50 graduate from 150th Firefighter Recruit Academy at TEEX

COLLEGE STATION – Fifty new firefighters graduated from the 150th TEEX Firefighter Recruit Academy on June 23. The graduates, who were from Texas, New York, California, Washington, Nebraska and several provinces in Canada, completed the 12-week academy held at the Brayton Fire Training Field in College Station. The graduation ceremony was held at the Texas A&M University Hildebrand Equine Complex followed by a reception at the H.D. Smith Building.

Four of the graduates are from the Bryan-College Station area, including Joseph Canatella of Bryan, who missed the graduation after he was injured in a head-on collision in Bryan on June 19. His brother accepted his certificate while Joseph watched the ceremony from his hospital bed at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston.

The academy prepares entry-level firefighters to earn the Texas Commission on Fire Protection certifications for Firefighter I, Firefighter II, Hazardous Materials Awareness and HazMat Operations, and ProBoard HazMat Operations. The program is also eligible for college credit through the Fire Science Technology degree program at Blinn College.

TEEX has trained nearly 5,000 certifiable firefighters since 1971, and has graduates working in fire departments all across Texas, the United States, the U.S. Department of Defense, Canada, Australia, Spain, Korea, Kuwait, Finland, Ireland, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.

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