LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - A fire department in eastern Nebraska is looking to hire more women and minorities as it fills paramedic positions in coming years.
Lincoln Fire and Rescue Chief Michael Despain has been ramping up the agency’s push to diversify its mostly white, male department since he took his position a year ago, the Lincoln Journal Star (https://bit.ly/2sWmCqW ) reported.
Despain said recruiting isn’t in the budget, so he’s using funds saved from open positions to help pay for marketing campaigns and recruiting efforts.
Despain said he doesn’t have quotas, but that he wants to see more women and minorities in the applicant pool.
“They’re not even applying,” Despain said.
A January report from the department shows that 91 percent of the department’s firefighter and paramedic are white. Eight percent of them are women.
National Fire Protection Association data show that women comprised only 4.6 percent of the firefighting forces in the country between 2011 and 2015.
Firefighter-paramedic Dawn Campos started working at the department in 1996.
“I’m not gonna be as strong as some of the guys on the job,” Campos said. “But I have talent that I bring to the table.”
Chris Gutierrez, a firefighter-paramedic who co-chairs the department’s recruitment committee, said that most recruiting efforts in the past have focused on job fairs.
“There’s a very big deficit in females, and then in minority groups,” said Gutierrez, who is Hispanic. “When we talk about diversity in the fire department, we’re truthfully trying to represent the community that we serve.”
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, https://www.journalstar.com
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