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Today I am talking with Lieutenant paramedic, Andre Perez. He is a 22 year, well, almost 22 year veteran of orange County fire rescue getting hired back in April of 1999. I think you did have some previous [00:01:00] fire department experience before coming to orange County.

I did. I did. Yep. I worked at a small department in Palm beach County called Pahokee, and I was there about six and a half years. Did you just make that name up? I did not, but they no longer exist. So they still have the history and, uh, they were actually taken over by Palm beach County several years ago.

So you have been the president of local 2057 for how many years? Um, I've been president for about seven years now and that's in totality. Cause I think you took. A little bit of a break, right? Yeah. Um, I call it a, I call it timeout, if you will. I, uh, I served one term and our terms are three years and, um, I ran for reelection and did not win.

So I was out for about a year and a half. [00:02:00] Um, that person ended up having to step down and I was asked to come back and, um, so I came back and had been president ever since. All right. And you worked your way, as you know, I think you started off as just a union rep and then became secretary and then vice-president and so on and so forth.

Yep. Um, so it started out, um, Actually was being precepted by Jason Brown to become a paramedic. And, uh, he worked his way to become the union vice president at the time. Um, so he would talk to me about all the cases and things like that. And he actually recruited me to be a staff representative. So he hired me on his staff.

Um, then, uh, after a few years I became the secretary in 2007. That's an elected position. Um, after five years almost completing my second term, um, decided to [00:03:00] run for president. So, um, in 2012 is when I first became president altogether. It's been about 19 years working for the union in some capacity. So staff, uh, secretary and then president.

Okay. Yeah. I thought for some reason that you had, uh, actually served as vice-president, but when you were elected president. Who was your vice-president Darrell McChrystal? That's right. Darryl McChrystal was actually, uh, the force that held down the union, um, in the sense of creating stability when we didn't have a stable, um, uh, person at the president level.

So, um, and what I mean by that is we just had, you know, some very short terms, uh, presidents at the time, and Darrell [00:04:00] McChrystal as the vice president always stepped up to be the interim. And, uh, he always helped the incoming president, um, with advice leadership and those types of things to make sure that the ship didn't sink, uh he's uh, he's somewhat of a legend and.

The, the state of Florida, as far as unions go, like what, I know he held a position at the state. Yeah, he was, um, he was our district vice president at the state level. Um, here covering the, all the locals in central Florida. Um, I believe he served for two, uh, maybe two and a half terms, um, at that level. And, uh, it is important to note that while he was serving the vice-president at the state level, he was still always the vice president.

I'm here with our local 2057. It's pretty incredible. But the one thing that I [00:05:00] wanted to get into at some point is recognize how much the, the international and the state level, um, The role that they play in developing their union officers at conventions and or conferences, that sort of thing, the different leadership classes.

And, um, I know working can in the union for 19 years, the amount of classes that you've I had to have gone to is pretty extensive. Yeah, I will have to give the international credit and, um, even our state level piggybacks off of the international\\u2019s classes, um, as we do here in the local..."