2024 Graduation at Madison College: Transitioning to Employment
The NextGen Responders Academy is allowing Trenton Tucker to transition from high school to a career as a firefighter
by Jonathan Gramling
While it is growing by leaps and bounds, at its center, Madison remains a college town with three major universities and other higher education vehicles within its borders. And as Madison continues to attract high tech-oriented businesses, there is an unstated — and sometimes stated — expectation that in order to be successful, one has to proceed to higher education once they graduate from high school.
But regardless of academic ability, the collegiate route isn’t for everyone. Take Trenton Tucker, for example. He’s a north sider who attended Gompers Elementary, Blackhawk Middle and will be graduating from East High School. He entered East at the beginning of the pandemic.
“I was a pretty good student in high school,” Tucker said. “I’m about to graduate from high school in June. I went to East all four years of my high school career. At first, we had a lot fights early on in the school coming out of the pandemic. I wasn’t involved personally. That happened all the time. Junior and senior year, all of that calmed down and East got a lot better.”
Even though he was a good student, Tucker had his eye on a firefighting career.
“My mom has a friend who was a firefighter for a while,” Tucker said. “My grandfather wanted to be a firefighter, so I took his word and tried it out. I love helping people and I just think that firefighting is really cool. It’s not like a desk job. You get to use your body a lot. I was a born athlete, so I love using my body. I just felt like it was a good fit for me.”
And opportunity came knocking at East High School.
“There was a career fair at my school and the NextGen people were there and I signed up for it and got into it,” Tucker recalled.
And so, Tucker enrolled into Madison College’s Next Gen Responders Academy.
“It’s firefighter and paramedic training,” Tucker said. “It gives you a huge jump start into the fire program. I could be a firefighter by the time I am 20-years-old. I would go to the academy in the morning and go back to East the second half of the day. They taught us skills about firefighting. Basically, it’s a five-month course that you take. And it’s at the Protective Services Building. They teach you all of these things about fire. At that end of it, you get certified at Hazmat, Fire 1 and Fire 2. We had outside training and in the classroom courses. And the house that you see outside of the building, that’s what we used to train. It was definitely a challenge at the start of the academy. But they really helped us to prepare and as it went on, I fell in love with it.”
The Next Gen Responders Academy is a two year program that bridges from high school to internships and eventually to a profession. Tucker graduated from the first portion in May and will then pick up his studies this fall.
“It’s a two-year program,” Tucker said. “I’ll be taking my EMT in the fall. If I get my EMT certification, I can be on the ambulance. I also hope to get into a fire protection class.”
And by getting his Fire 1, Fire 2 and Hazmat certification, it qualified Tucker for a fire internship.
“I got the opportunity to get an internship at the Maple Bluff Fire Department,” Tucker said. “I got the internship 2-3 weeks ago. I went through the whole interview process with them.”
As an intern, Tucker will be living the life of a firefighter when he’s not attending classes.
“The internship is two years long,” Tucker said. “We do get paid monthly as interns, but it isn’t a crazy amount. I’m not doing it for the money. I’m doing it for the experience. It’s a monthly stipend. And we live at the station part time. I will be at the station off of Sherman Avenue. We clean up the station and make sure that the equipment is up-to-date and working. We do daily maintenance checks. We do a lot of training. And we serve the community, being a selfless person. We do public education, showing kids what firefighting is about. They can can even go to high school to get kids to enroll in the NextGen program.”
Tucker has already found a “family” among the future firefighters.
“I think the NextGen program made me bond with my classmates,” Tucker said. “I didn’t know them at first. The first day of the academy, I didn’t talk with anyone. Compared to the last day, we’re now all family to each other. We crack jokes with each other and we are super close. It definitely created a family. I have life-long connections.”
Becoming a firefighter and EMT is not the end of the line. Tucker has his sights on becoming a chief someday. It will be a natural progression for Trenton Tucker to rise to the top.