Town developing firefighters within

TheBarrieExaminer.com
Oct. 17, 2017
Miriam King

The Bradford West Gwillimbury fire department has struggled to maintain a full complement of volunteer firefighters.

The issue isn’t recruitment.

The fire service has been successful at attracting new graduates of Georgian College’s pre-service firefighter education and training courses.

The problem has been retention.

With limited full-time hiring, the town has invested time in training its recruits as volunteer firefighters only to see them leave to take full-time positions with other municipalities.

It has led to a change in tactics.

Rather than focusing only on new grads, the Bradford fire department has been actively recruiting within Bradford West Gwillimbury, based on the assumption that local residents are invested in the community and more likely to make a long-term commitment to the department.

The most recent round of hiring resulted in 12 new hirings with a wide range of backgrounds.

David Prokopchuk, Damiano Marcangelo, Crystal Bradbury, Mark Everett, Joao Santos, Tanner Forsyth, Leonid Sonatin, Thomas Haywood, Henry Kim, Weston Langford, Sergey Davidov and Nicole Higgins train every Thursday for three hours, plus four or five on Saturdays and eight hours each day working on practical skills.

Their training officer is Jamie MacNeil, a former Fortune 500 company trainer and a 15-year veteran of the New Tecumseth fire department.

MacNeil has a passion for his job. It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun to see the spark ignited over the six months of training to reach Firefighter Level 1 certification.

Mark Everett, 27, is Bradford born and raised. When he heard the town needed firefighters, he applied.

“Everybody from my great grandpa has been part of this department,” Everett said. “I’m fourth-generation.”

Marcangelo, 24, lives in Bradford and was inspired by his brother, who was recently hired as a full-time firefighter.

“I got interested last year ... (and) I’m enjoying it so far,” he said.

Sonatin, 31, said he has always wanted to be a volunteer firefighter, but living in Vaughan there were few openings.

A month after he moved to Bradford, he saw an advertisement for volunteers and applied.

“It’s living the dream,” he said. “This is the best job in the world.”

Forsyth, 29, said it’s a great opportunity to develop a career and make a difference to the community.

Crystal Bradbury, a graduate of the pre-service training, hopes to become a volunteer firefighter “just to get involved in the community.”

Bradbury also has a special reason for signing up.

“My six-year old son is thrilled,” she said. “He’s probably the most excited.”

The group recently congregated upstairs at the Bradford West Gwillimbury Leisure Centre to cover health and safety. Once they achieve Level One Certification, they’ll start on Level 2 and work towards full certification.

“We put a lot of time into this group,” MacNeil said. “Hopefully, it will pay off.”