Women of Wildfire Honor Our Female Leaders

(Firefighter Kole Berriochoa and Incident Commander Beth Lund share a hug and a smile between duties on the Beaver Creek Fire. Mountain Express photo by Willy Cook)

Today marks the 93rd anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. In honor of Women's Equality Day, we give a shout out to all our female leaders. Thank you for your leadership and pursuit of success.

Women of Wildfire Spotlight

Check out Mountain Express' "In Incident Commander, Quiet Competence" tribute to Type I Incident Commander Beth Lund" following her leadership during the Beaver Creek fire near Hailey, Idaho.

___________________________
Thanks to Mike Ellsworth, BLM Fire Training and Workforce Development and NWCG Leadership Subcommittee Representative, for sharing this article with us.

Jenna Berkerman - A WOW Spotlight

Firefighting and the BLM are Family Traditions for the Beckermans 
By: Dennis Godfrey, BLM-Arizona

Jenna Beckerman was reflecting on what it means to be part of the wildland fire community. "Fire is really a close-knit family, that's for sure," she said recently, while working a detail at the Phoenix Interagency Fire Center. She mentioned the so-called 6 degrees of separation that connects humanity. "It seems like in fire, if you know one person, you know the rest of the whole community." The fire family connection is even closer for Jenna than most, and it extends to the Bureau of Land Management. That's because her dad, Dale Beckerman, is part of the fire family and a career BLM employee. In addition, Jenna's grandmother (and Dale's mother-in-law) Garnet Sophocles also worked for the BLM. That makes Jenna a third-generation BLMer…

In 2007, Jenna was a member of the Craig Hotshots and is shown here working on a fire in Montana.

Jenna is an initial attack dispatcher for Craig Interagency Dispatch in Colorado. Dale also works in Craig, as a fire management specialist. "It's pretty cool having your daughter right there," Dale said of the family connection in fire, the BLM and in Craig.

Dale and Jenna Berkerman enjoy a number of outdoor activities together, including distance running.

Dale was a seasonal firefighter for the BLM in northern California when he met the woman who became his wife. Her mother was working for the BLM Colorado State Office as an administrative assistant. "

When my parents got married they were living in California because he was fighting fire out there. My grandmother just hated that they were so far away," Jenna said. Grandma Garnet heard of a job in Colorado and helped Dale get it."

They've been in Craig ever since and I've just followed in my dad's footsteps," Jenna said. She has worked on hotshot crews and initial attack crews, much like her dad. She is in her second year of fire dispatch.

"I'm not even quite sure how that happened," Dale said of his daughter's career choice. "I definitely didn't encourage it. She did it all on her own."

Grandma Garnet worked about 15 years for the BLM in the Colorado State Office, retiring in 1984. She has since passed away.

Jenna has a degree in anthropology from Fort Lewis College, and she's considered pursuing a career in that field. "But so far it has worked out that I stay in fire," she said.

The larger fire family connection was drawn closer to home for Jenna with the deaths of the 19 in the Yarnell Hill Fire. "The Granite Mountain Hotshot thing has been really close to home, for sure," she said. "When I was on the Craig Hotshots, we actually did a fuels reduction project all around the community of Yarnell in 2006. I can just totally picture where those guys were."

For Dale, he is happy that Jenna is following the family tradition in the BLM and in fire. "I am definitely very proud of her," he said.

_________________________________
Reprinted with permission. Article from The BLM Daily, 7/18/2013

MAKERS: Women Who Make America

You won't want to miss this groundbreaking documentary of women telling their story to air on February 26, 2013 on PBS. Check out the trailer below!

MAKERS: Women Who Make America will tell this remarkable story for the first time in a comprehensive and innovative three-hour documentary for PBS, to air in early 2013. Built on the extraordinary archive of stories already completed for MAKERS.com, the film will feature the stories of those who led the fight, those who opposed it, and the unintentional trailblazers -- famous and unknown – who carried change to every corner of society.  (Excerpt from MAKERS.com)

WOW is Here!

What is Women of Wildfire?

WOW is a collaborative movement led by women within the wildland fire service to create a network showcasing female leadership, sharing resources and success stories, providing a system of support and mentoring, and furthering the mission of the Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program (WFLDP).

The Inspirations Behind WOW

Pam McDonald, Logistics Coordinator for the NWCG Leadership Subcommittee and visionary for the 2013 Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge - Leading with Courage, wanted to create an example of what individuals and units could do to support the campaign as well as submit as an idea for the "IGNITE the Spark for Leadership - From the Field for the Field" contest.* Riding the social media buzz around the Public Broadcast System's spotlight initiative on women Makers, Pam initiated a test pilot feature via the WFLDP's Facebook page which received little attention.

In the spirit of the campaign theme, Pam got up the courage to ask the coordinator of Women of Wildfire (WOW) at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) if she could adopt the name for a leadership initiative and build upon the success of local efforts of creating a network of women who have walked together every September since 2006 in the  St. Luke's Women's Fitness Celebration. Kris King, NIFC WOW Coordinator, agreed and the plans were set in motion to launch the initiative once Jenn Smith, NIFC External Affairs and NWCG Leadership Subcommittee Communication, developed an identity for the initiative through a logo. With that, WOW was born.

Foundational Principles of the WOW Initiative

As well as the WFLDP Values and Principles, WOW follows "The Five Practices and Ten Commitments of Leadership" developed in The Leadership Challenge by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner.

(Photo: The Leadership Challenge)

The Five Practices:

• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart

The Ten Commitments:

1. Find your voice by clarifying your personal values.
2. Set the example by aligning actions with shared values.
3. Envision the future by imagining exciting and ennobling possibilities.
4. Enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations.
5. Search for opportunities by seeking innovative ways to change, grow, and improve.
6. Experiment and take risks by constantly generating small wins and learning from mistakes.
7. Foster collaboration by promoting cooperative goals and building trust.
8. Strengthen others by sharing power and discretion.
9. Recognize contributions by showing appreciation for individual excellence.
10. Celebrate the values and victories by creating a spirit of community. 

What Now?

Every movement starts with an individual who has an idea and grows from there. WOW will become what the women of the wildland fire service want it to be. The sky is the limit to what those empowered can do and create. In the weeks and months ahead, women (and men) from around the globe will come together to create a grassroots effort to build a network supporting the WFLDP as well as promote female leadership development and collaboration. Here are some ideas to start an individual or local movement:

• Share the news about WOW with those within your sphere of influence.
• Help promote the 2013 Wildland Fire Leadership Campaign by sharing the Reference Guide by sharing to your fire leaders.
• Create a local unit Women of Wildfire support network and inspire a shared vision and enable others to act.
• Read Kouzes' and Posner's The Leadership Challenge.
• Use the "Women of Wildfire" forum at the top of the WFLDP Facebook page to share your stories and begin to network.
• Contact Pam McDonald, NWCG Leadership Subcommittee Logistics Coordinator, at pmcdonal@blm.gov or 208-387-5318 for more information.
• Dream!

A Look at the 2013 Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge - Leading with Courage

Campaign Task:

Provide an opportunity for wildland fire service personnel to focus leadership development activities on a nationally-sponsored, centrally-themed leadership campaign and recognize local leadership participation efforts.

Campaign Purpose:

To foster a cohesive effort to promote leadership across the wildland fire service.

To provide a template that can be used to encourage leadership development at the local level.

To provide a mechanism to collect leadership best practices and share throughout the wildland fire service.

Campaign End State:

Creation of a wildland fire service culture that willingly shares leadership best practices in order to maintain superior service-wide leadership.
 _____________________________
* WOW is exempt from contest consideration.