As the workforce has changed over the pandemic, there are still open positions that are critical to our everyday lives.

"I grew up in a firehouse. I said, 'I want to be a fireman,' and that never wavered," said Lt. Eric Gancarz, recently promoted within the Fayetteville Fire Department.

"I tend to get bored pretty easily doing the same thing," he said. "You go from an ambulance call with someone having chest pains to a reported house fire, a car accident and back on the ambulance. That's why I said this is kind of the place that I want to be. I liked how truly different it was."

Decades of experience and having been in the fire service since the age of 14, the wisdom and different disciplines keep adding up.

"There's computer training we have to do, there's trainings I have to do; CPR training, HAZMAT training, rescue training, fire training. We cover it all, so it's truly different every day," said Gancarz.

A journeyman veteran of the service from volunteer work to different paid tenures along the way, Gancarz knows putting on the gear and being part of any location's "bravest" draws a diverse crowd.

"Everybody has different motivations for being here. Whether they truly want to help their community, some people are adrenaline junkies, some people need a hobby," he noted. "As long as everybody takes the job seriously, does what they're supposed to, get as much training as they can and they have the right attitude, it's the place for them."

Many fire departments across the Empire State and the nation are seeing fleeting volunteerism, but there are plenty of combination houses left standing where you might be able to see if it's right for you and maybe even turn it into a career.

"We do like to hire internally, so if we have volunteers that come in, they do what they're supposed to, they get as much training as they can," Gancarz noted. "Hey, take our civil service, that's when it comes out for the firefighter/EMT position. If they're at the top of the list, there's certainly somebody we're gonna go after. They know how we operate. They know what our policies are, they know what our procedures are. We know them as somebody who you want to hire."

"We see some of the worst in people, we see the best in people but you gotta be able to vent. You've got to have people around you that know what you're feeling," he said. "And it's nice to have that, like I said, true brotherhood, where they're gonna be there to help you."

The lieutenant is well aware of the cliche, but says it takes a very special kind of person to make a career as a first responder.

“It’s not for everybody but it's a rewarding feeling. It's going to be around the table everybody that understands what we do and has seen what we see," he said.