FIRE TRUCKS ARE IN THE BLOOD OF COMMAND FIRE APPARATUS OWNER, CHIEF GLENN USDIN
Growing up in the suburbs of New York, every time a fire siren sounded, he almost forced his parents to divert and bring him to the scene of the fire. One of his earliest memories is standing in an FDNY station and admiring the shiny engine company and watching in awe at the brave firefighters preparing for their next alarm.
Shortly after his 18th birthday he joined the Massapequa Volunteer Fire Department on Long Island and served as a company officer, fire prevention specialist and public relations officer there for 15 years. At the same time he began working in the fire apparatus industry as the assistant to the local Mack fire apparatus salesman, and learned the fire truck business from the bottom up, delivering and demonstrating new units to customers all over the NY metro area.
He spent a few years as a certified expert fire investigator for the insurance industry traveling across the USA investigating the cause and origin of major fire losses. In 1983 Chief Usdin was named the Associate Publisher and then acting Publisher of Fire Engineering Magazine, the oldest continually published trade journal. Working with legendary editor Chief Tom Brennan, retired FDNY, Usdin and Brennan transformed the magazine into the training and management resource it is today.
An offer to join one of his friends companies took him to the famed nozzle manufacturer, Task Force Tips, as the eastern sales manager covering a territory from Maine to Virginia. Usdin traveled weekly to trade shows and fire departments and worked with them to demonstrate fire flow equipment and strengthen their firefighting capacity.
