BAY ST. LOUIS - Pam San Fillippo still recalls the moment when a fire chief posed her an unexpected question: Would she want to join the force as a paid firefighter?
In her early 20s at the time and volunteering only occasionally with the department, San Fillippo relished the thought of fighting fires for a living. But she feared that, in a profession dominated by men, her gender would be perceived as a handicap.
"I worried that if I messed up, it wouldn't be because I had a bad day but would be because I'm a woman," she said.
Nearly 20 years later, San Fillippo's fears have long since subsided. And, as testimony to her perseverance, the 42-year-old began this week with a new job title, assistant chief of operations and training with the Bay St. Louis Fire Department. With the promotion, San Fillippo joins the ranks of a rare breed in Mississippi: those of full-time female fire officers.
"I'm happy that (fire officials) feel like I'm capable to do the job," she said. "If I have a bad day now, people can just say what they want."
Fire and city officials say San Fillippo, who was a shift commander for seven years, was the obvious choice.
"We looked for the right person for the job, and it just so happened she was female," Bay St. Louis Fire Chief Robert Gavagnie said. "She's a firefighter and a very good firefighter."
Although hundreds of women now work as firefighters in the state, only a handful have risen through the ranks and attained an officer's post. Much of that, fire officials say, is attributed to the dangers and physical demands associated with the profession, earning it a reputation as man's work.
"But the women are slowly but surely proving that to be wrong," said Terry Ishee, interim director of the Mississippi Fire Academy.
San Fillippo, fire officials say, is a perfect example. Though juggling part-time jobs with a hospital and ambulance crew during most of her years with the department, she still carved out time, often at her own expense, to receive additional training or to attend seminars.
"The amount of training she has done is unbelievable," Gavagnie said. "And she backs it up with leadership qualities."
For San Fillippo, the firefighter's career, which entails long stretches of boredom punctuated by sudden flurries of nervous energy, is a way of life. Married to a firefighter, San Fillippo says now that she's been taken off the front lines and assigned a desk job, she'll miss the practical jokes and camaraderie that arises from "living a third of her life in a fire station."
"The first thing I have to do is adjust to a 40-hour work week," she said.
