I was startled when the phone rang at 10:45 Saturday night. It was someone I worked with long ago.
“How are you?”
“Not well…”
Denny Hare, a former JEMS staff member, was calling people that were not part of the inner circle. Jim Page died while swimming a couple of hours earlier. He was 68 years old.
I am a James O. Page fan and collaborator. Attended dozens of his keynote presentations. Sitting in a dark and cold convention center room, Page would sometimes share his most personal moments of frustration or crisis.
Success is not a black-or-white linear path.
A FIREFIGHTER’S LIFE
Page was a 21 year old high school graduate when hired by the Monterey Park Fire Department in 1957. Monterey Park is a three-station city fire department within Los Angeles County. He went varsity when Los Angeles County hired him in 1959.
He obtained an undergraduate and a law degree while progressing through the county as a firefighter, engineer, chief’s aide, inspector and captain. By time he was promoted to battalion chief in 1971, he passed his bar exam and self-published his first book, Effective Company Command. My introduction to Chief Page was reading that book in a 1972 fire science class.
Page loved speed. His commuter car was a 1966 Shelby GT-350 Mustang. He also worked excessively, starting a law practice and working overtime as a field battalion chief, to the point that his first marriage ended in divorce.
THAT PARAMEDIC THING
As a staff chief he was assigned to the paramedic squad project. That would lead to his premature departure in 1973. The fire chief did not share Page’s enthusiasm or appreciate his techniques. Most county firefighters held Advanced First Aid cards.
At a social gathering, the chief said that it seemed every problem he encountered involved Page. Shortly thereafter, Page was transferred to Apparatus.
LIFE AFTER LOS ANGELES COUNTY
At 37 Page became the first North Carolina director of EMS. Like the paramedic squad project, Page created a statewide EMS system from scratch. He was fired in 1976 because he prohibited the practice of reading the state EMT written exam to illiterate candidates.
He became the executive director of the ACT Foundation, an advocacy group for out-of-hospital advanced coronary care. Page became a major player in the embryonic world of EMS organizations, attending annual meetings and conferences.
My first face-to-face meeting with Page was when he was a keynote speaker at the Fairfax County (Va.) Cardiac Care Technician Association dinner in 1979.
BUYING INK BY THE BARREL
Taking the slim assets of Paramedics International magazine, Page created the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, “JEMS” in 1980. Building the magazine created both financial and editorial challenges. Many of the early issues has articles under a variety of Page pseudonyms.
Starting the EMS Today conference in 1982 was also a challenge. Page struggled to keep the magazine and the conference running in the face of significant financial losses.
BACK TO THE LAND OF THE STEADY BURNING RED LIGHT
With two years in Monterey Park and 14 years in Los Angeles County, he did not have enough time in the statewide retirement system to draw a pension. Page moved back to California and resumed his fire service career by becoming the Carlsbad fire chief in 1984.
He returned Monterey Park as fire chief in 1986. He was disappointed when his application to be the Los Angeles County fire chief did not make it to the final group of candidates.
He told me he was doing this get his state pension. I think he still had a need for speed. His Monterey Park chief’s car was a 1987 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi, the supercharged model.
STRUGGLING WITH TWO FULL TIME OBLIGATIONS
Page needed to hire additional staff at JEMS to cover the obligations he could not handle while working as a chief. His tenure as the Monterey Park fire chief seemed bittersweet.
Page’s 1989 decision to retire from Monterey Park was after an article making fun of one of the elected officials made the Los Angeles Times.
Reflecting years later, Page speculated that he knew better, but this is how he creates a situation requiring action. He had accrued enough service time to get his pension.
YOU WANT ME?
I went from fan to collaborator when working on the third edition of the IFSTA Company Officer book. I wanted to use some of his passages from Effective Company Command.
We had many conversations about company officer issues, leading to 48 columns published in Fire-Rescue Magazine and joint presentations with Page for the IAFC and Company Officer Development Experience.
Jane bought her husband a session at the Richard Petty Driving Experience. Page was at least 20 years older than the other students. He greatly enjoyed driving a NASCAR stock car around the high banks at speed.
“SLOWING DOWN” AT 65
Page said that he figured he had one more decade to do what he wanted, while he still could enjoy it. He became publisher emeritus of JEMS Communications in December 2001 and started to wind down his workload at Page, Wolfberg and Wirth.
Page still had a need for speed. In Fire-Rescue Magazine, he described becoming a reserve California Highway Patrol officer in 2002. CHP extensively modifies cruisers to provide better and safer performance. I bet he had a blast responding Code 3.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
I planned to meet with Jim during the National Association of EMS Educators conference in Hollywood. I was proposing that he develop a “History of EMS” course for GWU.
The second edition of the History of EMS just came out on DVD, and he posted the manuscript from his 1979 book The Paramedics on jems.com. It would be the foundation of a fantastic class.
Mike “FossilMedic” Ward
[edited version of "Reflections on the Passing of An Icon & Colleague" published in firechief.com on September 10, 2004]
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