Dragon's Den

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we have on Louisiana native, David Douget. David is the fire Chief of the Iota volunteer fire department and on the career side he is a Chief of St. Martin Parish, in charge of training. He started the Central Acadiana Fire Symposium, is a plank member of the Cajun FOOLS. He is unsuspecting and quiet, but his love for the job and the a...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Toady we are joined by Arkansas Legend, Ryan McCormick. Chief McCormick, most notably, started the First In conference, within his home state, but he also joined us to talk about haters, limited staffing, the 48/96 schedule, the power of networking, getting outside of your bubble and much much more. Hope you enjoy listening.

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we have on Stephanie White, Corley Moore and Nick Ledin to have a casual conversation about AI in the fire service and even digging a little deeper on the overall picture of AI. What's good? What's Bad? What does it mean to be an "artist"? How do they use AI in their daily life? We didn't solve any of the worlds problems, but I thought...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we have on Chief Wayne Prejean. Chief Prejean started with the Lafayette Fire Department in the early 60's and spent 20 years with Lafayette, serving 10 of those years as the Fire Chief. Chief sat down with us to tell us about his rookie year, his time in fire prevention, battling the administration and trying to fight the good fight,...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we are joined by Chief Dennis Reilly. This was a impromptu podcast when I travelled back and forth to One Bad Tour with Chief. We talked about a lot of different subjects and he told many stories, but one that stuck out was one where he built a recruit academy in 2 different organizations that was ridiculed in the beginning and now it'...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we have on the St. George mayor, Dustin Yates. Chief Yates was previously an admin Chief of the St. George fire department and he's the current president of the Louisiana Firefighters Foundation. Dustin sat down with us for a couple of seconds to talk about the early days of the LIFT Conference and to highlight a few of the projects th...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we have Chief Joe Mera. Chief Mera is the recently retired fire chief for the Leesburg. This was originally going to be a short interview about Chief's involvement in the One Bad Tour training program, but it turned into a full episode after I heard Chief give his speech to the candidates at OBT 10. He's a fireman's fire chief. I hope...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we have another episode of The Debrief with Colin Cotter and Reilly Kilbride. These gentlemen were able to make a successful grab in their department and we brought them into to discuss it. We hope to learn from their experience, to better prepare, should we find ourselves in a similar situation. Thanks for listening.

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we talked to Gavin Reynolds. Gavin in a volunteer in rural Georgia and has been at it for 7 years. He's a father, husband, former infantry marine with 2 deployments, graduate of the Georgia Spartan program, One Bad Tour, Georgia Smoke Diver and an ultra runner, with no real plans of slowing down. Yes...all of that, from a volunteer. He...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den podcast. Today's guests are Bryan Lloyd and Chad Miller. We brought these 2 men together to talk about the process of starting the Oklahoma Smoke Diver program. We discuss the trails, tribulations, success and lasting impact of the program. It was an absolute honor to talk to men with such a passion and commitment to making the fire service better. W...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we have retired Batt. Chief out of Cobb County, Kevin Lewis. Kevin talks to us about the development and growth of the Cobb County Search Program from it's early inception. We talk about it's mission, it's early struggles and it's success. Kevin also discusses some of him time teaching at conferences and how the impact of the program h...

Today we were joined by a local legend. This was probably my most requested guest, from our area and also one of the most respected. This is 3 hours of passionate discussion on Todd's view of how to to do the job right, fire stories and various other rabbit holes. Please like, subscribe and ring the bell for notifications. You can follow us on: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dragons_den_tra...

Welcome back to another episode of the Dragon's Den podcast. Today we have Thai Guidry. Thai is a company officer in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was born and raised in Lafayette Parish and he's also my cousin in law. I've known him for over 20 years and Thai has always been a guy that I've looked up to, even 20 years ago. He's the classic stoic marine. Chiseled jawline, dashingly handsome and f...

Welcome to another episode of The Dragon's Den Podcast. Today are joined by none other, than Chief Joel Miller, more commonly referred to as "Chief Miller". Chief Miller runs one of the largest fire social media pages on planet earth and works as a federal fire Chief here in central Louisiana. He's avoided all podcast appearances for the last 12 years, so it was actually shocking that he told me y...

Welcome to another episode of the Dragon's Den podcast. Today we sit down with the power couple, Aaron and Meg Kowal. Aaron is a captain on the special operations truck in St George, Louisiana and Meg is currently the Public Education Chief for the same department, although she also worked on the floor at St George before moving into that position. They are both 2nd generation firemen and Meg star...

Welcome back to another episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. On today's episode myself and fellow cadre member Josh Bourque recap our experience going through One Bad Tour, Class 9. Right out of the gates, if you are listening to this in order to know the "curriculum" of the program, then you are wasting your time. The how, why, when, where, what of the program are going to need to be experienced...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we did something quite different. This is a collection of 12 or 13 clips of a bunch of guys from around the fire service answering the same question at Small-Town Job-Town. What, in your opinion, is the value of outside training and do you have a personal story in relation to that outside training? I've already released all of the indi...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we filled the podcast with killers. We have Jacob Stolzle, Donald Smith and Ian Lopez. All of these men are Mississippi Smoke Divers out of St. Tammany Parish. Jacob is also an Oklahoma Smoke Diver and has completed One Bad Tour with Ian Lopez. I stepped aside for this episode and let Josh Bourque jump in to host because we truly didn'...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Todays guest is Chief Jacob Johnson. Chief serves as an Asst. Chief for the city of Pearland Texas. Disclaimer: I am a moron. For the entirety of this episode I called Pearland, Pearl Land. Why did my brain read it that way? I don't know. Did Chief say it correctly repeatedly and I never catch on? Yes. Because I'm a moron. Did Chief ever cor...

Welcome to another episode of the Dragons' Den podcast. Today we joined by Nick Ledin. Many know Nick for his heavy involvement in the Firefighter Rescue Survey, being part of committees and advisory boards and teaching around the nation. All of those things are true, but one of the things I love most about Nick is his unwavering commitment to truth, science and tracking down the facts to the best...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today's guest is Hannah Elmore. Hannah is the Senior Outreach Coordinator for the IAFF Center of Excellence. The CoE of a treatment facility for union firefighters that are battling things like addiction, PTSD, depression and other mental illnesses. We also have Chief Clint Sanchez. Clint went through the CoE program and put me into contact...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we finally return back to South Louisiana with our next guest, Matt Berkins. Matt serves as a fireman out of Slidell, LA. I first met Matt at the LIFT conference, just last year. We spent a good amount of the conference having conversations during breaks and social events and I loved his mindset and the things he was trying to implemen...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den podcast. Today's guest is Preston Lyons. Preston is a firefighter in Colorado and runs the Relentless Rejects podcast. He first hit my radar when he was on the Weekly Scrap with Corley Moore. I had no idea who he was, but his story and message really resonated with me. It seems we shared a similar journey, mindset, and struggles in trying to make cha...

Welcome to the next episode of the Dragon's Den podcast. Today we have on Jacob McVey and Marcos Chacon. This episode was very last minute. Myself and Chief Sparacello went over to Bay St Louis to teach for the Coastal Magnolia FOOLS first ever training. Once I found out that the presidents for both the Coastal Magnolia FOOLS and the Old South FOOLS would be together, I thought it was the perfect...

Welcome to another episode of the Dragon's Den Podcast. Today we have on Justin Spanka and Caleb Shetler. I first met Spanka when he came to teach at the Central Acadiana Fire Symposium with Sean Ryan and the Animal House cadre. I tried to get him onto the podcast pretty early and he kept saying no, but I was finally able to convince him after he and Shetler completed the Oklahoma Smoke Diver prog...