Samuel Greenberg: Always Ready to Serve

Each morning, Samuel Greenberg checks equipment, personal gear and readiness with the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks helicopter crew. The preparation matters because it can be the difference between life and death. As a firefighter and emergency medical technician on an all-hazard helitack program, he knows the day may bring wildland fire, search and rescue, medical evacuation or assistance with park resources.

Greenberg is a firefighter and an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) with the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks helitack program, where he serves on a multi-mission crew. Before joining the program, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard as a Boatswain’s Mate, including four years on active duty and four years in the reserve from 2016 to 2024. His duties included search and rescue, boat operations, law enforcement and long hours patrolling the waters.

While serving in the reserve, Greenberg began firefighting and worked several wildfire seasons. The rescue component of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks short-haul program appealed to him because it aligned with his Coast Guard background.

The work transition was seamless, but leaving the military was personally difficult: he felt lost and unsure where he would fit, and injuries sustained during his service made a “regular” job difficult. “I feel that the work I do as a rescuer and fireman gives me an even greater sense of purpose,” he said.

As a Boatswain’s Mate, Greenberg conducted search and rescue, law enforcement, towing and shipboard firefighting from motor lifeboats and utility boats. Acting as an on-scene incident commander taught him to protect his crew and people in peril, maintain scene control and stay calm under pressure.

During one rescue, he found a woman who had been treading in freezing water for more than an hour; his crew treated her for hypothermia and saved her life. Those skills now support rescues on the helitack program.

His environmental protection work in the Coast Guard also continues through prescribed burns, managed fires and fuels reduction stewardship that benefits park lands and the people who experience them.

For Greenberg, continued public service means doing work that benefits all people while serving as a steward of nature. The same readiness that guided his Coast Guard service remains part of every morning check and every mission: “In the Coast Guard, we have a motto: ‘Semper Paratus; Always Ready.’ I feel that mantra lives on in the work first responders do.”

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