![\"Aaron](\"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/files\/2019\/04\/Aaron-Markham.jpg\" "\\"Aaron")
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A bachelor\u2019s degree from À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ unlocked upward mobility for alumnus Aaron Markham\u2019s already successful career.
\nIn 2006 the Sunnyside, Wash., fire chief and 15-year department veteran started online courses with EOU.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was looking at professional development,\u201d Markham said. \u201cTo be a chief in a larger department the minimum education requirement listed on job announcements was a bachelor\u2019s degree.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the help of his EOU advisor, Markham combined credits from Yakima Valley Community College, Columbia Basin College and Portland Community College to enter the university as a junior.
\nWhile working full-time Markham finished his course work in five years, graduating magna cum laude with a BS in Fire Services Administration in 2011. <\/p>\n
Not only were other higher level positions in fire service open to him upon completion of his bachelor\u2019s degree, so was the National Fire Academy\u2019s Executive Fire Officer Program in Emmitsburg, Maryland. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey had changed the requirements from needing an associate\u2019s degree to a bachelor\u2019s and I had received my degree right before I applied,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The four-year program entailed two weeks a year onsite in Maryland followed by six months of research on a topic relevant to his department. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter all is said and done, part of the paper has to either have a policy you drafted or created for your department or other department-related research,\u201d Markham said.<\/p>\n
The research culminated in 60-page papers covering all aspects of the topic in great detail. One of his first papers discussed the impacts of budget constraints that led to eliminating positions in the fire service. Another developed a policy around active shooter incidents.<\/p>\n
He received his certificate in 2017, and this year he attained that coveted next rung in the fire ladder. <\/p>\n
In March Markham became the deputy chief of the Yakima Fire Department\u2019s logistics and support services, and on June 1 he was selected to serve as chief. His new positions includes oversight of 103 firefighters at six stations, as well as a large 9-1-1 center and administrative staff.<\/p>\n
Markham said for now his continuing education is on-the-job.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the most part I\u2019m focused on learning the functions of a larger fire department and maintaining good communications among all shifts,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m getting an opportunity to meet everybody and put faces to names.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bachelor\u2019s degree from À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ unlocked upward mobility for alumnus Aaron Markham\u2019s already successful career. In 2006 the Sunnyside, Wash., fire chief and 15-year department veteran started online courses with EOU. \u201cI was looking at professional development,\u201d Markham said. \u201cTo be a chief in a larger department the minimum education requirement listed on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":448,"featured_media":136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,22],"tags":[23,24],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-stories","category-fall-2018","tag-alumni","tag-fire"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/448"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}