Academy grads increase diversity, welcomed by chief
By Daniel J. Chacon
Rocky Mountain News
Copyright 2007 Denver Publishing Company
DENVER — A nearly seven-year streak of no blacks being hired at the Denver Fire Department is about to end.
Kendry Jackson and LaDon Williams, friends from high school who are both black, are among the 22 recruits graduating from the firefighter academy today.
“I hope this is just a small portion of what’s to come,” Chief Larry Trujillo said Thursday.
“I see (the department) becoming more and more diverse as people see that their peers and role models are in these positions within the fire service,” he said.
“It can do nothing but help build this department to reflect its community one day.”
The last time Denver hired a black firefighter was Sept. 1, 2000. Since then, Trujillo and others have been advocating for changes in the city’s hiring process to diversify the ranks.
Among the measures the city has implemented so far:
* Removed prior disqualifiers, such as certain juvenile transgressions.
* Created oral boards of fire department personnel to interview aspiring firefighters and make recommendations to Trujillo and Safety Manager Al LaCabe.
* Allowed Trujillo and LaCabe to review a larger pool of candidates.
In addition, black firefighters and groups such as Firefighters Incorporated for Racial Equality beefed up their recruiting efforts and then tutored the recruits.
Earl Peterson, executive director of the city’s Civil Service Commission, said the changes have been a “tough process” but that diversity is “something that we’ve all strived to achieve.”
Peterson said the recruitment effort was especially helpful.
“It always goes back to who you get through the front door,” he said.
Blacks used to make up about 4 percent of applicants. Now they represent 12 percent, he said.
“A lot of these careers are very generational; they’re very institutionalized,” he said.
“You can see that across the board, whether it’s police or fire. The education, the indoctrination, the reaching out to people of color that would not normally consider this as a career path is critical for this to be successful.”
Jackson, 31, and Williams, 30, who played football together at George Washington High School, said they had a wide net of support, from Trujillo to Capt. Kevin Duncan and Assistant Chief Robert Davis, who are both black.
Williams used to be a manager for United Airlines.
Jackson was an electrician before signing up to be a firefighter.
Both men are married, and each has two young children.
All of the department’s new hires will serve a nine-month probationary period.
Jackson said he’s always wanted to be a firefighter.
That wasn’t the case for Williams, who said Colyn Harmon, the team quarterback and now a Denver firefighter, convinced him to consider the profession.
Williams said it’s a career that people respect.
He experienced it when he went to his son’s school with his firefighter uniform on.
“People look at you differently,” he said. “People look up to firefighters.”
How fire department shapes up:
The current ethnic and racial makeup of the 904-person Denver Fire Department
DENVER FIREFIGHTERS
White: 70 percent
Hispanic: 21 percent
Black: 6 percent
American Indian/ Alaska native: 1 percent
Asian: 1 percent
Undetermined: 1 percent
DENVER POPULATION
White: 71.9 percent
Hispanic:*Hispanic35.1 percent*
Black:10 percent
American Indian/Alaska native 1.2 percent
Asian:2.9 percent
Undetermined: 13.9 percent
*Denver Population Numbers Add To More Than 100 Percent Because The Census Bureau Includes Hispanics In Multiple Racial Categories. Source: U.S. Census