BY MATT MACKINDER
Clarkston News Editor

Dan White has been a firefighter for 24 years with 20 years of full-time service to the Independence Township Fire Department, choosing a career where he could serve the local community.
White was promoted to lieutenant in 2013 and prior to coming to the township, worked for the Groveland Fire Department.
Recently, White returned to the classroom, graduating from the Eastern Michigan School of Fire Staff and Command, an advanced leadership and management program which teaches and explores a wide variety of subjects such as leadership and its applications, firefighter health and safety, including suicide prevention, strategic planning, fiscal management, grant writing, working with the media, expanded emergency management issues, laws affecting personnel and the fire service, training issues, and technology.
“As a lieutenant with the department, it helps develop a wide variety of skills for my current position, which is managing a station and supervising staff,” White said. “It also prepares me for the distinct and different tasks a fire service administrator faces that reaches outside the scope of putting out fires or responding to medical emergencies.”
The class also offered opportunities to explore facilities such as Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor and Little Caesars Arena in Detroit to understand the process of hazard planning and mitigation needed for massive events that can draw tens of thousands of people into a small area of concentration. The class culminates in a research presentation each student had worked on over the course of the class.
White’s paper and presentation examined safety compliance in the fire service.
Overall, the program is 350 hours spread out over nine months and draws people from fire departments all over the state.

White noted the fire service wasn’t his first career choice.
“When I graduated from the University of Michigan-Flint, I went into the substance abuse prevention field where I worked with a wide variety of people ranging from child to adults, honor students to the incarcerated,” explained White. “However, it just wasn’t satisfying. I never really saw the results of my work because it was focused on long-term life changes, and I was only involved for a very short time. At my five-year class reunion, I was talking to a longtime friend, Pat Stamper, who, at the time, was on Groveland Fire (Stamper is now operations captain with Independence), and he planted the seed.
“The fire service offered a great opportunity to help people in a variety of ways and serve the community. Every shift offers unique challenges and interesting situations, and that’s very rewarding.”
White moved to Clarkston in 1975 and graduated from Clarkston High School in 1991. He currently lives in Linden with his wife and two daughters.
With the new knowledge gained, White has more goals moving forward in his professional life.
“Currently, I’m working with the other officers on my shift, Captain Dave Bridgewater and Lieutenant Derek Stamper to train and develop the personnel on our shift,” White said. “Teamwork, knowledge, and skill are absolutely essential in high-stress environments, so it’s important to be purposeful about training to advance those areas.
“Beyond that, I’m making plans to test for a captain’s promotion when positions open in the future. (A lieutenant oversees a station and the personnel assigned there, while the captain supervises and leads the entire shift.) Although, with the growth of our community, Chief (Dave) Piche may need to create new positions that could be of interest, as well.”
White added he’d like to turn his focus to safety, something that interests him deeply.
“My time at Groveland Fire and early in my career here at Independence overlapped with a job in which I was the safety compliance and training specialist for a factory in Lapeer,” said White. “Safety is a complex and detailed subject that is worth focusing quite a bit of energy and resources on.
“Regardless, with the hiring of Chief Piche, there’s a lot of change that will be occurring, and I’ll be working with everyone else as we create a new strategic plan and take the department into the future.”

Top photo: Dan White sprays a deck gun on the Detroit Fire Department fireboat during a recent class. Photos provided