to do it.
He says in the past, the chief fire officer has been a figurehead, but that is not true today.
“There’s a lot more to it, a lot more complexity. You’ve got to be a people manager, you’ve got to be an incident ground manager, not just for fires, you’ve got accidents, you’ve got medicals, you’ve got to be a counsellor, you’ve got to be a father, a brother, whatever it might be.”
He says now he is chief, any changes he might make will be small.
“The brigade’s in a really good place at the moment. We’ve got strong leadership in terms of officers and we’ve got strong brigade membership, I just want to maintain that and just keep it going. There’s no point in changing something that’s working so well.”
He says there may be a few leadership style changes.
“I’m different to Glenn, which is why he and I worked so well together. We were different, but we were always on the same page.”
Succession planning will be an important part of the next few years for the brigade.
“We’ve got a lot of our experienced guys who might be looking at retiring in the next five to 10 years — they may stay longer and I hope they do, but it’s one of those things.
“We’ve got to plan for that, but we’ve got younger people coming through who we can bring through to the officer ranks.”
Dale doesn’t have any target for his time in the role.
“It’s not a goal to be here for 10 years. If I still feel I’m doing a job and being effective I’ll be here; if I don’t feel like I’m doing the job justice then I’ll step aside for somebody else, but I can’t do that until we have people ready to step in.”
He says even after all this time as a firefighter, he still loves it.
“I love the camaraderie. It’s a word that’s overused, but it’s genuine. We are like a whānau, a family, and it gets into your blood.”
As a younger firefighter, he competed regularly in the hose-running Waterway Challenge competitions, becoming provincial champions with the Morrinsville brigade. He says that side of it brought a huge amount of fun to the role.
