 Hi, my name is Sharon Nelson, HR manager responsible for talent acquisition for the City of Columbia. Talent in the City is our effort to highlight and showcase the departments with the City of Columbia, the department's impact players as well as the talent who make the City run every single day. These impact players and departments oftentimes don't get the spotlight that they deserve, but without them, the City of Columbia would not run as a beautifully oiled machine that it is. Right now, we're standing inside one of the training structures and I'm here with one of the firefighters who is an engineer, it's Keratin, and I'm so excited to talk more about this that we're in and I want you to tell us a little bit more about what it is that you do. Okay, so on the floor, as we call it, I'm an engineer so I drive the trucks, I have to know the area, get us to the call or destination safely. I also pump the truck, which means I send the water to put the fire out and I'm pretty much just a bridge between my firefighters and my captain. So you would be the person that would stay inside the vehicle? Yes. During the fire? Well, not inside the vehicle, I'll actually, it's a pump panel so I pull levers, as we call it, and make sure I'm getting water from the hydrants. Awesome, and you have two roles with the fire department, tell us about that. Oh, so I'm an engineer, I'm also down in training, I'm an adjunct instructor, one of them. So I pretty much take the recruits, I put them through various skills and teach them pretty much how we would do it on the floor and how the fire academy would like us to teach them. Awesome, and I think it's only fair for us to let our viewers actually hear from someone who is actually a part of the fire department. Tell us, what was it that made you want to be a fireman? So being born and raised here in Columbia, I love to help people, so that was the deciding factor for me. I actually applied at other departments, I was in Spartanburg first, and they called me and I was excited to come back and give forth my efforts to helping the citizens here. And what's the most rewarding part of your job? Is there anything, any memories that stand out to you? Mostly just helping people, seeing them smile. You know, hearing them say thank you after a call and thanking us for our service every day. I love it, thank you so much. No problem. So it starts in the truck, we pop the brake, you put in what's called pump gear. So right now it's in pump, come here. At this time, my firefighter will be pulling the line, I'll just make sure it's all pulled off. Let's make sure I charge the right line, right? So right here, it'll tell me the color and which line it is, which is the passenger discharge. I'll come back over here. We actually have to do math for this, so if you're not good at math, you've got to learn it on your own, which we do have driving classes. So first off, we put it in pressure mode, we call it PSI mode, and then we charge it, right? To the pump from our tank, and you tank field to keep the pump from overheating. Then it's already open, so I just charge it, fill my tank. Once we go out the hydrant, we just pretty much using our tank as a backup in case something goes wrong. Here's the moment that we're all waiting for. How else can I be able to illustrate what it takes to do this job without dressing out myself? Chief, I need you to tell me, first of all, how heavy is this gear that you're wearing? So typically it's about 8 or 10 pounds. Again, though, a lot of sweat comes out of a human body, so with the sweat, it can be anywhere from 20 to 25 pounds. And it's three layers of gear, so it can get pretty heavy. And what type of insulation is in here? So you have three layers. You have moisture barrier and outer shell and interior barrier. Protecting you, I told you it keeps the heat out, but it also keeps a lot of heat in. So these layers are actually getting really hot with this on. However, once we come out and we rehab, we'll open the gear up and we'll get cool down. And is this something that you can put on yourself or do you need help? Is this something you can get distance with? No, ma'am. Every firefighter should be able to put this gear on in their sleep when they leave for school. So from the beginning of week one, we'll use a turn train to put the gear on properly and efficiently and quickly. Awesome. Well, let's get started. I'm ready. We have everything here. Okay, so right here I have for you this is your flash hood. This is going to protect your face and your ears. Very important. Okay. Put that off first. Where was this during COVID? I knew that could be real cute today. All right. That's your flash hood. All right. And this is going to be your jacket piece. If you ever wondered what it's like to be a baked potato, here's your chance. This is pretty heavy. Yeah, I will be in the truck. I'll be in the truck. Let me try to get your hands all the way through it. Hand. I thought we should go over that. So this is your outer shell. What we talked about, this is the outer shell of the jacket. And this is your inner moisture barrier. And then inside here, we have a website, colifire.net. Come there and there's an entrance form. Felt the entrance form. Then they'll get a call from me. And that could be for volunteering or if they're interested in the career opportunity, they can do that and also go to the city of Columbia website. And as soon as they go there, they scroll down a little bit and there's a blue box with different icons and it's one of the job offers you get. They click on that, then there's a box that's typed in firefighter and they'll see there's opportunity for certified firefighters or non-certified. And they click on one of those and fill out the application and they'll get a call. Perfect. Well Chief, thank you so much. Again, and we're going to continue to be with the city of Columbia as we talk about some of these various vacancies throughout the Midlands. So if you are looking again for a job and you want a career, make sure that you stick around. Thank you. For more information about this position and its department, please visit www.columbiasc.gov.