The Hidden Performance Tax: How DC Fire Built Operational Readiness from Scratch

An Okaya Expert Interview with Ronit Reguer, Behavioral Health Coordinator for the DC Fire Department

By Gregory Menvielle, CEO of Okaya

When performance matters, every percentage point of capacity counts. For firefighters operating in high-stakes environments, showing up at 60% capacity isn't just a wellness issue—it's an operational liability.

To understand what it takes to build performance optimization infrastructure inside a major fire department, Okaya spoke with Ronit Reguer, the first Behavioral Health Coordinator for the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. With a career spanning trauma response after 9/11, forensic social work with the Brooklyn DA's office, military victim services, and the FBI's Victim Services Division, Reguer has seen how cumulative stress degrades performance across elite professions.

This conversation explores the three-year fight to fund DC Fire's first clinician position, the generational divide between "tough it out" leadership and younger recruits seeking performance optimization tools, and how data tracking is finally making the business case for proactive readiness programs.

From Ground Zero to the Firehouse: Understanding Performance Under Pressure

Q: What drew you to work on first responder performance, and how did you end up at DC Fire?

Reguer: I'm coming up on two years with DC Fire, and I'm their first Behavioral Health Coordinator. Before me, there was only a peer-support team. They were getting so many calls from firefighters and EMTs that it became clear they needed a licensed clinician for cases beyond peer capacity.

The first peer-support coordinator pushed hard for it—it took him about three years to get my position created and funded.

My own path started after 9/11. I volunteered with the Red Cross at the respite center nearest Ground Zero, supporting police and firefighters working nonstop. What struck me was seeing how differently people reacted to the same traumatic exposure—and how sleep deprivation and continuous operational tempo affected everyone's capacity, regardless of experience level.

I went back to school for my MSW at Smith College, did field placements at World Trade Center Healing Services and the Brooklyn DA's office, and later worked with the military, Columbia University, and the FBI's Victim Services Division.

Across all those settings, I saw a pattern: elite performers in high-stakes professions had almost no infrastructure to maintain their operational edge over a career span. That's what motivated me to focus on building that infrastructure.

The Three-Year Battle: Funding Prevention in a Crisis-Response Culture

Q: What organizational barriers did you face in establishing this position?

Reguer: It's still very much a work in progress. Right now, I'd say it's more of a position than a fully developed program—but we're building toward that.

Leadership buy-in has been the hardest part. Most senior officers have twenty-plus years on the job. They came up in a generation where you didn't talk about performance degradation—you joked about it around the kitchen table. If you couldn't laugh it off, you were considered weak. That "I made it through without this, so why can't you?" mentality still lingers.

There are also real budget constraints. Funding a full-time clinician position took three years, and every new initiative has to fight for its line item. Prevention doesn't show an immediate ROI, so it's a tough sell.

And then there's fear around career impact. Firefighters worry that if they acknowledge performance issues, it might affect promotions or even job security. They're supposed to be the helpers—the idea of needing support themselves can feel threatening to their professional identity.

At the same time, younger firefighters are much more emotionally intelligent. They've grown up in a world where optimizing performance isn't taboo, and they're actively seeking out departments that have readiness programs—even willing to take lower salaries for it. That's a huge generational shift.

Building Trust: Confidentiality, Visibility, and a Four-Legged Icebreaker

Q: How did you build credibility and engagement among members?

Reguer: From the start, I told the interview panel I didn't want to sit in an office. I wanted to be out in the field, face to face with firefighters.

Within two weeks of arriving, I partnered with the peer-support team for outreach and started doing ride-alongs—four of them, in the busier parts of the city, from 4 p.m. to midnight. I wanted to understand their operational environment and earn what I call street cred. Firefighters respect people who show up.

Another key piece has been Bill, our facility dog. He was trained as a PTSD service animal for a veteran but was repurposed as a first-responder facility dog. He senses trauma cues, and he's the best icebreaker imaginable. Very few firefighters can resist petting a dog, and that moment often opens the door to conversation.

Finally, I'm crystal-clear about confidentiality. I don't report to the department chain of command; I anonymize data when showing trends. I tell people, "I'm Switzerland." That independence has built trust faster than any formal policy could.

When you combine those things—presence in the field, credible peers, a bit of warmth, and a strict boundary around confidentiality—you start to see real engagement.

The Generational Divide: "Superhero Mentality" vs. Performance Optimization

Q: You mentioned a generational divide. How does that play out operationally?

Reguer: The folks in leadership positions have been on the job at least 20 years. They grew up in the "I walked uphill both ways" era. Many of them have compartmentalized their experiences so effectively that they genuinely believe they're fine—even when you see third divorces, estranged relationships with their kids, or substance issues.

There's what I call a "hazing mentality combined with amnesia"—they forget how hard their own journey was, and now expect everyone else to just tough it out.

Meanwhile, newer recruits have grown up in communities where performance optimization is normal. Going to a performance coach or therapist isn't stigmatized. In the PTSD 911 documentary, they talk about how firefighters are actively seeking out departments with wellness programs and taking lower salaries to join them. That's a market signal leadership can't ignore.

The challenge is that leadership operates from a reactive mindset—you can't plan for a mid-air collision or a three-alarm fire. But you can plan how to prepare people before the crisis, and how to maintain their capacity throughout a 20-30 year career.

The 60% Problem: Performance Degradation Nobody Sees

Q: Can you give an example of how invisible capacity issues affect operations?

Reguer: Here's a scenario: You've got a firefighter with an autistic child who's having difficulty at home. That firefighter is already operating with reduced defenses before they even clock in. They've expended tremendous cognitive capacity dealing with the home situation.

You don't get to stop at the emotional ATM on the way to work and withdraw another couple hundred dollars worth of cognitive capacity. They're showing up at 60% capacity, and if you don't know that, you might put them in a position that requires 100%.

If the chief or battalion chief had visibility into where everyone was actually at—not just who's on the roster, but actual operational readiness—they could adjust staffing. They could make tactical decisions based on real capacity, not assumed capacity.

That's the difference between managing headcount and managing actual capability.

Data That Leadership Understands: Tracking ROI on Prevention

Q: How do you measure impact and communicate value to leadership?

Reguer: I track everything: outreach visits, group sessions, individual counseling, referrals, and follow-ups after potentially traumatic events. Each contact is logged anonymously to show engagement levels without exposing anyone's identity.

Those numbers help me demonstrate workload and need, but leadership often asks, "What's the ROI?" That's tricky. How do you prove someone didn't develop PTSD, or didn't leave the department, because you intervened early?

So I try to connect dots differently: fewer sick days, better morale, stronger engagement. When members feel cared for, they stay longer and perform better. That's retention. That's readiness.

I also frame it around performance directly. I tell them: "You maintain your physical fitness to do the job—your mental fitness is just as important. The same way you don't skip physicals, you shouldn't skip performance check-ins."

When you frame it around performance, safety, and career longevity—not crisis or weakness—it lands better with both firefighters and leadership. It becomes part of professionalism, not a personal failing.

On the leadership side, I frame it as an investment: healthier members mean fewer sick days, better morale, stronger engagement. When people feel cared for, they give back tenfold. Leadership sometimes struggles to see that because it's hard to measure prevention—but once they connect it to retention, safety, and operational readiness, it starts to click.

From Reactive to Proactive: Front-Loading Performance Maintenance

Q: Fire services are built on rapid response. How do you build a more proactive approach?

Reguer: You're right—the fire service is built on reaction. But you can plan how to prepare people before the crisis.

A lot of what I do is proactive education: helping members recognize signs of cumulative stress degradation, normalizing performance check-ins, teaching recovery protocols. If we front-load that support, we can reduce long-term operational fallout.

When I joined, the department had recently lost members to suicide. Those tragedies made it clear we can't wait until after the fact. I tell firefighters, "You've given decades to this job. You deserve to enjoy retirement."

It's the same concept as physical health. You don't ignore a back injury until it sidelines you; you stretch, you strengthen, you maintain. Performance capacity is the same. If we invest in it early, we protect both people and operational effectiveness.

Technology's Role: Augmenting Human Connection, Not Replacing It

Q: Younger firefighters are digital natives. What role do you see for technology in performance optimization?

Reguer: The younger generation has never known life without smartphones, so if you're building a performance optimization app, that's their world.

At the same time, I worry about over-reliance on screens. Technology should augment, not replace, human contact. So much of what I pick up in a session comes from body language—there's something irreplaceable about sitting across from someone, seeing how they breathe, noticing how they react.

Still, there's value in digital tools. If we use it to encourage connection—to make it easier to reach out, to remind people to check in on their own readiness—that's powerful.

The key is balance. We want technology to make support more accessible while still encouraging in-person conversations. If an app nudges someone to talk to a peer, or to me, that's a win. But the real performance optimization still happens person-to-person.

The Moment You Know It's Working

Q: What signs tell you the culture is starting to shift?

Reguer: Honestly, it's the small moments. When firefighters greet me with a hug in front of their crews, or say out loud during outreach, "I've talked to Ronit," that's huge.

Those public acknowledgments mean the stigma is breaking down. They're showing their peers it's okay to optimize your performance proactively, not just react when you're already degraded.

That's what keeps me going—the trust. The fact that they'll recommend me to someone else, or bring a colleague to a session. Word travels fast in a firehouse, and in this case, that's a good thing.

The Business Case Is Clear—If You Know Where to Look

Q: After the Reagan National Airport mid-air collision, you worked 10 weeks straight with 225 hours of overtime. What did that response teach you about readiness infrastructure?

Reguer: It showed me two things: First, when crisis hits, having infrastructure already in place makes all the difference. We could activate immediately because we'd already built relationships and protocols.

Second, it made the business case visible. Leadership could see the operational impact—225 hours of clinical support, direct interventions with every affected shift, coordination with outside peer support teams. That's measurable ROI on the initial three-year investment to create this position.

What Comes Next: Making Performance Optimization Standard Operating Procedure

Behavioral health infrastructure in the fire service is still emerging, but Ronit Reguer's work at DC Fire shows what meaningful progress looks like: cultural change built on visibility, confidentiality, data, and respect for the profession.

The Okaya mission—making operational readiness measurable, actionable, and human—aligns closely with her approach. By treating performance optimization not as crisis response but as career-long capacity maintenance, programs like DC Fire's are redefining what professionalism means in high-stakes work.

As Reguer puts it: "You give 20, 25, 30 years to this job. We want you to enjoy retirement—not end up on a therapist's couch dealing with career damage that could have been prevented."

In a profession built on helping others, perhaps the greatest operational advantage is infrastructure that helps high performers maintain their edge across an entire career.

Okaya provides AI-powered operational readiness assessments for high-stakes professions. Not therapy. Not a replacement for clinicians or peer supporters. An early warning system and performance optimization tool: helping individuals assess their own capacity, recognize when they need support, and connect with the right resources. For department leaders, Okaya provides aggregate visibility into team readiness—baseline data, progress tracking, performance optimization at scale. Learn more

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