GILROY
– She did it because she could.
She wanted to prove herself to others, of course, but mainly,
she did it because she could.
Gilroyan Laurie Goldsmith is the first woman to receive not just
one, but two awards from the South Bay Regional Public Safety
Training Consortium’s Fire Academy.
GILROY – She did it because she could.
She wanted to prove herself to others, of course, but mainly, she did it because she could.
Gilroyan Laurie Goldsmith is the first woman to receive not just one, but two awards from the South Bay Regional Public Safety Training Consortium’s Fire Academy. And, at 44, Goldsmith is the oldest person to graduate from the academy.
After enduring six months of demanding physical and mental training, Goldsmith took home the academy’s top academic award as well as top overall gun award, which recognizes a combined aptitude in academic, physical and leadership abilities.
The academy is a joint-effort program among several community college districts, including Gavilan College. The 360-hour program, structured into eight-hour classes on Saturdays and Sundays, is based on a point system derived from a multitude of tests, quizzes, midterms and final exams.
Upon graduation, students earn a total of nine units that fulfill the educational requirements for Firefighter I certification.
Goldsmith’s class began with 32 students, including Goldsmith, three of whom were women. Twenty-nine students and two women graduated.
Through the first half of the academy especially, Goldsmith felt the pressure to perform. A few of her teammates raised their eyebrows at the prospect of an older woman topping the challenge.
“I felt like I had to prove myself and prove that yes, I can do this, and I can do it well,” she said. “But that, the pressure, gave me more drive. I knew I could do it.”
A natural zeal for physical activity served Goldsmith well during the hour-long workouts she and her classmates endured prior to each class. Goldsmith supplemented her training on her own during the week with running and weightlifting sessions.
Goldsmith, whose husband Richard Goldsmith co-owns Goldsmith Seeds, climbed on board as a volunteer with the Gilroy Fire Department more than a year ago. Now that she’s completed her time at the academy, Goldsmith is considering signing on as a paid on-call firefighter with either the Gilroy or South County fire departments.
Her interest in firefighting took root while she was working as an EMT four years ago. After riding with the San Jose Fire Department, Goldsmith said, she came to realize the effort and attitude that go into that line of work.
“I was very impressed with what they do,” she said. “Their sense of humbleness, I thought, was amazing. The more I learned, the more I liked and appreciated. It was a real eye-opening experience. I didn’t know firefighters did as much as they do.”
Academic and physical skills comprised only half of the lessons Goldsmith took from the academy. Steadfast values and solid relationships were the other half, both of which she suspects will stay with her the rest of her life.
“There’s such a tight self-discipline in place during training. It’s almost military style,” she said. “You learn to really dig deep, because you’re put in situations where you feel like you have nothing left to give – mentally, psychologically and physically – but you somehow find it in you to always give more.”
Despite a few early hesitations between Goldsmith and her teammates, she said she developed a number of relationships anchored by a deep sense of trust. Training situations sometimes required teammates to trust each other with their lives, she said.
One particularly special relationship Goldsmith shared was with the only other female teammate to complete the program. The two stuck together through much of the academy, carpooling to classes and sharing a hotel room when the group traveled to Modesto to fight a live burn.
“We sort of bonded through the whole thing,” Goldsmith said. “It was nice to have another girl there with me.”
For women who are considering enrollment in the academy but remain hesitant, Goldsmith’s message is simple: If you believe in yourself enough, go for it. And that applies to more than just fire training, she said.
“If you put your mind to it, you can do it,” Goldsmith said. “I hear a lot women saying, ‘I don’t know how you did it. How did you do it?’ But if you want it bad enough, you can do it. That’s true for anything in life.”
