Logan Kleiman ’18 Crawfordsville Fire Department – My time spent with the Crawfordsville Fire Department has been fantastic and I look forward to continuing to work with them. In my time as an intern, for Division Chief Paul Miller, I have been able to better understand direct local departments in our municipality. It has been especially interesting coming from the Mayor’s office, as I have been fortunate enough to understand city government more on a macro level, then transitioning to direct department functions.
This job began to peak my interest as my father’s lifelong best friend was a firefighter in Evansville and the mayor who I worked my first internship for was also a paramedic and fire chief in Crawfordsville. I wanted to really grasp what these men do as public servants who risk their lives to help keep people safe. Chief Miller, Chief Fullwater, and Chief Buscenbark have all exemplified this in how they run this fantastic department. They took me in with open arms and showed me how things were done and I could not be more thankful.
In my time as an intern for Paul I have been able to start planning an EMS State Summit for the entire state of Indiana and various healthcare providers, I have helped coauthor multiple abstracts for various nationwide agencies, and developed a better understanding of how our local departments impact the community. I have seen this come into effect through Crawfordsville’s Community Paramedicine Program, where the fire department works with citizens on a medical level to help monitor them as opposed to it being solely the hospital’s job. This approach is revolutionizing rural healthcare and is the driving communities throughout the country to make similar adjustments to their existing programs.
This internship has allowed me to develop skills in Photoshop, website design, event planning, and marketing to help propel my future career in project management. I now feel more confident in my ability to execute large projects for various agencies to help really impact communities.
I would like to thank the Lilly Endowment for granting me this opportunity. It has really allowed me to see further how government works and has given me better understanding of what exactly various departments do in our community. It has far surpassed my study in political science and I realize now that when I run for public office later in life, how I can manage these kinds of departments to help maximize efficiency. I am incredibly grateful for this experience.
