When a fire rages in Prince George’s County or a strip mall is leveled by a natural gas explosion, Mark Brady is the voice that spreads the word from the scene, to the media and on to the public. For the last 13 years, Brady has served as the county’s fire department spokesman and in September he will celebrate his 30th year as a Prince George’s County employee.
How did you become the spokesman?
When I first started working for the county, I was a 911 call taker. I was there for a couple of years and then became a fire department dispatcher. When you work in the department’s communication center, you get a grasp of everything that’s going, the equipment that’s being used and the command structure. I also worked with media every day. Back in those days, the first call for the media was to the command center; now they call the information officer first. When I heard about an opening in the information office, I applied and was accepted.
Do you enjoy working with the media?
I do. It’s a different path from the rest of the department. While I am a member of the department, and promoting its service and fire prevention, I also have to be looking out for the media and its needs. … I find that the most important thing is being open and accommodating with the media. If someone is doing a story on oxygen tanks in ambulances, I arrange for the reporter to get in the ambulance and ride around with an oxygen mask on. When there’s breaking news, I try to act like a reporter and gather the essential information they’ll need so they can start researching.
Are there any public information campaigns that you’ve been working on?
Smoke alarms are always a staple. They save lives. Recently we’ve also been promoting fire-safe cigarettes. Cigarettes that are left burning are the number one cause of fire-related deaths.
— Freeman Klopott
