A New Year! How will you take advantage of that? Are you already in a 1st Responder role in your community? Maybe time to add a qualification? Or maybe it’s time to branch out into a different discipline.
No resolutions here. Just a suggestion to reflect on where we’ve been. Are we the best we can be? A true professional never stops learning. Never stops training. Never stops seeking to be better. And we do that for the benefit of those we serve, the victims, the subjects, and our colleagues.
But for ourselves? We do what we do out of a sense of purpose. We do what we do to give back to our community. Over 80% of 1st Responders receive no compensation (certainly not beyond reimbursement of expenses). For them, the reward is a sense of commitment fulfilled, and of honor for a job well done. Even though sometimes the outcome may not be as we wished.
So we honor all of you who continue to serve in whatever capacity. So we honor all of you, who in one form or another, serve as guardians of those in need of your skills, your commitment, and your sense of duty. To stand with you, we offer opportunities to learn, to improve, and to test yourself against the standards required to more than just adequately perform the tasks you undertake. We look forward, in 2026 and beyond, to stand with you to achieve the goals you choose for yourself.
