Groff calls it a career after 37 years

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This article was published 20/01/2023 (1204 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Monday marked Kevin Groff’s final shift with Brandon Fire and Emergency Services, an organization he has been a part of since the summer of 1985.

Mere hours before his retirement was set to kick in, Groff said he was in good spirits, failing to come up with a single lingering regret from his 37-year career with the department.

“I was born in Brandon. I lived in Brandon all my life,” he said. “I gave back to the community, so I’m very happy with what I’m leaving with.”

Groff ended his time with the service as fire prevention officer, a role that required him to co-ordinate investigations, safety inspections and educational outreach programs with schools.

The 63-year-old admitted that his knowledge of firefighting and emergency medical services was very limited when he originally applied for the job nearly four decades ago, with his interest in this kind of work being sparked by members of the community.

“People that I already knew, their parents and fathers who worked here, they said it would be a great career,” Groff recalled. “And I was hooked when I came in the door on July 15, 1985.”

Groff picked up the tricks of the trade rather quickly, thanks in large part to a string of mentors who showed him the ropes in those early years.

This prepared him for serious calls like the Central United Church fire of 1986, a massive blaze that completely destroyed the structure, which was then rebuilt at the corner of Eighth Street and Lorne Avenue two years later.

With BFES being a comparatively small department at the time also gave Groff the flexibility he needed to learn at a rapid pace, since he was constantly required to fill different roles on the firefighting and medical response fronts.

“For example, when you got on our rescue crew, you had to know those extrication devices and how to run those with your eyes closed,” he said.

“Then you moved to another part of it, where you would be the pump operator and … when you got to a fire you’d better have that water running and be there for the guys.”

Moving into the 1990s, Groff worked his way up the chain of command and applied for an officer’s role, first becoming an acting lieutenant and adopting a whole new spectrum of responsibilities in the process.

“One of the biggest things as an officer … is you were also involved with a lot of out-of-town fires where you were limited by the amount of people,” he said.

“So you had to do some creative thinking when it came to how you were going to fight the fire. And that was a good learning curve when you’re a lieutenant [and want] to move on to become a captain leading the ship.”

As he inched his way up the command ladder, one of the biggest changes Groff has witnessed is the larger education and training requirements for new recruits, which is a far cry from when he joined BFES in the mid-1980s.

“When I first got there, it was all about ‘put the wet stuff on the red stuff,’” he said. “Now there’s new techniques, there’s new ideas of how to fight fires. There’s also better ambulance training that they have now.”

Groff’s biggest piece of advice to young aspiring firefighter-paramedics in Westman is to visit one of the department’s fire halls and undergo some job shadowing before taking the plunge.

This approach will ensure they are exposed to the multi-faceted nature of the job ahead of time and provide them with an early roadmap for a rewarding career that hopefully lasts many decades, like his.

“I’d just like to thank the City of Brandon and Brandon Fire and Emergency Services for having me for all these years,” Groff said. “I’m indebted to them because it’s a career that most people wish [they had], and I had one.”

While Groff’s retirement plans aren’t set in stone, he said he wants to clean up his garage, tackle some handyman work and travel, with one of his first destinations being a family wedding in Mexico next month.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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