Transcript

Rod Goossen · Calm Under Fire

Col. John Boggs: Hey, good afternoon, good morning, wherever you are. This is Colonel John Boggs, and I am the president of Fortitude Consulting, which is a leadership development and executive coaching firm. And today, have here at Comma Under Fire, have Rod Gosin, who is an engineer who turned a moment of national tragedy into a life's mission after the Yarnell Hill fire here in Arizona. where 19 firefighters lost their lives, Rod set out to solve a problem he believed could not be left unanswered, how to give first responders communication and situational awareness when they need it the most. Today, through Rogo, he is helping teams operate in environments where visibility is limited, communication is fragile, and the stakes are real. This conversation is about leadership when information is incomplete and how people stay steady when lives are on the line. Rod, thank you very much for being here today, brother. I appreciate it. Rod Goossen: John, thank you so much for hosting me and discussing this topic in front of your audience. I really appreciate it. Col. John Boggs: Thanks. Well, hey, do you mind if we jump right in it? Rod Goossen: Let's get on it. Col. John Boggs: Perfect. Rod, the Yarnell Hill fire. Clearly that had a profound impact on you. Rod Goossen: Yes. Col. John Boggs: What did that moment reveal to you about leadership under pressure? Rod Goossen: One of my core values, John, is that I believe if you see a problem, identify a problem, and have the ability to solve that problem, then it's your responsibility to undertake fixing that problem. That problem could be something as simple as holding the door open for somebody behind you or shoveling an elderly person's walkway of snow in the wintertime. I know you don't have that problem in Arizona, but here in Colorado we do. And so I took that mantra, I'm living that mantra. I saw a problem that needs to be fixed and I'm trying to fix this for wildland firefighters specifically, but really for any all hazards first responder that responds to either wildfires, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis, any sort of disaster zone that occurs in or causes there to be a cellular denied area, an area with no cell phone service and no terrestrial communications infrastructure. That's what we're trying to solve is the communication between first responders so we can save more lives and mitigate the disaster faster. Col. John Boggs: So when a tragedy like that happens at that scale, mean, 19 people, boom. How do leaders begin to make sense out of that? How do you make sense out of what went wrong without losing focus on what you must be doing next? Rod Goossen: I think in the interim it's easy and even acceptable to lose a little bit of focus. If you're a leader in that situation, in that wildfire, there's a lot of information being thrown at you in trying to discern what is real versus what is not real. in what is the actual gravity of the situation, that's difficult. can only, you react to what your, to the information you're given at the time. You do the best with the knowledge you have at hand. After the fact, I think you have better, more. You have more time to sit down, evaluate, think through the process, what went wrong. And that's part of the, firefighter has a lessons learned after the fire. It's like an after action review where they look at what went right, what went wrong, what can we do better to improve in the future. These lessons are shared nationally. And that's great when you have time to think about it. When you don't have time to think about it, it's react and do the best you can with the tools you have available. Col. John Boggs: Yeah. You focus on solving situational awareness gaps. mean, that's what we would call it in the Marine Corps, situational awareness. Rod Goossen: Mm-hmm. Col. John Boggs: So what happens to leaders when they don't have that clear information? Rod Goossen: you do the best you can with the information you have. if you don't have that information, you're flying blindly, really. without proper information, you can't make proper decisions. So you make the best you can. You do the best you can with what you have. if the information you're receiving doesn't reflect the reality of the situation or the scope of the danger you're facing, you rely on instinct. But that's what Rogo's trying to do. Rogo's trying to provide that scene critical situational awareness information at the edge so that you're not guessing, you're taking the guesswork out of it. I know as a leader, whenever I have difficulty making a decision, I realize very quickly the reason I'm having difficulty making the decision is because I'm working off incomplete information. I don't have all the information I need to make a decision. Sitting in an office, that's one thing. Out fighting a wildfire, that's a toll of the situation. Things can occur very quickly and very rapidly. You don't have time to wait for information. that's one of the things we're trying to do is provide that seen critical information along with tactical collaboration at the edge very quickly. So crews can know what's coming. They know where they are. They know where the fire is. They know what the fire weather is doing. And so they... know who's in possible danger well ahead of that danger's arrival. Col. John Boggs: So you're really, this is a. Rogo is a heck of a communications platform is what this sounds like. That's really what it is. So you're trying to help the, let me get this, let me say this the right way. You're trying to adjust the leaders' behaviors by providing them communications in a high risk environment. Rod Goossen: communications and situational awareness. So what happened in the Arnel Hill tragedy in 2013, the tragedy that Rogo was born of, 19 Granite Mountain hotshots, they were all burned alive. There's no easy way to say that. They were burned alive by a very fast moving fire that was being blown by a cold front and incident command didn't exactly know where the hotshots were located at within the fire incident. They didn't warn them that that outflow boundary, that cold front was pushing the winds and thus the fire toward their location very quickly. They became trapped inside of a box canyon and all 19 men burned at the scene, which is a terrible, terrible thing. After that event, I was angry, confused, getting pissed off. Like how could this happen? So I called up my brother who's a 30 year wildland firefighter here in Colorado. And I asked my brother like, How the hell could this happen? How can incident command not know where they were at? How could they not warn that in outflow boundary, a cold front, pushing the winds and thus the fire toward the location very quickly? How? And my brother said Rod, in wildland firefighting, we're still using paper maps, compasses, and 2A radios. And the archaicness of the tools that they're provided in use surprise me. And so my background is in avionics engineering. I've worked for three different corporate jet manufacturers. know technology. And so I took it upon myself to build a communication and situational awareness solution for first responders working in austere areas so that this sort of tragedy never ever happens again. I don't want to see my brother or any firefighter die due to something that I know I can solve. gets back to that if you see a problem you can fix it you have the responsibility to fix it that it comes back to that. I've met three of, I've met the families of three of the Grand Mountain 19 and it's heart wrenching. know, looking these people in the eye, a mother and a wife, I've spoken to a father, one of the firefighters. I've met Amanda Marsh, she was the wife of the crew boss, Eric Marsh, and it's heart wrenching. It's very, very sad. Now, today, as of today, this solution, this. This problem is now preventable using ROGO's equipment. It's now preventable because we know where crews are at. We know where the fire weather is doing. We know where the fire is. And we have the ability for to communicate with each group directly via the ROGO platform, which uses a satellite enabled connection. When there's no cell phone service, we use that satellite connection to be an instant messaging. conversation with these folks to let them know the danger is coming your way, move to Safety Zone Zulu now or whatever the directive is Col. John Boggs: and. Rod Goossen: so that we can not only fight the fire more efficiently and more effectively, but we can fight it more safely. Col. John Boggs: You didn't just build the technology, you built yourself a mission around it. You built a whole mission thing. So what did you have to learn about leadership along the way? Rod Goossen: I built this company out of empathy, honestly. Like I'm putting myself in those firefighter's shoes. I'm imagining what it must have been like when they knew there was no way out. And that feeling of entrapment, and that's gotta be a terrible, terrible failure. I couldn't imagine anything worse than knowing that the end of your life is impending in the next few minutes and it's all gonna come to an end very quickly along with, you know. all your firefighting brothers that are there with you. So I couldn't imagine the desperation, the fear, the... sense of despair that they must have felt in their last few moments. I don't ever want another firefighter to experience that. think putting myself in their shoes, I wouldn't want anybody to ever experience that. I don't want my brother to die because of something I could help prevent. So the empathy part of leadership is big. Putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, whether that's somebody, you know, whether it's... In this case, looking at a problem that needs to be solved, understanding that problem, digging into it and investing your time, your personal funds and everything into getting this startup rolling, whether it's something that extreme or whether it's listening to somebody you work with, understanding somebody else's situation, that whole thing of empathy, putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, understanding somebody else's situation, understanding somebody else's viewpoint. And honestly, all that comes down to communication. You have to talk, but you also have to listen. You're born with two ears and one mouth because you're supposed to listen twice as much as you speak. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, my. Rod Goossen: I think, yeah, just understanding somebody else's viewpoint. I listen to everybody's viewpoint that I do business with. I'll take those opinions. I align that with. I weigh that against my own knowledge and my own common sense. If it makes sense, I adopt it. If not, you throw it out and you move on. Col. John Boggs: Your first responders operate in teams where they have to trust. They have to trust everything, particularly their communications equipment. Rod Goossen: correct. Col. John Boggs: So what creates trust quickly when that high pressure, know, it's all going on and I mean, holy smokes. Rod Goossen: A lot of things, I think trust comes down to two things. I think it comes down honesty, and I think it comes down to reliability. Those two can go hand in hand very quickly. As a leader, you have to be honest. You always have to be honest and forthright with your crew. The left hand should always know what the right hand is doing, and when a mistake is made, acknowledge the mistake, learn from it, move on. Don't dwell on things. don't beat the dead horse. You don't harp on. Harp on wet and wrong, you learn from it and you move on. I think trust comes from knowing how somebody is going to react in certain situations. If you're a hothead and you always fly off the handle, people aren't going to want to tell you things. And then you're kept in the dark intentionally by others who don't want to deal with your wrath all the time or your response to that situation. I think when you come at things with a level head and you come... to a conversation with an open mind and an open ear to listen to what went wrong before you judge or before you make your own conclusions. That's critical, but seeking the truth is also, seeking the truth is the most important thing in what breaches trust faster than anything is dealing with a liar. Col. John Boggs: yeah. Wow. Rod Goossen: Yeah, can't stand liars or thieves. They're born of the same terrible moral standards and can't stand liars and thieves. But that building Col. John Boggs: Yeah, wow. Rod Goossen: that trust is, honesty is paramount to building trust. Col. John Boggs: When you were developing the technology that you're using today. Were you able, well, let me ask you this. You had a mission. I mean, you clearly had a mission to do this. When you're trying to develop this technology that you have, were you stumbling along with people who didn't have the same vision, the same sense of urgency that you had? How did you deal with that? Rod Goossen: Absolutely. And so I dealt with a lot. At first when I started ROGO, and we started in 2018, so I've been at this for a little while, it took a while to get traction, traction meaning funding, engineering is not cheap. And so to get the funding to develop this, at first I had received a lot of pushback, whether it from family members or people out in the field, firefighters I spoke to. A lot of people told me, you know, it's too hard, it's too difficult, it can't be done. Both from a technological standpoint and from a bureaucracy standpoint, how do you breach the government information silos you need in order to get this device into state fire agencies, into the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and other, there's five agencies, five federal agencies that fight wildfires today. Those are all being consolidated into one. national wildland firefighting agency, national agency. Their Congress is fighting about that, regardless of politics, there's a lot of people who didn't believe in us. There's a lot of people who said it would be too hard, it would take too long, technology is evolving too quickly, Starlink is gonna make you obsolete in a couple years. None of that's true. And sticking to your core belief, about your mission and sticking to your core beliefs about your ability to bring change, to initiate change, and having the information base to know that when other people tell you it's not possible, that that's not true, when other people tell you that Starling's gonna take over, that that's not true either for very sound reasons we can get into. It's trusting yourself, trusting your... knowledge base, trusting the information you have that you've been given, that you've vetted that, trusting that you actually know what you're talking about. So there's a lot of naysayers, there's a lot of people that tell you it'll never work, it's too hard, it can't be done, yeah, proving people wrong feels really good. If you do that, in my opinion, Col. John Boggs: It does, yeah. Rod Goossen: you do that through knowledge. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, and you had a lot of that, I'm certain. my goodness. Well, I'm Rod Goossen: I try. Col. John Boggs: telling you, what kind of pressure do people underestimate in emergency responsive situations? What kind of pressure do they just underestimate? Rod Goossen: factor of time, number one. Everything in an emergency situation, Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: a lot of things happen very quickly. A lot of things are happening simultaneously. The communication piece, the problem that we're trying to solve is paramount to knowing what's coming, what's likely to happen, and how the situation is evolving. whether it's a wildland fire that occurs in a remote area with no cell phone service or whether it's the 9-11 tragedy in 2001 in New York City. communication goes down. Communications fail. There's a lot of what's really happening, what's important, how do you prioritize, what needs to be done next. There's a lot of confusion, a lot of... a of confusion, lot of misinformation, and lot of filtering that needs to be done all at one time. Again, you take in the information you have at that moment, you do the best off what you have at that moment, and if things need to adjust, then you pivot, change. But you always have to be open to that change, and you also have to be open to knowing that whatever you're doing now in good faith, maybe you need to go 180 degrees the other direction based off new information that comes to you. In Col. John Boggs: Right. Right. Rod Goossen: an emergency situation, you not having all the information you need on hand is common. You take in what information is available, trusting that it's reliable, but always Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: keeping an eye that it might not be correct. Having to pivot and change very quickly. And that's Col. John Boggs: Got it. Rod Goossen: true in any situation, whether it's starting a new business, pivoting and changing, or whether it's an emergency response situation. You need to be Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: adaptive to change. The only constant in this world is change. And so that's the... Change is the only constant. So knowing that things can, will, and are going to change, keeping that in mind all the time, I think allows your mind to be a little bit more flexible and open to new information coming your way, whether you like it or whether you don't. Col. John Boggs: Yeah. Rod, what has this mission taught you about yourself as a leader? Rod Goossen: It's taught me that determination and persistence are everything. I think. without having. the determination persistence that come from a motivation born deep within. your values deep within your reasoning deep within your belief structure whatever that is you have to believe in yourself you have to believe that there's that this problem is worth solving and you have to believe you can accomplish that Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: You also have to believe in yourself that you can recruit or learn, you can learn about resources that are available to you to help you accomplish your mission. There's no way I could do everything. There's just not enough time in the day to do everything yourself. So you do have to rely on others. have to vet those people, trust those people, give them tasks and see how they act Col. John Boggs: Yeah. Rod Goossen: in return. If they're great, good, keep them. If they're not, you gotta pivot, you gotta change and get somebody in that role who's... maybe not only more competent, that better aligns with your values and Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: your mission. Col. John Boggs: Okay. Rod, when leaders find themselves in moments where, well, like the fire, moments that on, their lives are at stake, things are going on, it's just, there's more things coming at you than a little bit. mean, firemen, they're worried about the winds, the weather, what's going on. The weather just shifted, my God. What do they need to remember? What's the sort of thing that they need to keep in mind before they even walk into it? Now you're in it. I mean, what do they have to keep in mind? What's the biggest thing that you could give them? Say, hey, keep this in mind. Rod Goossen: I've always thought in those situations the best thing you can do for yourself and for your fellow first responder is try to bring organization to that chaotic domain. Things happen very quickly. Organization is not always easy to achieve, but some sort of organization in a chaotic domain makes the difference usually between success and failure at mitigating that chaos. coming out with the best possible outcome when Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: things are very gray and you're not sure what direction is up and so Doing the best you can like I said with the information you have Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: at hand trusting in your team trusting in your partners Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: And being open and receptive to additional input as the situation evolves whether that input's from a fellow firefighter or whether that input is from the environment around you, how things are changing, you have to be adaptive. so it's, you know, being adaptive again comes back to knowledge. What information are you taking in? How accurate is that information? Did Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: that information really reflect what's going on? And in a first response situation, you have, you know, sometimes fractions of a second to figure out is this real, it not, do I go left, do I go right, what occurs next. But in all instances, you try and bring organization to that chaotic domain. I think that's... the very first step in managing a Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: disaster scenario. Col. John Boggs: Wow. Well, Rod, for organizations or leaders, and particularly leaders of those organizations, an emergency response, the disaster relief folks or the high risk environments, people who want to improve their communications, situational awareness, I your technology does all of that. So Rod Goossen: it does. Col. John Boggs: what's the best way for them to connect with you? And could you tell us just a little bit more about Rogo and and how they can connect with you. Rod Goossen: So I'll give you two ways to connect with us. One is the, we'll call it the passive way, is through our website. Our website is rogocom.com. That's R-O-G-O-C-O-M dot com. And they can get on our website. They can contact us through the contact us link at the website, or you can email me directly at info at rogocom.com. So either one, I will see it comes directly to me. I will respond to that personally. And so right now we have a brand new device and software kit that that's just come out that is providing more capability and more safety and more organization to chaotic domains, especially for wildland firefighters and all hazards first responders. And so we're now doing offering free. field trials so if you think this might be able to this device will definitely be able to help out your emergency response organization and so we welcome inquiries about that and I would be happy to come to you wherever you are and show you what these devices can do and how they can help you and your team save more lives and mitigate disasters faster. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, holy smokes. I'm curious, this a sort of thing that, well, I would think forest fires, know, those folks would all want something like this. Is this a sort of thing that regular fire departments would even look at? Rod Goossen: Yes, it can be. And so the reason why is because many regular fire departments, especially here out west, they all have people who get farmed out to fight wildfires. Col. John Boggs: okay. Rod Goossen: In a regular fire department, maybe even in like Florida, they're going to get farmed out to fight hurricanes. So any sort of natural disaster, any firefighting agency could use these to respond to their regional disasters or disasters. two disasters that get called in from several states away to go respond to. So definitely that and even in urban populations, this surprised me. I was talking to a SWIC, a SWIC is a Statewide Interoperability Coordinator and they're kind of head of all the communications of a first responder, first response department or area. And so I was talking to a SWIC out of Washington DC and he was interested in our devices. Because he told me when there's a large presidential event going on, everybody on their cell phones eats up all the bandwidth. He said like the middle of Washington DC during a presidential event often is a cellular denied area. And I still need the ability Col. John Boggs: Wow. Rod Goossen: to communicate with my other first responders. There is something called a PACE plan in first response. PACE stands for primary alternate contingency and emergency. Your primary means might be your two-way radios. Your alternate Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: means might be your cell phone. When the P and the A of the PACE plan fail, you have to have a backup. First responders have to be able to communicate. So Col. John Boggs: huh. Rod Goossen: if the primary and alternate fail, you fall back to the C. In this case, contingency in an urban environment can be us. It can be ROGO's drop-lock devices to provide that scene-critical communication. Col. John Boggs: Mm-hmm. Rod Goossen: tactical communications when all other communication means fail. absolutely, we have urban and non-urban applications, even though we're more focused on the non-urban wildland firefighting application Col. John Boggs: Right. Rod Goossen: first. That's our primary market. But I want to be able to help first responders in all sorts of disaster situations because time matters. Col. John Boggs: Yeah, definitely. In an emergency situation, time matters. Being Rod Goossen: Absolutely. Col. John Boggs: able to communicate matters. You talk about not having perfect information. Without communications, you have no information. Rod Goossen: Correct. Col. John Boggs: And that's an awful position to be in. That's truly an awful position to be in. So Rod Goossen: It is. Col. John Boggs: Rod, thank you very much for this today. Thank you so much for joining us. I can't tell you how much. I greatly appreciate this because you have developed something born. You developed a mission. You didn't just develop a product. You saw a need and you went at it. And you said that right up front and you did it. So thank you very much for doing that. Thank you very much for doing that. course, know one of the Yarnell firefighters was a former Marine. Yeah, so we all the Marines took that along the personal side too. thank Rod Goossen: Sir. Col. John Boggs: you very much Rod. Thank you very much for everything you've done. I greatly appreciate it. And for those of you that out there that are listening, hey, leadership is too important to get wrong. If you can't communicate, you know who to talk to. You need to go find Rod and stay steady. Keep up your good work with your leadership. And that's it for today out here.