Where are you from? From New York, Queens.

How did you make it to Jackson? I moved out here in ‘93 I think: I was coaching hockey at the time. 

What do you do for work? I build houses; I’m a project manager. 

What do you do in your free time? I hunt, I fish, I like to backcountry ski, and I coached youth hockey and youth baseball for a while. 

How long have you been a part of JH Fire/EMS? I joined in August of ‘01.

What made you want to join? The green knoll fire was that summer of ‘01, and I wanted to kick in, I wanted to contribute. It seemed like a good fit for me from the beginning. I never had the time to do much on the medical side, though. Fire just suits me better anyways. I do wish I had more time for the medical. Two kids and coaching youth sports is the excuse that I’ll give you. That, and I work a lot too. The paying bills part is tough. 

What is your role in the department? Boy…I feel like I should say something profound, but truthfully, that’s a good question and I’m not sure how to answer. I’m a volunteer out of Station 7. If I’m being pressed to say something, I would say that I try to convey some of the awesomeness that I’ve been able to experience to the younger firefighters and EMT’s. I’m not ancient, but I’m 20-some-odd years in, and some of the new members are so great, so if I can help them along just a little bit while still contributing myself, then that might be my role here. If you want to know the truth, I don’t really look at it like that. I just do the best I can every day. I don’t look at it as a role: I just enjoy it. I’m still a kid listening to the lights and sirens, and I think it’s cool as hell. I don’t know if my role can convey that enthusiasm so I just want to enjoy it for as long as I can. 

What are your future goals in the department? I don’t really look too far in the future. Truly, and it sounds redundant, but I just enjoy every call I get to go on and every person in the fire service. I’ve been so lucky to get to know some of the people in the fire service and I’m lucky to get to serve my community. I’m lucky I get to serve doing something I enjoy.

What is your favorite part of volunteering? It’s a combination. I’m proud to serve my community, I truly do enjoy that, but also you meet so many amazing people. It’s not just the other members, but the people you come across in any part of the emergency services world. The people are pretty spectacular. 

What about the most challenging part? Time management. But that’s hard for everybody. The buzz words are to find balance in your life; I want to know someone who found that perfect balance. Your family, your paying job, your fun job, volunteering…balancing all that is really really hard. It’s a tremendous challenge and you never get it quite right. I don’t want to by any means overshadow how much I value all of this. The 3am calls: they’re hard. I might not tell you this at 3am, but I’m super proud that I go to those calls.

Tell me a bit about how you and your family deal with the craziness. My wife is a paramedic and captain with the department, so we both jump out of bed at the same time. The long answer is: it’s hard sometimes. Do the best you can. I’ve never been able to hit 100% in anything I do; there are some times where the alarm goes off and you’re not in a spot where you can respond and that’s just life. 

What advice would you give new recruits? The advice I give to everybody is to enjoy everything, every sandwich, every 3 am call, just enjoy it all. Appreciate everything, and I would tell that to you if you asked me, if my daughter asked me, or if any of the new recruits asked. Appreciate it all: it’s so much fun. I’ve found it to be such a worthwhile endeavor. 

What do you wish you had known when starting? There’s a million things. Just because I told you to appreciate everything, doesn’t mean that I did. If I were to boil it down, I would tell myself to appreciate everything, even the tough stuff. Especially the tough stuff.

What is the most valuable trait for someone to have in this line of work? I don’t think you can be great at anything unless you really, really love it. I think the most important trait is persistence. You don’t see how many times we fail. I don’t mean to truly fail, but it’s hard right? You have to be persistent, and you have to be resilient. I don’t know if that’s specific to the emergency services world, but the stuff we see is perhaps more dramatic than the normal person gets to see.