Hello and welcome to youngstownfire.com!

My name is Greg Ricker. I'm the founder and webmaster of youngstownfire.com. This site was created in 1998 as a tribute to the men and women who've served on the Youngstown Fire Department in Youngstown, Ohio.

I am a graduate of Youngstown State University with a Bachelor of Science in Geology and a minor in Geography. While attending Youngstown State, I was employed at William F. Maag Library, the university library. It was there that my interest in libraries (and web page design) took shape. I am currently a Library Specialist at the Oliver Ocasek Regional Medical Information Center (OORMIC) on the campus of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, or NEOUCOM for short. I am also a graduate student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio working towards my Master of Science in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management. 

I was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio. I've had three generations of my family in the firefighting profession. My grandfather's brother was a Fire Chief for the Youngstown suburb of Austintown. He passed away in September of 1998. My grandfather retired with the rank of Captain for Austintown. My uncle is still on the Austintown Fire Department and is a Lieutenant. My one major passion, as shown in the photos on this page,  is collecting fire fighting memorabilia and other fire department related items. I started collecting around 1989 and at last count, I had over 1500 pieces in my collection and continues to grow. Much of my collection consists of Matchbox and Hot Wheels fire engines and again at last count I had around 200. My collection also contains an assortment of helmets, shoulder patches, badges, glassware, figurines, ornaments, books, magazines, extinguishers, and toys, etc. One long term goal that I would like to fulfill is the creation of a fire museum in the Youngstown area preferably in an old firehouse. Another long term goal is to complete a book on the history of the Youngstown Fire Department. During the course of my research for the book I began being more interested in the people that were the Youngstown Fire Department. I have been spending quite a bit of time working on finding out about the people who were on the department. This has led to a few private genealogy cases for me. I am listed in The Visiting Fireman, a directory listing fire buff all over the world. 

[ View photos of my fire collection... ]

Some of my hobbies include rocks and minerals collecting, reading Star Trek: TNG and Star Trek: SCE novels, police and fire scanner monitoring, repairing and building computers and designing web sites.

I am happily married to a Bethany College (West Virginia) alumni. We survived four years of college, including three months apart while she was studying in Oxford, England. We were married in October of 2000. She attended Graduate School at Kent State University receiving her masters degree in December of 2004. 

I am a member of various organizations including the Greater Youngstown Monitoring Association and the Mahoning Valley/Northeast Ohio Camp Fire Council. I was a member of the National Board of Directors for Camp Fire Boys & Girls, Inc. based in Kansas City, Missouri. I've also sat on the local Camp Fire Council's Board of Directors.

In September of 2003, I passed my amateur radio test and received my technicians license and my first call sign, KC8YHX. I then decided to sign up for a vanity call which better suited me and received W8YFD. In July of 2003,  I launched my own small one person web design company called Steel Valley Web Design.

I can be reached by sending an email to gricker@youngstownfire.com. I am often available on the various Instant Messenger services to talk. If you have news on the YFD or just want to say hello, my screen name is yfdgricker on America Online's Instant Messenger Service, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Instant Messenger. On ICQ, I am 149799435.