“I’ve always wanted to volunteer, make a meaningful contribution and just help out when a fire breaks out,” said Jessica Schmid, Talent Acquisition Expert at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies’ Weinheim site. When she talks about fires, she’s not just speaking figuratively. The petite, young woman is a volunteer firefighter. She rolls into action with her comrades whenever duty calls, running into danger when others are running away from it.
She got involved because of her brother. He took her along one day to get a feel for the work, and she signed up the same evening. She was inspired by the sense of community. She was also excited to make her way in what many still perceive as a male-dominated field. Since Schmid had never been one for half measures, she not only climbed aboard the fire engine– she became the deputy chair of the firefighters’ support association.
The town has a population of about 10,000 people, and the volunteer fire department goes on about 130 to 150 calls per years. Her special highlight this year: a training weekend during which she sat in a fire container with other firefighters, exposed to the heat of a real fire, had to locate and extinguish a fire in a pitch-dark container modeled on an apartment, and witnessed a flue gas ignition. “That was really cool,” she said beaming. And it was clear that Jessica had found her passion.
