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Happy in a Hot Job

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Michael Cassidy '95 on the job.
Michael Cassidy '95 on the job. Photograph by Butch Adams

Happy in a Hot Job

Ask Harvard graduates what fuels their career ambitions and the responses might include the desire for economic stability, serious responsibility, and/or intellectual stimulation. No surprise, then, that a survey of the class of '95 showed that 64 percent of those polled intended to enter business, academe, or the traditional professions. But for Michael Cassidy '95, vocational aims are fueled by real flames-he is a firefighter in his home town of Holliston, Massachusetts.

The road to the fire station began early. "My grandfather was a volunteer firefighter in Rhode Island," says Cassidy. "I am sure that he influenced me as I was growing up." As a child, Cassidy often listened to radio dispatches with a scanner, overhearing the calls for help that he would eventually answer. By his junior year at Harvard, the government concentrator was working part-time at the Holliston station and commuting the 35 miles to Cambridge.

At the College, Cassidy recalls, he was spared the pressure of following a conventional career path because a degree in government could just as easily lead to the firehouse as to the White House. He thinks his studies helped him develop skills in crisis management that are essential, given the nature of his job. He describes his friends' and family's reactions to his choice of career as "mixed." "It's not the career they would have chosen for me," he says, "but they see how happy I am a year and a half later."

Holliston, a small town of 13,000, hasn't provided much in terms of serious conflagrations. But on July 8, Cassidy got his first taste of major-league firefighting when he helped put out a five-alarm fire in a warehouse. He was also part of the investigation that led to the arrest of three juveniles suspected of setting the blaze. Working with state investigators, he interviewed people seen at the site, followed up leads, and visited schools to match initials found in graffiti left at the scene. The diversity of responsibilities helps keep him engaged; as he says of a typical day, "I might expect to do A, B, and C, but end up doing A, B, and Q."

As an undergraduate, Cassidy recalls, what you did extracurricularly was not as important as the satisfaction you gained: "People were doing what they felt passionate about, whether it was working at a soup kitchen or doing public service through Phillips Brooks House." Having carried that extracurricular passion into his career, he says of his job, "This is a long-term commitment."

~ Fabian Giraldo

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