Assistant Chief (Ret.) Tracy Burrus on Leaning In and 'Rooting For the Underdog'

Tracy Burrus knows a mark of good leadership is recognizing someone's potential and then cultivating their talent. The same thing happened to her 30 years ago while a student at Western Illinois University. Working as a part-time parking enforcement officer on campus, her supervisor saw something in her.

 

"He said, 'You seem to like helping people, helping them with stuff like getting locked out of their car. Maybe you should be a police officer.' I said, 'No, I don't think that's my jam,' and the very next thing he said was, 'What about the fire department?'"

 

The suggestion became a seed that blossomed into a long, rewarding career.

 

Burrus was hired by the Macomb Fire Department within a year of that conversation and she continued to serve there until she was hired by the Madison Fire Department in October 2001. Drawn to be in a city with a higher call volume, she also wanted to serve in a department where women were already among the ranks. That's what attracted her to Madison, in particular.

 

"I didn't want to be the first. I wanted the path to have already been paved so I could just focus on doing the work," Burrus said.

 

Her first assignment upon graduating the MFD Recruit Academy was Fire Station 4, where she was greeted by a crew of six firefighters, four of whom were women.

 

"It was freaking awesome. It was awesome," she remembers of her first day in the firehouse.

 

A few years later, she had the opportunity to join a ladder company at Station 2. Rumors were swirling that there wasn't much going on in the burgeoning west-side territory, but Burrus saw an opportunity to show people that she can do ladder work.

 

She continued to serve as a firefighter, and eventually promoted up to apparatus engineer, until she was promoted to lieutenant in 2014. Burrus remembers her years as a lieutenant as some of the best years of her career. It was a time when she put her leadership skills to practice while building a strong, cohesive team atmosphere within her fire/EMS crew.

 

"So many lieutenants are fighting for some people to be on their crew who already have skills and knowledge and feel confident, whereas I feel like you can give me anybody and they will be a good crew under me because we’re going to train together, and we’re going to build confidence," she said. "I root for the underdog; I would rather have a team full of underdogs."

 

Rooting for the underdog was a philosophy she carried with her throughout her career. As Division Chief of Fire Training, she recognized that a cookie-cutter approach to fire training was not the solution for everybody, particularly women and people of different stature. She aimed to create spaces where people were free to explore innovative solutions to problems without fear of being judged. She also encouraged training tactics that allowed people to explore their unique strengths.

 

One of her proudest achievements while overseeing the Training Division was working with Lieutenant Carri Holloway to create an Acting Lieutenant development program. The professional development program helps Apparatus Engineers gain hands-on experience and education, with guidance from experienced officers, to prepare to act as company officers. A natural benefit of the program is to nurture a stronger pool of future lieutenants.

 

In November 2019, Burrus was promoted to Assistant Chief of Personnel, where rooting for the underdog presented in a different way. She was now in a position to examine agency-wide systems and processes that could be having a disproportionate impact on certain communities within the department.

 

Being a member of the "underdog group" herself– as a person of color and a member of the LGBTQ+ community– and recognizing what is occurring to members of these communities in the world at large, Burrus understood the significance of her presence in the upper echelons of the department. Nonetheless, she felt she needed to maintain a delicate balance in order to stay there.

 

"I'm not really a person that shouts out that much, because I don't want to be left out of the conversation, and that's what can get you left out of the conversation in a male-dominated career," Burrus described. "I tried to navigate that in a way that would keep me in the room to know what was happening."

 

It went with relatively little fanfare that Burrus became the first African-American woman in the history of the Madison Fire Department to achieve the ranks of Apparatus Engineer, Lieutenant, Division Chief, and Assistant Chief, namely because she wanted to remain focused on the work at hand and on what she would bring into those roles. At the same time, she never doubted her ability to overcome any obstacles to achieve her goals.

 

"I never felt like I was afraid or that they were going to make fun of me for trying something. I know it exists, but I don't hear it in a way that tells me I shouldn't do it," she said. "If there was one thing I could put in a needle and inject into every woman on this job, it would be that: to quit waiting for someone to tell you you're ready or worrying about what other people think."

 

These are lessons she imparts as she begins her next chapter in retirement. Burrus is spending more time with family, and she looks forward to traveling to new places with her wife and two daughters. Meanwhile, she knows her MFD family is never too far away.

 

"I came to Madison not knowing anybody, and now there's people who send my kids birthday cards every year. There are people here who are lifelong friends, and I think that's something really awesome about this job."