By Matt Smith
Vice President, Development + Strategic Partnerships
Wake Technical Community College
I don’t remember what age I was when I finally accepted that I wasn’t going to grow up to be Batman.
Probably older than I’d like to admit.
Like a lot of kids, I spent plenty of time imagining what it would be like to be the person who showed up when people needed help. The superhero. The problem solver. The person who somehow knew exactly what to do when everyone else didn’t.
Then you grow up and realize those people actually exist.
They just don’t always wear capes.
They’re firefighters, EMTs, police officers, nurses and countless others who answer the call when life goes sideways.
Earlier this year, I got a reminder of what that looks like in real life.
Members of Wake Tech’s Public Safety Education and Training team found themselves responding to two serious situations at the same time on two different campuses.
Think about that for a minute.
A regular workday suddenly wasn’t regular at all.
What struck me was how they responded.
There was no scrambling around wondering what to do. These were highly trained professionals doing exactly what they had spent years learning, practicing and teaching others to do.
They stayed calm. They worked together. They took care of what needed to be done.
Ask Dean Billy Langston, Director Tony Rogers, Fire Programs instructors Craig Daigle and Chris Dawson, or others who were involved, and I suspect they wouldn’t describe what they did as heroic.
They’d probably tell you they were doing their jobs.
But that’s exactly the point.
When something goes wrong, the rest of us are counting on someone whose job has prepared them for a moment we hope never comes.
That’s what our public safety instructors spend their days teaching.
Yes, there are technical skills to master. But there’s also judgment. Teamwork. Communication. The ability to remain focused when the people around you may be experiencing one of the worst moments of their lives.
You can’t learn all of that from a textbook.
You have to practice it.
And you have to practice it in environments that come as close to the real thing as possible.
The same is true in healthcare. Nurses, EMTs and other healthcare professionals are preparing for careers that keep our community safe and healthy.
They’ll be the ones walking into hospital rooms, clinics, ambulances and emergency departments when people need them most.
And then there are the jobs that quite literally keep our community running.
The electrician restoring a critical system. The HVAC technician responding when the air conditioning fails during a North Carolina summer. The plumber, automotive technician or construction professional who gets the call when something isn’t working the way it should.
If you’ve lived here long enough, you know that HVAC technicians can feel pretty heroic too.
These are the people who keep a community functioning.
And many of them learn their professions right here at Wake Tech.
These careers don’t just respond when we need them. They’re also part of the workforce that keeps our economy strong and growing.
That takes instructors who know the work. It takes equipment that reflects what people will encounter on the job. And it takes training spaces where students can practice difficult situations before they’re asked to handle the real thing.
That’s also part of the story behind the Wake Tech Bond on the November 3 ballot. The $149.1 million bond would fund projects across the college, including expanded training capacity for public safety and skilled trades, along with investments in healthcare education and campus infrastructure, safety, security and accessibility.
For me, the connection became much clearer after hearing what happened on those two campuses.
Training can sound abstract until the day somebody needs it.
Then it becomes very real.
The firefighters and first responders training today will someday arrive when a family calls 911.
The healthcare students learning in labs and simulation environments will someday care for a patient facing a frightening diagnosis.
The skilled trades students learning to troubleshoot complicated systems will someday be the people keeping a hospital, business or home running when something goes wrong.
We probably won’t know most of their names.
They may never make the evening news.
And they’ll almost certainly never call themselves heroes.
They’ll show up, do the work and move on to whatever comes next.
Maybe that’s the part I misunderstood when I was a kid dreaming about being Batman.
Being a hero isn’t really about the cape.
It’s about being ready when somebody needs you.
Fortunately for Wake County, there are people all around us preparing to do exactly that.
