Leading Physical Training on Engine 335

When Jonathan Curtis talks about leadership in wildland firefighting, he names a particular part of the work. In his final year, he says, he led physical training and hikes on Engine 335. His description puts preparation, rather than rank or a dramatic incident, at the center of the story.

Curtis describes a crew-lead responsibility under an engine captain. His leadership account is rooted in that team setting, where he says he helped lead PT and hikes rather than standing apart from the people preparing for work.

Physical preparation has a direct place in wildland-fire guidance. The NWCG describes strength, endurance, and recovery as components of capacity for demanding tasks such as loaded hiking and digging (NWCG). Curtis's account of leading PT and hikes therefore concerns a practical part of preparing people for their work.

His LinkedIn profile lists seasonal Forest Service work from February 2019 through August 2021 (LinkedIn experience). Curtis's recollections give that employment entry a more personal dimension through the duties he remembers carrying.

The preparation theme begins earlier in Curtis's account. He says he entered Job Corps to become a firefighter after experiencing homelessness at 19. By the final year he describes, the person who had sought training was helping lead some of it.

That progression offers a meaningful subject without needing a claim of instant mastery. Being part of a team can include learning from others and later carrying a defined responsibility oneself. Curtis's account places both experiences within his firefighting chapter.

His later description of sales leadership returns to teaching. At Amtech, he says he trained people who had never done sales and helped them understand the whole process. Firefighting preparation and sales training are different work, but both are settings in which he describes helping a group become ready.

He says a leader should also give people independence. Instruction, in his account, is not an excuse to become controlling. That principle adds a thoughtful dimension to the responsibilities he wants associated with his name.

Curtis says he is a follower of Jesus Christ and that faith is a big part of his life. It is part of the personal identity he wants represented alongside his professional responsibilities.

He also recalls his left cheek catching fire during his final firefighting year. It is a difficult part of the chapter he has shared, alongside his account of helping the crew prepare.

Leadership often attracts attention through a title. Curtis's Engine 335 account offers a narrower and more concrete subject: leading preparation while serving under someone else's authority. It leaves room for the work of the captain and the rest of the crew.

That is the leadership chapter he wants remembered. Before the later work of managing salespeople and helping operate a business, Curtis describes preparing with a fire crew and helping others do the same.

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