Alongside the stairwell close to the foyer of the Santa Clara County Fireplace division headquarters in Los Gatos, a row of pictures line the wall of the previous chiefs spanning again 75 years.
All of them are males.
On April 19, Suwanna Kerdkaew broke that all-male streak when she grew to become the primary feminine, Asian-American and LGBT fireplace chief to steer the county division and its over 200 firefighters.
Kerdkaew’s ascent to the position comes at a attempting time for the hearth division because it offers with pandemic-related staffing shortages and prepares for the momentous problem of battling the area’s wildfires which have left California skies chock stuffed with smoke in recent times.
Kerdkaew additionally enters into the position as fireplace departments across the Bay Space are being scrutinized for his or her lack of feminine firefighters. A December 2020 Santa Clara County civil grand jury report blamed the absence of ladies inside the ranks on the county and three different fireplace departments within the county on poor recruiting methods, gender bias and an absence of inclusivity.
In an interview throughout her second day as chief, Kerdkaew mentioned that whereas the county fireplace division has made progress in some areas, there’s room to enhance. And she or he’s decided to push the recruitment of ladies even additional.
At the moment, ladies make up 6 p.c of the county firefighting power of 211. The quantity is barely greater than the nationwide common of 4 p.c, in accordance with the Nationwide Fireplace Safety Affiliation.
“It’s a harmful job,” Kerdkaew admitted. “However I do need to push on the market the flexibility for girls to know that, in case you are bodily and that’s what you want — the physicality of the job — you could be profitable and really rise to the ranks on this profession.”
Born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1967, Kerdkaew and her mom have been dropped at Riverside County by her step-father, a Vietnam Conflict veteran. In highschool, she ran monitor and performed a variety of “sand lot” softball. However she was by no means a part of any organized sports activities since her household didn’t have some huge cash, she mentioned.
From the beginning, she was a trailblazer. She grew to become the primary in her household to graduate faculty, incomes a bachelor’s diploma in biology from San Jose State College in 1997. Throughout faculty, Kerdkaew labored at a UPS heart in San Francisco loading packages from trailers onto railcars. She was one among two ladies working amongst 70 males on the worksite, her first expertise in a male-dominated work surroundings.
Whereas in faculty, Kerdkaew mentioned she briefly thought of turning into a firefighter, however the lack of ladies discouraged her.
“I hadn’t seen very many ladies, if in any respect,” she mentioned. “I believed, simply keep on this path, get your bio diploma, after which go from there. As a result of when you don’t see it, you don’t know you could.”
That view would change after Kerdkaew, as a part of her coaching as an emergency response employee on the biotech firm Genentech, acquired a trip together with San Francisco’s fireplace division.
“(I) acquired hooked,” mentioned Kerdkaew.
The fireplace chief then obtained her EMT and fireplace science certifications earlier than getting into into and finally graduating from the county fireplace academy class of 2002.
Shay Mountford, a firefighter engineer with the county who was additionally a part of Kerdkaew’s graduating class, mentioned she was grateful when she noticed one other girl inside the academy. The 2 have been additionally the primary brazenly homosexual ladies inside the county fireplace division.
“Being a feminine within the fireplace service could be initially intimidating,” mentioned Mountford. “I used to be relieved to have Suwanna in there. I additionally had somebody who was homosexual who understood our way of life, her struggles, my struggles.”
Denise Gluhan, who additionally graduated with Kerdkaew and Mountford in 2002, echoed related remarks about being a feminine within the job, however mentioned that the surroundings wasn’t all the time the simplest to be in.
“As a lady, you don’t ask for assist to select issues up,” mentioned Gluhan, who retired in 2018. “As a result of then they’ll say, ‘Hey she will’t do the job.’ You’ll push your self. And I’m not going to talk to a few of the feedback that I’ve been aware about, but it surely hasn’t been supportive. (Kerdkaew’s) actually needed to show herself exterior the hearth division. Her abilities, her productiveness is why she is there. Its not a persona contest.”
Kerdkaew has been decided to make a mark on the county fireplace division, previous colleagues mentioned.
Kerdkaew instantly went again for extra education to change into a paramedic. In 2011, she graduated to change into a captain — a profession spotlight, she mentioned.
It was additionally as a captain that Kerdkaew skilled one of the vital intense moments in her profession.
In 2014, Kerdkaew and her crew have been assigned to the Lodge Lightning Complicated fireplace up in Mendocino County. At one level, Kerkaew and her workforce went up on a ridge when issues turned south.
“A spot fireplace beneath us blew up,” she recalled. “And what occurred was full space ignition. Often you may see the hearth coming and you may go, oh, okay, right here it comes. The place with (this) simply all the pieces caught fireplace directly.”
A complete of 9 firefighters needed to be evacuated from the scene that day due to burns to their palms or face, she mentioned. And Kerdkaew puzzled whether or not it might be her final deployment.
“My daughter was seven on the time and truthfully, I didn’t know if we have been going to go house that night time,” she mentioned. “In that instantaneous, I didn’t know what was going to occur.”
After the incident in Mendocino County, Kerdkaew returned to county fireplace division workplace in 2015 because the supervisor of the division’s emergency medical providers program after which finally grew to become a battalion chief.
In 2018, Kerdkaew grew to become deputy chief then appearing assistant chief in 2021.
At the moment, Kerdkaew now heads a fireplace division serving near 1 / 4 of one million residents within the cities of Cupertino, Los Altos, Campbell, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Redwood Estates, in addition to the county’s huge unincorporated areas. She lives along with her accomplice Tina M. Yun and the 2 have a 14-year-old daughter Alex.
As chief, Kerdkaew mentioned she want to handle a few of the suggestions inside the 2020 civil grand jury report. They embrace creating extra female-friendly areas like separate locker rooms — and Kerdkaew urged that a gender impartial possibility might also be mandatory.
Even so, Kerdkaew emphasised that her recruiting objectives are usually not solely female-focused.
“I want to see a time the place, no matter your demographics, whether or not it's intercourse, race, sexual orientation, spiritual affiliation, that your qualifications…that’s all that issues,” she mentioned.