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Using Data to Engage Staff, Build Trust, and Drive Performance Improvements

16th October, 2025

Hosted By

Darrell Reid

Being a fire chief means more than managing resources—it means leading people through constant challenges. Tight budgets, rising call volumes, and the weight of community expectations can strain even the strongest teams.

Darrell Reid knows this firsthand. As a Fire Chief, he faced the same hardships many leaders do: building trust, keeping morale high, and finding ways to unite his crews under pressure. His solution wasn’t more discipline or oversight—it was learning how to use data as a leadership tool.

Darrell Reid knows this firsthand. As a Fire Chief, he faced the same hardships many leaders do: building trust, keeping morale high, and finding ways to unite his crews under pressure. His solution wasn’t more discipline or oversight—it was learning how to use data as a leadership tool.

Darrell Reid knows this firsthand. As a Fire Chief, he faced the same hardships many leaders do: building trust, keeping morale high, and finding ways to unite his crews under pressure. His solution wasn’t more discipline or oversight—it was learning how to use data as a leadership tool.

In this webinar, Darrell shares hard-won lessons on how to:


  • Turn your department’s numbers into motivation, pride, and action.
  • Use data to engage your team and build trust, not micromanage.
  • Connect metrics to real-world wins that matter to your crews.
  • Make performance improvement a natural part of your culture.

• Darkhorse Response turns raw incident data into decisions you can act on. Fast. No more spreadsheet scrambles—just sharp, visual insights that help you save time, money, and lives.

• Darkhorse Risk lets fire and emergency services map community risk in days, not months. It blends national and local data to reveal risk hotspots, back evidence-based action, and defend your decisions.

These tools reflect what we stand for: smarter resource use, stronger public safety, and real progress in risk reduction.

Register for Free Now

Speakers

Darrell Reid

VP Strategy / Former Fire Chief and CAO

As a retired Fire Chief and City Admistrative Officer, Darrell understands both the operational and financial realities of running a fire department.

Darrell’s leadership experience includes CAO for Strathcona County, Fire and Emergency Management Chief and COVID-19 Task Force Chief for the City of Vancouver, CEO for Heart and Stroke Ontario, Deputy Fire Chief for Toronto Fire Services, and Union President for IAFF Local 2461.

Career highlights include being Incident Commander for the 2011 Slave Lake, Alberta fires and the 2013 High River, Alberta floods, two of the largest disasters in Canadian history. Darrell served as the CEO for the Heart and Stroke Foundation (HSF) of Ontario and as Chairman of the Provincial Advisory Board for Heart and Stroke British Columbia and Yukon, and founded the Society for Assistance to International Firefighters (SAIF) supporting first responders in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Since 2019 he has participated as a co-lead in a World Health Organization project in Mongolia, helping build sustainable models for emergency medical, rescue and emergency management capacity in that country.

He is a noted advocate and internationally recognized speaker on topics including mental health resilience, evidence-based decision making, strategy, labour relations, staff engagement, and the opioid crisis.

Darrell has an MBA from the University of Alberta, an Executive Fire Officer Designation from the US National Fire Academy, a Community Preparedness & Disaster Management Graduate Certificate from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a Canadian Safety and Security Certificate from Canadian Forces College.

Darrell is also a successful entrepreneur, founding Emergency Services Academy, an accredited and licensed Alberta private college for firefighters and paramedics.