2023 John M. Eversole Scholarship Recipient - Daniel Hoy

Speaker: Daniel Hoy, Fire

Daniel Hoy: Hello, my name is Daniel Hoy. I'm a training captain with the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District. I'm also our Housers Materials program manager. Metro Fire is located in northern California just outside the city of Sacramento. We encompass about 300 square miles, have 600 personnel and 41 stations. We cover the unincorporated areas of Sacramento County as well as the cities of Citrus Heights and Ranch Gradova communities that we are very proud to serve. I am very humbled to be the recipient of the 2023 John M Eversull Award for hazardous materials emergency responders.

Daniel Hoy: So I can't say enough just how grateful I am for the Evora Leadership Development Foundation um for what they do in helping develop leaders within the fire service and support them. Um The scholarships are great financial support in this day and age where uh it's sometimes it's difficult for us to get training and a lot of times we have to go outside our own agency. So that's my plan uh for this award is to use it to develop um training for my team in the hopes that we can help prepare the leaders for tomorrow. Um um through mentorship opportunities, through opportunities to be able to, to train and learn and grow together ultimately, that all culminates in safe and consistent operations on the fire ground or uh at hazardous materials incidents, um whatever the incident might be.

Daniel Hoy: So when it comes to leadership, there's a lot of definitions out there, there's a lot of philosophies on leadership. Um but it comes down to really, for me, um It's not necessary about what you say, it's what you do because your actions speak louder than words. Me personally, my own style, my own philosophy is centered around servant leadership which fits in really well with um who I think deputy Chief John M ever saw the namesake for this award, who he was uh not only was he the Deputy Chief of Special Operations for the Chicago Fire Department, but he was also a national advocate for fire service based hazard materials response, uh furthering the cause to get resources and help to, to meet uh that mission that the fire service was tasked with head on. Additionally, he advocated in in front of congressional committees for more awareness on terrorism response um and the threat that our, our nation was facing. And this is before 911. Um So, and though he's not with us today, right? His legacy lives on through that selfless and relentless pursuit of those goals. Um He, he exemplified servant leadership and that's the kind of person that I want to be, that's the kind of leader I want to be where I'm sacrificing myself and placing other people's needs at, at least at equal importance of mine, if not greater. Um There's numerous um people in my organization, I've had the distinct pleasure of working with over the years. Um And a lot of what they had to say about leadership was all about people. Um As you know, the fire service is a people based industry, right? Without the people, we really can't do our job and we're a service based industry. So it's kind of in our mission and in our name that we should be service oriented. A couple of quotes from, from some of my, my friends and my leaders in my organization is um be present and show you care again, emphasizing the fact that the people are most important and that's how you lead, you show people what leadership looks like by serving others. Um Another person in my organization said, um be thankful when people bring them, bring you their problems because they trust you and they believe you care and that's trust, that's friendship, that's personal and professional relationships. Um And that's when you uh garner that respect and trust and then you become a leader because people are willing to follow you knowing that you have their best interest in mind. Um So when it comes down to, to leadership servant leadership for me, uh, personally is, is the way I go.

Daniel Hoy: So the application process to apply for a scholarship of the Evora Leadership Development Foundation is actually very, very simple, right? Probably the most complicated part if, if, if any is um is being able to translate a lot of what you see, what you know about yourself into words and, and sometimes that's type that, that can be a struggle to be able to actually take a minute and think to yourself. Who am I like? What have I done? Look back at the things you've done, look ahead at your goals, uh what you want to do um seek the advice of others and see what, what, what their impression is of you and use some of that. Um You're, you're required to submit three references. So I use some professional references of, of some leaders in our or our organization who um I work with on a daily basis. We've got relationships both personally and professionally uh based on mutual respect and trust. And uh it's a great opportunity to probe others and see both what they think you do well and what your qualities are and you could even ask them, you know, hey, what can I do to be better. What can I do to improve as a leader? What can I do to better lead uh the men and women, men and women of our organization? So it provides some great opportunities to have some conversations with. Maybe some people, you don't talk a whole lot about as well as the ability to evaluate, evaluate yourself and um seek some counsel or maybe some guidance on, on what to do next or how to develop those skills as a leader. So overall great uh process, really easy application, but the value to be able to look at yourself and uh see where you've been is really encouraging because um it's, it's difficult sometimes to see that where we are here and now to look back and see how much we've grown and how much we've developed. So um definitely a fringe benefit to, to the application process.