My Friend "Chief" Mark Souders
1955 - 2011 I met Mark over 25 years ago when we both were a lot younger. He was working for Cedar Hammock FD, I was working for the City Of Bradenton FD. At his young age he was passionate about being a firefighter and it showed when ever I talked to him. He moved right up the ladder to the rank of Asst Chief. He was very bright and good at what he set out to do in the fire service. It was not unusual for him to stop by and visit me when I was Chief at Bradenton . He knew that I had a back ground in Fire Safety Codes. When he was Fire Marshal he would stop by and chat and it would soon come to surface what the"stop by" was all about. It would go like this, "hey Chief, what do you think this code really means"? We had some long discussions and we did not always agree, two hard headed men! In 1997 I had the privilege to be sitting on the City Council of Bradenton when we hired Mark as the new chief in our city. I was so proud to cast my vote of approval for such...