Les Yost, 68, led firefighters' union

IT SEEMED LIKE nearly every city administration thought closing fire houses would be a great way to save money.

But if they tried it between 1987 and 2001, they had Les Yost to deal with.

Those were the years that Les served as president of Philadelphia Fire Fighters Union Local 22, and he was a force to reckon with.

"He would go to the neighborhood," said his former administrative assistant, Pat Schnee. "He would tell the people, 'You've got to realize that for equipment from another fire house to get here will take another 15 minutes.'

"He would take them out into the street and tell them, 'We'll lie down in traffic if we have to to stop them from closing this station.' "

Les wasn't always able to save a fire house, but it wasn't for lack of passionate trying.

And that was the way Les Yost served his union, with passion and dedication, a listening ear for anyone with a problem, and the willingness to "go to the wall," as Pat Schnee put it, for the men and women of the department.

He fought against reduction of staffing, he fought for pensions and health benefits and wage increases. It was always for the firefighters, never for Les Yost.

Leslie R. Yost, who spent a total of 47 years with the Fire Department, died Sunday of renal failure. He was 68 and was living in an assisted-living facility but had lived many years in Torresdale.

"He was a union leader that every union wishes they had," Pat Schnee said.

It was considered a major upset in 1987 when Les defeated John McMenamin for the Local 22 presidency.

Les, who was a union vice president at the time, criticized McMenamin for being too laid-back when it came to fighting for firefighters' causes in the city and Harrisburg.

That was an accusation that could never be leveled against Les Yost.

"We won because I think I'm concerned about the main issues that the men have concerns about, the manpower, the pensions, the things I campaigned about," he said at the time.

On the personal level, anyone with a problem felt free to go to Les' office and lay it out, and immediately, Les would be on the phone, or marching to City Hall, calling a lawyer or whatever was needed to solve it.

"After people heard about his death, they would come to me and say, "He did this for me,' " 'He did that for me,' " said Pat Schnee. "When he went into an assisted-living facility, he had so many visitors. They would bring him hoagies, cookies. He had a refrigerator stuffed with food."

Les was born in Fishtown to Leslie R. Yost and the former Mary E. Kennedy-Schweizer, and graduated from Mastbaum High School. He later studied at West Chester and La Salle universities.

He joined the Fire Department at the age of 19. He served for a time as an emergency medical technician.

After he left the union presidency in 2001, Les returned to firefighting as a member of Ladder 1 in North Philadelphia. He battled fires until his retirement last July, while serving as union vice president and member of the executive board.

Staffing was always a big issue for Les. When two firefighters were killed in a house fire in West Oak Lane in October 1997, Les put the blame on the fact that there weren't enough firefighters in the engine company.

"I put the blame squarely on the fact that single-engine companies in the city are running with just an officer and three firefighters and they should have an officer and four firefighters," he said.

"The essence of firefighting is teamwork," he wrote in a letter to the Inquirer in 1988. "Personnel is the issue and in this city it is an issue that has been neglected or given lip service for far too long.

"Shiny new equipment does not make an effective company. Firefighters do."

Les was also ready to fight for the politicians who helped firefighters, and formed Philadelphia FIREPAC, a political action committee to enable Local 22 members to financially support their political friends.

Outside of his union activities, Les was a member and past president of the corporate board of directors of the Pen Ryn School, a Christian academy in Bucks County.

He also served as a fire service member of the Natonal Professional Qualifications Board. He was former vice president of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.

Among many honors he received was an award from the Chapel of the Four Chaplains.

He was a member of the Police & Fire Medical Association, the Fire Department Athletic Association, Police & Fire Association of Handicapped Children, the League of the Sacred Heart, the Emerald Society, German American Fire Fighters Association and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Les liked nothing better than to get together with fellow firefighters for trips to the Jersey shore for deep-sea fishing and other seaside activities.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara; two sons, Kurt and Andrew; a daughter, Christine, and three grandchildren.

Services: Local 22 is arranging a future memorial service. *