Becoming a firefighter would have been a natural choice for Mike Collins, whose father and grandfather were Chicago firefighters.
But Collins, 44, now a captain and 19-year veteran of the Elmwood Park Fire Department, took a circuitous route to that career. The second of four brothers, he took a different path after graduating in 1970 from Holy Cross High School in River Grove.
“I admired what my dad did, and it seemed exciting, but I never set out in that direction,” Collins says. “I thought it would be a great profession, but it was nothing I actively pursued.”
Instead, Collins went to Western Illinois University in Macomb, bent on becoming a teacher. Near the end of his senior year, however, he began to feel an itch to follow in the family footsteps. But by then, he thought it was too late to change.
“I thought, I (have) spent four years in college and the least I could do is give (teaching) a try,” Collins says.
After graduating in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in health education, Collins took a job teaching physical education at a high school in Burlington, Iowa. He discovered he didn’t enjoy the regimentation.
He resigned after a year and was hired at a home for juvenile offenders in York, Neb. The 16- and 17-year-old residents, who had either committed crimes or couldn’t be managed at home or school, were wards of the state.
Although he was supposed to be teaching in addition to serving as a house parent, Collins says he acted more like a police officer or a bouncer–“someone who pretty much enforced rules.”
That didn’t appeal to him either, so after his yearlong contract expired, he returned in 1977 to Elmwood Park, where his family had moved nine years earlier from Chicago’s West Side.
During the first six months, Collins sold real estate–or “pretended to sell real estate,” he jokes.
He also took the test to join the Elmwood Park Fire Department and finished at the top of the eligibility list. It usually takes months or longer for a vacancy to occur, but that September–a month after his score was posted–an injured firefighter took a disability retirement and Collins was hired.
Collins underwent an eight-week, in-house training program, then was put on the front line. He thought he would be well prepared for the job because of all the discussions with his father, Richard, and his late grandfather, John, about the physical and mental demands. Collins quickly learned while fighting his first fire in a basement that some things must be experienced firsthand.
“I was surprised how hard it was to see,” Collins says. “I never knew that from my dad or grandfather. I always thought you could see what you were doing when you went in.”
Collins found he had a natural affinity for the profession and quickly rose in the ranks. In 1981, he was promoted to engineer, who drives the truck used to pump water.
Three years later, he made lieutenant. That position required him to lead a company of men inside a burning building to attack the fire.
In 1988, he was promoted to his current rank of captain. His role is more supervisory, he says. At a fire, he directs the activities of several four-man companies to extinguish the blaze.
Also in 1988, he earned a bachelor’s degree in fire administration through an extension course at the Chicago Fire Academy from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. In May, he received his master’s degree in public administration from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb.
It has turned out that the teaching skills Collins acquired in college didn’t go to waste: He has been able to integrate his education degrees into his work with the department.
He had been hired for about a year when he was asked by the chief to teach CPR and fire safety.
Six times a year, Collins teaches classes that are free to the public. The four-hour sessions, which are held at Fire Station 1, 7 Conti Pkwy., cover CPR and other safety tips for the office, business and home.
His students have included employees of the Illinois Department of Public Health, and doctors, dentists and their staffs.
Many in medical professions take the classes for a refresher, he says. “We’ve had guys who’ve been doctors for 20 years and never done (CPR).”
Dr. James Izzo, a dentist in Elmwood Park, says he and his staff members have attended Collins’ program for at least five years. Izzo says state law requires dental hygienists to know how to perform the CPR procedure.
Each year in mid-May, Izzo and up to 10 people from his office learn CPR and other emergency techniques, such as using an emergency oxygen cart. So far, none of his patients have required CPR, but they once had to provide oxygen for a patient with breathing problems, Izzo says.
“I admire (Collins) as a captain, as a fireman and as a teacher,” Izzo says. “I think he’s a substantial aid to the community and to our office. He’s been a great help in making the program fit our schedule.”
Restaurant owners also send their serving staff and other workers to learn CPR, Collins says. “I think it makes them feel better knowing that if someone chokes, someone on their staff can cover.”
Collins spends much of his time presenting educational programs to one parochial and three public elementary schools in Elmwood Park. The main thrust is in the fall to coincide with fire-prevention week in October, he says.
During the year, Collins and his assistants will talk to every pupil in kindergarten through 6th grade. The lessons are basic, such as the importance of smoke detectors; knowing fire escapes in the home; and the stop, drop and roll technique when clothing is on fire.
Collins tries to make each year’s presentations innovative so they will be interesting for the pupils. Last year, his team made up a type of Jeopardy game, with different categories of questions about fire safety that the pupils tried to answer.
Another time, they built large props made to look like rooms in a typical home and had the children attempt to find the fire hazards, Collins says.
The department also uses a fire-safety trailer, which is shaped inside like a little house containing a kitchen, sitting area and bedroom. Pupils enter the trailer four or five at a time and are instructed to look for potential problems such as a cookie jar sitting on a stove or an overloaded outlet.
The pupils also are drilled on how to escape from a fire. The trailer is filled with non-toxic smoke and the children are taught to stay low to the floor and look for a way to exit either through a door or window, he says.
The school programs have been very successful, Collins says. “It’s amazing what they have picked up in three or four years. They can recite word for word what you told them.”
Fire Chief Kerry Gjellum says Collins’ enthusiasm is what makes the program work.
“He’s just got a way with getting the point across, especially working with kids,” Gjellum says.
Collins, who lives in Elmwood Park with his wife, Mary Ellen, and their four children, ages 9 to 15, says he “couldn’t be happier” that he became a firefighter–and that he still can keep his hand in teaching.
“It was kind of like destiny,” he says. “It worked out real well.”
