To the Mayor, City Council, City Manager and the Citizens of Glendale –

2007 was a year of unprecedented accomplishment for the Glendale Fire Department. The Glendale Regional Public Safety Training Center was successfully opened and graduated its first recruit class. The fire department was awarded its reaccredidation through 2012 from the Commission on Fire Accreditation International. HALO 151, a first of its kind public/private partnership was established with AirEvac to provide medical helicopter rescue service to the West Valley and beyond. Last but not least, our Special Event Division staffed events with a total estimated attendance that has been reported as over three million people. All of these activities and partnerships were achieved due to our dedicated professionals, sworn and non-sworn, who worked tirelessly to meet deadlines and collaborate with partners in order to deliver only the best to our department and the citizens we serve.

Serving our citizens is always our first priority. Our sworn staff spent over 78,000 hours in classroom and hands-on instruction in order to learn the latest techniques or hone existing skills. We demonstrated our commitment to delivering the best, most advanced care to our customers by promoting and instructing our firefighters, citizens and employees in a new life-saving technique: Continuous Cardiac Compressions. In addition, our state-of-the- art Philips MRX heart monitors were configured with 12 lead technology which provides our paramedics the ability to send diagnostic cardiograms to the hospital via blue-tooth technology. This gives the hospital staff a head start; they can begin administering lifesaving care the moment we arrive with the patient.

The tremendous efforts of our staff and many successes of 2007 are just the beginning for the Glendale Fire Department. It is both an honor and a privilege to represent the finest, most well-prepared and committed men and women in the fire service. Thank you for your continued collaboration, encouragement and dedication to our organization.

Always at your service,

Mark Burdick
Fire Chief