photo by: Contributed Photo

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical announced the graduation of 13 new firefighter recruits on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020.

Thirteen new firefighters have graduated from a nine-week academy to join Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical, according to a news release from the department.

Five of the recruits are already certified as paramedics; the other eight are certified as emergency medical technicians, and they will begin their paramedic education, a two-year certification process, next year, the release states.

The group is the first recruit class after LDCFM implemented a new workforce planning system.

“These new firefighters are members of a historical group to embrace the unique challenges associated with COVID-19 during their training and join the operations division as full-time firefighters and not part-time or ‘extraboard,'” according to the release. “For several decades, the department hired part-time firefighters (extraboard) to fill full-time vacancies as they opened.”

The new system starts recruiting full-time firefighters using hiring triggers based on workforce numbers, historical attrition rates, and the typical time it takes to fill vacancies, according to the release.

The new firefighter-EMTs are Alisha Brown, Rodney Cole Jr., Shad Cox, Nathan Heinen, Dakota Nehl, Nolan Parker, Matt Ploeger and Trevor Shelton. The new firefighter-paramedics are Gerson Solis-Perez, Jesse Foulk, Sam Goodwin, Crosbi Schmidt and Jessica Schewsbury, according to the release.

photo by: Contributed Photo

The helmets of a new group of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical firefighters are pictured in this photo provided to the Journal-World on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020.