This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
02/21/2018 07:30 AMWhen Joe Johnson was a junior at Old Saybrook High School, he already knew he wanted to be a volunteer firefighter in the Old Saybrook Fire Department. A broken wrist in gym class just moved up his timetable a bit.
“I was big into baseball and then I broke my wrist in gym and couldn’t play any sports,” Joe recalls.
With a lot of extra time on his hands—no more baseball practice or games to play—he looked around for something else to keep him busy and engaged. He used the extra time to volunteer as a junior firefighter and also to complete some of the training he’d need to become a full-fledged member of the department at age 18.
“I wanted to keep busy, so in April 2003, so I joined the department as a junior firefighter. Then I took the state EMR [emergency medical responder] class. When I turned 18 as a senior, I took the state-certified Firefighter 1 class so that in the spring of 2004, I was ready to be brought up [from junior status] to be a regular member of the department,” says Joe. “Joining the fire department was the best decision I ever made.”
Completing the Firefighter 1 class, a commitment of 180 hours of classroom and field training, while still a senior at Old Saybrook High School was a big accomplishment, but that wasn’t his only focus—he also, as part of the high school program requirements, participated in a community-based internship program. Through this type of work experience, the school district seeks to match students’ career interests with a workplace in the field.
As Superintendent of Schools Jan Perruccio has said of the program, sometimes students find that the community-based internship they choose confirms a student’s career path and for others, it makes them reconsider the path they thought they wanted to follow. Both outcomes are worthwhile to the student.
For Joe, as someone interested in the firefighting work, choosing an internship at volunteer firefighter J.T. Dunn’s Common Cents business was a perfect match.
“I did an internship as a high school senior at Common Cents. I just enjoyed it, interacting with the difference fire departments and government agencies,” Joe says.
After high school, he joined Common Cents full-time, working alongside Dunn.
“The business is one that sells and provides medical equipment to fire departments and government agencies,” including stretchers, gloves, defibrillators, bandages, and gauze, Joe says.
If not for his work with Dunn and as a volunteer firefighter in the department, he might not have met his wife, Mairin Finnegan-Johnson. Her father is another Old Saybrook volunteer firefighter and the family has been long-time friends of Dunn.
Now, as Joe steps into the shoes of fire chief after about 15 years as a regular department member, he is grateful that Mairin, as a daughter of a firefighter, understands and appreciates the commitment he’s making.
“She knows what has to be done. I couldn’t do this job without her support,” Joe says.
As the new town fire chief, Joe is responsible for the daily operations of the Volunteer Fire Department. While the deputy chief handles all the bills and purchases, Joe has the overall department responsibility. He’s also the interface between Town Hall and the department.
“We’re very fortunate to have a strong leadership team made up of a deputy chief, apparatus chief, a training chief, and two captains—one for training and one for apparatus,” says Joe. “The majority of our members—there at 91 right now—are here because they want to help and give back to the community. [They are] business owners, truck drivers, mechanics, attorneys, and retired engineers offering their professional knowledge and expertise. We would not be able to do this job without every one of our members.
“I want people to know that we are a 100-percent volunteer fire department. No one gets paid for anything,” says Joe. “We’re constantly looking for new volunteers, especially those seeking to be interior firemen.”
The town does offer a pension plan for volunteer firefighters who accrue 200 service points per year—firefighters get one point for each clean-up, training, and response to calls. Points are measures by incidents, not hours spent.
“You get the same number of points for a five minute or a five-hour call,” Joe says.
Right now, the town has a request for proposals out for a department truck exhaust system. The department’s firehouse does not currently have this system. Once in place, trucks in the firehouse can be turned on and the exhaust will be pulled out of the building through tubes attached to the exhaust pipes.
“The new system will protect the firefighters,” says Joe. “It’s been on the capital outlay list for a number of years but has been displaced by other priorities.”
Now, when the firetrucks are turned on, the firefighters have to be sure that the firehouse doors are open to avoid exhaust build-up. This new system will eliminate that potential health issue and allow the doors to be closed that’s needed.
The department has three fundraising events each year: the annual fund drive solicitations sent by mail, the Fill-the-Boot campaign in the fall, and a golf tournament in the spring. The funds raised allow the department to operate the Firemen’s Field training facility, to pay for supplemental disability insurance for the firefighters, and to pay for equipment to donate back to the town. Just recently, the department bought and donated back to the town a military-style brush truck that can drive through water up to five feet deep, a valuable trait in a town that could be hit by storm surge in a major storm or hurricane.
As fire chief, Joe does not have a set schedule, since he still has a full-time day job, but he does try to respond and go along on every department call.
“We’ve had 55 incidents so far in 2018, but summers are our busiest time, when there’s extra traffic on the roads,” Joe says.
In addition to responding to calls, Joe does paperwork, answers emails, and fields phone calls both at home in the evenings and on Sunday mornings at the firehouse.
“I think the general public would be surprised at the level of commitment to training of our members. But the personal reward that comes from helping the community makes it all worth it,” Joe says.