Hello and welcome to youngstownfire.com!
About this site:
Visit the history of youngstownfire.com page.
About the Webmaster:
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. After graduation, I worked as 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 for seven years. In September of 2007, I left NEOUCOM and took a job at the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library and am currently the Assistant Manager of the Information Technology department. 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. In 2007, I purchased and began restoring a 1981 Mack MC Fire Engine that was retired by the Youngstown Fire Department. The truck, which my sister named Ember, can be seen in many local parades in the Mahoning and Trumbull County. More details on that project can be found at the Project Ember web site. I am listed in The Visiting Fireman, a directory listing fire buff all over the world.
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 can found on occassion watching any of the following movies such as The American President (1995), Dave (1993), Notting Hill (1999), and Music and Lyrics (2007), catching up on missed episodes of Big Bang Theory (2007), NCIS (2003) and Knight Rider (2008) or flipping through the latest edition of Wired Magazine.
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 was a member of the Mahoning Valley/Northeast Ohio Camp Fire Council and sat on 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.
I am a member of the Greater Youngstown Monitoring Association, a club for scanner and amateur radio entheusiasts in and around the Youngstown area. 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. After receiving my Amateur Radio license, I became a member of the Mahoning Valley Amateur Radio Associaion.
In July of 2003, I launched my own, small one person web design company called Steel Valley Web Design although I haven't been activley pursuing clients as of late.
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.
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