Where are you from? Jackson.

How long have you been a part of JH Fire/EMS? About 1.5 years.

What made you want to join JH Fire/EMS? It was cool mainly, like there were other reasons too but it looked like fun. Eric Borgy from Station 6, he’s retired now, but I knew him growing up. And then I had family members that were firefighters here so that also played a factor. My Grandpa was a Station 1 firefighter for 18 years and my Dad was a Teton Village firefighter and eventually their fire chief between 1980 and 2000. 

Were you always interested in both fire and EMS or did that evolve later? No, I had no interest in EMS before joining. 

What are your current certifications? Fire 1, Fire 2, Redcard, EVOC, Hazmat, EMT.

What do you do for work? Basically portable toilet and septic.

What is your favorite part of volunteering? Getting to see people who get stoked to see us coming to help, when they’re happy to see us. It’s getting to feel a part of that, knowing I’m doing something without much reward behind it other than I want to help.

Being at St 7, it seems like you really got ahead of other probationary members in your class pretty quickly, like being able to drive the engine and being able to pump the tender…can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, we have really trusting leadership that wants to help us get further because, as much as the department does stuff, Lily, Doc, all of them, are very hands-on every time we have training. They’re always like ‘what can we help you with? We want you to be able to do this, we want you to be able to do that, how can we get you there?’ They’re really willing to trust, allowing me to drive vehicles and do all the stuff. As opposed to what I’ve heard out of Stations 1 and 6 aren’t quite as trusting with members. 

Most satisfying/rewarding part of volunteering? Being able to help train new members.

What do you do in your free time? Hobbies? Regular Jackson stuff, a lot of hiking, skiing. I don’t have any crazy different hobbies other than the normal outdoors stuff.

What advice would you give new recruits? Be patient and know it’s going to take time, but it’s totally rewarding at the end of it. I enjoy it a ton, going on calls, doing all this fun stuff, but it was definitely some serious work. It felt like going back to school. But yeah, just being patient, especially in the beginning where you’re just getting into something like this, it feels like a ton at first.

What do you wish you had known when you started? I wish I had had a little bit more insight into what it was going to look like. I would say we pretty much got recruited and then it’s like ‘go to training.’ Like I had no expectation, no idea what to expect. I would say the community as a whole too has no idea how it operates in any way. I wish there had been more information up front about the ins and outs of how the fire department actually works. Like what are the calls, what do members do when they have to respond, that sort of thing. All of a sudden it was ‘all right you’re trained, you can respond to calls, good luck!’ And it’s sort of up to whoever you respond with, what you do and don’t know and what’s expected of you.

What is the most important skill or trait for someone on JH Fire/EMS? How to stay calm in an emergency. I think the most useful thing they taught us was staying calm and assessing what’s happening instead of immediately going 100 miles an hour. It was learning how to take a step back, look at what’s going on before you go at it or freak out like you normally would in an emergency.

What are your future goals in the department? I want to work up to the ADO/Lieutenant level to where I can help other new members, that’s probably the most rewarding thing is being able to help train new members.