Matthew Pegg | Toronto, ON
“It never gets easier; we just get wiser and stronger.”
Matthew Pegg is the Fire Chief in the City of Toronto, Ontario. Although he graduated from university programs in Leadership and Administration, Labor Relations, and Public Management, his real calling was to be a first responder. Soon, his calling would lead him to taking on the role of fire chief at the largest fire service in Canada and the fifth largest in North America.
What initially inspired you to join the fire service?
When Chief Pegg was a young man working as a licensed mechanic, he enrolled in his first CPR and First Aid training. He learned that, in an emergency, the first action taken, as a first aider, is to have someone call for help. He was intrigued. He asked himself, “Who are these people that come to help?” His interest ignited and that’s when he committed his career to being the one that comes to help.
His firefighting career took Chief Pegg from volunteer firefighter to Deputy Chief, to Fire Chief. He also served for 4 years as the General Manager of Emergency Management, in addition to serving as Fire Chief. He also received many honors and medals, including the Heroism and Community Service Medal, the Ontario Medal of Firefighter’s Bravery, and others.
Again and again, he has shown that he is, indeed, a person who comes to help.
What message would you like to share with others in the fire service?
Chief Pegg believes that each one of us must determine our own trajectory and ultimate goals; the path we follow as individuals and leaders must be our own. Chief Pegg advises his recruits to aim high and to never accept any the limitations that are imposed on them by someone else. He shared that although he was discouraged by well-meaning people, he listened to his own wisdom and succeeded.
Chief Pegg believes: “It never gets easier; we just get wiser and stronger.”
How have you seen yourself get wiser and stronger through your experiences?
The challenges that confronted Chief Pegg daily provided him with opportunities to become resilient, to grow, and to become stronger and wiser. He quotes a book titled, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch: “Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.” Chief Pegg reminds us to give ourselves credit for dealing with hard situations and learning valuable lessons in the process. He recalls that some of the most important leadership lessons that he has learned have come from watching people who were weak leaders, making terrible mistakes, and by making mistakes himself. We all make mistakes, but not everyone is willing to learn from those mistakes. This is where we become wiser.
Looking down the road, what changes do you see coming to the fire service?
“I don't think there's anything more important today and moving forward than being architects of ‘how.’ Our communities are in desperate need of people who are skilled and committed to developing solutions for ‘how’ to overcome complicated problems. That is the recipe for success for the next generation of fire service professionals: commit to being the solver of problems.”
When Chief Pegg considers the future, he sees the firefighter through the eyes of the public. He believes that, as everything becomes more expensive, and as social media becomes even more pervasive, the level of public visibility and public accountability will drastically affect what the public expects and demands of their public servants, including firefighters.
With a glass half full, Chief Pegg is proud that the next generation of firefighters will inherit the progress surrounding mental health in the fire service that his generation has forged. Advancements in pre-employment training programs will continue to teach recruits how to deal with topics that were once considered taboo. Open discussion of suicide, operational stress, and resilience represents an enormous improvement over the fire service environment that Pegg and his peers came into.
“Those are things that can't ever stop being priorities. We have to find new ways and more ways to protect the health and safety of our firefighters. And that includes everything from physical health and safety to psychological and emotional health.”
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Chief Pegg often speaks to the new recruits at their graduation ceremony. In a brutally honest manner, he tells them how difficult and challenging their job will be, and he shares his own experiences. He describes the mental health tools that are available to everyone, and emphasizes the importance of support and communication.
And he tells them that, in the end, he knows they will each do their job professionally and excellently.
After one of these lectures, a newly hired recruit Firefighter reached out to him and asked to talk to him privately. “I just wanted you to know that you’ll never understand the difference you made in my life and in the life of my family. It was a result of your willingness to say what you said, and not be ashamed or afraid or feel stigmatized about that. I’m getting help, and I’m on the way to becoming increasingly healthy.”
“Knowing that I can make a difference in even one person’s life makes every bad day worth it for me.”