Julie Anderson with her cake celebrating her award at the Haines Volunteer Fire Department Christmas party.
Haines Volunteer Fire Department Emergency Medical Services (EMS) director Julie Anderson was named this year’s EMS Educator of the Year for the 2021 Governor’s EMS Awards.
The award is given annually by the Governor’s Alaska Council on EMS to an Alaska certified Emergency Trauma Technician or Emergency Medical Technician instructor “who is dedicated to quality instruction and promoting the best in pre-hospital care or has made an outstanding contribution to EMS education.”
Haines EMT Jenn Walsh nominated Anderson. EMS professionals from across the state and country signed letters of support including local volunteers, regional fire chiefs, and leaders and medical directors of Juneau Mountain Rescue, Alaska Fire Service Smokejumpers, Harborview Respiratory Care Department, Wilderness Medical Associates and Capital City Fire Rescue.
Anderson joined the HVFD in 2008 as a volunteer paramedic and has taught EMT courses, wilderness medicine and a variety of other lifesaving skills in Haines, Alaska and internationally.
“Haines is not the only community lucky enough to have Julie as an EMT instructor,” Walsh wrote in her nomination letter. “She teaches EMT courses and refreshers all around Alaska, including fire and EMS departments, search and rescue organizations, United States Coast Guard, Bureau of Land Management Alaska Smokejumpers, and for Airlift Northwest.”
HVFD volunteers celebrated Anderson’s award at their Christmas party Monday night. She was unaware that she had one until HVFD chief Al Giddings presented it to her that night.
“I wiped more than a few tears from my eyes while chief was reading from the letters of recommendation and when he brought me up to present my cake,” Anderson said. “I can’t express how much it meant to me to receive the announcement at home, in front of my Haines VFD family. These people have supported and buoyed me since I joined in 2008, and I truly believe that my success is as mine as it is theirs.”
Giddings read from Anderson’s letters of support including one from David Johnson, medical director of the Wilderness Medical Associates International.
“To succeed as a scholar, one needs an inquisitive mind that can challenge the status quo and be open to new ideas,” Johnson wrote. “As an educator, that person needs to be able to take information and concepts and present them in a variety of ways that can both challenge and enlighten learners with a range of backgrounds…I think Julie possesses all of these qualities and more.”