A few months ago, Steph Bouillion-Mayer was featured in a television news segment celebrating her achievement of being the first woman in Texas to earn the Urban Search and Rescue – Rescue Specialist certificate. The glowing piece noted that she was only the third woman in the world to achieve that certification, and almost all of the soundbites from the firefighters standing around her were focused on her accomplishment.
Bouillion-Mayer, a Collin College Emergency Medical Services (EMS) adjunct faculty member and 10-year veteran of the fire service, did her duty in front of the camera, but the interview did not sit right with her. The firefighters standing with her – Anthony DiMarco, J. Grant, and Wesley Holland – all earned the same certification, but so much of the attention was going to her because she is a woman.
“It’s kind of a mixed feeling,” Bouillion-Mayer said. “I don’t want to be singled out because I didn’t do anything different from all my buddies who went to class with me. But at the same time, I don’t want to completely hold back because if some girl out there wants to do it, I want them to know, ‘I’ve done it. You can do it. No big deal.'”
No Big Deal
The US&R Rescue Specialist certificate is considered one of the highest levels of training in structural collapse rescue operations. Certified rescue workers are trained in rope rescue, swift water rescue, trench rescue, confined space rescue, hazardous materials mitigation, structural collapse, and more. Bouillion-Mayer said she’s spent about eight weeks over the past two years traveling to Texas A&M, working toward the certification with her fellow firefighters.
“It is almost like a degree,” Bouillion-Mayer said. “You take all of these different certifications to get the Rescue Specialist.”
Although she initially set her sights on earning the certification early in her career, she said she really began to focus on it once she joined the Plano Fire Department about five years ago.
“It wasn’t until I came to Plano that I had the support and backing to do all the classes,” she said.
Bouillion-Mayer’s fellow firefighters point to her work ethic and willingness to get involved as one of the driving forces behind her achievement.
“Her desire is to be knowledgeable in all of our specialties,” Capt. Eric Burks said. “She doesn’t ever want to be the weak link.”
Burks runs Plano Fire Station 4, a special operations station for Plano Fire Department, responding to emergency calls outside of regular EMS activities.
“She’s not just one to sit back and let other people do the work,” Burks said. “If our ambulance guys are busy or they haven’t had a meal, she will ask if she can jump on the ambulance for them. Her work ethic is unmatched.”
That work ethic also shows up in training, according to Lt. Troy Berry, who directs special operations training under Burks. Berry said that no matter what kind of training the firefighters are working on, Bouillion-Mayer is one of the first to volunteer, even in tricky scenarios where rescue workers are expected to fail the first time.
“She’s not afraid to fail,” Berry said. “We learn from our failures, and that just speaks to her desire to learn, that she is willing to jump up there first. She’s got a great attitude.”
Problem-solver
Bouillion-Mayer said she enjoys working as a firefighter/paramedic because every day is a little different. You never know what you are going to get.
“My job takes me all over the city and puts me in all kinds of different environments,” Bouillion-Mayer said. “It’s fun. It’s a puzzle. You have to work out what is happening with vital signs and tests. You have to do an investigation on what the patient is telling you and not telling you.
“You have to problem-solve and use your brain.”
As an instructor with Collin College’s EMS program since 2017, she said she enjoys imparting that excitement to students.
“I love teaching,” she said. “I always have.”
Bouillion-Mayer worked as a lifeguard and taught lifeguarding and swim lessons as a teen. After graduating with a biology degree from The University of Texas at Dallas, she taught biology and physics in Plano ISD. Feeling restless in the classroom, she returned to her life-saving roots and enrolled in Collin’s paramedic program in 2012 and graduated from the Collin College Fire Academy in 2014.
According to Tim Mock, director of the Emergency Medical Services program at Collin, her experience as a paramedic since that time and her efforts at continuous improvement are invaluable in reaching students.
“Stephanie teaches from experience as well as from the heart,” Mock said. “Due to her vast array of EMS prehospital experience, she brings a genuine perspective that she relates to the students in her lessons and labs.”
Her drive to better herself is something she likes to impart to students. Bouillion-Mayer said she encourages students to pursue every training opportunity they are interested in.
“I tell all my students to train, train, train,” she said. “Go to every class you can. Learn everything you can. It can only make you better.”
She said she enjoys teaching at the college level because students are motivated in a way that high school students taking core courses are not. They have a goal in sight and are ready to achieve it.
Low Frequency, High Risk
Bouillion-Mayer has a goal of her own. She wants to be a member of Texas Task Force 2, a roster of rescue workers from fire departments around the state who respond to major disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, flash floods, and structural collapses – incidents that do not happen often but which require specialized training to respond. When describing them, Berry used the phrase “low frequency, high risk.”
Members of the task force are trained to locate, access, medically stabilize, and extricate survivors from damaged structures. Depending on the emergency, task force members have to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice and be willing to boat through flooded streets, medically treat victims or injured fellow responders, recover trapped individuals, shore up buildings in case of a structural collapse, or anything else the disaster response calls for.
If selected, she will join eight other Plano firefighters who are members of Texas’ two task forces.
“She has the training,” Berry said. “She has the right attitude. She has the willingness. They’d be crazy not to pick her.”
Bouillion-Mayer applied over the summer and is waiting for the next step in the selection process. Until then, she just wants to be part of the team at Station 4, responding to the emergency needs of local residents and training for any situation that might arise, and not be singled out because she is a woman.
“I am just a firefighter. I am just a part of the crew,” she said. “I just show up and do the same things that everyone does at work.
“I just have a little smaller bunker gear.”