By Nolan Wironen | The Broadside (Contact: [email protected])

Central Oregon Community College has a lot of opportunities for students and staff to get involved. For those involved in seeking a profession in Emergency Services, the Joint Recruitment Program is a chance to jump-start a potential career in the field.

This program has been put together and run by local fire departments in the immediate area of Bend. Black Butte Ranch and Lapine rural fire protection district, Crook County, Crooked River Ranch, Jefferson County, Redmond, Sisters, Sunriver and Bend’s local fire department have collaborated for the past few years to create positions for students to get early exposure in their career path.

COCC has been helping to make the program easily accessible to students by holding the paperwork for record and acting as a bridge between the scholarship opportunities within the program as a non-biased partner, but the college does not have any influence in the testing. The testing process to get into the program is a non-college test held by representatives of each participating fire department. The first step for the testing would be to get all the formal paperwork filled out and to submit it to the college coordinator, Paula Simone, who can be found in the Ponderosa building on the COCC campus. After the paperwork is done, all that’s left is the testing, which takes place on March 31 at the Bend fire training grounds. The test includes a small knowledge-based written test and a physical exam that takes place directly after. Passing both tests leads to formal interview with the department’s representatives throughout the next two days, April 1 and April 2.  

If interested, contact Paula Simone at 541-383-7404 or [email protected] for more information, or visit the link for the paperwork and more detail on the program: https://www.cocc.edu/programs/structural-fire/joint_recruitment.aspx ■