EMS man

Joe DeBoer spent some of his childhood hanging out with firefighters. His grandparents lived near the Kalamazoo, Mich., fire station and often took him there to visit.

He spends more time at a firehouse today, albeit in a different capacity.

DeBoer is the deputy fire chief and emergency medical services director for the Port Washington Fire Department. It’s a job he has held for only the past year, but he has been with the department for nearly 20 years, not including the four he spent as a member of the Fire Explorer program while at Port High.

He was in elementary school when his father, an engineer, moved the family to Port. After he graduated from high school in 2004, he wanted to be a firefighter but those jobs were hard to find after 9-11 attracted many people to fire department service.

DeBoer went through firefighting training at Milwaukee Area Technical College, then took the emergency medical technician class. That helped him decide to study biomedical science in college. He earned a master’s degree in physician’s assistant studies from Marquette University in 2011.

He worked as a physician’s assistant in emergency medicine in Fond du Lac for a decade while still living in Port and being a paid on-call member of the fire department.

“I like dealing with stressful situations, the criticality of the patients,” DeBoer said.

Fire Chief Mark Mitchell offered DeBoer the full-time position when money from the American Rescue Plan Act became available to fund it. DeBoer was tasked with reorganizing the emergency medical services component of the department. More than 80% of the department’s calls involve medical services.

“Emergency medical services and the fire side is where my passion is. When this position opened up, it was the perfect fit for me,” he said.

DeBoer knows he is operating in a different world than when he entered the field. Every firefighter’s locker used to be filled and DeBoer would fight to grab a spot on a truck responding to a fire.

Now, it’s more of a struggle to fill the truck to respond. The days of rare open firefighter jobs are gone, as are having an ample supply of on-call volunteers. Family lifestyles have changed with increasing time spent on youth sports, companies aren’t allowing as much time off to respond to fires and medical emergencies, and volunteerism among younger generations isn’t that of older ones, he said.

Those trends make the job more difficult as medical calls increase. A decade ago, holding a day job while serving on the department was manageable with perhaps one call per night.

“Now, it’s almost a guarantee that you’re going to get a call in the middle of the night,” DeBoer said, which makes functioning at work the next day a challenge.

The PWFD, which has three full-tim firefighter paramedics, is fully staffed, but many on-call personnel live outside the city, he said.

“As long as we have people willing to help the community we will have an open door for them,” DeBoer said.

DeBoer still loves to respond to calls. One of his most memorable was helping rescue two men trapped on the breakwater in 15-feet waves in 2011. DeBoer reached the pair on a boat — the weather was so bad the Coast Guard wouldn’t fly — and he and a partner got thrown back into the breakwater during the rescue.

Another time, DeBoer was hanging out with a friend and the friend’s father, a 20-year retired firefighter, when the father went into cardiac arrest. DeBoer and his friend went right to work and saved the man. DeBoer still sees him around today, which is a rarity for his job. Most of the time, patients get dropped off at the hospital and emergency responders don’t see the results.

Now, DeBoer has more of an administrative role and is modernizing the medical services portion of the department. He developed a quality-control program and an inventory program to better monitor medical supplies. During the pandemic, a hurricane knocked out a factory that made IV fluids, causing supply chain  issues, he said.

He set up a fall-reduction program for the county’s Aging and Disability Resource Center, and he regularly writes grant applications and helps with fundraisers to obtain equipment outside the department’s budget. Working at a beer garden and holding a meat raffle, in addition to meeting community members and building goodwill, helped the department purchase an automatic compression device and an ultrasound device.

The department has a drone program and holds training on it in conjunction with area departments, and Port has a unique aspect that requires a unique skill set compared to inland departments. Since it’s next to Lake Michigan, Port’s fire department has two boats and a dive team, and it just started a surface water rescue team last year. One of DeBoer’s goals is to have eight to 12 people trained as rescue swimmers.

Training on various duties is a constant — 60 hours per year — and that’s beyond regular work hours, he said. DeBoer also trains to keep his physician’s assistant license.

DeBoer hopes more people enter the field but wants them to make sure they know the commitment. A firefighter 1 training certification runs two nights per week for one semester.

“You’ve got to have a passion for it,” he said.

DeBoer had experience in administrative work. It’s learning the government side of the job that he said has been one of his biggest adjustments.

He is used to the inconsistent schedule. He said he has never had a 9 to 5 job and hasn’t had a Christmas off since 2011. He asks to work since he isn’t married and doesn’t have children, allowing coworkers with families to spend time together.

DeBoer said being in the public eye is fine, but he is uncomfortable with another element.

“I don’t mind public speaking but I don’t like getting credit for things. This is a team sport here,” he said. “This job is not about me. It’s making sure our firefighter paramedics have what they need.”

When not working, DeBoer and his fiancee and their 1-year-old lab spend time together and with his brother and sister-in-law in Grafton.

DeBoer is a die-hard Michigan football fan who has attended the last three Big Ten Championship games. “We feel like if we don’t go they’re going to lose,” he said.

It was his childhood in Michigan that sparked both his interest in UM Wolverines football and his full-time career, though he didn’t know the latter would become his passion. Now, he won’t let it go.

“Hopefully, this is my last new job,” he said. “This is where I want to be. It’s a family. You’re going to work with your friends.”