WESTBROOK – When Rachael Welsh signed up to be a Westbrook firefighter, it didn’t faze her that the department was marred by a sexual harassment lawsuit scandal. Nor did she care that, if hired, she would be the department’s first new full-time female firefighter since the lawsuits. For her, the mindset for joining the team was simple.

“This was the only place I wanted to work,” she said.

Welsh and three other firefighters, which included a former department member who returned to the ranks, were honored in an induction ceremony last Thursday.

Welsh said this week that she worked at the department before, as an intern working toward her paramedic’s license.

“I was able to be on the inside and work with people, and see what it was like inside the fire department,” she said.

Welsh said signing up to work in Westbrook drew more concerns than she felt herself. Many people, she said, gave her worried looks when she told them where she was applying.

“I think they read so much into that, that they forgot the people who work here are great,” she said.

In 2008, two female Westbrook firefighters sued the city alleging a hostile working environment that included sexual harassment. The city punished seven firefighters, and settled the lawsuits outside of court last year.

Thursday’s ceremony marked the end of a grueling training program that all Westbrook firefighters now go through.

Deputy Fire Chief Wayne Jones said the four-week schooling includes 200 hours of training and instruction. Among other requirements, the schooling mandates departmental candidates take a defensive driving course, spend 30 hours driving fire equipment on the streets, and serve for 50 hours as a crew member on a Westbrook ambulance.

The training, Jones said, is a local program, designed to go above and beyond what the state requires for firefighters. For example, one of the firefighters honored last Thursday was Eric Detweiler, 23, who has officially been qualified as a firefighter since December 2010, with a degree in fire science and paramedic medicine from Southern Maine Community College.

He began serving the city as a firefighter in December, but, Jones said, Detweiler still needed to pass the schooling, and joined his other three classmates this summer in the program.

Detweiler, who grew up in Londonderry, N.H., said he went on a ride-along when he was 17 with his Boy Scout leader, who was a firefighter. It was a life-changing experience, he said, that got him hooked.

“It was awesome,” he said. “I realized they would pay me to play with fire engines, lights and sirens.”

Andrew Spruce was already familiar with Westbrook, having worked as a firefighter for the department in 2008 and 2009. He left to take a firefighter position in Washington, D.C., but the Bangor native decided he wanted to come back to Maine.

“It was just something I tried out, (and I) didn’t like it, so I came back,” he said.

Spruce, 24, said he had fond memories of the Westbrook crew, which drew him back to the ranks.

“I had a lot of friends here, and it’s busy,” he said.

Jonathan Keenan, 26, who grew up in Hanover, Mass., applied to Westbrook after studying communications at St. Joseph’s College in Standish, and serving as a call firefighter company volunteer there.

“I always wanted to be in public safety,” he said.

It’s easy to see why. Keenan’s mother is a nurse and his father, Paul Keenan, is chief of police in Quincy, Mass. The new recruit said his mother’s influence might have been what led him to take a more active role in firefighting and medical care.

“Helping people’s in the blood,” he said.

Welsh, 21, originally from Limerick, remembered taking a basic Emergency Medical Technician course at Southern Maine Community College.

“I absolutely fell in love with it,” she said.

Now, with her paramedic’s license, Welsh can serve in any capacity at the fire-rescue department, and that suits her just fine.

“That’s what I like right now, getting to see every side of it,” she said.

Jones said the department needed the new recruits badly. A lack of manpower, coupled with minimum staffing requirements mandated by collective bargaining agreements, has led to a glut of overtime, which drew fire from city councilors earlier this year, and demands that Public Safety Director Michael Pardue do something to keep the costs down.

Jones said the new firefighters will help with that problem, but the department is still looking to fill two open firefighter positions.

Pardue said he hoped Welsh’s hiring represents another step in the department’s efforts to “turn a page” and move on from the harassment scandal.

Now that she’s working there full time, Welsh said people are reacting more normally and not letting the past color their perceptions anymore.

“The word is spreading to people that it’s going well (for me),” she said.

Jonathan Keenan and Rachael Welsh are two of the four new
firefighters on the Westbrook Fire Department. “Helping people’s in
the blood,” said Keenan of his family. (Photo by Rich Obrey)