By Amy Batista, Special Writer
Firefighter Kenneth Class officially resigned from his post on July 1 after 25 years of service.
”I always liked working in Hamilton,” Mr. Class said. “I was born and raised around the corner from the fire department. My parents and son Kevin still live in Hamilton. Helping the people you have a true connection with is the real reward. Some places seem big and impersonal. I don’t get that sense from Hamilton.”
He officially started working as a full-time career firefighter with Hamilton Township Fire District No. 7 on Jan. 1, 1989.
”In the waning days of the Reagan administration, the Congress voted to nix his ‘Star Wars Initiative.’ The writing was on the wall that the spacecraft industry might do a huge correction, and maybe I better start looking for other employment,” he said. “About this time, the Board of Fire Commissioners District No. 7 began looking to hire full-time day staff to supplement a lack of daytime volunteers. I applied and was accepted.”
Before becoming a career firefighter he worked at RCA-Astro in East Windsor. He had also been an electrical system test mechanic for the Budd Company, Railcar Division and had a background in electronics and mechanics.
”While at RCA, I was approached to respond to medical incidents within the facility,” he said. “Since I was working in a clean room, we were quite inaccessible to the outside world. It was there I treated my first diabetic. My only training to this point was American Red Cross First Aid.”
Capt. Ken Freeman of Hamilton Township Fire District No. 7 said, “Ken’s service as a firefighter began in April 1985, when he joined Nottingham Fire Company as a volunteer member.”
Mr. Class joined Nottingham Fire Company in March 1985 after seeing a flier with their annual fund drive letter that stated they were looking for volunteers.
”That sounded cool so I took out an application and became an active member,” he said. “My first call was for a brush fire to the rear of a Seneca Lane address.”
Capt. Freeman noted he was a “good interior firefighter.”
”He never held a position above firefighter/driver but I don’t remember him ever going for advancement,” he said. “He seemed very content being ‘one of the guys.’”
He had a very good work ethic as a firefighter, he added.
”On his very last 24-hour tour, I told him he didn’t have to do anything yet I later found him making a repair on one of the trucks,” he said. “He was also very well versed in electronics so he was the ‘go-to guy’ for diagnosing and making repairs to the electrical components on the rigs.”
”The fire service in Hamilton Township changed dramatically in my career from mostly volunteer to mostly paid staff,” Mr. Class said. “I was proud to have been a part of that change. I served seven years as the secretary of our union local FMBA No. 84, but it is time to move on.”
”I did what I set out to do,” he added. “Provide a stable living for me and my family while helping others. I guess firefighters are a select group.”
He noted that the thing he will miss the most is the “nonsense that naturally occurs in the firehouse setting.”
”I always loved the inside jokes, crude humor and flat out ball-busting that makes you an insider with a group of people you know, trust, love, hate and live with for 24 hours,” he said.
Mr. Class is also an emergency medical technician at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton.
”I became a New Jersey EMT in 1995,” he said. “During this time, emergency services as a whole were becoming more diversified. HazMat, EMS, vehicle rescue was becoming specialized. I believed then, as I do now, that the people and agencies with the most skill sets will be standing after the politicians are done having their way with us. I decided fire-based EMS would be the way to stay employed.”
As he reflected back on his career and memories, he noted a rescue from a second floor bedroom fire on Zieglars Lane during the late 1980s.
”I assisted a disoriented male from a rear bedroom to a front bedroom,” he said. “That front bedroom opened to a lower porch roof. I took him onto the roof and he was assisted to the ground via portable ladder, with Gary Dempster helping him.”
In the next chapter of his life, he “hopes to see and ski the American west.”
”For some reason, the area around Park City, Utah has caught my eye,” he said. “I know everybody talks about ‘going someplace warm.’”
He said he has “no use for heat and humidity.”
”I want to be some place cool and mountainous,” he said. “I also want to sleep through the night for a change. I don’t want to work 70 plus hours a week.”
Firefighter Jay Bergstrom has been elevated to his position as a firefighter/driver.
