This Q&A is part of a series highlighting RAN fire protection professionals who bring fire service experience into their work.
Patrick Ethier is a fire protection designer at RAN Fire Protection Engineering and is currently an active firefighter with Niskayuna Fire District 2.
Through his early experience in the fire service, Patrick developed an interest in fire protection that shaped his career direction. By his senior year of high school, he knew he wanted to pursue it professionally and originally planned to become a career firefighter. A Captain at Shaker Road Loudonville Fire Department encouraged him to look into the fire protection engineering program at the University of New Haven, where he went on to earn his bachelor’s degree.
Patrick’s path in the fire service began early:
I first got my feet wet in the fire service when I was 14 years old and I joined Shaker Road Loudonville Explorer Post 475. As a division of the Boy Scouts, the Explorer Post allowed me to participate in real firefighter training and fostered my passion for the fire service.
I rose the ranks of the Explorer Post and held the position of Chief of the Post. At 16, I completed the NYS Firefighter 1 curriculum which allowed me to become a Interior Firefighter upon turning 18. On my 18th birthday, I was sworn in as an Interior Firefighter at Shaker Road Loudonville Fire Department (SRLFD). During my tenure at SRLFD, I held the position of Lieutenant at the fire department and also received my NYS EMT Certification. Today, I’m still an active firefighter with Niskayuna Fire District 2.
We asked Patrick about his path into the fire service and how that experience influences his work today:
What originally drew you to the fire service?
A high school friend of mine asked me if I was interested to join the Explorer Post. From the day I joined the Explorer Post I found a passion for firefighting and serving my community. Growing up, my parents instilled in me to be the helping hand when I can and put others before me. The fire service was an outlet that allowed the opportunity to do just that and also have a little fun experiencing the sense of family that comes with the fire department.
What do you find most rewarding about bringing your fire service experience into engineering?
I enjoy being able to see designs from both an engineering and a firefighting perspective. There’s more to engineering than just following the basic “code cookbook.” We need to be able to provide the best design for the safety of occupants and give firefighters the tools to respond to incidents in a more efficient manner. To an engineer it may make perfect sense on paper, but we need designs that are usable by firefighters and make sense at 3:00 in the morning when seconds count.
In your opinion, how can fire protection engineers positively impact firefighters during an incident?
Being able to understand fire department operations and how firefighters respond to fire incidents allows fire protection engineers to greatly impact the fire department’s response to an incident. When designing fire protection systems and making decisions on where to place equipment, it is important to put yourself in firefighters’ boots for a second.
What’s a small design detail that can make a big difference during an emergency?
Clear and precise signage makes a big difference when the seconds matter the most. During a fire incident, firefighters don’t have the time to figure out what an engineer was thinking during the design. Simple, clear, and precise signage makes all the difference.
What’s a valuable lesson you’ve learned from the fire service that you apply in your engineering work?
Teamwork. Firefighters need to work together as a team to extinguish a fire or tackle any type of emergency that they face. I also apply this to my engineering work every day. Working together as a team with all of the other trades helps ensure that details are not missed and we have the best working product to present to the client.