Why I Built StationKitty — A Firefighter's Problem, A Firefighter's Solution

Every firefighter knows the kitty.

It doesn't matter what department you're from, what state you're in, or how big your station is. Somewhere in every firehouse there's a notebook, a cash box, a group chat, or a Venmo account that somebody — usually the same exhausted person every shift — is responsible for managing. That person is the kitty guy. And for years at Coral Gables Fire Department, that person was me.

The job is simple in theory. Collect money from everyone on shift, track who paid, log what we spent on groceries and supplies, and make sure the balance is where it should be. Simple. Except it never is. You're on shift. You get a call. You come back and someone already left. Did they pay? You think so. Maybe. A week later the balance is off and nobody knows why.

That's the reality of kitty management at fire stations across America. Cash boxes. Paper ledgers. Venmo screenshots shared in group chats. Memory. And one volunteer firefighter trying to hold it all together between calls, meals, training, and everything else that comes with the job.

I got tired of it. Not of the responsibility — I actually take pride in taking care of my crew. I got tired of the inefficiency. The lack of transparency. The constant chasing. The feeling that money was slipping through the cracks and there was no clean way to account for it.

Coral Gables Fire House 4 was opening up. A new station. A fresh start. And I was going to be there. The shift before I officially moved to House 4, I made a decision. I was not going to bring the old way with me. I was going to build something better — the app that every kitty manager in America wishes existed but nobody had ever built.

The full vision hit me at once. Every workflow. Every problem it would solve. Clear as a radio call on a quiet night.

The following morning I left for a nine-day vacation to Georgia.

Most people go on vacation to rest. I went to Georgia and built StationKitty.

Every single day for nine days, while my family relaxed and the Georgia spring rolled by outside, I was working. Sketching out features. Making decisions. Directing every detail of what would become a full production-grade software platform. The daily roster. The payment collection system. The running tabs. The kiosk mode. The duty roster. The inventory management. The financial reports. The legal documents. The pricing model. The business structure. All of it — conceived, directed, and built during those nine days with everything I had.

I am not a software developer. I am a firefighter. I used AI tools to write the code, but every single feature, every workflow, every decision came directly from my experience in the firehouse. The shift rotations. The Kelly Days. The overtime formula. The cook exemption. The SMS payment request that opens your messages app with the handle and amount already filled in. These were not features designed in a conference room by someone who has never been on shift. They were born from real calls, real meals, and real kitty headaches at a real fire station.

I poured my money into this. My time. My experience. My sleepless nights and my days off and every ounce of dedication I have. I believed in StationKitty before it had a single user, before it had a single line of code, before it had a name. I believe in it now with everything I have.

By early April 2026, StationKitty was live at Coral Gables Fire House 4.

Real rosters. Real payments. Real kitty balance tracked in real time. My crew could see exactly what they owed, pay with two taps, and know that the money was going exactly where it was supposed to go. In the first weeks of use, every dollar collected matched every dollar spent — no discrepancies, no chasing, no guessing. The notebook went in a drawer. The group chat got a lot quieter.

StationKitty is now a registered LLC, a filed trademark, and a copyrighted platform. It is the first and only purpose-built digital solution for fire station kitty management in the United States. There are 27,000 fire departments and 58,000 fire stations in this country. Every single one of them has a kitty. Every single one of them has a kitty guy dealing with the same problems I dealt with.

This is for them.

We are just getting started. If you are a firefighter, a kitty manager, or a department admin who is tired of the old way — come find us at stationkitty.com. The kitty deserves better. So does the person running it.

Carlos Martinez Rescue Lieutenant, Coral Gables Fire — Firehouse 4, Rescue 4 Founder, StationKitty LLC