 John Pennypacker introduced our Guest Speaker, Mesa Fire Chief, Mary Cameli. Mary is a member of the Mesa Sunrise Rotary Club and is a Paul Harris Fellow. Mary began her career as a firefighter in 1983 and was one of the first females hired by the department. She held each rank in the organization, including eleven years as Assistant Chief, prior to being selected as Fire Chief in November, 2016. Chief Cameli drove from Glendale to Mesa to work for over 30 years. After being promoted to Chief, she and her husband relocated to Mesa seven months ago. She will celebrate her 35th anniversary with the department in July. Mary was originally from Chicago Heights, Illinois. She was one of twelve children, and grew up in a three bedroom home with one bath. There was a girls' bedroom, a boys' bedroom, and their parents' room. Their living circumstances taught her a great deal about how to get along, make things work, and share. Mary's family had a family-owned Italian grocery store in Chicago Heights. The business is still operated by her family and her mom is still working in the store. All the children learned customer service working in the store. As soon as they were able to count, they learned to cashier - before cash registers computed the change for you. Family members worked in the store without pay. She said they never went on vacation. She does have a memory of one trip to a zoo. Mary attended college in Cedar City, Utah on an athletic scholarship. She planned to teach. She had brothers living in the Phoenix area, and after graduating from college she came to the area, arriving in August, which was too late to be hired as a teacher. Looking into other possibilities, her brothers suggested she look into opportunities opening up for women in a local fire department. She tested for the Mesa Fire Department, scored well, went through the interview process and was hired. Chief Cameli has loved her career. No two days are the same. Former Chief, John Oliver, hired her. He relatively recently shared with her the numerous complaints he fielded after hiring Mary and other women into the department. The complaints were from wives of firemen, general citizens, and others. He knew it was the right thing to do and was glad he stuck to his decision. As she moved through the ranks, Mary realized that if she maintained an attitude of "educate as you go," she would be able to adjust to new responsibilities and help others adjust to a woman handling those responsibilities, since she was the first woman in the department every time. One thing she realized was that even though there were about 500 individuals in the department, each with a unique perspective, they were united by a common mission - "Serve with C.A.R.E," (Compassion, Accountability, Respect and Excellence). Managing the fire department budget is challenging. When charged with cutting expenses, she cannot sacrifice response times, and cannot put her crew in unnecessary danger by being understaffed or failing to replace equipment as necessary. She has had to think outside the box to find ways to save that do not put anyone in harms way, but can actually improve situations. One such change was sending out crews of two rather than a full team of EMT's for certain situations that need immediate attention but not emergency transport. One such team is a nurse practitioner teamed with an EMT, when meds are needed. This eliminates trips to the emergency room for the patient. Another such team is a behavior specialist teamed with an EMT to respond to situations that are emotionally charged, but not medical emergencies, again eliminating the expense of emergency room visits and ambulance transport. Mary also talked about the Aspire Academy. Mesa has teamed with Girl Scouts to provide an academy where girls, aged 13-18, spend one day learning about police work and another learning about fire and medical department work. The third day, they have drills for both types of work. Whether the girls decide to set their career goals based on their experience or not, they go away with a deeper appreciation of both career fields, and realize that traditional career stereotypes are no longer limiting. Mary believes it is important to give kids a mission early on. She believes in mentoring for future growth. For those wishing to get hired by the department as an EMT - Must pass CPAT - Certified Physical Abilities Test
- Must have high school diploma or G.E.D.
- Must take written exam
- Those with top 300 scores
- Oral Interview - some eliminated
- 2nd Interview - some additional eliminations
- Top 60 invited to participate in Intern Orientation - some eliminate themselves at this point
- Top remaining candidates go to academy
New hires surviving all this start out at about $40,000 with step increases. Paramedics make more. Those who are certified to handle hazardous materials also make more. Shifts are three sets of 24 hours on/24 hours off followed by four days off in succession. Most promotional increases are 10%. There were several Rotarians with questions for Chief Cameli and she graciously agreed to stay after the meeting to answer additional questions. Before adjourning the meeting, President Allen invited Renaldo Yuzo Ogasawara, a Rotarian visitor from Club de Sao Paulo, Brazil to the podium to exchange banners. Renaldo presented Allan with both club and district banners.
|
.JPG)
President Allan Cady opened the meeting by asking Ray Smith to lead those present in singing God Bless America. Darl Andersen offered the invocation and Dick Myren led the Pledge of Allegiance.
John Pennypacker contributed $20 to the Mesa West Rotary Foundation celebrating that his niece, Carolyn Lampl had another successful day Tuesday, May 22 contributing to Stanford's win of the 2018 NCAA Women's Tennis National Championship.
So far today God, I have done alright:
.png)
.jpg)
Rotary helps develop future leaders through several activities Mesa West is actively involved with: Interact, Rotaract, RYLA, and Youth Exchange
Business networking is something President Allan Cady is passionate about. He has asked Jeanie Morgan to work on putting together a business directory of our members. We will be able to have the directory available as a download on our website, but since we will be adding new members regularly, it will be maintained electronically so it will be current at all times. The photo shown is a reduced size sample of what each person's listing might look like. To do this so it is a quality product, Jeanie will need digital images of your business card as well as a close-up, current photo. 
Many members have commented on how much they have enjoyed this series. We have now finished publishing profiles of all the leadership team. It is time to move on to the general membership. To keep the profiles somewhat consistent, we have had everyone respond to the same questions. If you would be willing to let your fellow members know a little more about you, please 
