SafetyPro is back in service

SafetyPro2

SafetyPro2

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Since I've been gone so long, figured reintroductions were in order.

My name's Chris. I'm a long-absent moderator here, have been a member of the forum since back in 2004 (wow, time flies and all that). I've been gone for awhile due to a lot of other calls on my personal time, but am back now.

From 2003 until this past April, I was a volunteer firefighter with the Sierra Madre Fire Department in Los Angeles County. During my active time there, SMFD was a BLS department operating two ambulances and was the only city in LA County that did not provide ALS level care in any capacity. That changed a couple months ago when the city implemented a paid part-time Paramedic program to augment the VFD, and it seems to be working well from what I hear. For most of my time with SMFD, I was a Firefighter, but was promoted to Engineer last September. I spent a lot of time on the ambulance during my tenure there...EMS has always been my first love in the fire service. Even though I've left the area (see below), I'm still on SMFD in an advisory capacity as their Safety Officer.

In April, I left Southern California to take a paid position as Emergency Planner and Fire Captain with the UC Santa Cruz Fire Department. We're a full career department on the UCSC campus and provide BLS first response (with ALS service provided by AMR through county contract). Never really expected to become a career guy, but I'm loving every minute of it. Since then, I've been in the process of getting my family relocated up here, and we just finished our first week back together.

Aside from that, I'm a Safety Officer with Disaster Medical Assistance Team CA-1 and served in that role during our deployment to Biloxi, MS in response to Hurricane Katrina. I'm also an Emergency Response Instructor and lay rescuer First Aid/CPR/AED Instructor Trainer with the Red Cross. While I was in SoCal, I was a volunteer with the Orange County Chapter, and am now per-diem staff with the Santa Cruz County Chapter.

I've been an EMT-1 (aka Basic) since 2002, though am technically lapsed at the moment due to the move and am in the process of getting recertified through the county here. I was a First Responder for about a year prior to that.

I'm married, celebrating my seventh anniversary in September, and have a daughter who will be four in December.

Think that's all the pertinent details. I've missed this place and the people here, and I'm glad to be back.

See you in the threads!
 
Welcome back!!
 
Welcome back!!!
 
Hey!

Neat, you're right over the hill.

Hook a brotha up! ;-) Any volunteer ops with UCSC?
 
Thanks everyone...it's good to be back.

fm_emt said:
Neat, you're right over the hill.

Hook a brotha up! ;-) Any volunteer ops with UCSC?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately not. We used to have a student firefighter program, but that was ended about 8 years ago...we're now fully career.
 
welcome back!!!!!!
 
It's great to have you back!

If you don't mind me asking, how did you land the UC Santa Cruz gig? I must say, that's mighty impressive. A career position around here is fairly hard to get (200+ applicants for every one position), and a gig in a college is pretty awesome.

Again, it's great to have you back, and I hope you stick around for a while!
 
Chris... welcome back!

I sent you a PM last time I was on... because I didn't see this topic! Congrats on the "new" job... and it is good to see you around here again.
 
MMiz said:
It's great to have you back!

If you don't mind me asking, how did you land the UC Santa Cruz gig? I must say, that's mighty impressive. A career position around here is fairly hard to get (200+ applicants for every one position), and a gig in a college is pretty awesome.

Again, it's great to have you back, and I hope you stick around for a while!
Click to expand...

Nobody is more surprised than I am, believe me. ;)

The position was posted last October. At the time, as many of you know, I was looking for a new job in this field (emergency management) and wanting to leave LA.

I saw a brief description of the job on a job posting forum I frequent run by the International Association of Emergency Managers, so I went to the UCSC employment site and read through it. It was clear they were looking for someone with an EM background, but the job classification was listed as "Fire Captain". There were no specific fire service requirements listed (academy, CPAT, etc.) but it did say "experience equivalent to a fire department captain". I figured they had a recently retired career FF already in mind as a preferred candidate, so I almost didn't apply, but finally decided "what the heck" and did.

In December, I got a letter from the department saying my application and resume qualified me to begin the selection process. I was told to submit a 3 page written staff report on implementing ICS/SEMS/NIMS training for the University. The top 6 submissions would be selected for a panel interview in February, and the top 3 from that would be selected for a Chief's interview.

In late January, I got another letter saying I'd made the first cut and was given a panel interview date. The week before that, the secretary called me to tell me that they'd had "a couple" of cancellations and asking if I could reschedule to an earlier time, which told me I had a 1 in 4 chance now.

After the panel interview, I got a call from the Asst. Chief asking me to come back up for the Chief's interview with him and the Fire Chief. I found out later that, due to the cancellations, they only invited me and one other candidate back, and that I was the preferred candidate coming out of the panel. The other candidate was a local volunteer captain, but his emergency management background was less than mine (I met him at our local CERT council last month). The other candidates who applied mostly had the right education, but less professional experience than me (I've been doing workplace safety and emergency preparedness in some form or another for about 11 years) and no fire service experience.

Last thing in my favor...during the Chief's interview, they asked me if I'd be willing to go through the month-long recruit academy with the 5 new probies they hired the same time as me. I immediately said yes. The other final candidate told me himself that he told them he wasn't interested in pulling hose anymore and didn't really want to do that.


So, short answer is that I had the right professional experience, and the fact that I had fire service experience (and was willing to use it) was just the icing on the cake. Fact is, we don't NEED a firefighter in this position and it could have been civilian position, but having someone who can do the main job and still jump in on the engine when needed is an advantage and gives us more depth to work with.

For comparison, with the five probie positions we just filled, we had well over 200 applicants invited to start the process.
 
Welcome back and nice to meetcha!
 
:)YAHOOOOOO!!!! Hi Chris and welcome back!!
 
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