A red hot career.
North Charleston Fire Chief Greg Bulanow has turned up the heat on his career since graduating from Southern Wesleyan University’s master of science in management program in 2004.
Since earning his master’s degree, Bulanow has been promoted three times. He was named battalion chief in 2006 and assistant chief in 2008, before his most recent promotion.
Bulanow recently stepped into his new position of overseeing firefighting in South Carolina’s third largest city. North Charleston has about 90,000 people who live in the city, but the population swells to 200,000 to 300,000 on business days.He commands 11 fire stations, with one more opening soon, and more than 200 firefighters. Bulanow also manages a $13 million budget, with $11 million in personnel costs.
Bulanow is looking for ways to save money by streamlining internal processes. He is creating a central database to manage all the fire department operations. By using performance metrics, he’ll be able to analyze results and improve his operation, Bulanow said.
“All of that really goes back to what I learned at Southern Wesleyan University. I’m trying to manage the fire department as I would manage a business,” he said.
Bulanow’s goal was to be a fire captain by age 30. He reached this goal by age 28 and continued to climb the fire department’s organizational ladder. With the birth of his first daughter, Bulanow felt it was time to buckle down with his career goals and he began researching options for graduate school.
“I wanted to get serious about my career and I wanted to make a difference in my organization, as well,” he said. “I knew that by earning the master’s in management, I would have a huge edge as far as my academic credentials.”
The flexibility of Southern Wesleyan University’s adult and graduate studies program was a key part of Bulanow’s decision to attend his classes there. The program meets one night each week for a four-hour class and then students meet once a week for a study group, scheduled at their convenience. Working 24-hour shifts, this was a great system for Bulanow, he said.
“It’s not like I could take night classes two or three days a week,” he said. Bulanow attended classes at Southern Wesleyan University’s Charleston location on Faber Place Drive.
“Southern Wesleyan University was fantastic. It made it so easy to attend class,” he said. It was easy to register for classes, billing was simple and books were delivered to him in class without any hassles, he said.
“SWU eliminated all of the obstacles for an adult to get an education. They allowed me to focus on learning instead of a lot of bureaucratic things,” Bulanow said. “There were no administrative headaches at SWU. I could really focus on my education. And the quality of my education was excellent.
“I was very pleased with the quality of the professors we had,” he said. The university courses weren’t easy, but “if I put in the time and did the work, I did well. I was much more focused as a student than I was as an undergraduate. It took a lot of work, but I learned a great deal.”
His master’s degree in management has been very useful in his work with the fire department, Bulanow said.
“It seemed like everything applied to my job and my department. All of it was valuable,” he said.
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