At 33 years old, Mahlon Mitchell is the new president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin. As of Jan. 12, he will take over the official duties and by doing so he will become the first-ever African American president for the state of Wisconsin
“My biggest goal is to make sure that the organization is in line with its mission and that is to make sure that career firefighters are protected,” Mitchell tells The Madison Times in an interview at his home in Fitchburg. “With the budget crisis, budget cuts, and layoffs, there's going to be a lot of anti-union legislation that is supposedly going to be coming down that will be passed. So our job is to make sure that we protect what we currently have and not lose too much that we fought for all of these years.”
The Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin (PFFW) is part of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF).
“We basically are down with the task of lobbying for the career firefighters of the state,” Mitchell says. “We have almost 2,800 members. Our biggest job is to make sure that state firefighters have a voice on Capitol Hill. We make sure that we maintain and enhance the collective bargaining laws as well as the pension laws.”
During this past legislative session PFFW saw two significant victories concerning pieces of legislation that affect professional firefighters. The first was the Infectious Disease Presumption, where, for the first time in Wisconsin history, if a fire fighter dies or is disabled as a result of certain infectious diseases, there will be a presumption that the disease was caused by the person’s employment as a fire fighter. This now shifts the burden of proof from the employee to the employer, who must now prove the disease was caused by some other source.
They also passed the Line-of-Duty Death (LODD) Health Care Premium benefit that would require municipalities to pay health insurance premiums for survivors of a fire fighter who dies, or has died, in the line of duty. This benefit would be paid to a surviving spouse until they remarry or reach age 65, and to a dependent child who is a student until age of 27.
These will be the types of things Mitchell will be fighting for in 2011 as PFFW’s new president. He says that while he’s always enjoyed the union side of things as a frie fighter, it wasn’t always his aspiration to be president of a state organization. But two years ago he was approached by the past president to be on the state executive board. After serving on the board, the opportunity for president came up and Mitchell jumped at the chance.
“Our state right now is divided and there are a lot of internal politics going on right now,” Mitchell says. “I want to make sure we get back to doing the business of the union and get back to handling our objectives — our number-one objective being to promote fellowship and friendship among firefighters throughout the state. We need to get back to that.”
One way that PFFW did that this year was by hosting the first Statewide Fire Ops 101 Program event May 12 at the Madison Area Technical College. More than 60 elected officials and members of the media from throughout the state participated in the event. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle kicked off the event, signing two pieces of legislation important to the fire fighters — Infectious Disease Presumption and a Line-of-Duty Death (LODD) Health Care Premium benefit.
“That fire ops program is a great event that we do,” Mitchell says. “It was the first time that we organized a Fire Ops event of this size and we were extremely pleased with how well it was received. We brought in legislators, mayors, alderpersons, and more to come in and do our jobs for a day. We go through six or seven firefighting scenarios. We got quite a bit of great praise from that event and it's something that we will try to do every three or four years.”
Mitchell was an official co-organizer of that event which had over 55 participants from all over the state and fire fighters from Merrill, Beloit, Sturgeon Bay, Kenosha, Sheboygan, Appleton, Madison, Brookfield, Janesville, Wauwatosa, and more.
Another big event that PFFW has coming up is their annual convention where they do most of the business of the union.
“This year it's actually in Madison,” Mitchell says. “It hasn't been held here since 2000. It's going to be June 12-14. This will be big.”
While Mitchell is already busy getting acclimated to his new position, he still has a host of other commitments including being the president of the Sable Flames, the African American firefighters of the City of Madison Fire Department.
“I had to step down from being the Burn Camp Director from the state and had to cut back on some of the duties with the local union because of the time constraints from the new job,” Mitchell says. “But I'm still organizing the Sable Flames annual party.”
The Sable Flames will hold their 20th annual "Second Alarm Scholarship Benefit" next month at the Edgewater Hotel. It's one of the great social activities in Madison featuring drinks, dancing, door prizes, hor d'oeuvres, and music At the event, the Sables present two of the scholarships they have developed to help individuals fulfill their educational dreams and goals. The Jones-Robinson Scholarship has been awarded to minority persons who are from single-family households or are living in low-income neighborhoods. The Arthur Dinkins III/MATC Fire Education Scholarship has been developed to financially assist persons who would like to take classes at MATC to enter the firefighting or emergency medical technician fields.
“This is our 20th year for having the Scholarship Fundraiser,” Mitchell says. “We're going strong. We've got about 35 Sables now.”
“It's a great chance to come together for a very good cause and to have a ton of fun,” he adds. “One hundred percent of our proceeds go towards the Scholarship Funds... we give out 4-5 scholarships a year for $500 a piece.”
Mitchell has been a firefighters for more than 13 years in Madison and has just recently been promoted to lieutenant. He'll be in charge of the Station 7 on McKenna Blvd. on Madison's West Side. Mitchell was able to start his fire fighting career when he was very young, and he wants everybody to know about the path he took and hopefully have the same opportunities he had.
“There are many great things about being a firefighter,” Mitchell says. “There is great opportunity for advancement. You have a career that you really love. If you ever talk to a firefighter, 99 percent of them love going to work. I'm 13 years in and I enjoy it now as much as I did the first day.
“It's a job you can actually make a difference in people's lives,” he continues. “The camaraderie that you have with other firefighters is awesome, too. You always hear us call each other brothers and sisters and that's because we're truly a family.”
Historically absent from the profession of fire fighting, Mitchell would love to see more minorities get involved.
“I think the biggest thing — especially for getting more African Americans involved — is getting the word out. I know in our community they don't look at it as a job that is for us. They don't grow up thinking, ‘I can be a firefighter or I'm gonna be a firefighter,’” Mitchell says. “We need to change that. That's why it's so important for a fire department to reflect the community so when you see a fire truck pull up and you see an African American male or female that makes you think, even at a very young age, that 'Hey, I can do that!'”
The impression on young people that he makes as a firefighter —and not the president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin — is not lost on Mitchell.
“We go into schools.... I know MATC has the minority workshop that they do every year for high school kids.... we go to different career fairs where we talk about the job. We do a lot of different things,” Mitchell says. “The biggest thing is having someone that's on the job tell other people about the job — people they think who would be a good fit for the job. Not everybody is cut out to be a firefighter, but there are a lot of people out there who are that we're not getting their attention.”
