Today was a monumental day in the history of our Team as we met with our Charleston Fire Department brothers, many of whom made up our original peer team back in 2007. For the first five years of our existence, eighteen members of the department served on the Team and today, four of them are the remaining members of the Team from the beginning. Robby Baldwin, Bill Haigler, George Gardiner and Matt Thomson have continued the tradition of service to their fellow firefighters. The purpose of our meeting today was to renew our brotherhood and rejoin them to get our Team back together after five years of patience and perseverance.
Nothing will be served by rehashing the circumstances that occurred five years ago but we are ecstatic about being together again. Initially, Bill Perez and Kenny Jenkins will be joining us as we roll out a new Team made up of active duty guys and retired members. We are pleased to share that John Poston and Raymond Lloyd will be joining us and we will be recruiting others in the retired ranks to bring back their expertise and their love of the CFD and its traditions. This is not a new concept as our brothers from the FDNY who trained us in the beginning were all retirees. We believe this blended team will enhance our ability to take care of our firefighters and their families. David Reindollar, our Team Leader, will be bringing all of our Team’s resources to strengthen this new alliance.
We wish to thank Chief Joey Roberts and Chief Dan Curia for their confidence in all of us and their support of this new mission. Stay tuned as more details will be coming soon!