Saving Lives, Changing Lives: Training A New Generation Of First Responders

First-responders are needed now more than ever, as the demand for their services is outpacing many cities’ ability to replace the retiring generation. A dramatic drop in applications to police and fire departments is being felt nationwide, with some cities reporting a decrease of 90 percent. Equally as important, this new generation should look more like the communities in which it serves. The KeyBank/Tri-C partnership is the model for other schools to increase minority and female enrollment and ensuring these students have the support to graduate and return home as heroes.

Out with the Old, in with the New Generation

When the KeyBank Public Safety Training Center opened at Tri-C’s Western Campus in Parma, Ohio in 2014, it modernized a program that has produced some of the finest firefighters in the state since 1982. Firefighter Will Anderson, Assistant Fire Chief of Euclid, Ohio, raves about the quality of first-responders who graduate from the program.

“When we hire a recruit from the Tri-C Fire Academy or paramedic program, we know that the individual will have received expert instruction from a staff filled with passionate fire and EMS instructors who want to see each recruit succeed,” Anderson says.

The intensive training offered to students, and public safety departments alike takes place in a state-of-the-art facility containing 12 classrooms and labs, a 4000-square foot burn building, an above-ground trench training area to practice confined space rescues and other amenities necessary for this highly specialized work. But even with its sleek and technologically advanced campus, KeyBank executives recognized that investing further in Tri-C could open more opportunities for a diverse range of students.

By 2022, Northeast Ohioans will need 1,500 new public safety personnel each year to replace retiring law enforcement, EMS, and firefighters, according to employment projections from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. This correlates with nationwide numbers showing a huge leap in the number of EMS calls funneled through dispatch centers. The nation’s 30,000 fire departments responded to 31.6 million calls in 2013, nearly triple the amount since 1980. The demand is growing, and the protective service industry is projected to increase 4% by 2024, adding an estimated 153,900 new jobs.

“KeyBank and the KeyBank Foundation made this investment at [Tri-C] to train the next generation of first-responders. These are the faces that will protect the residents of Northeast Ohio far into the future,” KeyBank Foundation chair and CEO Margot Copeland said last year to the Tri-C Times.

The $1.4 million grant allows the school to increase its public outreach to women, minorities and military veterans through new programs that create a workforce pipeline stretching from orientation to employment.

To inspire this next generation to consider public safety as a career, Tri-C created a tuition-free summer academy where young people can get their first taste of the excitement and camaraderie that protecting their community brings. The grant also funded the creation of a new position within the training center to improve engagement between the school, communities, and employers. Though Tri-C has not compromised its mission in giving students expert training, meeting the overwhelming demand for qualified applicants – especially women and people of color – was unsustainable.

This is where the grant to the Tri-C Foundation also comes into play. Through the bank’s grant, goals were set to increase enrollment through scholarship opportunities and boost the overall graduation rate by 35%. For women and minority students, the graduation rate thresholds are pushed even higher. Over the next three years, Tri-C wants to increase its graduation rate for women 97% and minorities 54%.

“Diversity and inclusion are major tenets of how we advance our culture at KeyBank, and we want diverse and inclusive communities as well as workplaces,” Copeland says.

Representation and Respect

Tri-C fire academy cadets Dwayne Johnson, Nicholas Giavonnette and Savon Collins. Photo – Jonathan Barenboim
Tri-C fire academy cadets Dwayne Johnson, Nicholas Giavonnette and Savon Collins. Photo – Jonathan Barenboim

Attracting and retaining these future heroes is a solution to increasing representation within fire and police departments and will better reflect the communities and the taxpayers that fund their annual budgets. One Tri-C firefighter cadet, Savon Collins, 21, of Cleveland, recognizes the importance of his career choice to his community.

“I think being a black firefighter means to my community that they have another figure that they can look up to. Because, if you don’t see anyone in your community doing something, then you don’t think that that goal is achievable,” Collins says.

Firefighters are some of the most visible workers in their employment sector, but in communities like Collins’ native Cleveland, it is becoming harder to find African-American and Hispanic firefighters to match the percentage of the population in these cities. Take the case of Fayetteville, North Carolina. The city appointed its first-ever African-American fire chief in 2011 but has fallen behind the state average in minority hires. 3.2 percent of the firefighters are black, meaning that 9 out of 10 firefighters are white. Fayetteville Fire Chief Ben Major said in the Fayetteville Observer that an inclusive workforce produces more innovation. He has instituted several changes, much like the ones launched at Tri-C, to boost minority recruitment.

Major’s comments to the Observer are similar to the ones expressed by Cadet Collins. He told the newspaper that he believes that inner-city teenagers don't see African-Americans fighting fires and therefore are only exposed to an occupation that mostly sees a hereditary and homogenous changing of the guard with each generation.

Lack of representation affects smaller departments as well. Euclid’s Asst. Fire Chief Anderson says overcoming his department’s lack of minority employees through better recruitment; training and job placement is a goal worth achieving. Only 6% of Euclid’s fire department consists of minorities. Weigh this against the city population’s 55% minority-majority, and there is a disconnect between the community and the faces arriving at the emergency scene.

“The benefits of having a workforce that matches the makeup of the community are numerous. Through public relations and public education, we can better understand the needs and desires of our community,” Anderson says.

When Collins graduates from Tri-C, he will return home to Cleveland and its 55% minority population. He will be an inspiration to his community after having achieved a dream that he has had since he childhood.

“The need to want to help people is in my blood, Collins says, “My mom’s a nurse, so we love helping people.”

He will live out the “best day of his life” when he becomes a firefighter but won’t stop there. Collins hopes he can become a fire investigator where he could make as much as $56,130 per year and beyond that, a fire chief. His Tri-C instructor, Rob Reinholz, (himself a Tri-C graduate and 2010 Ohio Firefighter of the Year) says that Collins’ passion for the work makes him the ideal Tri-C cadet.

“What I notice about Mr. Collins, he wants to learn and he has a lot of ambition,” Reinholz says, “That’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for heart and Collins shows that. He’ll be an excellent firefighter.”