Dana Swander

I've been in fire and EMS for 37 years, serving as both a captain on the fire department and the EMS section chief, which means I pretty much run the EMS division. As a working paramedic, I work several days a week and am responsible for training new people when they come in through our FTO program. I run our education department where I teach EMT classes along with continuing education classes. My path to this career began when my father was injured in an accident, which led me to the EMS field. I went to college and earned two business degrees, but I liked EMS so much that I never even pursued the bachelor's degrees. One of the biggest challenges I face is working in a very small community where I was born and raised - I pretty much know almost everybody in my town, so it's very challenging to take care of people that you know personally. It really ties back to being able to leave work at work and home at home, and when you know everybody, it's very hard to do that. I don't believe that you're ever done learning - there's new things that come up in the field all the time, and you have to continue getting better, otherwise you pretty much lose your edge. I'm very much into education and have pushed my daughters into becoming more educated. I am an instructor, and I feel very highly about education - whether you use it or not, at some point in time, it will come in handy. I don't believe anybody loses out when they decide to learn something new, and any skill that you learn is always of benefit. My most notable accomplishment is turning my education into helping others get into this line of work. I have probably done hundreds of students that I have helped educate over the years, and having them come back and be my partner later on, or seeing that they have furthered their career and went into becoming doctors, nurses, flight medics - just knowing that they all started with my very first class is probably the biggest accomplishment for me.