Skill building for success

Offering thousands of courses and hundreds of programs, Continuing Education at George Brown makes it easy to discover new career opportunities. Last year, the College helped Colleen Hurtubise pursue her own professional calling.

After completing earlier training in fashion merchandising and international trade and working at various jobs, Colleen discovered a job she really liked – fire station dispatcher. To build on that interest, she turned to the College’s part-time Emergency Management certificate program – one of a small handful of comprehensive postsecondary training options country-wide offered in this fast-growing field. This program prepares students to plan for and manage a variety of natural and manmade disasters.

Colleen has taken three courses so far – Emergency Management Concepts and Principles; Hazards and Risk Assessment; and Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery – and is currently enrolled in Crisis Communication and Information Management.

In the first course, Colleen learned how community resources can be networked to manage local, national and international emergencies. “I totally got it, ” says Colleen, 35. “There was a good mix of theoretical knowledge and practical exercises where we could practise emergency management principles.”

What helped the course material stick was being part of an interactive class environment. “The fact that almost everyone was working in the field in some capacity led to some interesting class discussions,” she says.

Colleen says she’s benefited from learning from instructors working in areas such as police, fire and public health. “We were exposed to a lot of different perspectives based on their different backgrounds. They really knew what they were talking about,” she says.

Already, she says, her training has influenced her current job with Vaughan Fire, which involves dispatching firefighters within Vaughan and King Township. “The training helps me look at my job from a different perspective – I now see it in a bigger picture,” she says.

This fall, Colleen will begin the program’s last course, Terrorism, and plans to eventually pursue work as an emergency manager for an Ontario municipality. “I feel like what I’m learning is what actually happens in the real world,” she says, “and I’m sure that’s because real emergency managers are teaching the courses.”