About billy...

Billy earned his Bachelor's degree in Neurophysiology. While at UF, he was well-involved in the Student Government, assisted in the annual management of millions of dollars in Student Activity Fees and ascended to the position of Judiciary Chairman. He's not a stranger to how to get things done as an elected official and it's those experiences that served him well as an executive board member.  And while at UF, he developed relationships with  numerous students that - 20 years later - have ascended to  elected State & Federal positions.  He also served on the University Curriculum Council and compelled changes that had been unsuccessful for more than 2 decades.

Following in his father's footsteps, he chose to leave the hallowed halls of academia to embark down the road of becoming an MDFR firefighter in 2002.  He spent 4 years as a firefighter on Rescue 7, 3 years as a Fire Lt on Rescue 7 & has been the Captain of Rescue 30 for more than 8 years. He's also a Terrorism Liaison Officer, a Structure Collapse Technician & an amateur radio operator.  

Along the way, he enjoyed teaching SOPs to several recruit classes, trained the entire department how to use NFIRS and is currently lecturing on Traffic Incident Management to ODP to all ranks, as he was instrumental in this first-of-its-kind MDFR policy.  He truly believes that you should "leave it better than you found it."

While he's always ridden busy trucks, he also helps out wherever he can.  Over the years, and in his spare time, he's been a uniformed project manager for the development the hydrant maintenance system and the NFIRS program and he assisted in the development of every rescue purchased between 2004-2016.  He was also the offer of the grants that brought us EZ-IOs, the Vent-88 apparatus and several other million dollar projects.

Billy has been elected numerous times by the members of this organization to represent them as an executive board member.  During his time on the board, he has developed a reputation for contributing thoughtful and timely points of view, engaging in the tough conversations to advocate real change and for working with and through a multitude of relationships with departmental decision-makers to compel craft ways forward or compel them when necessary.  He's been a member of the Special Operations Committee for years, he has represented members in some especially contentious grievances and has taken on the challenges associated with threats to member health alongside other dedicated executive board members.  

As Omar Blanco moves on from his day-to-day duties as Union President that Billy has volunteered to step forward to pick this organization up and go in a bit of a different direction.  A direction that both embraces the timeless traditions that made 1403 what it is and the incorporation of new ways of doing business and compelling changes that will truly leave this place better than he found it!  Click on the "Dept Issues" and "Union Issues" tabs to get a glimpse of  his vision for the future of this Local and its membership.