Val Ves
Firefighter
Holcomb Volunteer Fire Department
On the job: 18 months

Career satisfaction:
Some people are born to be firefighters, but I’m not one of them. I do the job to help people in the community, because that’s what I enjoy. It’s an interesting job and I love learning about how fire works and how to control it.

Advice to other women:
I would absolutely recommend this career to others. First, you can start in August and have your certificate and a job after December. There are also a lot of good things about being a firefighter, like the camaraderie of the group. I think more people would enjoy the job if they realized how interesting it is.

Career inspiration:
I needed a part-time job that was local. I had an at-home business at the time and I was available to respond to fires, so it seemed to fit my needs well.

Rewards:
This is a volunteer fire department and you don’t join a volunteer organization to make money.  You do it to receive some compensation when you respond to fires and go to meetings, but I knew going in that I wasn’t going to make a lot of money.

Challenges in role:
It was not challenging at all. It was fun. The guys in my department are good guys, and they look at me like a sister.  I saw a tremendous shift in attitudes in the years that I worked in a beef plant, but I’ve never experienced anything like that in fire fighting.

Working with men:
I’ve been in jobs all my life that are dominated by males. As a teenager I worked on the farm, and my grandfather used to say I could bale hay as well as any man. After college I wound up working at a beef plant for many years, doing most of the jobs that men did, throwing 125-pound boxes right along with them

Experience and education:
We studied how fire works and how fire departments are organized, and learned about the rules you need to follow, the equipment and about firefighting methods.  The program takes four months.  My fire department paid for
my schooling, because they needed more certified firefighters.  The instructors bent over backwards to help us. I had other things going on in my life, like  a new job that demanded a lot of my time, but the instructors wanted to see me succeed and they really helped me out. Book learning has always been easy for me, so the classes weren’t that difficult. Probably the most difficult course was HAZMAT, or Hazardous Materials.

Key skills:
A person should know how to read and take notes. There is a lot of reading in the firefighting classes, and you have to be able to keep up with the instructors while they’re lecturing.

Barriers:
I wasn’t as proficient at the computer as I should have been, but the instructors were very patient and helped me figure it out.

Most valuable lesson:
Physical strength is important. You have to take some physical strength tests, and the work is very physical. Also, it helps to be able to get along with people -- you have to work together with your fellow firefighters as a team.

Other thoughts:
This is excellent for someone who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time in school in order to get into a career. I feel it is definitely worth the time and expense.  This is a great career.