Company Officer of the Year Mike Hayes (center) accepts the award with FireRescue Editor-in-Chief Tim Sendelbach and IAFC President Chief Jeff Johnson.
Photo by Chief John M. Buckman III

Editor’s Note: On Friday, Aug. 28, Capt. Mike Hayes of the FDNY received FireRescue’s Company Officer of the Year award at the General Session at FRI (watch the video here). Earlier, Tim Sendelbach, FireRescue editor-in-chief, caught up with Capt. Hayes for this brief interview.

Listen to the Interview Here:

Tim Sendelbach (TS): We’re here with Captain Mike Hayes of FDNY’s Ladder 28. He’s FireRescue’s 2009 Company Officer of the Year. Mike, I just wanted to start off expressing our congratulations to you for being the Company Officer of the Year. It’s certainly an honor for us to recognize you for your achievements throughout the course of your career and it’s absolutely a pleasure and a privilege to have you here today so we appreciate it.

Mike Hayes (MH): Thank you, Tim. I just want to start out by expressing my sincere appreciation to you, Tim, and Shannon, and the entire staff of FireRescue magazine for selecting me for such an honor. It’s really an honor and a privilege to receive this award so thank you for that.

TS: Well thank you. Mike, if you can just kind of start out, I noticed in your nomination that you started out as a volunteer prior to your service with the FDNY. Can you give us some background on your career and how you landed in the FDNY serving as a captain with Ladder 28?

MH: I stared as a volunteer firefighter at 16 years old in a place called Union Center. I grew up in upstate New York in a place called Endicott and I went down to the firehouse and joined and loved it right off the bat. It didn’t take me long to realize that this is what I wanted to do as a career.

Moving on from there, I spent a few years up there, finished high school and went to college and then I took the test for the FDNY and Rochester Fire Department and a host of other departments. Once I took the test for FDNY, I also took the test for the New York City Police Department.

I wound up getting a job first with the New York City Police Department, so I left my hometown of Endicott and went down to Garden City, New York, which is located out in Long Island. The day after I got there, I reached out to the local volunteer fire department and joined right away with them.

I lived out in Long Island for about 10 years. It took me a few years to get into the FDNY, I was a police officer for 5 years and eventually I got appointed to the FDNY in 1989. In my 10 years in Garden City, I rose up through the ranks, I was assistant chief of a combination department—Garden City is a combination paid/volunteer department, which has roughly 35 paid firefighters and about 100 volunteers. I rose up through the ranks, all the chiefs were volunteer firefighters, I was assistant chief for 3 years and chief of the department for 2 years. I enjoyed it thoroughly, both the training aspect and working with the firefighters.

Then I moved to upstate New York, I built a house in a place called Slate Hill, and I left Garden City, and again, it only took me a few days to reach out to my local volunteer department, which I’m still a member of today, the Slate Hill Volunteer Fire Department. I joined and rose up through the ranks again, I took the position of chief and was a chief there for 5 years, enjoyed it again. I’m currently the training officer there, and I live there today. To put it all in perspective, it’s been 30 years since I joined the volunteer fire service and I’m as active as I was the first day I got in. It’s my community and it’s where I live. I do it for a living and that’s what I e

 

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