Mark Buckley, retired Miami-Dade Fire Rescue firefighter and paramedic, author and Financial Professional
About the Author

Mark BuckleyFirefighter. Author. Advisor.

Almost two decades with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue — then a second career helping the people he served with make the decisions nobody trained them for.

Retired Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Firefighter / Paramedic Author Financial Professional · Prudential Advisors Bilingual · English / Spanish
The first career

Almost two decades on the job

Mark Buckley served almost two decades with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue as a firefighter and paramedic — running structure fires, medical calls, and everything in between across one of the busiest fire-rescue systems in the country.

Like most people on the job, he learned the work through training, repetition, and the crew around him. And like most people on the job, he got almost no training at all for the part that comes last: the day you turn in your gear.

“I watched firefighters with decades of service make retirement decisions in an HR office because the paperwork was due. Not because they were careless — because nobody ever taught us this part of the job.”

That gap became the reason for everything that followed.

The second career

Learning the money side — then writing it down

After retiring from the fire service, Mark became a Financial Professional with Prudential Advisors, focusing on the population he came from: firefighters, paramedics, and other public-service professionals approaching the end of their careers.

The work centers on the decisions that get made once, usually under a deadline, and can't be undone afterward — pension elections, DROP rollovers, governmental 457(b) plans, and building retirement income that has to last thirty years or more.

He wrote Beyond The Firehouse because the same questions kept coming up in station kitchens and union halls, and there was no plain-language book that answered them for the fire service specifically. The national edition covers pension systems across all 50 states.

Nonfiction · Retirement

Beyond The Firehouse

A firefighter's complete guide to retirement, wealth, and financial freedom. Pension options, DROP, 457(b) plans, and retirement income — written for the fire service, covering all 50 states.

Fiction · Crime Thriller

Fire & Blood

A novel set in Miami during the cocaine years, following a firefighter-paramedic through the era when emergency medicine was being invented in real time. Also published in Spanish as Fuego y Sangre.

At a glance

The short version

Full name
Mark Buckley
Fire service
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue — firefighter and paramedic, almost two decades (retired)
Current role
Financial Professional, Prudential Advisors
Focus
Retirement planning for firefighters, first responders, and public-service professionals
Subject areas
Public safety pensions · DROP · Governmental 457(b) · FRS · Retirement income
Books
Beyond The Firehouse · Fire & Blood · Fuego y Sangre
Languages
English, Spanish
Based in
South Florida
Get in touch

Reach Mark

Mark Buckley
Financial Professional
☎  305-608-2690
Voice only
✉  mark.buckley@prudential.com

Start with the book. The first chapters cover the three decisions that do the most damage when they're rushed — free, no obligation.

Get the free chapters