Pete Van Dorpe (Raising the Training Bar, Fire Service Innovation and Courageous Leadership) - Episode 1178
Behind The Shield
James Geering
4.9 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 21 December 2025
⏱️ 148 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Peter Van Dorpe is a retired fire chief of the Algonquin-Lake in the Hills Fire Protection District in Illinois. Chief Van Dorpe began his Fire Service career in April of 1980 as a Firefighter on Truck Co. #22 for the City of Chicago Fire Department; where he rose through the ranks including engineer, lieutenant, captain, battalion chief, eventually retiring in October of 2013 as a district chief for the Division of Training.
Among Chief Van Dorpe's Line experience, he was also the Lead Instructor for the Chicago Fire Departments Fire Officer School from 2005 to 2010 as well as a Field Instructor for the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute where he is still actively involved in Firefighter Training. Chief Van Dorpe obtained an associate's degree in fire science from the Chicago city-wide Colleges; moving on to obtaining his bachelor's degree in fire science management from the Southern Illinois University.
Chief Van Dorpe has also taught "Building Construction for the Fire Service" at Harold Washington College's Fire Science Program. Chief Van Dorpe has been actively involved in research by being a subject matter expert on multiple UL and NIST studies dating back to 2007. Chief Van Dorpe has strived to give back to the fire service through ways of education and training which has led to him delivering the 2012 FDIC Keynote Speech as well as being awarded the 2016 Fire Engineering/ISFSI George D. Post Instructor of the Year award.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This episode is sponsored by StationWise, the first staffing software to be truly firefighter proof. |
| 0:07.1 | Now, you may be wondering why I have software as a sponsor when I focus usually on physical and mental health of the first responders, and I will tell you exactly why. |
| 0:17.3 | For the first time, this is a staffing platform that also is able to integrate wellness information |
| 0:24.0 | through call load tracking, exposures and wearables integration. |
| 0:30.3 | Now, of course, station-wise focuses on staffing and allows you to manage staffing, choose vacation |
| 0:36.6 | picks, put in rules for leave and trades, |
| 0:40.5 | and even deploying strike teams. But through the latest programming and AI automation, |
| 0:46.4 | they have streamlined this process to free up battalion chiefs so they can focus on what they're |
| 0:52.0 | supposed to be doing on the operational side and the fireground. |
| 0:55.0 | Now station wise is also able to monitor not only how many calls we've responded to in the shift, |
| 1:01.0 | but the duration of the call, therefore the rest and recovery in between, |
| 1:05.0 | thus monitoring the sleep deprivation that degrades our health and performance. |
| 1:10.0 | It's accessible not only through |
| 1:12.1 | the computer but also on Apple and Android devices, meaning that you can access it not only within |
| 1:18.0 | the station itself but outside as well. Now one of the most powerful features of station wise, |
| 1:23.8 | in my opinion, is the ability to run reports. Therefore, for example, be able to see just how much money is being used on overtime that could actually be front-loaded for proactive staffing, as well as setting alarms knowing when you are hitting overtime parameters. And another important feature is the integration of other programs and software for payroll, |
| 1:48.2 | training, reports, etc. |
| 1:50.9 | Now, StationWise is trusted by numerous agencies in California, Texas, and Idaho. |
| 1:57.3 | And if you want to hear the full story from the founder who he himself is a son of a firefighter, listen to episode 1163 with Marcus Edwards. |
| 2:08.0 | And if you want to book a demo or learn more, go to stationwise.com. |
| 2:14.4 | Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name's James Gearing, and this week it is my absolute |
| 2:19.0 | honor to welcome on the show, 33-year fire service veteran and former training chief for Chicago |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from James Geering, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of James Geering and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.