About Dr. McKellips
Dr. McKellips is a retired firefighter, researcher, educator, and organizational systems developer whose work focuses on the long-term sustainability of the volunteer fire service.
His career has crossed several fields, including emergency services, business ownership, operations management, education, technology, and organizational development. That combination of frontline experience and management research eventually led to the development of The Legacy Engine, PEOPLE FIRST™, and the Legacy Engine Modeling System (LEMS).
From the Firehouse to Organizational Research
Tom’s fire service experience includes work as a firefighter, EMT, Haz-Mat Technician, station captain, union steward, air-pack technician, and fire service instructor. He served in both career and volunteer environments, giving him a firsthand view of the operational demands placed on firefighters and the organizational pressures that shape their willingness and ability to continue serving.
Over time, one question became increasingly important:
Why do capable volunteers leave organizations they once cared deeply about?
That question became the foundation for years of research into volunteer firefighter participation, leadership, organizational culture, workload, training, family pressures, recognition, internal politics, and the changing expectations placed on modern volunteers.
The research eventually revealed that volunteer fire service sustainability cannot be solved by simply finding more people. Departments must also understand the organizational conditions that determine whether people can successfully remain involved.
The Development of The Legacy Engine
The Legacy Engine grew from that research.
What began as an investigation into volunteer firefighter loss gradually became a broader organizational development system. The work connects human behavior, leadership, organizational culture, workload, staffing, operational readiness, and long-term sustainability.
Several major concepts emerged from this work, including:
- The Core 7, seven major areas affecting the volunteer experience.
- PEOPLE FIRST™, a human-centered organizational development philosophy.
- The Legacy Engine Modeling System (LEMS), a decision-support system for examining staffing, workload, attrition, and organizational sustainability.
- Models for understanding burnout, participation distribution, volunteer capacity, regional cooperation, and the relationship between organizational decisions and human sustainability.
Together, these concepts form an evolving body of work designed to help volunteer organizations understand not only what is happening, but why it is happening and what they can do about it.
Education and Professional Background
Tom holds a Doctor of Management degree with a focus in Homeland Security, a Master of Business Administration in Operations Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in Business and Information Technology.
His professional background has also included business ownership, technology, emergency medical services, transportation, security, and higher education instruction.
Rather than approaching the fire service from a single discipline, his work combines operational experience with business systems, organizational behavior, qualitative research, and practical decision-making.
A PEOPLE FIRST Approach
A central principle of Tom’s work is that organizational performance and human well-being should not be treated as competing priorities.
Volunteer organizations depend on people who are giving something that cannot easily be replaced: their time.
That makes leadership, communication, training efficiency, organizational culture, family impact, and respect for volunteer time central operational concerns—not secondary issues.
PEOPLE FIRST asks organizations to consider a question that complements the traditional expectation placed on every firefighter:
Does this person deserve to wear our uniform?
Standards, competence, and commitment matter. But organizations must also ask:
Does the organization deserve the person wearing the uniform?
That reciprocal responsibility sits at the heart of The Legacy Engine Series.
Researcher, Not Consultant
The Legacy Engine is primarily a research and educational effort.
Tom’s work is intended to provide fire departments, instructors, officers, researchers, and community leaders with frameworks they can examine, test, adapt, and apply within their own local circumstances.
The goal is not to prescribe one universal way to operate a volunteer fire department. Every department serves a different community, faces different risks, and works with different people and resources.
Instead, the goal is to provide better questions, better information, and better tools for making local decisions.
The Legacy Engine Series
The Legacy Engine Series documents the continuing development of this work.
The series begins with the research origins of the model and progresses into PEOPLE FIRST, organizational development, leadership, staffing, sustainability modeling, and the Legacy Engine Modeling System.
The books, research papers, online resources, and supporting tools are designed to work together as an interconnected body of knowledge rather than as isolated publications.
The underlying mission remains simple:
Help volunteer fire departments build organizations in which people can serve effectively, safely, and sustainably—and leave the organization stronger for the next generation.
