Where are you from? I’m from Frederick, Maryland.

And when did you move to jackson? I moved here full-time in May of 2018, but I had spent some summers out here before that. 

What is your role in the department? Volunteer out of Station 4 in Moran. 

How long have you been a part of JH Fire/EMS? I think new Member Orientation is every year in May, so May of this year (2022).

What made you want to join JH Fire/EMS? It’s funny because I’ve known Cam Price from Station 4 for like ten years, and when I moved here full time, he was always like ‘hey you should think about joining,’ but I wasn’t really in a position to at that point. I was always kind of interested, so what made me want to actually join? I guess the encouragement from Cam Price and other station members.  

Were you more interested in one aspect of training over the other at first? Definitely the fire side of things. I started with the park’s structure fire program (Grand Teton National Park). I started that and also started with the county around the same time, but I went through the park’s fire academy this past spring. I like being a part of the county because of all the trainings, even though I respond to more calls as part of the park. 

And your academy was ire 1 and Fire 2 at the same time, correct? Yeah, ours was Fire 1 and Fire 2 down in Paige, Arizona. 

How long was that? 2 weeks. It was all the book work beforehand, but you didn’t know if you were going to get into the program until a couple weeks before and you didn’t want to do all the book work if you didn’t have to, so we did all 24 chapters in the three weeks after we found out, and then went to academy which was Monday through Saturday and then the next Monday through Friday, 10-12 hours a day. 

What are your current certs? Fire 1, Fire 2, Hazmat Awareness and Operations, and I will be taking my EMT in the Spring. 

What are your future goals in this field? I definitely want to be an ADO (Apparatus Driver/Operator), fire officer, and fire instructor. Within the park’s fire program, I think there’s a semi-clear path for me to work into one of the leadership roles. Within the county, I could see myself being a lieutenant at some point. 

What’s your day job? I am a civil engineer and project manager for GTNP. 

What do you do in your free time? Backcountry skiing, alpine climbing, photography, swimming, and playing with my dog.

What is your favorite part of volunteering? I really appreciate all the training and how everyone in the county, no matter where you are, is sort of on the same schedule and everyone is more or less working on the same things. I love that the trainings are taken seriously and I appreciate how seriously people take their position in the department, whether they’re volunteer or paid. It’s also a fairly fun place to be. We take the subject seriously but not ourselves. 

Most satisfying or rewarding part of volunteering? Responding to calls in general.

Have you had any stand out calls? The two main ones are obviously the two fires that I responded to this past year and I think it goes back to what I like about the department: if you have the training, you’re treated as someone who’s competent. Like on my first fire I did roof ops, and on my second fire I did interior fire attack, which is not how I expected it to be. I thought you would do the training and then sit back and watch a little bit, do the grunt work and not the fun stuff. I think those are the only two fires that I’ve successfully responded to because the other fires have been in the north part of the park or Flagg ranch, or medical calls that I don’t have the training for. 

What advice would you give new recruits? I think back to the same thing that I said before: take it seriously but don’t take yourself seriously. Like when I was on my first fire I was like ‘man, I felt like a shit show up there,’ and then John Politis who was a former fire captain in New York was like, ‘You do this for 25 years and you still feel like a shit show.’

What do you wish you had known when starting? How much fun it was going to be. 

What is the most valuable trait for someone on JH Fire/EMS? I would probably say to be a good student, be quick to learn and know that there’s always more to learn and that other people might have a different way of doing the same thing and that doesn’t mean that one’s better than the other, everyone is just bringing their own experiences to it.