Carrie Stewart

Background

Carrie is a member of Austin Fire Fighters Association, IAFF Local 975, and has been a member of the Austin Fire Department (AFD) for over 23 years. Across her tenure with the department she has served in many different roles at all levels of the organization including Fire Fighter, Lieutenant, Captain, and Division Chief. Additionally, she held positions at AFD’s training division and wellness center. Currently, Carrie serves in AFD’s wildfire division.

Carrie became certified as a PFT in 2004 and joined the instructor cadre in 2012. Travelling across North America to instruct classes has made her appreciate how similar the challenges fire fighters face to their health and wellness are despite local differences that do exists between departments separated by such large distances. She finds it very rewarding and enjoyable to learn about all the different ways departments and fire fighters are innovating in an attempt to solve these shared health and wellness-related challenges. The prospect of continuing to make connections and learning new things motivates and inspires Carrie to continue her work as an instructor and champion for enhanced health and wellness among fire service personnel.

Activity Habits

Life outside of work for Carrie is very busy. She and her husband have two teenage daughters who are involved in many different activities. They are enjoying being active as a family, especially hiking and skiing together. Family vacations and/or any downtime that comes around, are most often built around hiking new or familiar trails. Personally, Carrie tries to spend 20-30 minutes of dedicated time each day to engage in some form of exercise in her home gym. She enjoys both resistance and cardio-based training, and sets out her workouts for the day based on how she is feeling. Carrie also loves to work outside upkeeping and tackling projects on her property. She hauls brush and uses her chainsaw, to give some examples, and believes that these activities are an important part of her overall physical activity goals.

Carrie is motivated to be active to remain physically capable of meeting the demands of fire fighting, and to do so in a way that minimizes the cost to her body. She also sees regular activity as a way to allow her to remain engaged in the things she needs/wants to do outside of work, like participating in activities with her family, playing sports and engaging in her hobbies. Although physical activity is a large part of Carries life, she frequently experiences challenges to being as physically active as she would like. Living in a small town leads to longer commute times, which can amplify the time crunch during busy periods in work and life, as can required household maintenance. Despite these challenges Carrie has learned that by being adaptable she can always fit some type of activity into her day without feeling frustrated that she couldn’t stick to her Plan A.

Perspectives on F2T and fire fighter wellness and fitness

In Carries opinion, the F2T program is unique because it is not a one-size-fits-all program. The program is moldable to the needs/wants of the individual fire fighter, allowing them to pick and choose the program resources that relate to their goals. She would emphasize for departments, that the program provides ongoing support and access to a network of people to help organizations guide their implementation. Carrie would like both fire fighters and departments to know that they aren’t alone in their pursuit, and she would encourage them to reach out to peers and members of the F2T team for support when needed.

The one word Carrie would use to described the value of the F2T program for fire fighters is meaningful. She would advise fire fighters thinking about investing in their wellness and fitness that it is never a bad time to start; or said another way, it is always a good time to start. Life sometimes gets in the way, and it is important not to be intimidated by any potential gap (no matter how large) that may exist between one’s health and wellness goals and one’s where one finds themselves on any given day. Carrie believes that fire fighters can take the smallest steps or the biggest steps to achieve their goals.