Who is helping shape the leader you are becoming?
Every leader has mentors, influences, experiences, and lessons that shape their journey. Yet many people spend more time developing technical skills than intentionally developing themselves.
Meet Chuck Dornisch
Chuck Dornisch brings more than 25 years of construction safety leadership experience and over 30 years in the fire service, including leadership and Training Officer roles in high risk, high consequence environments.
His background combines construction safety, emergency response, leadership development, workforce mentoring, and experience based training centered on communication, decision making, operational risk, and protecting people.
Credibility forged through experience
What Stayed With Me
Responding to a house fire and running into a building that is rapidly deteriorating is not a natural instinct. I still remember my first real fire. My lieutenant turned to me and my partner and said, “Pack up. We’re going in.”
I can still feel the adrenaline and excitement from that moment, but I also remember something else that has stayed with me ever since. As I was putting on my air pack, I paused for a moment and thought to myself, “I have a wife and a daughter at home, and I will be going home to them tonight.”
That brief moment of reflection changed the way I’ve looked at risk and responsibility for the rest of my life.
I also knew that the firefighter beside me had far more experience than I did, and I trusted him completely. I stayed close to him, listened carefully, and learned from everything he did. I trusted him with my life.
Some time later, the two of us were talking and I was surprised when he told me that he had learned just as much from me as I had learned from him. That conversation stayed with me too because real mentorship is not one directional.
We learn from each other. We grow through shared experience. We help each other become better.
That belief eventually became one of the foundations behind the way I approach leadership, mentorship, and learning today.
Answering the Call
For a significant portion of my career, I worked in the tower industry performing construction, maintenance, and structural modifications on broadcast and public safety towers across the country. As a firefighter, I understood the reality that most fire departments were not equipped, trained, or prepared to perform rescues 1,200 feet in the air. If something went wrong, we had to rely on each other.
That reality changed the way I looked at training, preparation, communication, and responsibility. I searched for the best fall protection and high angle rescue training I could find. The same was true for confined space rescue. I researched programs, talked to people across the industry, and looked for instructors who truly understood the realities of the work.
What stood out to me was that the most effective training was rarely built around lectures alone. It was hands-on, team focused, practical, realistic, and memorable. The lessons stayed with you because you experienced them.
Over time, I started rethinking the way I approached safety training altogether. Not just for high risk work, but for leadership, communication, mentorship, and decision making as well. I came to believe that people don't grow inside their comfort zones. We grow by being challenged, by working through uncertainty, by communicating with others, by solving problems together, and by experiencing things in a way that feels real.
That perspective pushed me to move more training outside traditional classrooms whenever possible and create learning opportunities using the environment, the people, and the experiences around us.
I wanted training to feel meaningful. Memorable. Practical. Human.
That thinking eventually became part of the foundation behind Lighthouse & Campfire.
What Life Is All About
Some of the most meaningful parts of my life have come through the friendships, mentorship, shared experiences, and relationships built over the years both inside and outside of work.
My family means everything to me, and I’ve been fortunate to build lifelong friendships with people I deeply respect and care about. Those relationships have shaped who I am just as much as any leadership position or professional experience ever could.
I genuinely enjoy being outdoors and spending time in nature. Whether it’s kayaking, fishing, sitting around a fire, exploring new places, or simply slowing down long enough to appreciate the moment, I’ve always found that the outdoors has a way of helping people reconnect, reflect, think more clearly, and have more meaningful conversations.
I also try to approach new experiences with an open mind, curiosity, humility, and a willingness to continue learning. I believe that mindset is an important part of personal and professional growth, and it is the same mindset I encourage people to bring with them to Lighthouse & Campfire.