Glenn Usdin has spent more than four decades around fire apparatus, first as a firefighter, then as a chief, and now as the person departments call when the right used truck matters.
Command Fire Apparatus grew out of practical experience: knowing how a rig is built, how it is maintained, and what firefighters need when the call comes in. Glenn brings that same direct, service-first approach to every department he works with.
Long Island
Growing up in the suburbs of New York, Glenn was the kid who made his parents chase fire sirens. One of his earliest memories is standing inside an FDNY firehouse, staring at the engine while the crew got ready for the next alarm.
Shortly after his eighteenth birthday he joined the Massapequa Volunteer Fire Department on Long Island, where he served for fifteen years as a company officer, fire prevention specialist, and public relations officer.
At the same time, he took a job as assistant to the local Mack fire apparatus salesman, delivering and demonstrating new units to departments all over the New York metro area. He learned the fire truck business the same way he would later expect a buyer to learn a truck: from the bottom up, with his hands on it.
Cause and Origin
Glenn spent several years as a certified expert fire investigator for the insurance industry, traveling the country to determine the cause and origin of major fire losses.
In 1983 he was named Associate Publisher of Fire Engineering, the oldest continuously published trade journal in the fire service. Working alongside legendary editor Chief Tom Brennan, he helped turn the magazine into the training and management resource it remains today.
From there he joined Task Force Tips, the nozzle manufacturer, as eastern sales manager covering Maine to Virginia. He was on the road weekly, at trade shows and in firehouses, helping departments strengthen their fire flow capability.
Fire trucks are in the blood.
COMMAND FIRE APPARATUS - MOUNT JOY, PA
Northeast Fire Apparatus
In 1987 Glenn formed Northeast Fire Apparatus in New York, the predecessor to Command Fire Apparatus LLC, and moved the company to its current home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Since then he has sold apparatus to departments across the United States, Canada, South America, and Europe.
Command still operates out of a working fire truck garage in Mount Joy with a shop on site. Units are bought outright and carried as inventory rather than listed on someone else’s behalf, so the truck you are looking at is one Command already owns and stands behind.
Lancaster Township
From 1991 to 2006, Glenn served as the first fire chief of the newly formed Lancaster Township Fire Department. Two stations, roughly 15,000 residents, four square miles: attached row frames, million dollar single family homes, acres of garden apartments, and a rural stretch of farms and brush. It remains one of Lancaster County’s most active and diverse departments.
Now retired from active firefighting, he still serves the local responder community as a board member and peer member of the Lancaster County Critical Incident Stress Management team, and writes a monthly column on fire operations for Pennsylvania Fireman. In 2023 he produced a coffee table photo book on sixty years of FDNY history, They Saved New York.
Family and the Collection
Glenn is married with three children. His daughter Grace is a project manager for a global information technology company. His daughter Ella is the family entrepreneur, running a popular breakfast and lunch café in downtown Lancaster. His son James is a union worker keeping Amtrak trains running across Pennsylvania.
Visit Mount Joy and he will show you the collection. His pride and joy is the 1963 Mack 85 foot aerial ladder he drove for fifteen years on Long Island. There is also the last Mack fire pumper ever built, and a Mack Aerialscope tower ladder from his own department.
Fire trucks are his life, and he is still looking forward to meeting you and the members of your department.
Talk to Glenn
Whether you are buying, selling, or just working through what your department actually needs, Glenn would rather have the conversation than send you a brochure.