Where are you from? I am from the little town of Tombstone, Arizona. I used to work in Yellowstone during my summers in college and several of my friends from Yellowstone ended up moving to Jackson and encouraged me to come check it out. So I came here in 2002 and was giving people horseback tours around the area.

What is your role in the department? I am the training captain out of Station 7.

How long have you been a part of JH Fire/EMS? Since 2006. 

What made you want to join JH Fire/EMS? I’d say my initial inspiration came from the 8th grade because my 8th grade teacher was the fire chief and a volunteer EMT. I ran into Wendy Blair here in town once when I was getting my car worked on, and she helped convince me to ultimately join. 2006 was the very first year that they required cross training in all hazards. All of the career staff at that time were EMT’s only and all of the fire calls were handled by fire volunteers. I didn’t actually know that I was going to have to do all of it at the time, so the first time I heard that I was going to have to do fire as well was when Jill Smith said, ‘oh the fire academy starts next week.’ So the department began mandating that for the first time. At that time, in 2006, they hadn’t quite figured out how they were going to integrate everyone, they just knew they were going to cross-train everybody. The thought process was: if you were mainly on board to be an EMT, you would just be on a fire scene to help. It was very wishy washy at the beginning. The fire portion was like the frog boiling in the water experiment: all of a sudden they wanted the full time EMS staff responding to fires just for assistance. It was a very slow, gradual introduction to more and more and more. It wasn’t actually part of our job description until 2010. 

I think I started to like fire more after taking my ADO class. For me, firefighting was super physical and beyond my capabilities at that time and I felt like I was wearing my dad’s bunker gear. I still feel like I’m wearing my dad’s bunker gear…

What are your current certifications? Paramedic, captain, live fire certified, fire officer 1, engine boss, and currently no higher than paramedic and captain.

What are your future goals in the department? I’m just hoping to help the fire department achieve this next step whatever it might be under Chief Jellie and hopefully see it on a pretty solid footing within the next couple years. I hope to retire by 50 and I would really like to see everything running smoothly with a solid structure. 

What do you do in your free time? I spend a lot of time with my dog, hiking, biking, nordic skiing…I am ridiculously obsessed about my dog. I also have a very tight knit group of ladies that I spend a ton of time with.

What is your favorite part of the job? I would say it is being able to help your friends and neighbors on the worst days of their lives: being able to actually do something to help out.

What about the most challenging part? Maintaining a work/life balance. The fire department will take everything it can take from you, every ounce of time you have to give. It’s important to be aware of that and keep a healthy balance. 

What advice would you give new recruits? Whatever Chris McCullough said. No, umm….I think for new recruits to get something out of it, they have to really commit to showing up. I don’t mean just for trainings, I mean going on calls. Taking shifts. Getting involved. For whatever reason, that seems harder than you might think.

What do you wish you had known when starting? I wish I could have told myself I wouldn’t hate fire…that I would learn to find my place and be useful on the fire ground.

What is the most valuable skill/trait for someone to have in this line of work? I think some flexibility to learn to go with the flow, maybe I’m just thinking of that in what we’re looking at right now, but you have to be able to adapt. Changes are going to come, and you have to be open minded to it. 

What do you think you bring to the department? I think I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears in and love and energy into the training of everyone here. I don’t know what else I have to give other than time.

Who is your mentor or who do you look up to? Chief Moyer, all the way. He’s always been someone I admire. He has qualities that I wish I could have developed with 16 years of doing this. He’s so organized and detail oriented…he’s so, so good at everything he does.

Do you have a favorite hazard or call type? I definitely still prefer EMS.