Where are you from? I’m from Staten Island. I moved to South Jersey when I was probably 5 to Ocean County, which is on the Jersey Shore. I grew up there, and we moved a couple times within the county, but I basically stayed in that area until September of this year. 

What do you do in your free time? As of right now, I’m trying to decide what I’m going to get into. It’s become abundantly clear that I need to find a winter sport here. I’ve gone on a couple snowmobile rides, but that’s an expensive hobby. My wife and I are trying to find what we enjoy getting into. We definitely enjoy annual camping trips and we will continue that out here. 

How long have you been a part of JH Fire/EMS? 6 months. 

How did you hear about it? It was really just good timing. My wife wanted to get out of the healthcare system: she’s a surgical labor and delivery scrub tech. We said we can go wherever, so I started applying all over. Originally, we wanted to stay on the east coast, but when I applied here, we said, ‘you know what, why not?’

What made you want to join JH Fire/EMS? What is your background in fire and emergency services in general? I joined a volunteer fire service as a first generation junior firefighter at 15 years old. I joined because one of my buddies was a junior and he was always there, and therefore so was I. I was quickly handing in my application after that. You have to be 18 before you handle an SCBA so I was a junior for a little while longer. The following year I got my EMT. I stopped partying, stopped going out, I was just constantly waiting for the pager to go off. I worked my way up to Fire Chief. I was a Deputy Chief for 8 years, and then my final year there, I was Chief. That was all on the volunteer side of things.

What about the career side? Probably around 2014, I got picked up initially as a firefighter for Six Flags, and I worked there part-time for about 6 months and then full time. I left my other job and I was doing that until 2018, and then I ended up at the Ocean County Fire Marshal’s Office. 

What is your role in the department? Fire Marshal. 

Fire over med? My career department didn’t do EMS, but I got into EMS pretty heavily in my early 20’s. I was at one point the third in line supervisor in the first aid squad, but I burned out pretty quickly. Most of my career portion of this job was fire-based. 

What are your future goals in the department? A big reason why I took this position is that my previous job was very fire-based…we had a ton of fires (about 350 a year) to investigate. I was never able to do public education or even a lot of code enforcement. I’m not tired of digging fires, but I couldn’t do the full job. I’m excited to actually do some code enforcement and public education here. 

How would you describe what you do to a layperson? My job is 90% administrative code enforcement work, ensuring that buildings are built safely, and making sure that building codes and fire codes are up-to-date. Maybe 10% of the job would be response and fire investigation. 

What are your future goals for the department? I’m really interested in continuing the public education portion of the fire prevention program here. I am a firm believer that we should be able to get fire prevention specialists into every business every year. 

Can you choose a favorite part of the job so far? I’m enjoying learning. I came from a strictly fire prevention department, and we didn’t do any building construction work. Obviously here it’s a little different, but I am definitely enjoying learning the new construction side of things: doing the permits, getting out there, making sure things are built correctly. I do also enjoy being in a county department coming from a small corporate department. I really enjoy the complexity and how many moving parts there are. I’m a little weird like that. 

What about the most challenging aspect? Honestly, probably the same thing. Learning a completely different side of being a Fire Marshall that I haven’t been exposed to thus far is definitely challenging. I look for that wherever I go: the best and most challenging jobs. 

What advice would you give new recruits? I would say to try to be a well-rounded fire service member. We do a pretty good job of it here. Hopefully we will get prevention involved a little bit more than it already is. You need to know a little bit of construction, fire, EMS, etc. You have to be well-rounded and have the personality type to be able to learn things you might not be interested in initially. Definitely keeping an open mind is important as well. 

What is the most valuable trait for someone to have in this line of work? Like I said, you need to keep an open mind and be able to learn, and you have to be open to new processes and new ways of doing things. I’ve had a little bit of that so far here: it’s been a bit of a learning curve. 

Is there anything that has particularly surprised you thus far? I think the biggest surprise is that, in my county, we had 51 volunteer companies in a county ¼ the size of this. I thought I knew what rural was…I remember having arguments with my labor attorney about how our mutual aid was 20 minutes away and that that was a catastrophic fiasco. Out here, it’s so true when people say that no one is coming to help. We are so far from anything here. It kind of gave me some perspective on how good I had it before. I couldn’t get that type of response here in a day if I tried. 

What about your family? How do they feel about your job/firefighter/shift work? My wife and I have been married since 2015, and being a member of the fire service is a family thing whether your significant other is heavily involved or not. They’re involved whether you want them to be or not, between the trainings every week, the calls, etc. You need to have that conversation early and they need to know exactly what to expect. It’s not a fly by night thing. I had a very long conversation with her, and I think I remember saying the fire service comes first. I definitely wouldn’t recommend saying that now, but somehow she didn’t listen to that red flag and still married me!