PR Department to Fire Department
By Bill Spring
Meg Ahlheim enjoyed a successful marketing career yet felt she wanted more from her work. Now a Chicago firefighter, Ahlheim, 34, not only found her perfect job, she also found herself.
Ahlheim graduated from the University of Illinois in 1990 with a degree in journalism, but didn't necessarily want to work as a reporter. Seeking a career that would be both creative and fun, she ended up spending the next ten years in marketing and public relations, working for Chicago area chain restaurants from Einstein's Bagels to Ed Debevic's, a 1950s-style diner.
"We had a lot of very fun promotions," she recalls. "I came up with an ice-cream sculpting contest for Ed Debevic's, and we had people sculpt vintage model cars out of ice cream." Although Ahlheim was having fun in her job, by 1995, she knew it was time to start looking for a new kind of life.
"Marketing and public relations was something I enjoyed doing, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted to be," she says of her marketing career.
Living in Chicago with husband Mark Ahlheim, Meg struck up a friendship with a neighbor who worked as a firefighter.
"He's an amazing person, and a great inspiration," she says. "We talked about athletics and sports a lot, and eventually we started talking about the fire department." Visiting her friend's firehouse, Ahlheim was overcome with a sense of destiny. "I instantly felt an energy about it and knew it was what I wanted to do," she remembers.
But becoming a Chicago firefighter was not easy. The first hurdle was the firefighter entrance exam, held in July 1995, the first such test held in a decade.
"About 40,000 people took the written test, and it was held at the United Center, where the Bulls play," says Ahlheim. She was one of only 2,000 people who scored high enough to pass. But, passing the exam did not guarantee her a job as a firefighter.
"From that pool of 2,000," she explains, "The department decided to randomly pull people into the academy." The department chose academy students based on their social security numbers, and although she did not know it at the time, Ahlheim would be one of the last groups called.
She entered into a long phase of waiting, during which she trained physically and dealt with further department processing. Her husband Mark was extremely supportive during these years of uncertainty. "He helped me do whatever it took to make sure I would be successful, knowing it was really important to me."
Meanwhile, she was still working in public relations. "It was really frustrating," she recalls, "because I knew what I wanted to do and that it was there, I just didn't know when."
The "when" finally came in 2000, five years after she passed the entrance exam. "I was so happy," she says. "I left my job with no regrets."
She works 24 hours on and 48 hours off. "90 percent of what we do is living in the firehouse, drilling, practicing and maintaining equipment."
When Meg fought her first real fire, she faced it with anticipation rather than fear. "The adrenaline was there and the anxiety was there, but once I realized that I trained pretty well for it, I was excited." In her three years on the job, she's found that the potential dangers don't bother her. "That's the fun part," she says.
But it's the close-knit atmosphere of the house and the relationships with her fellow firefighters that Meg loves the most. "The people that I work with are amazing, and I end up spending more time with them then I do with my family. The camaraderie is incredible, and it's impossible to comprehend unless you live it."
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